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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of Luther
+to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon
+       For the Use of Schools and Colleges
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24598]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN HISTORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This book was produced from scanned images of public
+domain material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
+been maintained.
+
+Page 492: A probable typographical error "Camide, Desmoulins" has been
+replaced by "Camille Desmoulin".
+
+The following sentences had illegible words; inserted words are shown
+here between "=".
+
+Page 82: "and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the =ruler= of
+the nation."
+
+Page 178: "The minority had now become a majority,"--which is not
+unusual in revolutionary times,--and proceeded to the work, in good
+earnest, which =he= had long contemplated.
+
+Page 487: All classes in France were anxious for it, and =war= was
+soon declared.]
+
+
+
+
+                        A
+                  MODERN HISTORY,
+                    FROM THE
+                  TIME OF LUTHER
+                      TO THE
+                 FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+        FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
+
+
+                        BY
+                  JOHN LORD, A.M.,
+                LECTURER ON HISTORY.
+
+
+
+
+  PHILADELPHIA:
+    CHARLES DESILVER;
+    CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER;
+    J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
+  NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & Co.
+  BOSTON: NICHOLS & HALL.
+  CINCINNATI: ROBERT CLARKE & Co; WILSON, HINKLE & Co.
+  SAN FRANCISCO: A. L. BANCROFT & Co.
+
+  _Chicago_: S. C. GRIGGS & Co.--_Charleston, S. C._: J. M. Greer &
+  Son; Edward Perry & Son.--_Raleigh, N. C._: Williams &
+  Lambeth.--_Baltimore, Md._: Cushings & Bailey; W. J. C Dulaney &
+  Co.--_New Orleans, La._: Stevens & Seymour.--_Savannah, Ga._: J. M.
+  Cooper & Co.--_Macon, Ga._: J. M. Boardman.--_Augusta, Ga._: Thos.
+  Richards & Son.--_Richmond, Va._: Woodhouse & Parham.
+
+  1874.
+
+
+
+
+  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by
+  JOHN LORD,
+  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
+  of Massachusetts.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing this History, I make no claim to original and profound
+investigations; but the arrangement, the style, and the sentiments,
+are my own. I have simply attempted to condense the great and varied
+subjects which are presented, so as to furnish a connected narrative
+of what is most vital in the history of the last three hundred years,
+avoiding both minute details and elaborate disquisitions. It has been
+my aim to write a book, which should be neither a chronological table
+nor a philosophical treatise, but a work adapted to the wants of young
+people in the various stages of education, and which, it is hoped,
+will also prove interesting to those of maturer age; who have not the
+leisure to read extensive works, and yet who wish to understand the
+connection of great events since the Protestant Reformation. Those
+characters, institutions, reforms, and agitations, which have had the
+greatest influence in advancing society, only have been described, and
+these not to the extent which will satisfy the learned or the curious.
+Dates and names, battles and sieges, have not been disregarded; but
+more attention has been given to those ideas and to those men by whose
+influence and agency great changes have taken place. In a work so
+limited, and yet so varied, marginal references to original
+authorities have not been deemed necessary; but a list of standard and
+accessible authors is furnished, at the close of each chapter, which
+the young student, seeking more minute information, can easily
+consult. A continuation of this History to the present time might seem
+desirable; but it would be difficult to condense the complicated
+events of the last thirty years into less than another volume. Instead
+of an unsatisfactory compend, especially of subjects concerning which
+there are great differences of opinion, and considerable warmth of
+feeling, useful tables of important events are furnished in the
+Appendix. I have only to add, that if I have succeeded in remedying,
+in some measure, the defects of those dry compendiums, which are used
+for want of living histories; if I have combined what is instructive
+with what is entertaining; and especially if I shall impress the
+common mind, even to a feeble degree, with those great moral truths
+which history ought to teach, I shall feel that my agreeable labor is
+not without its reward.
+
+                                        J. L.
+
+  BOSTON, _October, 1849_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
+  (pp. 1-9.)
+
+Revival of the Arts -- Influence of Feudalism -- Effects of
+Scholasticism -- Ecclesiastical Corruptions -- Papal Infallibility --
+The sale of Indulgences -- The Corruptions of the Church -- Necessity
+for Reform.
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
+  (pp. 10-29.)
+
+The Early Life of Luther -- Luther's Early Religious Struggles -- The
+Ninety-Five Propositions -- Erasmus -- Melancthon -- Leo X. -- The
+Leipsic Disputation -- Principles of the Leipsic Disputation -- The
+Rights of Private Judgment -- Luther's Elements of Greatness --
+Excommunication of Luther -- The Diet of Worms -- Imprisonment at
+Wartburg -- Carlstadt -- Thomas Münzer Ulric -- Zwingle -- Controversy
+between Luther and Zwingle -- Diet of Augsburg -- League of Smalcalde
+-- Death and Character of Luther.
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+  (pp. 30-44.)
+
+Charles V. -- Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century -- Wars
+between Charles and Francis. -- Diet of Spires -- Hostilities between
+Charles and Francis -- African War -- Council of Trent -- Treachery of
+Maurice -- Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse -- Heroism of Maurice
+-- Misfortunes of Charles -- Treaty of Passau -- Character of Charles.
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  HENRY VIII.
+  (pp. 45-59.)
+
+Rise of Absolute Monarchy -- Henry VIII. -- Rise of Cardinal Wolsey --
+Magnificence of Henry VIII. -- Anne Boleyn -- Queen Catharine --
+Disgrace and Death of Wolsey -- More -- Cranmer -- Cromwell -- Quarrel
+with the Pope -- Suppression of Monasteries -- Execution of Anne
+Boleyn -- Anne of Cleves -- Catharine Howard -- Last Days of Henry --
+Death of Henry.
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EDWARD VI. AND MARY.
+  (pp. 60-68.)
+
+War with Scotland -- Rebellions and Discontents -- Rivalry of the
+great Nobles -- Religious Reforms -- Execution of Northumberland --
+Marriage of the Queen -- Religious Persecution -- Character of Mary --
+Accession of Elizabeth.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  ELIZABETH.
+  (pp. 69-81.)
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots -- John Knox -- Marriage of Mary -- Darnley --
+Bothwell -- Civil War in Scotland -- Captivity of Queen Mary --
+Execution of Mary -- Military Preparations of Philip II. -- Spanish
+Armada -- Irish Rebellion -- The Earl of Essex -- Character of
+Elizabeth -- Improvements made in the Reign of Elizabeth --
+Reflections.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV.
+  (pp. 82-90.)
+
+Catharine de Medicis -- Civil War in France -- Massacre of St.
+Bartholomew -- Henry III. -- Henry IV. -- Edict of Nantes --
+Improvements during the Reign of Henry IV. -- Peace Scheme of
+Henry IV. -- Death of Henry IV. -- France at the Death of Henry IV.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.
+  (pp. 91-96.)
+
+Bigotry of Philip II. -- Revolt of the Netherlands -- Revolt of the
+Moriscoes -- Causes of the Decline of the Spanish Monarchy -- The
+Increase of Gold and Silver -- Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+  (pp. 97-107.)
+
+The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century -- Rise of the Jesuits --
+Rapid Spread of the Jesuits -- Extraordinary Virtues of the older
+Jesuits -- The Constitution of the Jesuits -- Degeneracy of the
+Jesuits -- Evils in the Jesuit System -- The Popes in the Seventeenth
+Century -- Nepotism of the Popes -- Rome in the Seventeenth Century.
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
+  (pp. 108-119.)
+
+Political Troubles after the Death of Luther -- Diet of Augsburg --
+Commencement of the Thirty Years' War -- The Emperor Frederic -- Count
+Wallenstein -- Character of Wallenstein -- Gustavus Adolphus -- Loss
+of Magdeburg -- Wallenstein reinstated in Power -- Death of Gustavus
+Adolphus -- Assassination of Wallenstein -- Treaty of Westphalia.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.
+  (pp. 120-132.)
+
+Regency of Mary de Medicis -- Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu --
+Suppression of the Huguenots -- The Depression of the great Nobles --
+Power of Richelieu -- Character of Richelieu -- Effects of Richelieu's
+Policy -- Richelieu's Policy -- Cardinal de Retz -- Prince of Condé --
+Power of Mazarin -- Death of Mazarin.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES.
+  (pp. 133-180.)
+
+Accession of James I. -- The Genius of the Reign of James --
+Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh -- Gunpowder Plot -- Persecution of
+the Catholics -- Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset -- Greatness and Fall
+of Somerset -- Duke of Buckingham -- Lord Bacon -- Trial and Execution
+of Raleigh -- Encroachments of James -- Quarrel between James and
+Parliament -- Death of James -- The Struggle of Classes -- Rise of
+Popular Power -- Quarrel between the King and the Commons -- The
+Counsellors of Charles -- Death of Buckingham -- Petition of Right --
+Earl of Strafford -- John Hampden -- Insurrection in Scotland -- Long
+Parliament -- Rebellion of Ireland -- Flight of the King from London
+-- Rise of the Puritans -- Original Difficulties and Differences --
+Persecution during the Reign of Elizabeth -- Archbishops Grindal and
+Whitgift -- Persecution under James -- Puritans in Exile -- Troubles
+in Scotland -- Peculiarities of Puritanism in England -- Conflicts
+among the Puritans -- Character of the Puritans -- John Hampden --
+Oliver Cromwell -- The King at Oxford -- Cromwell after the Battle of
+Marston Moor -- Enthusiasm of the Independents -- Battle of Naseby --
+Success of the Parliamentary Army -- Seizure of the King -- Triumph of
+the Independents -- Cromwell invades Scotland -- Seizure of the King a
+second Time -- Trial of the King.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
+  (pp. 181-191.)
+
+Storming of Drogheda and Wexford -- Battle of Worcester -- Policy of
+Cromwell -- The Rump Parliament -- Dispersion of the Parliament
+Cromwell assumes the Protectorship -- The Dutch War -- Cromwell rules
+without a Parliament -- The Protectorate -- Regal Government restored.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.
+  (pp. 192-210.)
+
+The Restoration -- Great Public Rejoicings -- Reaction to
+Revolutionary Principles -- Excellencies in Charles's Government --
+Failure of the Puritan Experiment -- Repeal of the Triennial Bill --
+Secret Alliance with Louis XIV. -- Venality and Sycophancy of
+Parliament -- Restrictions on the Press -- Habeas Corpus Act -- Titus
+Oates -- Oates's Revelations -- Penal Laws against Catholics --
+Persecution of Dissenters -- Execution of Russell and Sydney --
+Manners and Customs of England -- Milton -- Dryden -- Condition of the
+People of England.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE REIGN OF JAMES II.
+  (pp. 211-233.)
+
+Accession of James II. -- Monmouth lands in England -- Battle of
+Sedgemoor -- Death of Monmouth -- Brutality of Jeffreys -- Persecution
+of the Dissenters -- George Fox -- Persecution of the Quakers --
+Despotic Power of James -- Favor extended to Catholics -- High
+Commission Court -- Quarrel with the Universities -- Magdalen College
+-- Prosecution of the Seven Bishops -- Tyranny and infatuation of
+James -- Organized Opposition -- William, Prince of Orange -- Critical
+condition of James -- Invasion of England by William -- Flight of the
+King -- Consummation of the Revolution -- Declaration of Rights.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  LOUIS XIV.
+  (pp. 234-251.)
+
+The Power and Resources of Louis -- His Habits and Pleasures -- His
+Military Ambition -- William, Prince of Orange -- Second Invasion of
+Holland -- Dutch War -- Madame de Montespan -- Madame de Maintenon --
+League of Augsburg -- Opposing Armies and Generals -- War of the
+Spanish Succession -- Duke of Marlborough -- Battle of Blenheim --
+Exertions and Necessities of Louis -- Treaty of Utrecht -- Last Days
+of Louis -- His Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  WILLIAM AND MARY.
+  (pp. 252-270.)
+
+Irish Rebellion -- King James in Ireland -- Freedom of the Press --
+Act of Settlement -- Death of William III. -- Character of William --
+Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke -- Anne -- The Duke of Marlborough --
+Character of Marlborough -- Whigs and Tories -- Dr. Henry Sacheverell
+-- Union of Scotland and England -- Duke of Hamilton -- Wits of Queen
+Anne's Reign -- Swift -- Pope -- Bolingbroke -- Gay -- Prior --
+Writers of the Age of Queen Anne.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.
+  (pp. 271-289.)
+
+Early History of Russia -- The Tartar Conquest -- Accession of Peter
+the Great -- Peter's Reforms -- His War with Charles XII. --
+Charles XII. -- Building of St. Petersburg -- New War with Sweden --
+War with the Turks -- Peter makes a second Tour -- Elevation of
+Catharine -- Early History of Sweden -- Introduction of Christianity
+-- Gustavus Vasa -- Early Days of Charles XII -- Charles's Heroism --
+His Misfortunes -- His Return to Sweden -- His Death.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
+  (pp. 290-309.)
+
+Accession of George I. -- Sir Robert Walpole -- The Pretender --
+Invasion of Scotland -- The South Sea Bubble -- The South Sea Company
+-- Opposition of Walpole -- Mania for Speculation -- Bursting of the
+South Sea Bubble -- Enlightened policy of Walpole -- East India
+Company -- Resignation of Townshend -- Unpopularity of Walpole --
+Decline of his power -- John Wesley -- Early life of Wesley --
+Whitefield -- Institution of Wesley -- Itinerancy -- Great influence
+and power of Wesley.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.
+  (pp. 310-341.)
+
+Commercial Enterprise -- Spanish Conquests and Settlements --
+Portuguese Discoveries -- Portuguese Settlements -- Early English
+Enterprise -- Sir Walter Raleigh -- London Company incorporated --
+Hardships of the Virginia Colony -- New Charter of the London Company
+-- Rapid Colonization -- Indian Warfare -- Governor Harvey --
+Arbitrary Policy of Charles II. -- Settlement of New England --
+Arrival of the Mayflower -- Settlement of New Hampshire --
+Constitution of the Colony -- Doctrines of the Puritans -- Pequod War
+-- Union of the New England Colonies -- William Penn -- Settlement of
+New York -- Conquest of New Netherlands -- Discovery of the St.
+Lawrence -- Jesuit Missionaries -- Prosperity of the English Colonies
+-- French Encroachments -- European Settlements in the East -- French
+Settlements in India -- La Bourdonnais and Dupleix -- Clive's
+Victories -- Conquest of India.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.
+  (pp. 342-359.)
+
+The Pelhams -- The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart -- Surrender of
+Edinburgh -- Success of the Pretender -- The Retreat of the Pretender
+-- Battle of Culloden -- Latter Days of the Pretender -- Maria Theresa
+-- Capture of Louisburg -- Great Colonial Contest -- Character of the
+Duke of Newcastle -- Unpopularity of the Pelhams -- Rise of William
+Pitt -- Brilliant Military Successes -- Military Successes in America
+-- Victories of Clive in India -- Resignation of Pitt -- Peace of
+Paris.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  LOUIS XV.
+  (pp. 360-379.)
+
+Regency of the Duke of Orleans -- John Law -- Mississippi Company --
+Popular Delusion -- Fatal Effects of the Delusion -- Administration of
+Cardinal Fleury -- Cornelius Jansen -- St. Cyran -- Arnauld -- Le
+Maitre -- The Labors of the Port Royalists -- Principles of Jansenism
+-- Functions of the Parliament -- The Bull Unigenitus -- Madame de
+Pompadour -- The Jesuits -- Exposure of the Jesuits -- Their Expulsion
+from France -- Suppression in Spain -- Pope Clement XIV. -- Death of
+Ganganelli -- Death of Louis XV.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  FREDERIC THE GREAT.
+  (pp. 380-390.)
+
+Frederic William -- Accession of Frederic the Great -- The Seven
+Years' War -- Battle of Rossbach -- Battle of Leuthen -- Fall of
+Dresden -- Reverses of Frederic -- Continued Disasters -- Exhaustion
+of Prussia by the War -- Death of Frederic -- Character of Frederic.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II.
+  (pp. 391-401.)
+
+The Germanic Constitution -- The Hungarian War -- The Emperor Joseph
+-- Accession of Maria Theresa -- She institutes Reforms -- Successors
+of Peter the Great -- Murder of Peter III. -- Assassination, of Ivan
+-- Death of Catharine -- Her Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  CALAMITIES OF POLAND.
+  (pp. 402-408.)
+
+The Crown of Poland made elective -- Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou
+-- Sobieski assists the Emperor Leopold -- The Liberum Veto -- The
+Fall of Poland.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
+  (pp. 409-415.)
+
+Saracenic Empire -- Rise of the Turks -- Turkish Conquerors --
+Progress of the Turks -- Decline of Turkish Power -- Turkish
+Institutions -- Turkish Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  REIGN OF GEORGE III. TO ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+  (pp. 416-431.)
+
+Military Successes in America -- Prosecution of Wilkes -- Churchill --
+Grafton's Administration -- Popularity of Wilkes -- Taxation of the
+Colonies -- Indignation of the Colonies -- Functions of the Parliament
+-- The Stamp Act -- Lord Chatham -- Administration of Lord North --
+Irish Discontents -- Protestant Association -- Lord George Gordon's
+Riots -- Parliamentary Reforms.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
+  (pp. 432-449.)
+
+Causes of the Revolution -- Riots and Disturbances -- Duty on Tea --
+Port of Boston closed -- Meeting of Congress -- Speech of Burke --
+Battle of Bunker Hill -- Death of Montgomery -- Declaration of
+American Independence -- Commissioners sent to France -- Capture of
+Burgoyne -- Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture -- Arrival of La
+Fayette -- Evacuation of Philadelphia -- The Treason of Arnold --
+Surrender of Lord Cornwallis -- Resignation of Lord North.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+  (pp. 450-470.)
+
+William Pitt -- Early Life of Pitt -- Policy of Pitt -- Difficulties
+with Ireland -- The United Irishmen -- Union of England and Ireland --
+Condition of Ireland -- Parliamentary Reform -- Warren Hastings -- War
+with Hyder Ali -- Robbery of the Princesses of Oude -- Prosecution of
+Hastings -- Edmund Burke -- Charles James Fox -- Richard Brinsley
+Sheridan -- Bill for the Regulation of India -- War with Tippoo Saib
+-- Conquest of India -- Consequences of the Conquest -- War with
+France -- Policy of Pitt.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+  (pp. 471-495.)
+
+Causes of the French Revolution -- Helvetius -- Voltaire -- Rousseau
+-- Diderot -- General Influence of the Philosophers -- Sufferings of
+the People -- Degradation of the People -- Derangement of Finances --
+Maurepas -- Turgot -- Malesherbes -- Necker -- Calonne -- States
+General -- The Tiers État -- Commotions -- Rule of the People --
+National Federation -- Flight of the King -- The Girondists and the
+Jacobins -- The National Convention -- Marat -- Danton -- Robespierre
+-- General War -- Reign of Terror -- Death of Robespierre -- New
+Constitution -- The Directory.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+  (pp. 496-526.)
+
+Character of Bonaparte -- Early Days of Bonaparte -- Early Services to
+the Republic -- The Italian Campaign -- Battle of Cape St. Vincent --
+Conquest of Venice by Bonaparte -- Invasion of Egypt -- Siege of
+Acre -- Reverses of the French -- Bonaparte First Consul -- Immense
+Military Preparations -- The Reforms of Bonaparte -- The Code Napoléon
+-- Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French -- Meditated Invasion of
+England -- Battle of Austerlitz -- Battle of Jena -- Bonaparte
+aggrandizes France -- Aggrandizement of Bonaparte's Family -- The
+Peninsular War -- Invasion of Russia -- Battle of Smolensko -- Retreat
+of the French -- Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen -- Battle of Leipsic --
+The Allied Powers invade France -- Peace of Paris -- Bonaparte escapes
+from Elba -- Battle of Waterloo -- Reflections on Napoleon's Fall.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+  (pp. 527-532.)
+
+Remarkable Men of Genius -- Condition of Germany -- Condition of other
+Powers -- The United States of America.
+
+
+  APPENDIX.
+
+      Chronological Table, from the Fall of Napoleon,              533
+      Prime Ministers of England, from the Accession of
+        Henry VIII.,                                               538
+      Table of the Monarchy of Europe, during the Sixteenth,
+        Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries,                     541
+      Genealogical Table of the Royal Family of England,           543
+      Genealogical Table of the Bourbons,                          544
+
+
+
+
+MODERN HISTORY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+
+The period at which this History commences,--the beginning of the
+sixteenth century,--when compared with the ages which had preceded it,
+since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented
+brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men
+and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to
+experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been
+suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put
+forth new energies in every department of life. The material and the
+political, the moral and the social condition of society was subject
+to powerful agitations, and passed through important changes.
+
+Great _discoveries and inventions_ had been made. The use of movable
+types, first ascribed to a German, of Mentz, by the name of Gutenberg,
+in 1441, and to Peter Schoeffer, in 1444, changed the whole system of
+book-making, and vastly increased the circulation of the Scriptures,
+the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by
+the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the
+ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had
+been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used
+on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of
+war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The
+polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, and not
+practically applied to the mariner's compass until 1403, had led to
+the greatest event of the fifteenth century--the discovery of America
+by Christopher Columbus, in 1492. The impulse given to commerce by
+this and other discoveries of unknown continents and oceans, by the
+Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, and the French,
+cannot be here enlarged on. America revealed to the astonished
+European her riches in gold and silver; and Indian spices, and silks,
+and drugs, were imported, through new channels, into all the countries
+inhabited by the Teutonic races. Mercantile wealth, with all its
+refinements, acquired new importance in the eyes of the nations. The
+world opened towards the east and the west. The horizon of knowledge
+extended. Popular delusions were dispelled. Liberality of mind was
+acquired. The material prosperity of the western nations was
+increased. Tastes became more refined, and social intercourse more
+cheerful.
+
+[Sidenote: Revival of the Arts.]
+
+Art, in all its departments, was every where revived at this epoch.
+Houses became more comfortable, and churches more splendid. The
+utensils of husbandry and of cookery were improved. Linen and woollen
+manufactures supplanted the coarser fabrics of the dark ages. Music
+became more elaborate, and the present system of notation was adopted.
+The genius of the sculptor again gave life and beauty to a marble
+block, and painting was carried to greater perfection than by the
+ancient Greeks and Romans. Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome became
+seats of various schools of this beautiful art, of which Michael
+Angelo, Correggio, the Carracci, and Raphael were the most celebrated
+masters, all of whom were distinguished for peculiar excellences,
+never since surpassed, or even equalled. The Flemish artists were
+scarcely behind the Italian; and Rubens, of Antwerp, may well rank
+with Correggio and Titian. To Raphael, however, the world has, as yet,
+furnished no parallel.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of Feudalism.]
+
+_The political and social structure_ of society changed. The crusades,
+long before, had given a shock to the political importance of the
+feudal aristocracy, and reviving commerce and art had shaken the
+system to its foundations. The Flemish weavers had arisen, and a
+mercantile class had clamored for new privileges. In the struggle of
+classes, and in the misfortunes of nobles, monarchs had perceived the
+advantages they might gain, and fortunate circumstances enabled them
+to raise absolute thrones, and restore a central power, always so
+necessary to the cause of civilization. Feudalism had answered many
+useful ends in the dark ages. It had secured a reciprocity of duties
+between a lord and his vassal; it had restored loyalty, truth, and
+fidelity among semi-barbarians; it had favored the cultivation of the
+soil; it had raised up a hardy rural population; it had promoted
+chivalry, and had introduced into Europe the modern gentleman; it had
+ennobled friendship, and spread the graces of urbanity and gentleness
+among rough and turbulent warriors. But it had, also, like all human
+institutions, become corrupt, and failed to answer the ends for which
+it was instituted. It had become an oppressive social despotism; it
+had widened the distinction between the noble and ignoble classes; it
+had produced selfishness and arrogance among the nobles, and a mean
+and cringing sycophancy among the people; it had perpetuated
+privileges, among the aristocracy, exceedingly unjust, and ruinous to
+the general welfare of society. It therefore fell before the advancing
+spirit of the age, and monarchies and republics were erected on its
+ruins. The people, as well as monarchs, had learned the secret of
+their power. They learned that, by combining their power, they could
+successfully resist their enemies. The principle of association was
+learned. Combinations of masses took place. Free cities were
+multiplied. A population of artificers, and small merchants, and free
+farmers arose. They discussed their privileges, and asserted their
+independence. Political liberty was born, and its invaluable blessings
+were conceived, if they were not realized.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of Scholasticism.]
+
+_And the intellectual state_ of Europe received an impulse as marked
+and beneficent as the physical and social. The scholastic philosophy,
+with its dry and technical logic, its abstruse formulas, and its
+subtle refinements, ceased to satisfy the wants of the human mind, now
+craving light and absolute knowledge in all departments of science and
+philosophy. Like feudalism, it had once been useful; but like that
+institution, it had also become corrupted, and an object of sarcasm
+and mockery. It had trained the European mind for the discoveries of
+the sixteenth century; it had raised up an inquisitive spirit, and had
+led to profound reflections on the existence of God, on his attributes
+and will, on the nature of the soul, on the faculties of the mind and
+on the practical duties of life. But this philosophy became pedantic
+and cold; covered, as with a funereal shade, the higher pursuits of
+life; and diverted attention from what was practical and useful. That
+earnest spirit, which raised up Luther and Bacon, demanded, of the
+great masters of thought, something which the people could understand,
+and something which would do them good.
+
+In poetry, the insipid and immoral songs of the Provençal bards gave
+place to the immortal productions of the great creators of the
+European languages. Dante led the way in Italy, and gave to the world
+the "Divine Comedy"--a masterpiece of human genius, which raised him
+to the rank of Homer and Virgil. Petrarch followed in his steps, and,
+if not as profound or original as Dante, yet is unequalled as an
+"enthusiastic songster of ideal love." He also gave a great impulse to
+civilization by his labors in collecting and collating manuscripts.
+Boccaccio also lent his aid in the revival of literature, and wrote a
+series of witty, though objectionable stories, from which the English
+Chaucer borrowed the notion of his "Canterbury Tales." Chaucer is the
+father of English poetry, and kindled a love of literature among his
+isolated countrymen; and was one of the few men who, in the evening of
+his days, looked upon the world without austerity, and expressed
+himself with all the vivacity of youthful feeling.
+
+[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical Corruptions.]
+
+Such were some of the leading events and circumstances which gave a
+new life to European society, and created a desire for better days.
+All of these causes of improvement acted and reacted on each other in
+various ways, and prepared the way to new and great developments of
+action and passion. These new energies were, however, unfortunately
+checked by a combination of evils which had arisen in the dark ages,
+and which required to be subverted before any great progress could be
+reasonably expected. These evils were most remarkable in the church
+itself and almost extinguished the light which Christ and his apostles
+had kindled. The church looked with an evil eye on many of the
+greatest improvements and agitations of the age, and attempted to
+suppress the spirit of insurrection which had arisen against the
+abuses and follies of past ages. Great ideas were ridiculed, and
+daring spirits were crushed. There were many good men in the church
+who saw and who lamented prevailing corruptions, but their voice was
+overwhelmed by the clamors of interested partisans, or silenced by the
+authority of the popes. The character of the popes themselves was not
+what was expected of the heads of the visible church, or what was
+frequently exhibited in those ignorant and superstitious times, when
+the papacy fulfilled, in the opinion of many enlightened Protestants,
+a benevolent mission. None had the disinterestedness of Gregory I., or
+the talents of Gregory VII. There had been a time when the great
+central spiritual monarchy of Rome had been exercised for the peace
+and tranquillity of Europe, when it was uniformly opposed to slavery
+and war, and when it was a mild and paternal government, which
+protected innocence and weakness, while it punished injustice and
+crime. The time was, when popes had been elevated for their piety and
+learning, and when they lived as saints and died as martyrs. But that
+time had passed. The Roman church did not keep up with the spirit or
+the wants of the age, and moreover did not reform itself from vices
+which had been overlooked in ages of ignorance and superstition. In
+the fifteenth century, many great abuses scandalized a body of men who
+should have been the lights of the world; and the sacred pontiffs
+themselves set examples of unusual depravity. Julius II. marched at
+the head of armies. Alexander VI. secured his election by bribery, and
+reigned by extortion. He poisoned his own cardinals, and bestowed on
+his son Cæsar Borgia--an incarnated demon--the highest dignities and
+rewards. It was common for the popes to sell the highest offices in
+the church for money, to place boys on episcopal thrones, to absolve
+the most heinous and scandalous crimes for gold, to encourage the
+massacre of heretics, and to disgrace themselves by infamous vices.
+And a general laxity of morals existed among all orders of the clergy.
+They were ignorant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were
+exceedingly numerous; had ceased to be men of prayer and
+contemplation, as in the days of Benedict and Bernard; and might be
+seen frequenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to
+pleasure, and enriched by inglorious gains.
+
+But the evils which the church encouraged were more dangerous than the
+vices of its members. These evils were inherent in the papal system,
+and were hard to be subverted. There were corruptions of doctrine, and
+corruptions in the government and customs of the church.
+
+[Sidenote: Papal Infallibility.]
+
+There generally prevailed, throughout Christendom, the belief in papal
+infallibility, which notion subverted the doctrines of the Bible, and
+placed its truths, at least, on a level with the authority of the
+schoolmen. It favored the various usurpations of the popes, and
+strengthened the bonds of spiritual despotism.
+
+The popes also claimed a control over secular princes, as well as the
+supremacy of the church. Hildebrand was content with riveting the
+chains of universal spiritual authority, the evil and absurdity of
+which cannot well be exaggerated; but his more ambitious successors
+sought to reduce the kings of the earth to perfect vassalage, and,
+when in danger of having their monstrous usurpations torn from them,
+were ready to fill the world with discord and war.
+
+But the worldly popes of the fifteenth century also aspired to be
+temporal princes. They established the most elegant court in Europe;
+they supported large armies; they sought to restore the splendor of
+imperial Rome; they became ambitious of founding great families; they
+enriched their nephews and relations at the sacrifice of the best
+interests of their church; they affected great state and dignity; they
+built gorgeous palaces; they ornamented their capital with pictures
+and statues.
+
+The territories of Rome were, however, small. The lawful revenues of
+the popes were insufficient to gratify their extravagance and pomp.
+But money, nevertheless, they must have. In order to raise it, they
+resorted to extortion and corruption. They imposed taxes on
+Christendom, direct and indirect. These were felt as an intolerable
+burden; but such was the superstition of the times, that they were
+successfully raised. But even these were insufficient to gratify papal
+avarice and rapacity. They then resorted, in their necessities, to the
+meanest acts, imposed on the simplicity of their subjects, and finally
+adopted the most infamous custom which ever disgraced the world.
+
+[Sidenote: The Sale of Indulgences.]
+
+They pardoned sins for money--granted sales of indulgences for crime.
+A regular scale for absolution was graded. A proclamation was made
+every fifty, and finally every twenty-five years, of a year of
+jubilee, when plenary remission of all sin was promised to those who
+should make a pilgrimage to Rome. And so great was the influx of
+strangers, and consequently of wealth, to Rome, that, on one occasion,
+it was collected into piles by rakes. It is computed that two hundred
+thousand deluded persons visited the city in a single month. But the
+vast sums they brought to Rome, and the still greater sums which were
+obtained by the sale of indulgences, and by various taxations, were
+all squandered in ornamenting the city, and in supporting a luxurious
+court, profligate cardinals, and superfluous ministers of a corrupted
+religion. Then was erected the splendid church of St. Peter, more
+after the style of Grecian temples, than after the model of the Gothic
+cathedrals of York and Cologne. Glorious was that monument of reviving
+art; wonderful was its lofty dome; but the vast sums required to build
+it opened the eyes of Christendom to the extravagance and presumption
+of the popes; and this splendid trophy of their glory also became the
+emblem of their broken power. Their palaces and temples made an
+imposing show, but detracted from their real strength, which consisted
+in the affections of their spiritual subjects. Their outward grandeur,
+like the mechanical agencies which kings employ, was but a poor
+substitute for the invisible power of love,--in all ages, and among
+all people, "that cheap defence" which supports thrones and kingdoms.
+
+[Sidenote: The Corruptions of the Church.]
+
+Another great evil was, the prevalence of an idolatrous spirit. In the
+churches and chapels, and even in private families, were innumerable
+images of saints, pictures of the Virgin, relics, crucifixes, &c.,
+designed at first to kindle a spirit of devotion among the rude and
+uneducated, but gradually becoming objects of real adoration.
+Intercessions were supposed to be made by the Virgin Mary, and by
+favorite saints, more efficacious with Deity than the penitence and
+prayers of the erring and sinful themselves. The influence of this
+veneration for martyrs and saints was degrading to the mind, and
+became a very lucrative source of profit to the priests, who peddled
+the bones and relics of saints as they did indulgences, and who
+invented innumerable lies to attest the genuineness and antiquity of
+the objects they sold, all of which were parts of the great system of
+fraud and avarice which the church permitted.
+
+Again; the public worship of God was in a language the people could
+not understand, but rendered impressive by the gorgeous dresses of the
+priests, and the magnificence of the altar, and the images and vessels
+of silver and gold, reflecting their splendor, by the light of wax
+candles, on the sombre pillars, roofs, and windows of the Gothic
+church, and the effect heightened by exciting music, and other appeals
+to the taste or imagination, rather than to the reason and the heart.
+The sermons of the clergy were frivolous, and ill adapted to the
+spiritual wants of the people. "Men went to the Vatican," says the
+learned and philosophical Ranke, "not to pray, but to contemplate the
+Belvidere Apollo. They disgraced the most solemn festivals by open
+profanations. The clergy, in their services, sought the means of
+exciting laughter. One would mock the cuckoo, and another recite
+indecent stories about St. Peter." Luther, when he visited Italy, was
+extremely shocked at the infidel spirit which prevailed among the
+clergy, who were hostile to the circulation of the Scriptures, and who
+encouraged persecutions and inquisitions. This was the age when the
+dreadful tribunal of the Inquisition flourished, although its chief
+enormities were perpetrated in Spain and Portugal. It never had an
+existence in England, and but little influence in France and Germany.
+But if the Church did not resort, in all countries, to that dread
+tribunal which subjected youth, beauty, and innocence to the
+inquisitorial vengeance of narrow-minded Dominican monks, still she
+was hostile to free inquiry, and to all efforts made to emancipate the
+reason of men.
+
+The spirit of religious persecution, which inflamed the Roman Church
+to punish all dissenters from the doctrine and abuses she promulgated,
+can never be questioned. The Waldenses and Albigenses had suffered, in
+darker times, almost incredible hardships and miseries--had been
+almost annihilated by the dreadful crusade which was carried on
+against them, so that two hundred thousand had perished for supposed
+heresy. But reference is not now made to this wholesale massacre, but
+to those instances of individual persecution which showed the extreme
+jealousy and hatred of Rome of all new opinions. John Huss and Jerome
+of Prague were publicly burned for attempting to reform the church,
+and even Savonarola, who did not deny the authority of the popes, was
+condemned to the flames for denouncing the vices of his age, rather
+than the evils of the church.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity for Reform.]
+
+These multiplied evils, which checked the spirit of improvement,
+called loudly for reform. Councils were assembled for the purpose; but
+councils supported, rather than diminished, the evils of which even
+princes complained. The reform was not destined to come from
+dignitaries in the church or state; not from bishops, nor
+philosophers, nor kings, but from an obscure teacher of divinity in a
+German university, whom the genius of a reviving and awakened age had
+summoned into the field of revolutionary warfare. It was reserved for
+Martin Luther to commence the first successful rebellion against the
+despotism of Rome, and to give the greatest impulse to freedom of
+thought, and a general spirit of reform, which ten centuries had seen.
+
+The most prominent event in modern times is unquestionably the
+Protestant Reformation, and it was by far the most momentous in its
+results. It gave rise, directly or indirectly, to the great wars of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as to those rival
+sects which agitated the theological world. It is connected with the
+enterprises of great monarchs, with the struggle of the Huguenots and
+Puritans, with the diffusion of knowledge, and with the progress of
+civil and religious liberty in Europe. An event, therefore, of such
+interest and magnitude, may well be adopted as a starting point in
+modern history, and will, accordingly, be the first subject of
+especial notice. History is ever most impressive and philosophical
+when great changes and revolutions are traced to the agency of great
+spiritual ideas. Moreover, modern history is so complicated, that it
+is difficult to unravel it except by tracing the agency of great
+causes, rather than by detailing the fortunes of kings and nobles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Early Life of Luther.]
+
+Martin Luther was born the 10th of November, 1483, at Eisleben, in
+Saxony. His father was a miner, of Mansfield, and his ancestors were
+peasants, who lived near the summit of the Thuringian Forest. His
+early years were spent at Mansfield, in extreme poverty, and he earned
+his bread by singing hymns before the houses of the village. At the
+age of fifteen, he went to Eisenach, to a high school, and at eighteen
+entered the university of Erfurt, where he made considerable progress
+in the sciences then usually taught, which, however, were confined
+chiefly to the scholastic philosophy. He did not know either Greek or
+Hebrew, but read the Bible in Latin. In 1505, he took his degree of
+bachelor of arts, and, shortly after, his religious struggles
+commenced. He had witnessed a fearful tempest, which alarmed him,
+while on a visit at his father's house, and he was also much depressed
+by the death of an intimate friend. In that age, the serious and the
+melancholy generally sought monastic retreats, and Luther, thirsty
+after divine knowledge, and anxious to save his soul, resolved to
+forsake the world, and become a monk. He entered an Augustinian
+monastery at Erfurt, soon after obtaining his first degree. But the
+duties and studies of monastic life did not give his troubled soul the
+repose he sought. He submitted to all the irksome labors which the
+monks imposed; he studied the fathers and the schoolmen; he practised
+the most painful austerities, and fastings, and self-lacerations:
+still he was troubled with religious fears. His brethren encouraged
+his good works, but his perplexities and doubts remained. In this
+state of mind, he was found by Staupitz, vicar-general of the order,
+who was visiting Erfurt, in his tour of inspection, with a view to
+correct the bad morals of the monasteries. He sympathized with Luther
+in his religious feelings, treated him with great kindness, and
+recommended the reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St.
+Augustine whose theological views he himself had embraced. Although
+St. Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still, his
+doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from
+those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines generally,
+who attached less importance to justification by faith than did the
+venerated bishop of Hyppo. In that age of abuses, great importance was
+attached, by the church, to austerities, penance, and absolutions for
+money. But Luther, deeply imbued with the spirit of Augustine, at
+length found light, and repose, and joy, in the doctrine of
+justification by faith alone. This became more and more the idea of
+his life, especially at this time. The firmness of his convictions on
+this point became extraordinary, and his spiritual gladness now
+equalled his former depression and anxiety. He was soon to find a
+sphere for the development of his views.
+
+Luther was consecrated as a priest in 1507, and in 1508 he was invited
+by Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to become a professor in the new
+university which he had established at Wittemberg. He was now
+twenty-five years of age, and the fact, that he should have been
+selected, at that early age, to teach dialectics, is a strong argument
+in favor of his attainments and genius.
+
+He now began to apply himself to the study of the Greek and Hebrew,
+and delivered lectures on biblical theology; and his novel method, and
+great enthusiasm, attracted a crowd of students. But his sermons were
+more striking even than his lectures, and he was invited, by the
+council of Wittemberg, to be the preacher for the city. His eloquence,
+his learning, and his zeal, now attracted considerable attention, and
+the elector himself visited Wittemberg to hear him preach.
+
+In 1512, he was sent on an embassy to Rome, and, while in Italy,
+obtained useful knowledge of the actual state of the hierarchy, and of
+morals and religion. Julius II., a warlike pontiff, sat on the throne
+of St. Peter; and the "Eternal City" was the scene of folly,
+dissipation, and clerical extortion. Luther returned to Germany
+completely disgusted with every thing he had seen--the levity and
+frivolity of the clergy, and the ignorance and vices of the people. He
+was too earnest in his religious views and feelings to take much
+interest in the works of art, or the pleasures, which occupied the
+attention of the Italians; and the impression of the general iniquity
+and corruption of Rome never passed away, and probably gave a new
+direction to his thoughts.
+
+[Sidenote: Luther's Early Religious Struggles.]
+
+On his return, in 1512, he was made doctor of divinity, then a great
+distinction, and renewed his lectures in the university with great
+ardor. He gave a new impulse to the studies, and a new form to the
+opinions of both professors and students. Lupinus and Carlstadt, his
+colleagues, were converts to his views. All within his sphere were
+controlled by his commanding genius, and extraordinary force of
+character. He commenced war upon the schoolmen, and was peculiarly
+hostile to Thomas Aquinas, whom he accused of Pelagianism. He also
+attacked Aristotle, the great idol of the schools, and overwhelmed
+scholasticism with sarcasm and mockery.
+
+Such was the state of things when the preachers of indulgences, whom
+Leo X. had encouraged, in order to raise money for St. Peter's Church,
+arrived in the country round the Elbe. They had already spread over
+Germany, Switzerland, and France. Their luxury and extravagance were
+only equalled by their presumption and insolence. All sorts of crime
+were pardoned by these people for money. Among the most remarkable of
+these religious swindlers and peddlers was Tetzel. He was a friar of
+the Dominicans, apostolical commissioner, inquisitor, and bachelor of
+theology. He united profligate morals with great pretensions to
+sanctity; was somewhat eloquent, so far as a sonorous voice was
+concerned, and was very bold and haughty, as vulgar men, raised to
+eminence and power, are apt to be. But his peculiarity consisted in
+the audacity of his pretensions, and his readiness in inventing
+stories to please the people, ever captivated by rhetoric and
+anecdote. "Indulgences," said he, "are the most precious and sublime
+of God's gifts." "I would not exchange my privileges for those of St.
+Peter in heaven; for I have saved more souls, with my indulgences,
+than he, with his sermons." "There is no sin so great that the
+indulgence cannot remit it: even repentance is not necessary:
+indulgences save not the living alone,--they save the dead." "The very
+moment that the money clinks against the bottom of this chest, the
+soul escapes from purgatory, and flies to heaven." "And do you know
+why our Lord distributes so rich a grace? The dilapidated Church of
+St. Peter and St. Paul is to be restored, which contains the bodies of
+those holy apostles, and which are now trodden, dishonored, and
+polluted."
+
+[Sidenote: The Ninety-Five Propositions.]
+
+Tetzel found but few sufficiently enlightened to resist him, and he
+obtained great sums from the credulous people. This abomination
+excited Luther's intensest detestation; and he accordingly wrote
+ninety-five propositions, and nailed them, in 1517, to the gates of
+the church, in which he denounced the traffic in indulgences, and
+traced the doctrine of absolution to the usurped power of the pope. He
+denied the value of his absolution, and maintained that the divine
+favor would only be granted on the condition of repentance and faith.
+
+In these celebrated propositions, he struck at the root of scholastic
+absurdities, and also of papal pretensions. The spirit which they
+breathed was bold, intrepid, and magnanimous. They electrified
+Germany, and gave a shock to the whole papal edifice. They had both a
+religious and a political bearing; religious, in reference to the
+grounds of justification, and political, in opening men's eyes to the
+unjust and ruinous extortions of Rome.
+
+Among those who perceived with great clearness the political tendency
+of these propositions, and rejoiced in it, was the elector of Saxony
+himself, the most powerful prince of the empire, who had long been
+vexed, in view of the vast sums which had been drained from his
+subjects. He also lamented the corruptions of the church, and probably
+sympathized with the theological opinions of Luther. He accordingly
+protected the bold professor, although he did not openly encourage
+him, or form an alliance with him. He let things take their course.
+Well did Frederic deserve the epithet of _Wise_.
+
+[Sidenote: Erasmus--Melancthon.]
+
+There was another great man who rejoiced in the appearance of Luther's
+theses; and this was Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, the
+autocrat of letters, and, at that time, living in Basle. He was born
+in Rotterdam, in 1467, of poor parents, but early attracted notice for
+his attainments, and early emancipated himself from the trammels of
+scholasticism, which he hated and despised as cordially as Luther
+himself. He also attacked, with elegant sarcasm the absurdities of his
+age, both in literature and morals. He denounced the sins and follies
+of the monks, and spoke of the necessity of reform. But his
+distinguishing excellence was his literary talent and taste. He was a
+great Greek scholar, and published a critical edition of the
+Testament, which he accompanied with a Latin translation. In this, he
+rendered great service to the reformers, especially to Luther. His
+fascinating style and extensive erudition gave him great literary
+fame. But he was timid, conservative, and vain; and sought to be
+popular, except among the monks, whom he uniformly ridiculed. One
+doctor hated him so cordially, that he had his picture hung up in his
+study, that he might spit in his face as often as he pleased. So far
+as Luther opposed monkery and despotism, his sympathies were with him.
+But he did not desire a radical reformation, as Luther did, and always
+shunned danger and obloquy. He dreaded an insurrection among the
+people, and any thing which looked either revolutionary or fanatical.
+Luther, therefore, much as he was gratified by his favor at first,
+soon learned to distrust him; and finally these two great men were
+unfriendly to each other.
+
+Melancthon was too prominent an actor in the great drama about to be
+performed, to be omitted in this sketch of great men who were on the
+side of reform. He was born in 1497, and was, therefore, fourteen
+years younger than Luther. He was educated under the auspices of the
+celebrated Greek scholar Reuchlin, who was also a relative. At twelve,
+he was sent to the university of Heidelberg; at fourteen, was made
+bachelor of arts; and at seventeen, doctor of philosophy. He began to
+lecture publicly at the age of seventeen; and, for his extraordinary
+attainments, was invited to Wittemberg, as professor of ancient
+languages, at the age of twenty-one. He arrived there in 1518, and
+immediately fell under the influence of Luther, who, however,
+acknowledged his classical attainments. He was considered a prodigy;
+was remarkably young looking, and so boyish, that the grave professors
+conceived but little hope of him at first. But, when he delivered his
+inaugural oration in Latin, all were astonished; and their prejudices
+were removed. Luther himself was enthusiastic in his praises, and a
+friendship commenced between them, which was never weakened by a
+quarrel. The mildness and gentleness of Philip Melancthon strongly
+contrasted with the boldness, energy, and tumultuous passions of
+Luther. The former was the more learned and elegant; the latter was
+the superior genius--a genius for commanding men, and guiding great
+enterprises.
+
+[Sidenote: Melancthon--Leo X.]
+
+But there was another great personage, who now viewed the movement of
+Luther with any thing but indifference; and this was Leo X., the
+reigning pope when the theses were published. He belonged to the
+illustrious family of the Medici, and was chosen cardinal at the age
+of thirteen. He was the most elegant and accomplished of all the
+popes, patronized art and literature, and ornamented his capital with
+palaces, churches, and statues. But with his sympathy for intellectual
+excellence, he was prodigal, luxurious, and worldly. Indeed, his
+spirit was almost infidel. He was more ambitious for temporal than
+spiritual power; and, when he commenced his reign, the papal
+possessions were more extensive and flourishing, than at any previous
+period. His leading error was, his recklessness in the imposition of
+taxes, even on the clergy themselves, by which he lost their
+confidence and regard. With a very fine mind, he was, nevertheless,
+quite unfitted for his station and his times.
+
+Thus far, he had allowed the outcry which Luther had raised against
+indulgences to take its course, and even disregarded the theses, which
+he supposed originated in a monkish squabble. But the Emperor
+Maximilian was alarmed, and wrote to the pope an account of Luther's
+differences with Tetzel. Frederic of Saxony had also written to his
+holiness, to palliate the conduct of Luther.
+
+When such powerful princes became interested, Leo was startled. He
+summoned Luther to Rome, to be tried by Prierias. Luther, not daring
+to refuse, and not willing to obey, wrote to his friend Spalatin to
+use his influence with the elector to have his cause tried in Germany;
+and the pope, willing to please Frederic, appointed De Vio, his
+legate, to investigate the matter. Luther accordingly set out for
+Augsburg, in obedience to the summons of De Vio, although dissuaded by
+many of his friends. He had several interviews with the legate, by
+whom he was treated with courtesy and urbanity, and by whom he was
+dissuaded from his present courses. But all the persuasion and
+argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of
+Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness
+or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract;
+but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone,
+and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave
+Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff,
+whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled from the city,
+and returned to Wittemberg, being countenanced by the elector, to whom
+he also addressed letters. His life was safe so long as Frederic
+protected him.
+
+[Sidenote: The Leipsic Disputation.]
+
+The next event in the progress of Luther was the Leipsic disputation,
+June, 1519. The pope seemed willing to make one more effort to
+convince Luther, before he proceeded to more violent courses. There
+was then at his court a noble Saxon, Charles Miltitz, whose talents
+and insinuating address secured him the high office of chamberlain to
+the pope. He accordingly was sent into his native country, with the
+dignity of legate, to remove the difficulties which De Vio had
+attempted. He tried persuasion and flattery, and treated the reformer
+with great civility. But Luther still persisted in refusing to
+retract, and the matter was referred to the elector archbishop of
+Trèves.
+
+While the controversy was pending, Dr. Eck, of the university of
+Ingolstadt, a man of great scholastic ingenuity and attainment, and
+proud of the prizes of eight universities, challenged the professors
+of Wittemberg to a public controversy on Grace and Free Will. He
+regarded a disputation with the eye of a practised fencer, and sought
+the means of extending his fame over North Germany. Leipsic was the
+appointed arena, and thither resorted the noble and the learned of
+Saxony. Eck was among the first who arrived, and, soon after, came
+Carlstadt, Luther, and Melancthon.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of the Leipsic Disputation.]
+
+The place for the combat was a hall in the royal palace of Duke
+George, cousin to the elector Frederic, which was arranged and
+ornamented with great care, and which was honored by the presence of
+the duke, and of the chief divines and nobles of Northern Germany.
+Carlstadt opened the debate, which did not excite much interest until
+Luther's turn came, the antagonist whom Eck was most desirous to meet,
+and whose rising fame he hoped to crush by a brilliant victory. Ranke
+thus describes Luther's person at this time. "He was of the middle
+size, and so thin as to be mere skin and bone. He possessed neither
+the thundering voice, nor the ready memory, nor the skill and
+dexterity, of his distinguished antagonist. But he stood in the prime
+of manhood and in the fulness of his strength. His voice was melodious
+and clear; he was perfectly versed in the Bible, and its aptest
+sentences presented themselves unbidden to his mind; above all, he
+inspired an irresistible conviction that he sought the truth. He was
+always cheerful at home, and a joyous, jocose companion at table; he
+even, on this grave occasion, ascended the platform with a nosegay in
+his hand; but, when there, he displayed the intrepid and
+self-forgetting earnestness arising from the depth of a conviction,
+until now, unfathomed, even by himself. He drew forth new thoughts,
+and placed them in the fire of the battle, with a determination that
+knew no fear and no personal regard. His features bore the traces of
+the storms that had passed over his soul, and of the courage with
+which he was prepared to encounter those which yet awaited him. His
+whole aspect evinced profound thought, joyousness of temper, and
+confidence in the future. The battle immediately commenced on the
+question of the authority of the papacy, which, at once intelligible
+and important, riveted universal attention." Eck, with great erudition
+and masterly logic, supported the claim of the pope, from the decrees
+of councils, the opinions of scholastics, and even from those
+celebrated words of Christ to Peter--"Thou art Peter, and on this rock
+will I build my church," &c. Luther took higher and bolder ground,
+denied the infallibility of councils, and appealed to Scripture as the
+ultimate authority. Eck had probably the advantage over his
+antagonist, so far as dialectics were concerned, being a more able
+disputant; but Luther set at defiance mere scholastic logic, and
+appealed to an authority which dialectics could not reach. The victory
+was claimed by both parties; but the result was, that Luther no longer
+acknowledged the authority of the Roman church, and acknowledged none
+but the Scriptures.
+
+[Sidenote: The Rights of Private Judgment.]
+
+The Leipsic disputation was the grand intellectual contest of the
+Reformation, and developed its great idea--the only great principle,
+around which all sects and parties among the Protestants rally. This
+is the idea, that _the Scriptures are the only ultimate grounds of
+authority in religion, and that, moreover, every man has a right to
+interpret them for himself_. The rights of private judgment--that
+religion is a matter between the individual soul and God, and that
+every man is answerable to his own conscience alone how he interprets
+Scripture--these constitute the great Protestant platform. Different
+sects have different views respecting justification, but all profess
+to trace them to the Scriptures. Luther's views were similar to those
+of St. Augustine--that "man could be justified by faith alone," which
+was _his_ great theological doctrine--a doctrine adopted by many who
+never left the communion of the Church of Rome, before and since his
+day, and a doctrine which characterized the early reformers, Zwingle,
+Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, and the Puritans generally. It is as absurd to
+say that Luther's animating principle in religion was not this
+doctrine, as it is unphilosophical to make the reformation consist
+merely in its recognition. After Luther's convictions were settled on
+this point, and he had generally and openly declared them, the main
+contest of his life was against the papacy, which he viewed as the
+predicted Antichrist--the "scarlet mother of abominations." It is not
+the object of the writer of this History to defend or oppose Luther's
+views, or argue any cause whatever, but simply to place facts in their
+true light, which is, to state them candidly.
+
+Although the Leipsic controversy brought out the great principle of
+the Reformation, Luther's views, both respecting the true doctrines
+and polity of the church, were not, on all points, yet developed, and
+were only gradually unfolded, as he gained knowledge and light. It was
+no trifling matter, even to deny the supremacy of the Roman church in
+matters of faith. He was thus placed in the position of Huss and
+Jerome, and other reformers, who had been destroyed, with scarcely an
+exception. He thus was brought in direct conflict with the pope, with
+the great dignitaries of the church, with the universities, and with
+the whole scholastic literature. He had to expect the violent
+opposition and vengeance of the pope, of the monks, of the great
+ecclesiastical dignitaries, of the most distinguished scholars, and of
+those secular princes who were friendly to Rome. He had none to
+protect him but a prince of the empire, powerful, indeed, and wise,
+but old and wavering. There were but few to uphold and defend him--the
+satirical Erasmus, who was called a second Lucian, the feeble
+Staupitz, the fanatical Carlstadt, and the inexperienced Melancthon.
+The worldly-minded, the learned, the powerful, and the conservative
+classes were his natural enemies. But he had reason and Scripture on
+his side, and he appealed to their great and final verdict. He had
+singular faith in the power of truth, and the gracious protection of
+God Almighty. Reposing on the greatness of his cause, and the
+providence of the omnipotent Protector, he was ready to defy all the
+arts, and theories, and malice of man. His weapon was truth. For truth
+he fought, and for truth he was ready to die. The sophistries of the
+schools he despised; they had distorted and mystified the truth. And
+he knew them well, for he had been trained in the severest dialectics
+of his time, and, though he despised them, he knew how to use them.
+The simple word of God, directed to the reason and conscience of men,
+seemed alone worthy of his regard.
+
+[Sidenote: Luther's Elements of Greatness.]
+
+But, beside Scripture and unperverted reason, he had another element
+of power. He was master of the sympathies and passions of the people.
+His father was a toiling miner. His grandfather was a peasant. He had
+been trained to penury; he had associated with the poor; he was a man
+of the people; he was their natural friend. He saw and lamented their
+burdens, and rose up for their deliverance. And the people
+distinguished their true friend, from their false friends. They saw
+the sincerity, earnestness, and labors of the new apostle of liberty,
+and believed in him, and made an idol of him. They would protect him,
+and honor him, and obey him, and believe what he taught them, for he
+was their friend, whom God had raised up to take off their burdens,
+and point a way to heaven, without the intercession of priests, or
+indulgences, or penance. Their friend was to expose the corruptions of
+the clergy, and to give battle to the great arch enemy who built St.
+Peter's Church from their hard-earned pittances. A spirit from heaven
+enlightened those to whom Luther preached, and they rallied around his
+standard, and swore never to separate, until the great enemies of the
+poor and the oppressed were rendered powerless. And their sympathies
+were needed, and best services, too; for the great man of the age--the
+incarnated spirit of liberty--was in danger.
+
+[Sidenote: Excommunication of Luther.]
+
+The pope, hitherto mild, persuasive, and undecided, now arose in the
+majesty of his mighty name, and, as the successor of St. Peter, hurled
+those weapons which had been thunderbolts in the hands of the
+Gregories and the Innocents. From his papal throne, and with all the
+solemnity of God's appointed vicegerent, he denounced the daring monk
+of Wittemberg, and sentenced him to the wrath of God, and to the
+penalty of eternal fire. Luther was excommunicated by a papal bull,
+and his writings were condemned as heretical and damnable.
+
+This was a dreadful sentence. Few had ever resisted it successfully,
+even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was still a fearful weapon,
+and used only in desperate circumstances. It was used only as the last
+resort; for frequency would destroy its power. In the middle ages,
+this weapon was omnipotent; and the middle ages had but just passed
+away. No one could stand before that awful anathema which consigned
+him to the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some
+professed to despise the sentence, still, when inflicted, it could not
+be borne, especially if accompanied with an interdict. Children were
+left unburied. The churches were closed. The rites of religion were
+suspended. A funereal shade was spread over society. The fears of hell
+haunted every imagination. No reason was strong enough to resist the
+sentence. No arm was sufficiently powerful to remove the curse. It
+hung over a guilty land. It doomed the unhappy offender, who was
+cursed, wherever he went, and in whatever work he was engaged.
+
+But Luther was strong enough to resist it, and to despise it. He saw
+it was an imposition, which only barbarous and ignorant ages had
+permitted. Moreover, he perceived that there was now no alternative
+but victory or death; that, in the great contest in which he was
+engaged, retreat was infamy. Nor did he wish to retreat. He was
+fighting for oppressed humanity, and death even, in such a cause, was
+glory. He understood fully the nature and the consequence of the
+struggle. He perceived the greatness of the odds against him, in a
+worldly point of view. No man but a Luther would have been equal to
+it; no man, before him, ever had successfully rebelled against the
+pope. It is only in view of this circumstance, that his intrepidity
+can be appreciated.
+
+What did the Saxon monk do, when the papal bull was published? He
+assembled the professors and students of the university, declared his
+solemn protest against the pope as Antichrist, and marched in
+procession to the gates of the Castle of Wittemberg, and there made a
+bonfire, and cast into it the bull which condemned him, the canon law,
+and some writings of the schoolmen, and then reëntered the city,
+breathing defiance against the whole power of the pope, glowing in the
+consciousness that the battle had commenced, to last as long as life,
+and perfectly secure that the victory would finally be on the side of
+truth. This was in 1520, on the 10th of December.
+
+The attention of the whole nation was necessarily drawn to this open
+resistance; and the sympathy of the free thinking, the earnest, and
+the religious, was expressed for him. Never was popular interest more
+absorbing, in respect to his opinions, his fortunes, and his fate. The
+spirit of innovation became contagious, and pervaded the German mind.
+It demanded the serious attention of the emperor himself.
+
+[Sidenote: The Diet of Worms.]
+
+A great Diet of the empire was convened at Worms, and thither Luther
+was summoned by the temporal power. He had a safe-conduct, which even
+so powerful a prince as Charles V. durst not violate. In April, 1521,
+the reformer appeared before the collected dignitaries of the German
+empire, both spiritual and temporal, and was called upon to recant his
+opinions as heretical in the eyes of the church, and dangerous to the
+peace of the empire. Before the most august assembly in the world,
+without a trace of embarrassment, he made his defence, and refused to
+recant. "Unless," said he, "my errors can be demonstrated by texts
+from Scripture, I will not and cannot recant; for it is not safe for a
+man to go against his conscience. Here I am. I can do no otherwise.
+God help me! Amen."
+
+This declaration satisfied his friends, though it did not satisfy the
+members of the diet. Luther was permitted to retire. He had gained the
+confidence of the nation. From that time, he was its idol, and the
+acknowledged leader of the greatest insurrection of human intelligence
+which modern times have seen. The great principles of the reformation
+were declared. The great hero of the Reformation had planted his cause
+upon a rock. And yet his labors had but just commenced. Henceforth,
+his life was toil and vexation. New difficulties continually arose.
+New questions had to be continually settled. Luther, by his letters,
+was every where. He commenced the translation of the Scriptures; he
+wrote endless controversial tracts; his correspondence was
+unparalleled; his efforts as a preacher were prodigious. But he was
+equal to it all; was wonderfully adapted to his age and circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Imprisonment at Wartburg.]
+
+About this time commenced his voluntary imprisonment at Wartburg,
+among the Thuringian forests: he being probably conducted thither by
+the orders of the elector of Saxony. Here he was out of sight, but not
+out of mind; and his retirement, under the disguise of a knight, gave
+him leisure for literary labor. In the old Castle of Wartburg, a great
+part of the Scriptures was translated into that beautiful and simple
+version, which is still the standard of the German language.
+
+[Sidenote: Carlstadt.]
+
+While Luther was translating the Scriptures, in his retreat,
+Wittemberg was the scene of new commotions, pregnant with great
+results. There were many of the more zealous converts to the reformed
+doctrines, headed by Carlstadt, dean of the faculty of theology, who
+were not content with the progress which had been made, and who
+desired more sweeping and radical changes. Such a party ever exists in
+all reforms; for there are some persons who are always inclined to
+ultra and extravagant courses. Carlstadt was a type of such men. He
+was learned, sincere, and amiable, but did not know where to stop; and
+the experiment was now to be tried, whether it was possible to
+introduce a necessary reform, without annihilating also all the
+results of the labors of preceding generations. Carlstadt's mind was
+not well balanced, and to him the reformation was only a half measure,
+and a useless movement, unless all the external observances of
+religion and the whole economy of the church were destroyed. He
+abolished, or desired to abolish, all priestly garments, all fasts and
+holydays, all pictures in the churches, and all emblematical
+ceremonies of every kind. He insisted upon closing all places of
+public amusement, the abolition of all religious communities, and the
+division of their possessions among the poor. He maintained that there
+was no need of learning, or of academic studies, and even went into
+the houses of the peasantry to seek explanation of difficult passages
+of Scripture. For such innovations, the age was certainly not
+prepared, even had they been founded on reason; and the conservative
+mind of Luther was shocked at extravagances which served to disgust
+the whole Christian world, and jeopardize the cause in which he had
+embarked. So, against the entreaties of the elector, and in spite of
+the ban of the empire, he returned to Wittemberg, a small city, it was
+true, but a place to which had congregated the flower of the German
+youth. He resolved to oppose the movements of Carlstadt, even though
+opposition should destroy his influence. Especially did he declare
+against all violent measures to which the ultra reformers were
+inclined, knowing full well, that, if his cause were sullied with
+violence or fanaticism, all Christendom would unite to suppress it.
+His sermons are, at this time, (1522,) pervaded with a profound and
+conservative spirit, and also a spirit of conciliation and love,
+calculated to calm passions, and carry conviction to excited minds.
+His moderate counsels prevailed, the tumults were hushed, and order
+was restored. Carlstadt was silenced for a time; but a mind like his
+could not rest, especially on points where he had truth on his side.
+One of these was, in reference to the presence of Christ's body in the
+Eucharist, which Carlstadt totally denied. He taught "that the Lord's
+supper was purely symbolic, and was simply a pledge to believers of
+their redemption." But Luther saw, in every attempt to exhibit the
+symbolical import of the supper, only the danger of weakening the
+authority of Scripture, which was his stronghold, and became
+exceedingly tenacious on that point; carried his views to the extreme
+of literal interpretation, and never could emancipate himself from the
+doctrines of Rome respecting the eucharist. Carlstadt, finding himself
+persecuted at Wittemberg left the city, and, as soon as he was
+released from the presence of Luther, began to revive his former zeal
+against images also, and was the promoter of great disturbances. He at
+last sought refuge in Strasburg, and sacrificed fame, and friends, and
+bread to his honest convictions.
+
+[Sidenote: Thomas Münzer.]
+
+But, nevertheless, the views of Carlstadt found advocates, and his
+extravagances were copied with still greater zeal. Many pretended to
+special divine illumination--the great central principle of all
+fanaticism. Among these was Thomas Münzer, of Zwickau, mystical,
+ignorant, and conceited, but sincere and simple hearted. "Luther,"
+said he, "has liberated men's consciences from the papal yoke, but has
+not led them in spirit towards God." Considering himself as called
+upon by a special revelation to bring men into greater spiritual
+liberty, he went about inflaming the popular mind, and raising
+discontents, and even inciting to a revolt. Religion now became
+mingled with politics, and social and political evils were violently
+resisted, under the garb of religion. An insurrection at last arose in
+the districts of the Black Forest, (1524,) near the sources of the
+Danube, and spread from Suabia to the Rhine provinces, until it became
+exceedingly formidable. Then commenced what is called the "peasants'
+war," which was only ended by the slaughter of fifty thousand people.
+As the causes of this war, after all, were chiefly political, the
+details belong to our chapter on political history. For this
+insurrection of the peasantry, however, Luther expressed great
+detestation; although he availed himself of it to lecture the princes
+of Germany on their duties as civil rulers.
+
+The peasant war was scarcely ended, when Luther married Catharine
+Bora; and, as she was a nun, and he was a monk, the marriage gave
+universal scandal. But this marriage, which proved happy, was the
+signal of new reforms. Luther now emancipated himself from his
+monastic fetters, and lifted up his voice against the whole monastic
+system. Eight years had elapsed since he preached against indulgences.
+During these eight years, reform had been gradual, and had now
+advanced to the extreme limit it ever reached during the life of the
+reformer.
+
+But, in another quarter, it sprang up with new force, and was carried
+to an extent not favored in Germany. It was in Switzerland that the
+greatest approximation was made to the forms, if not to the spirit, of
+primitive Christianity.
+
+[Sidenote: Ulric Zwingle.]
+
+The great hero of this Swiss movement was Ulric Zwingle, the most
+interesting of all the reformers. He was born in 1484, and educated
+amid the mountains of his picturesque country, and, like Erasmus,
+Reuchlin, Luther, and Melancthon, had no aristocratic claims, except
+to the nobility of nature. But, though poor, he was well educated, and
+was a master of the scholastic philosophy and of all the learning of
+his age. Like Luther, he was passionately fond of music, and played
+the lute, the harp, the violin, the flute and the dulcimer. There was
+no more joyous spirit in all Switzerland than his. Every one loved his
+society, and honored his attainments, and admired his genius. Like
+Luther and Erasmus, he was disgusted with scholasticism, and regretted
+the time he had devoted to its study. He was ordained in 1506, by the
+bishop of Constance, and was settled in Zurich in 1518. At first, his
+life did not differ from that which the clergy generally led, being
+one of dissipation and pleasure. But he was studious, and became well
+acquainted with the fathers, and with the original Greek. Only
+gradually did light dawn upon him, and this in consequence of his
+study of the Scriptures, not in consequence of Luther's preaching. He
+had no tempests to withstand, such as shook the soul of the Saxon
+monk. Nor had he ever devoted himself with the same ardor to the
+established church. Nor was he so much interested on doctrinal points
+of faith. But he saw with equal clearness the corruptions of the
+church, and preached with equal zeal against indulgences and the
+usurpations of the popes. The reformation of morals was the great aim
+of his life. His preaching was practical and simple, and his doctrine
+was, that "religion consisted in trust in God, loving God, and
+innocence of life." Moreover, he took a deep interest in the political
+relations of his country, and was an enthusiast in liberty as well as
+in religion. To him the town of Zurich was indebted for its
+emancipation from the episcopal government of Constance, and also for
+a reformation in all the externals of the church. He inspired the
+citizens with that positive spirit of Protestantism, which afterwards
+characterized Calvin and the Puritans. He was too radical a reformer
+to suit Luther, although he sympathized with most of his theological
+opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Controversy between Luther and Zwingle.]
+
+On one point, however, they differed; and this difference led to an
+acrimonious contest, quite disgraceful to Luther, and the greatest
+blot on his character, inasmuch as it developed, to an extraordinary
+degree, both obstinacy and dogmatism, and showed that he could not
+bear contradiction or opposition. The quarrel arose from a difference
+of views respecting the Lord's supper, Luther maintaining not exactly
+the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but something
+approximating to it--even the omnipresence of Christ's body in the
+sacred elements. He relinquished the doctrine of the continually
+repeated miracle, but substituted a universal miracle, wrought once
+for all. In his tenacity to the opinions of the schoolmen on this
+point, we see his conservative spirit; for he did not deny tradition,
+unless it was expressly contradicted by Scripture. He would have
+maintained the whole structure of the Latin church, had it not been
+disfigured by modern additions, plainly at variance with the
+Scriptures; and so profoundly was he attached to the traditions of the
+church, and to the whole church establishment, that he only
+emancipated himself by violent inward storms. But Zwingle had not this
+lively conception of the universal church, and was more radical in his
+sympathies. He took Carlstadt's view of the supper, that it was merely
+symbolic. Still he shrunk from a rupture with Luther, which, however,
+was unavoidable, considering Luther's views of the subject and his
+cast of mind. Luther rejected all offers of conciliation, and, as he
+considered it essential to salvation to believe in the real presence
+of Christ in the sacrament, he refused to acknowledge Zwingle as a
+brother.
+
+Zwingle, nevertheless, continued his reforms, and sought to restore,
+what he conceived to be, the earliest forms in which Christianity had
+manifested itself. He designed to restore a worship purely spiritual.
+He rejected all rites and ceremonies, not expressly enjoined in the
+Bible. Luther insisted in retaining all that was not expressly
+forbidden. And this was the main point of distinction between them and
+their adherents.
+
+But Zwingle contemplated political, as well as religious, changes,
+and, as early as 1527, two years before his conference with Luther at
+Marburg, had projected a league of all the reformers against the
+political authorities which opposed their progress. He combated the
+abuses of the state, as well as of the church. This opposition created
+great enemies against him among the cantons, with their different
+governments and alliances. He also secured enthusiastic friends, and,
+in all the cantons, there was a strong democratic party opposed to the
+existing oligarchies, which party, in Berne and Basle, St. Gall,
+Zurich, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, and Glarus, obtained the ascendency.
+This led to tumults and violence, and finally to civil war between the
+different cantons, those which adhered to the old faith being assisted
+by Austria. Lucerne, Uri Schwytz, Zug, Unterwalden took the lead
+against the reformed cantons, the foremost of which was Zurich, where
+Zwingle lived. Zurich was attacked. Zwingle, from impulses of
+patriotism and courage, issued forth from his house, and joined the
+standard of his countrymen, not as a chaplain, but as an armed
+warrior. This was his mistake. "They who take the sword shall perish
+with the sword." The intrepid and enlightened reformer was slain in
+1531, and, with his death, expired the hopes of his party. The
+restoration of the Roman Catholic religion immediately commenced in
+Switzerland.
+
+Luther, more wise than Zwingle, inasmuch as he abstained from
+politics, continued his labors in Germany. And they were immense. The
+burdens of his country rested on his shoulders. He was the dictator of
+the reformed party, and his word was received as law. Moreover, the
+party continually increased, and, from the support it received from
+some of the most powerful of the German princes, it became formidable,
+even in a political point of view. Nearly one half of Germany embraced
+the reformed faith.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Augsburg.]
+
+The illustrious Charles V. had now, for some time, been emperor, and,
+in the prosecution of his conquests, found it necessary to secure the
+support of united Germany, especially since Germany was now invaded by
+the Turks. In order to secure this support, he found it necessary to
+make concessions in religion to his Protestant subjects. At the diet
+of Augsburg, (1530,) where there was the most brilliant assemblage of
+princes which had been for a long time seen in Germany, the celebrated
+confession of the faith of the Protestants was read. It was written by
+Melancthon, in both Latin and German, on the basis of the articles of
+Torgau, which Luther had prepared. The style was Melancthon's; the
+matter was Luther's. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles, of
+which twenty-one pertained to the faith of the Protestants--the name
+they assumed at the second diet of Spires, in 1529--and the remaining
+seven recounted the errors and abuses of Rome. It was subscribed by
+the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Duke of
+Lunenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, and the
+deputies of the imperial cities Nuremberg and Reutlingen. But the
+Catholics had the ascendency in the diet, and the "Confession of
+Augsburg" was condemned. But the emperor did not venture on any
+decisive measures for the extirpation of the "heresy." He threatened
+and published edicts, but his menaces had but little force.
+Nevertheless, the Protestant princes assembled, first at Smalcalde,
+and afterwards at Frankfort, for an alliance of mutual defence,--the
+first effective union of free princes and states against their
+oppressors in modern Europe,--and laid the foundation of liberty of
+conscience. Hostilities, however, did not commence, since the emperor
+was desirous of uniting Germany against the Turks; and he therefore
+recalled his edicts of Worms and Augsburg against the Protestants, and
+made important concessions, and promised them undisturbed enjoyment of
+their religion. This was a great triumph to the Protestants, and as
+great a shock to the Papal power.
+
+[Sidenote: League of Smalcalde.]
+
+The Confession of Augsburg and the League of Smalcalde form an
+important era of Protestantism, since, by these, the reformed faith
+received its definite form, and was moreover guaranteed. The work for
+which Luther had been raised up was now, in the main, accomplished.
+His great message had been delivered and heard.
+
+[Sidenote: Death and Character of Luther.]
+
+After the confirmation of his cause, his life was perplexed and
+anxious. He had not anticipated those civil commotions which he now
+saw, sooner or later, were inevitable. With the increase of his party
+was the decline of spirituality. Political considerations, also, with
+many, were more prominent than moral. Religion and politics were
+mingled together, not soon to be separated in the progress of reform.
+Moreover, the reformers differed upon many points among themselves.
+There was a lamentable want of harmony between the Germans and the
+Swiss. Luther had quarrelled with nearly every prominent person with
+whom he had been associated, except Melancthon, who yielded to him
+implicit obedience. But, above all, the Anabaptist disorders, which he
+detested, and which distracted the whole bishopric of Münster,
+oppressed and mortified him. Worn out with cares, labors, and
+vexations, which ever have disturbed the peace and alloyed the
+happiness of great heroes, and from which no greatness is exempt, he
+died at Eisleben, in 1545, while on a visit to his native place in
+older to reconcile dissensions between the counts of Mansfeldt.
+
+Luther's name is still reverenced in Germany, and, throughout all
+Protestant countries, he is regarded as the greatest man connected
+with the history of the church since the apostolic age. Others have
+been greater geniuses, others more learned, others more devout, and
+others more amiable and interesting; but none ever evinced greater
+intrepidity, or combined greater qualities of mind and heart. He had
+his faults: he was irritable, dogmatic, and abusive in his
+controversial writings. He had no toleration for those who differed
+from him--the fault of the age. But he was genial, joyous, friendly,
+and disinterested. His labors were gigantic; his sincerity
+unimpeached; his piety enlightened; his zeal unquenchable.
+Circumstances and the new ideas of his age, favored him, but he made
+himself master of those circumstances and ideas, and, what is more,
+worked out ideas of his own, which were in harmony with Christianity.
+The Reformation would have happened had there been no Luther, though
+at a less favorable time; but, of all the men of his age that the
+Reformation could least spare, Martin Luther stands preëminent. As the
+greatest of reformers, his name will be ever honored.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The attention of the student is directed only
+     to the most prominent and valuable works which treat of
+     Luther and the Protestant reformation. All the works are too
+     numerous, even to be decimated. Allusion is made to those
+     merely which are accessible and useful. Among them may be
+     mentioned, as most important, Ranke's History of the
+     Reformation; D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation;
+     Michelet's Life of Luther; Audin's Life of Luther, a
+     Catholic work, written with great spirit, but not much
+     liberality; Stebbing's History of the Reformation; a Life of
+     Luther, by Rev. Dr. Sears, a new work, written with great
+     correctness and ability; Guizot's Lectures on Civilization;
+     Plank's Essay on the Consequences of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Charles V.]
+
+When Luther appeared upon the stage, the great monarchies of Europe
+had just arisen upon the ruins of those Feudal states which survived
+the wreck of Charlemagne's empire.
+
+The Emperor of Germany, of all the monarchs of Europe, had the
+greatest claim to the antiquity and dignity of his throne. As
+hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, he
+had absolute authority in his feudal provinces; while, as an elected
+emperor, he had an indirect influence over Saxony, the Palatinate, the
+three archbishoprics of Trèves, Mentz, and Cologne, and some
+Burgundian territories.
+
+[Sidenote: Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century.]
+
+But the most powerful monarchy, at this time, was probably that of
+France; and its capital was the finest city in Europe, and the resort
+of the learned and elegant from all parts of Christendom. All
+strangers extolled the splendor of the court, the wealth of the
+nobles, and the fame of the university. The power of the monarch was
+nearly absolute, and a considerable standing army, even then, was
+ready to obey his commands.
+
+Spain, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was ruled by
+Ferdinand and Isabella, who, by their marriage, had united the crowns
+of Castile and Arragon. The conquest of Granada and the discovery of
+America had added greatly to the political importance of Spain, and
+laid the foundation of its future greatness under Philip II.
+
+England, from its insular position, had not so much influence in
+European politics as the other powers to which allusion has been made,
+but it was, nevertheless, a flourishing and united kingdom.
+Henry VII., the founder of the house of Tudor, sat on the throne, and
+was successful in suppressing the power of the feudal nobility, and in
+increasing the royal authority. Kings, in the fifteenth century, were
+the best protectors of the people, and aided them in their struggles
+against their feudal oppressors. England, however, had made but little
+advance in commerce or manufactures, and the people were still rude
+and ignorant. The clergy, as in other countries, were the most
+intelligent and wealthy portion of the population, and, consequently,
+the most influential, although disgraced by many vices.
+
+Italy then, as now, was divided into many independent states, and
+distracted by civil and religious dissensions. The duchy of Milan was
+ruled by Ludovico Moro, son of the celebrated Francis Sforza. Naples,
+called a kingdom, had just been conquered by the French. Florence was
+under the sway of the Medici. Venice, whose commercial importance had
+begun to decline, was controlled by an oligarchy of nobles. The chair
+of St. Peter was filled by pope Alexander VI., a pontiff who has
+obtained an infamous immortality by the vices of debauchery, cruelty,
+and treachery. The papacy was probably in its most corrupt state, and
+those who had the control of its immense patronage, disregarded the
+loud call for reformation which was raised in every corner of
+Christendom. The popes were intent upon securing temporal as well as
+spiritual power, and levied oppressive taxes on both their spiritual
+and temporal subjects.
+
+The great northern kingdoms of Europe, which are now so
+considerable,--Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,--did not, at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, attract much attention. They were
+plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of science or
+religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The monarchs were
+sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, the clergy
+ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet insensible to
+their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom and no appreciation
+of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as Peter and Gustavus
+Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were these northern nations
+destined to be immediately benefited by the impulse which the
+reformation gave, with the exception of Sweden, then the most powerful
+of these kingdoms.
+
+The Greek empire became extinct when Constantinople was taken by the
+Turks, in 1453. On its ruins, the Ottoman power was raised. At the
+close of the fifteenth century, the Turkish arms were very powerful,
+and Europe again trembled before the Moslems. Greece and the whole of
+Western Asia were obedient to the sultan. But his power did not reach
+its culminating point until a century afterwards.
+
+Such were the various states of Europe when the Reformation broke out.
+Maximilian was emperor of Germany, and Charles V. had just inherited,
+from his father, Philip the Fair, who had married a daughter of
+Ferdinand and Isabella, the kingdom of Spain, in addition to the
+dominion of the Netherlands.
+
+By the death of Maximilian, in 1519, the youthful sovereign of Spain
+and the Netherlands came into possession of the Austrian dominions;
+and the electors, shortly after, chose him emperor of Germany.
+
+He was born at Ghent, A. D. 1500, and was educated with great care. He
+early displayed his love of government, and, at fifteen, was present
+at the deliberations of the cabinet. But he had no taste for learning,
+and gave but few marks of that genius which he afterwards evinced. He
+was much attached to his Flemish subjects, and, during the first year
+of his reign, gave great offence to the grandees of Spain and the
+nobles of Germany by his marked partiality for those men who had been
+his early companions.
+
+It is difficult to trace, in the career of Charles V., any powerful
+motives of conduct, separate from the desire of aggrandizement. The
+interests of the church, with which he was identified, and the true
+welfare of his subjects, were, at different times, sacrificed to his
+ambition. Had there been no powerful monarchs on the other thrones of
+Europe, his dreams of power might possibly have been realized. But at
+this period there happened to be a constellation of princes.
+
+[Sidenote: Wars between Charles and Francis.]
+
+The greatest of these, and the chief rival through life of Charles,
+was Francis I. of France. He had even anticipated an election to the
+imperial crown, which would have made him more powerful than even
+Charles himself. The electors feared both, and chose Frederic of
+Saxony; but he declined the dangerous post. Charles, as Archduke of
+Austria, had such great and obvious claims, that they could not be
+disregarded. He was therefore the fortunate candidate. But his
+election was a great disappointment to Francis, and he could not
+conceal his mortification. Peace could not long subsist between two
+envious and ambitious princes. Francis was nearly of the same age as
+Charles, had inherited nearly despotic power, was free from financial
+embarrassments, and ruled over an united and loyal people. He was
+therefore no contemptible match for Charles. In addition, he
+strengthened himself by alliances with the Swiss and Venetians.
+Charles sought the favor of the pope and Henry VIII. of England. The
+real causes of war were mutual jealousies, and passion for military
+glory. The assigned causes were, that Charles did not respect the
+claims of Francis as king of Naples; and, on the other hand, that
+Francis had seized the duchy of Milan, which was a fief of the empire,
+and also retained the duchy of Burgundy, the patrimonial inheritance
+of the emperor.
+
+The political history of Europe, for nearly half a century, is a
+record of the wars between these powerful princes, of their mutual
+disasters, disappointments, and successes. Other contests were
+involved in these, and there were also some which arose from causes
+independent of mutual jealousy, such as the revolt of the Spanish
+grandees, of the peasants in Germany, and of the invasion of the
+empire by the Turks. During the reign of Charles, was also the
+division of the princes of Germany, on grounds of religion--the
+foundation of the contest which, after the death of Charles, convulsed
+Germany for thirty years. But the Thirty Years' War was a religious
+war--was one of the political consequences of the Reformation. The
+wars between Charles and Francis were purely wars of military
+ambition. Charles had greater territories and larger armies; but
+Francis had more money, and more absolute control over his forces.
+Charles's power was checked in Spain by the free spirit of the Cortes,
+and in Germany by the independence of the princes, and by the
+embarrassing questions which arose out of the Reformation.
+
+It would be tedious to read the various wars between Charles and his
+rival. Each of them gained, at different times, great successes, and
+each experienced, in turn, the most humiliating reverses. Francis was
+even taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and confined in a
+fortress at Madrid, until he promised to the victors the complete
+dismemberment of France--an extorted promise he never meant to keep.
+No sooner had he recovered his liberty, than he violated all his
+oaths, and Europe was again the scene of fresh hostilities. The
+passion of revenge was now added to that of ambition, and, as the pope
+had favored the cause of Francis, the generals of Charles invaded
+Italy. Rome was taken and sacked by the constable Bourbon, a French
+noble whom Francis had slighted, and cruelties and outrages were
+perpetrated by the imperial forces which never disgraced Alaric or
+Attila.
+
+Charles affected to be filled with grief in view of the victories of
+his generals, and pretended that they acted without his orders. He
+employed every artifice to deceive indignant Christendom, and
+appointed prayers and processions throughout Spain for the recovery of
+the pope's liberty, which one stroke of his pen could have secured.
+Thus it was, that the most Catholic and bigoted prince in Europe
+seized the pope's person, and sacked his city, at the very time when
+Luther was prosecuting his reform. And this fact shows how much more
+powerfully the emperor was influenced by political, than by religious
+considerations. It also shows the providence of God in permitting the
+only men, who could have arrested the reformation, to spend their
+strength in battling each other, rather than the heresy which they
+deplored. Had Charles been less powerful and ambitious, he probably
+would have contented himself in punishing heretics, and in uniting
+with his natural ally, the pope, in suppressing every insurrection
+which had for its object the rights of conscience and the enjoyment of
+popular liberty.
+
+The war was continued for two years longer between Francis and
+Charles, with great acrimony, but with various success, both parties
+being, at one time, strengthened by alliances, and then again weakened
+by desertions. At last, both parties were exhausted, and were willing
+to accede to terms which they had previously rejected with disdain.
+Francis was the most weakened and disheartened, but Charles was the
+most perplexed. The troubles growing out of the Reformation demanded
+his attention, and the Turks, at this period a powerful nation, were
+about invading Austria. The Spaniards murmured at the unusual length
+of the war, and money was with difficulty obtained.
+
+Hence the peace of Cambray, August 5, 1529; which was very
+advantageous to Charles, in consequence of the impulsive character of
+Francis, and his impatience to recover his children, whom he had
+surrendered to Charles in order to recover his liberty. He agreed to
+pay two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons, and renounce
+his pretensions in the Low Countries and Italy. He, moreover, lost
+reputation, and the confidence of Europe, by the abandonment of his
+allies. Charles remained the arbiter of Italy, and was attentive to
+the interests of all who adhered to him. With less _chivalry_ than his
+rival, he had infinitely more _honor_. Cold, sagacious, selfish, and
+ambitious, he was, however, just, and kept his word. He combined
+qualities we often see in selfish men--a sort of legal and technical
+regard to the letter of the law, with the constant violation of its
+spirit. A Shylock might not enter a false charge upon his books, while
+he would adhere to a most extortionate bargain.
+
+Charles, after the treaty of Cambray was signed, visited Italy with
+all the pomp of a conqueror. At Genoa, he honored Doria with many
+marks of distinction, and bestowed upon the republic new privileges.
+He settled all his difficulties with Milan, Venice, and Florence, and
+reëstablished the authority of the Medici. He was then crowned by the
+pope, whom he had trampled on, as King of Lombardy and Emperor of the
+Romans, and hastened into Germany, which imperatively required his
+presence, both on account of dissensions among the princes, which the
+reformation caused, and the invasion of Austria by three hundred
+thousand Turks. He resolved to recover the old prerogatives of the
+emperor of Germany, and crush those opinions which were undermining
+his authority, as well as the power of Rome, with which his own was
+identified.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Spires.]
+
+A Diet of the empire was accordingly summoned at Spires, in order to
+take into consideration the state of religion, the main cause of all
+the disturbances in Germany. It met on the 15th of March, 1529, and
+the greatest address was required to prevent a civil war. All that
+Charles could obtain from the assembled princes was, the promise to
+prevent any further innovations. A decree to that effect was passed,
+against which, however, the followers of Luther protested, the most
+powerful of whom were the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of
+Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Lunenburg, the Prince
+of Anhalt, and the deputies of fourteen imperial cities. This protest
+gave to them the name of _Protestants_--a name ever since retained.
+Soon after, the diet assembled at Augsburg, when the articles of faith
+among the Protestants were read,--known as the Confession of
+Augsburg,--which, however, the emperor opposed. In consequence of his
+decree, the Protestant princes entered into a league at Smalcalde,
+(December 22, 1530,) to support one another, and defend their
+religion. Circumstances continually occurred to convince Charles, that
+the extirpation of heresy by the sword was impossible in Germany, and
+moreover, he saw it was for his interest--to which his eye was
+peculiarly open--to unite all the German provinces in a vigorous
+confederation. Accordingly after many difficulties, and with great
+reluctance, terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremburg,
+(1531,) and ratified in the diet at Ratisbon, shortly after, by which
+it was agreed that no person should be molested in his religion, and
+that the Protestants, on their part, should assist the emperor in
+resisting the invasion of the Turks. The Germans, with their customary
+good faith, furnished all the assistance they promised, and one of the
+best armies ever raised in Germany, amounting to ninety thousand foot,
+and thirty thousand horse, took the field, commanded by the emperor in
+person. But the campaign ended without any memorable event, both
+parties having erred from excessive caution.
+
+[Sidenote: Hostilities between Charles and Francis.]
+
+Francis soon availed himself of the difficulties and dangers of his
+rival, formed an alliance with the Turks, put forth his old claims,
+courted the favor of the German Protestants, and renewed hostilities.
+He marched towards Italy, and took possession of the dominions of the
+duke of Savoy, whom the emperor, at this juncture, was unable to
+assist, on account of his African expedition against the pirate
+Barbarossa. This noted corsair had built up a great power in Tunis and
+Algiers, and committed shameful ravages on all Christian nations.
+Charles landed in Africa with thirty thousand men, took the fortress
+of Goletta, defeated the pirate's army, captured his capital, and
+restored the exiled Moorish king to his throne. In the midst of these
+victories Francis invaded Savoy. Charles was terribly indignant, and
+loaded his rival with such violent invectives that Francis challenged
+him to single combat. The challenge was accepted, but the duel was
+never fought. Charles, in his turn, invaded France, with a large army,
+for that age--forty thousand foot and ten thousand horse; but the
+expedition was unfortunate. Francis acted on the defensive with
+admirable skill, and was fortunate in his general Montmorency, who
+seemed possessed with the spirit of a Fabius. The emperor, at last,
+was compelled to return ingloriously, having lost half of his army
+without having gained a single important advantage. The joy of
+Francis, however, was embittered by the death of the dauphin,
+attributed by some to the infamous Catharine de Medicis, wife of the
+Duke of Orleans, in order to secure the crown to her husband. War did
+not end with the retreat of Charles, but was continued, with great
+personal animosity, until mutual exhaustion led to a truce for ten
+years, concluded at Nice, in 1538. Both parties had exerted their
+utmost strength, and neither had obtained any signal advantage.
+Notwithstanding their open and secret enmity, they had an interview
+shortly after the truce, in which both vied with each other in
+expressions of esteem and friendship, and in the exhibition of
+chivalrous courtesies--a miserable mockery, as shown by the violation
+of the terms of the truce, and the renewal of hostilities in 1541.
+
+[Sidenote: African Wars.]
+
+These were, doubtless, facilitated by Charles's unfortunate expedition
+against Algiers in 1541, by which he gained nothing but disgrace. His
+army was wasted by famine and disease, and a tempest destroyed his
+fleet. All the complicated miseries which war produces were endured by
+his unfortunate troops, but a small portion of whom ever returned.
+Francis, taking advantage of these misfortunes, made immense military
+preparations, formed a league with the Sultan Solyman, and brought
+five armies into the field. He assumed the offensive, and invaded the
+Netherlands, but obtained no laurels. Charles formed a league with
+Henry VIII., and the war raged, with various success, without either
+party obtaining any signal advantage, for three years, when a peace
+was concluded at Crespy, in 1544. Charles, being in the heart of
+France with an invading army, had the apparent advantage but the
+difficulty of retreating out of France in case of disaster, and the
+troubles in Germany, forced him to suspend his military operations.
+The pope, also, was offended because he had conceded so much to the
+Protestants, and the Turks pressed him on the side of Hungary.
+Moreover, he was afflicted with the gout, which indisposed him for
+complicated enterprises. In view of these things, he made peace with
+Francis, formed a strong alliance with the pope, and resolved to
+extirpate the Protestant religion, which was the cause of so many
+insurrections in Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: Council of Trent.]
+
+In the mean time, the pope resolved to assemble the famous Council of
+Trent, the legality of which the Protestants denied. It met in
+December, 1545, and was the last general council which the popes ever
+assembled. It met with a view of healing the dissensions of the
+church, and confirming the authority of the pope. The princes of
+Europe hoped that important reforms would have been made; but nothing
+of consequence was done, and the attention of the divines was directed
+to dogmas rather than morals. The great number of Italian bishops
+enabled the pope to have every thing his own way, in spite of the
+remonstrance of the German, Spanish, and French prelates, and the
+ambassadors of the different monarchs, who also had seats in the
+council. The decrees of this council, respecting articles of faith,
+are considered as a final authority by the Roman church. It denounced
+the reform of Luther, and confirmed the various ecclesiastical
+usurpations which had rendered the reformation necessary. It lasted
+twenty-two years, at different intervals, during the pontificate of
+five popes. The Jesuits, just rising into notice, had considerable
+influence in the council, in consequence of the learning and ability
+of their representatives, and especially of Laynez, the general of the
+order. The Dominicans and Franciscans manifested their accustomed
+animosities and rivalries, and questions were continually proposed and
+agitated, which divided the assembly. The French bishops, headed by
+the Cardinal of Lorraine, were opposed to the high pretensions of the
+Italians, especially of Cardinal Morone, the papal legate; but, by
+artifice and management, the more strenuous adherents of the pope
+attained their ends.
+
+About the time the council assembled, died three distinguished
+persons--Henry VIII. of England, Francis I., and Luther. Charles V.
+was freed from his great rival, and from the only private person in
+his dominions he had reason to fear. He now, in good earnest, turned
+his attention to the internal state of his empire, and resolved to
+crush the Reformation, and, by force, if it were necessary. He
+commenced by endeavoring to amuse and deceive the Protestants, and
+evinced that profound dissimulation, which was one of his
+characteristics. He formed a strict alliance with the pope, made a
+truce with Solyman, and won over to his side Maurice and other German
+princes. His military preparations and his intrigues alarmed the
+Protestants, and they prepared themselves for resistance. Religious
+zeal seconded their military ardor. One of the largest armies, which
+had been raised in Europe for a century, took the field, and Charles,
+shut up in Ratisbon, was in no condition to fight. Unfortunately for
+the Protestants, they negotiated instead of acting. The emperor was in
+their power, but he was one of those few persons who remained haughty
+and inflexible in the midst of calamities. He pronounced the ban of
+the empire against the Protestant princes, who were no match for a man
+who had spent his life in the field: they acted without concert, and
+committed many errors. Their forces decreased, while those of the
+emperor increased by large additions from Italy and Flanders. Instead
+of decisive action, the Protestants dallied and procrastinated,
+unwilling to make peace, and unwilling to face their sovereign. Their
+army melted away, and nothing of importance was effected.
+
+[Sidenote: Treachery of Maurice.]
+
+Maurice, cousin to the Elector of Saxony, with a baseness to which
+history scarcely affords a parallel, deserted his allies, and joined
+the emperor, purely from ambitious motives, and invaded the
+territories of his kinsman with twelve thousand men. The confederates
+made overtures of peace, which being rejected, they separated, and
+most of them submitted to the emperor. He treated them with
+haughtiness and rigor, imposed on them most humiliating terms, forced
+them to renounce the league of Smalcalde, to give up their military
+stores, to admit garrisons into their cities, and to pay large
+contributions in money.
+
+The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, however held out;
+and such was the condition of the emperor, that he could not
+immediately attack them. But the death of Francis gave him leisure to
+invade Saxony, and the elector was defeated at the battle of
+Muhlhausen, (1547,) and taken prisoner. The captive prince approached
+the victor without sullenness or pride. "The fortune of war," said he,
+"has made me your prisoner, most gracious emperor, and I hope to be
+treated ----" Here Charles interrupted him--"And am I, at last,
+acknowledged to be emperor? Charles of Ghent was the only title you
+lately allowed me. You shall be treated as you deserve." At these
+words he turned his back upon him with a haughty air.
+
+[Sidenote: Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse.]
+
+The unfortunate prince was closely guarded by Spanish soldiers, and
+brought to a trial before a court martial, at which presided the
+infamous Duke of Alva, afterwards celebrated for his cruelties in
+Holland. He was convicted of treason and rebellion, and sentenced to
+death--a sentence which no court martial had a right to inflict on the
+first prince of the empire. He was treated with ignominious harshness,
+which he bore with great magnanimity, but finally made a treaty with
+the emperor, by which, for the preservation of his life, he
+relinquished his kingdom to Maurice.
+
+The landgrave was not strong enough to resist the power of Charles,
+after all his enemies were subdued, and he made his submission, though
+Charles extorted the most rigorous conditions, he being required to
+surrender his person, abandon the league of Smalcalde, implore pardon
+on his knees, demolish his fortifications, and pay an enormous fine.
+In short, it was an unconditional submission. Beside infinite
+mortifications, he was detained a prisoner, which, on Charles's part,
+was but injury added to insult--an act of fraud and injustice which
+inspired the prince, and the Protestants, generally, with unbounded
+indignation. The Elector of Brandenburg and Maurice in vain solicited
+for his liberty, and showed the infamy to which he would be exposed if
+he detained the landgrave a prisoner. But the emperor listened to
+their remonstrances with the most provoking coolness, and showed very
+plainly that he was resolved to crush all rebellion, suppress
+Protestantism, and raise up an absolute throne in Germany, to the
+subversion of its ancient constitution.
+
+To all appearances, his triumph was complete. His great rival was
+dead; his enemies were subdued and humiliated; Luther's voice was
+hushed; and immense contributions filled the imperial treasury. He now
+began to realize the dreams of his life. He was unquestionably, at
+that time, the most absolute and powerful prince Europe has ever seen
+since Charlemagne, with the exception of Napoleon.
+
+But what an impressive moral does the history of human greatness
+convey! The hour of triumph is often but the harbinger of defeat and
+shame. "Pride goeth before destruction." Charles V., with all his
+policy and experience, overreached himself. The failure of his
+ambitious projects and the restoration of Protestantism, were brought
+about by instruments the least anticipated.
+
+[Sidenote: Heroism of Maurice..]
+
+[Sidenote: Misfortunes of Charles..]
+
+The cause of Protestantism and the liberties of Germany were
+endangered by the treachery of Maurice, who received, as his reward,
+the great electorate of Saxony. He had climbed to the summit of glory
+and power. Who would suppose that this traitor prince would desert the
+emperor, who had so splendidly rewarded his services, and return to
+the rescue of those princes whom he had so basely betrayed? But who
+can thread the labyrinth of an intriguing and selfish heart? Who can
+calculate the movements of an unprincipled and restless politician?
+Maurice, at length, awoke to the perception of the real condition of
+his country. He saw its liberties being overturned by the most
+ambitious man whom ten centuries had produced. He saw the cause, which
+his convictions told him was the true one, in danger of being wrecked.
+He was, moreover, wounded by the pride, coldness, and undisguised
+selfishness of the emperor. He was indignant that the landgrave, his
+father-in-law, should be retained a prisoner, against all the laws of
+honor and of justice. He resolved to come to the rescue of his
+country. He formed his plans with the greatest coolness, and exercised
+a power of dissimulation that has no parallel in history. But his
+address was even greater than his hypocrisy. He gained the confidence
+of the Protestants, without losing that of the emperor. He even
+obtained the command of an army which Charles sent to reduce the
+rebellious city of Magdeburg, and, while he was besieging the city, he
+was negotiating with the generals who defended it for a general union
+against the emperor. Magdeburg surrendered in 1551. Its chieftains
+were secretly assured that the terms of capitulation should not be
+observed. His next point was, to keep the army together until his
+schemes were ripened, and then to arrest the emperor, whose thoughts
+now centred on the council of Trent. So he proposed sending Protestant
+divines to the council, but delayed their departure by endless
+negotiations about the terms of a safe conduct. He, moreover, formed a
+secret treaty with Henry II., the successor of Francis, whose
+animosity against Charles was as intense as was that of his father.
+When his preparations were completed, he joined his army in Thuringia,
+and took the field against the emperor, who had no suspicion of his
+designs, and who blindly trusted to him, deeming it impossible that a
+man, whom he had so honored and rewarded, could turn against him.
+March 18, 1552, Maurice published his manifesto, justifying his
+conduct; and his reasons were, to secure the Protestant religion, to
+maintain the constitution of the empire, and deliver the Landgrave of
+Hesse from bondage. He was powerfully supported by the French king,
+and, with a rapidly increasing army, marched towards Innspruck, where
+the emperor was quartered. The emperor was thunderstruck when he heard
+the tidings of his desertion, and was in no condition to resist him.
+He endeavored to gain time by negotiations, but these were without
+effect. Maurice, at the head of a large army, advanced rapidly into
+Upper Germany. Castles and cities surrendered as he advanced, and so
+rapid was his progress, that he came near taking the emperor captive.
+Charles was obliged to fly, in the middle of the night, and to travel
+on a litter by torchlight, amid the passes of the Alps. He scarcely
+left Innspruck before Maurice entered it--but too late to gain the
+prize he sought. The emperor rallied his armies, and a vigorous war
+was carried on between the contending parties, to the advantage of the
+Protestants. The emperor, after a while, was obliged to make peace
+with them, for his Spanish subjects were disgusted with the war, his
+funds were exhausted, his forces dispersed, and his territories
+threatened by the French. On the 2d of August, 1552, was concluded the
+peace of Passau, which secured the return of the landgrave to his
+dominions, the freedom of religion to the Protestants, and the
+preservation of the German constitution. The sanguine hopes of the
+emperor were dispelled, and all his ambitious schemes defeated, and he
+left to meditate, in the intervals of the pains which he suffered from
+the gout, on the instability of all greatness, and the vanity of human
+life. Maurice was now extolled as extravagantly as he had been before
+denounced, and his treachery justified, even by grave divines. But
+what is most singular in the whole affair, was, that the French king,
+while persecuting Protestants at home, should protect them abroad. But
+this conduct may confirm, in a signal manner, the great truth of
+history, that God regulates the caprice of human passions, and makes
+them subservient to the accomplishment of his own purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Passau.]
+
+The labors and perplexities of Charles V. were not diminished by the
+treaty of Passau. He continued his hostilities against the French and
+against the Turks. He was obliged to raise the siege of Metz, which
+was gallantly defended by the Duke of Guise. To his calamities in
+France, were added others in Italy. Sienna revolted against his
+government, and Naples was threatened by the Turks. The imperialists
+were unsuccessful in Italy and in Hungary, and the Archduke Ferdinand
+was obliged to abandon Transylvania. But war was carried on in the Low
+Countries with considerable vigor.
+
+Charles, whose only passion was the aggrandizement of his house, now
+projected a marriage of his son, Philip, with Mary, queen of England.
+The queen, dazzled by the prospect of marrying the heir of the
+greatest monarch in Europe, and eager to secure his powerful aid to
+reëstablish Catholicism in England, listened to his proposal, although
+it was disliked by the nation. In spite of the remonstrance of the
+house of commons, the marriage treaty was concluded, and the marriage
+celebrated, (1554.)
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Charles V.]
+
+Soon after, Charles formed the extraordinary resolution of resigning
+his dominions to his son, and of retiring to a quiet retreat.
+Diocletian is the only instance of a prince, capable of holding the
+reins of government, who had adopted a similar course. All Europe was
+astonished at the resolution of Charles, and all historians of the
+period have moralized on the event. But it ceases to be mysterious,
+when we remember that Charles was no nearer the accomplishment of the
+ends which animated his existence, than he was thirty years before;
+that he was disgusted and wearied with the world; that he suffered
+severely from the gout, which, at times, incapacitated him for the
+government of his extensive dominions. It was never his habit to
+intrust others with duties and labors which he could perform himself,
+and he felt that his empire needed a more powerful protector than his
+infirmities permitted him to be. He was grown prematurely old, he felt
+his declining health; longed for repose, and sought religious
+consolation. Of all his vast possessions, he only reserved an annual
+pension of one hundred thousand crowns; resigning Spain and the Low
+Countries into the hands of Philip, and the empire of Germany to his
+brother Ferdinand, who had already been elected as King of the Romans.
+He then set out for his retreat in Spain, which was the monastery of
+St. Justus, near Placentia, situated in a lovely vale, surrounded with
+lofty trees, watered by a small brook, and rendered attractive by the
+fertility of the soil, and the delightful temperature of the climate.
+Here he spent his last days in agricultural improvements and religious
+exercises, apparently regardless of that noisy world which he had
+deserted forever, and indifferent to those political storms which his
+restless ambition had raised. Here his grandeur and his worldly hopes
+were buried in preparing himself for the future world. He lived with
+great simplicity, for two years after his retreat, and died (1558,)
+from the effects of the gout, which, added to his great labors, had
+shattered his constitution. He was not what the world would call a
+great genius, like Napoleon; but he was a man of great sagacity,
+untiring industry, and respectable attainments. He was cautious, cold,
+and selfish; had but little faith in human virtue, and was a slave, in
+his latter days, to superstition. He was neither affable nor
+courteous, but was sincere in his attachments, and munificent in
+rewarding his generals and friends. He was not envious nor cruel, but
+inordinately ambitious, and intent on aggrandizing his family. This
+was his characteristic defect, and this, in a man so prominent and so
+favored by circumstances, was enough to keep Europe in a turmoil for
+nearly half a century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Robertson's History of Charles V. Ranke's
+     History of the Reformation. Kohlrausch's History of Germany.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The above-mentioned authors are
+     easily accessible, and are all that are necessary for the
+     student. Robertson's History is a classic, and an immortal
+     work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HENRY VIII.
+
+
+The history of Europe in the sixteenth century is peculiarly the
+history of the wars of kings, and of their efforts to establish
+themselves and their families on absolute thrones. The monotonous, and
+almost exclusive, record of royal pleasures and pursuits shows in how
+little consideration the people were held. They struggled, and toiled,
+and murmured as they do now. They probably had the same joys and
+sorrows as in our times. But, in these times, they have considerable
+influence on the government, the religion, the literature, and the
+social life of nations. In the sixteenth century, this influence was
+not so apparent; but power of all kinds seemed to emanate from kings
+and nobles; at least from wealthy and cultivated classes. When this is
+the case, when kings give a law to society, history is not
+unphilosophical which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Absolute Monarchy.]
+
+The rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is one of
+the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was
+every where a strong tendency to centralization. Provinces, before
+independent, were controlled by a central government. Standing armies
+took the place of feudal armies. Kings took away from nobles the right
+to coin money, administer justice, and impose taxes. The power of the
+crown became supreme and unlimited.
+
+But some monarchs were more independent than others, in proportion as
+the power of nobles was suppressed, or, as the cities sided with the
+central government, or, as provinces were connected and bound
+together. The power of Charles V. was somewhat limited, in Spain, by
+the free spirit of the Cortes, and, in Germany, by the independence of
+the princes of the empire. But, in France and England, the king was
+more absolute, although he did not rule over so great extent of
+territory as did the emperor of Germany; and this is one reason why
+Francis I. proved so strong an antagonist to his more powerful rival.
+
+The history of France, during the reign of this monarch, is also the
+history of Charles V., since they were both engaged in the same wars;
+which wars have already been alluded to. Both of these monarchs failed
+in the objects of their existence. If Charles did not realize his
+dream of universal empire, neither did Francis leave his kingdom, at
+his death, in a more prosperous state than he found it.
+
+Francis I. was succeeded by his son Henry II., a warlike prince, but
+destitute of prudence, and under the control of women. His policy,
+however, was substantially that of his father, and he continued
+hostilities against the emperor of Germany, till his resignation. He
+was a bitter persecutor of the Protestants, and the seeds of
+subsequent civil wars were sown by his zeal. He was removed from his
+throne prematurely, being killed at a tournament, in 1559, soon after
+the death of Charles V. Tournaments ceased with his death.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry VIII.]
+
+The reign of Henry VIII., the other great contemporary of Charles V.,
+merits a larger notice, not only because his reign was the
+commencement of a new era in England, but, also, because the affairs,
+which engaged his attention, are not much connected with continental
+history.
+
+He ascended the throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth year,
+without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation; for his
+manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, and his
+person was handsome. He had made respectable literary attainments, and
+he gave promise of considerable abilities. He was married, soon after
+his accession, to Catharine, daughter of the King of Spain, and the
+first years of his reign were happy, both to himself and to his
+subjects. He had a well-filled treasury, which his father had amassed
+with great care, a devoted people and an obedient parliament. All
+circumstances seemed to conspire to strengthen his power, and to make
+him the arbiter of Europe.
+
+But this state did not last long. The young king was resolved to make
+war on France, but was diverted from his aim by troubles in Scotland,
+growing out of his own rapacity--a trait which ever peculiarly
+distinguished him. These troubles resulted in a war with the Scots,
+who were defeated at the memorable battle of Flodden Field, which Sir
+Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has immortalized. The Scotch commanders,
+Lenox and Argyle, both perished, as well as the valiant King James
+himself. There is scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who had not an
+ancestor slain on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But the victory
+was dearly bought, and Surrey, the English general, afterwards Duke of
+Norfolk, was unable to pursue his advantages.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Cardinal Wolsey.]
+
+About this time, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey began to act a
+conspicuous part in English affairs. His father was a butcher of
+Ipswich; but was able to give his son a good education. He studied at
+Oxford, was soon distinguished for his attainments, and became tutor
+to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The marquis gave him the rich
+living of Limington; but the young parson, with his restless ambition,
+and love of excitement and pleasure, was soon wearied of a country
+life. He left his parish to become domestic chaplain to the treasurer
+of Calais. This post introduced him to Fox, bishop of Winchester, who
+shared with the Earl of Surrey the highest favors of royalty. The
+minister and diplomatist, finding in the young man learning, tact,
+vivacity, and talent for business, introduced him to the king, hoping
+that he would prove an agreeable companion for Henry, and a useful
+tool for himself. But those who are able to manage other people's
+business, generally are able to manage their own. The tool of Fox
+looked after his own interest chiefly. He supplanted his master in the
+loyal favor, and soon acquired more favor and influence at court than
+any of the ministers or favorites. Though twenty years older than
+Henry, he adapted himself to all his tastes, flattered his vanity and
+passions, and became his bosom friend. He gossiped with him about
+Thomas Aquinas, the Indies, and affairs of gallantry. He was a great
+refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and
+display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and
+drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the
+dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed
+craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master
+of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once
+gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York,
+papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and
+lord chancellor. He also obtained the administration and the
+temporalities of the rich abbey of St. Albans, and of the bishoprics
+of Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester. By these gifts, his revenues
+almost equalled those of the crown; and he squandered them in a style
+of unparalleled extravagance. He dressed in purple and gold, supported
+a train of eight hundred persons, and built Hampton Court. He was the
+channel through which the royal favors flowed. But he made a good
+chancellor, dispensed justice, repressed the power of the nobles,
+encouraged and rewarded literary men, and endowed colleges. He was the
+most magnificent and the most powerful subject that England has ever
+seen. Even nobles were proud to join his train of dependants. There
+was nothing sordid or vulgar, however, in all his ostentation. Henry
+took pleasure in his pomp, for it was a reflection of the greatness of
+his own majesty.
+
+[Sidenote: Magnificence of Henry VIII.]
+
+The first years of the reign of Henry VIII., after the battle of
+Flodden Field, were spent in pleasure, and in great public displays of
+magnificence, which charmed the people, and made him a popular idol.
+Among these, the interview of the king with Francis I. is the most
+noted, on the 4th of June, 1520; the most gorgeous pageant of the
+sixteenth century, designed by Wolsey, who had a genius for such
+things. The monarchs met in a beautiful valley, where jousts and
+tournaments were held, and where was exhibited all the magnificence
+which the united resources of France and England could command. The
+interview was sought by Francis to win, through Wolsey, the favor of
+the king, and to counterbalance the advantages which it was supposed
+Charles V. had gained on a previous visit to the king at Dover.
+
+The getting up of the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" created some
+murmurs among the English nobility, many of whom were injured by the
+expensive tastes of Wolsey. Among these was the Duke of Buckingham,
+hereditary high constable of England, and connected with the royal
+house of the Plantagenets. Henry, from motives of jealousy, both on
+account of his birth and fortune, had long singled him out as his
+victim. He was, also, obnoxious to Wolsey, since he would not flatter
+his pride, and he had, moreover, insulted him. It is very easy for a
+king to find a pretence for committing a crime; and Buckingham was
+arrested, tried, and executed, for making traitorous prophecies. His
+real crime was in being more powerful than it suited the policy of the
+king. With the death of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521,
+commenced the bloody cruelty of Henry VIII.
+
+Soon after the death of Buckingham, the king made himself notorious
+for his theological writings against Luther, whose doctrines he
+detested. He ever had a taste for theological disputation, and a love
+of the schoolmen. His tracts against Luther, very respectable for
+talent and learning, though disgraced by coarse and vulgar
+vituperation, secured for him the favor of the pope, who bestowed upon
+him the title of "Defender of the Faith;" and a strong alliance
+existed between them until the divorce of Queen Catharine.
+
+The difficulties and delays, attending this act of cruelty and
+injustice, constitute no small part of the domestic history of England
+during the reign of Henry VIII. Any event, which furnishes subjects of
+universal gossip and discussion, is ever worthy of historical notice,
+inasmuch as it shows prevailing opinions and tastes.
+
+Queen Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain, was eight years
+older than her husband, whom she married in the first year of his
+reign. She had been previously married to his brother Arthur, who died
+of the plague in 1502. For several years after her marriage with
+Henry VIII., her domestic happiness was a subject of remark; and the
+emperor, Charles V., congratulated her on her brilliant fortune. She
+was beautiful, sincere, accomplished; religious, and disinterested,
+and every way calculated to secure, as she had won, the king's
+affections.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn.]
+
+But among her maids of honor there was one peculiarly accomplished and
+fascinating, to whom the king transferred his affections with unwonted
+vehemence. This was Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who,
+from his great wealth, married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the first
+duke of Norfolk. This noble alliance brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into
+close connection with royalty, and led to the appointment of his
+daughter to the high post which she held at the court of Queen
+Catharine. It is probable that the king suppressed his passion for
+some time; and it would have been longer concealed, even from its
+object, had not his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy,
+son of the Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his
+passion; but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or too
+politic, or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It was
+only _as queen of England_, that she would return the passion of her
+royal lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the all-powerful
+cardinal, for assisting in her separation from Percy, whom she loved
+with romantic attachment. The king waited four years, but Anne
+remained inflexibly virtuous. He then meditated the divorce from
+Catharine, as the only way to accomplish the object which now seemed
+to animate his existence. He confided the matter to his favorite
+minister; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the disclosure, and remained
+with him four hours on his knees, to dissuade him from a step which
+he justly regarded as madness. Here Wolsey appears as an honest man
+and a true friend; but royal infatuation knows neither wisdom,
+justice, nor humanity. Wolsey, as a man of the world, here made a
+blunder, and departed from the policy he had hitherto pursued--that of
+flattering the humors of his absolute master. Wolsey, however,
+recommended the king to consult the divines; for Henry pretended that,
+after nearly twenty years of married life, he had conscientious
+scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage. The learned English
+doctors were afraid to pronounce their opinions, and suggested a
+reference to the fathers. But the king was not content with their
+authority; he appealed to the pope, and to the decisions of half of
+the universities of Europe. It seems very singular that a sovereign so
+unprincipled, unscrupulous, and passionate, and yet so absolute and
+powerful as was Henry, should have wasted his time and money in
+seeking countenance to an act on which he was fully determined, and
+which countenance he never could reasonably hope to secure. But his
+character was made up of contradictions. His caprice, violence, and
+want of good faith, were strangely blended with superstition and
+reverence for the authority of the church. His temper urged him to the
+most rigorous measure of injustice; and his injustice produced no
+shame, although he was restrained somewhat by the opinions of the very
+men whom he did not hesitate to murder.
+
+[Sidenote: Queen Catharine.]
+
+Queen Catharine, besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, was
+powerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudiation,
+therefore, could not take place without offending the very persons
+whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate especially the
+Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and all the high
+dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even Wolsey could not in
+honor favor the divorce, although it was his policy to do so. In
+consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal and offence so
+outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must necessarily produce
+throughout the civilized world, Henry long delayed to bring the matter
+to a crisis, being afraid of a war with Charles V., and of the
+anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he hoped to gain him over, for the
+pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio to London, to hold, with his legate
+Wolsey, a court to hear the case. But it was the farthest from his
+intention to grant the divorce, for the pope was more afraid of
+Charles V. than he was of Henry VIII.
+
+[Sidenote: Disgrace and Death of Wolsey.]
+
+The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards
+Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The
+accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of
+royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in
+England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost
+his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and
+his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a
+single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious,
+most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken
+heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my
+God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given
+me over in my gray hairs"--these were the words of the dying cardinal;
+his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human life. But the
+vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or regret to escape him,
+when he heard of the death of his prime minister, and his intimate
+friend for twenty years.
+
+[Sidenote: More--Cranmer--Cromwell.]
+
+Shortly after the disgrace of Wolsey, which happened nearly a year
+before his death, (1529,) three remarkable men began to figure in
+English politics and history. These were Sir Thomas More, Thomas
+Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most
+learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but
+very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral
+elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of
+the great men of his country furnish no superior. His extensive
+erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official station
+which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always the intimate
+friend of the king, and his conversation, so enlivened by wit, and so
+rich and varied in matter, caused his society to be universally
+sought. He discharged his duties with singular conscientiousness and
+ability; and no one ever had cause to complain that justice was not
+rendered him.
+
+Cranmer's elevation was owing to a fortunate circumstance,
+notwithstanding his exalted merit. He happened to say, while tutor to
+a gentleman of the name of Cressy, in the hearing of Dr. Gardiner,
+then secretary to Henry, that the proper way to settle the difficulty
+about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who would settle the
+matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without reference to the
+pope. This remark was reported to the king, and Cranmer was sent to
+reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and was employed in writing a
+treatise to support his opinion. His ability led to further honors,
+until, on the death of Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, he was
+appointed to the vacant see, the first office in dignity and
+importance in the kingdom, and from which no king, however absolute,
+could eject him, except by the loss of life. We shall see that, in all
+matters of religion, Cranmer was the ruling spirit in England until
+the accession of Mary.
+
+Cromwell's origin was even more obscure than that of Wolsey's; but he
+received his education at one of the universities. We first hear of
+him as a clerk in an English factory at Antwerp, then as a soldier in
+the army of the Constable Bourbon when it sacked Rome, then as a clerk
+in a mercantile house in Venice, and then again as a lawyer in
+England, where he attracted the attention of Wolsey, who made him his
+solicitor, and employed him in the dissolution of monasteries. He then
+became a member of the house of commons, where his address and
+business talents were conspicuous. He was well received at court, and
+confirmed in the stewardship of the monasteries, after the disgrace of
+his master. His office brought him often into personal conference with
+the king; and, at one of these, he recommended him to deny the
+authority of the pope altogether, and declare himself supreme head of
+the church. The boldness of this advice was congenial to the temper of
+the king, worried by the opposition of Rome to his intended divorce,
+and Cromwell became a member of the privy council. His fortune was
+thus made by his seasonable advice. All who opposed the king were sure
+to fall, and all who favored him were sure to rise, as must ever be
+the case in an absolute monarchy, where the king is the centre and the
+fountain of all honor and dignity.
+
+With such ministers as Cranmer and Cromwell, the measures of Henry
+were now prompt and bold. Queen Catharine was soon disposed of; she
+was divorced and disgraced, and Anne Boleyn was elevated to her
+throne, (1533.) The anathemas of the pope and the outcry of all Europe
+followed. Sir Thomas More resigned the seals, and retired to poverty
+and solitude. But he was not permitted to enjoy his retirement long.
+Refusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henry, as head of the church
+as well as of the state, he was executed, with other illustrious
+Catholics. The execution of More was the most cruel and uncalled-for
+act of the whole reign, and entailed on its author the execrations of
+all the learned and virtuous men in Europe, most of whom appreciated
+the transcendent excellences of the murdered chancellor, the author of
+the Utopia, and the Boethius of his age.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Pope.]
+
+The fulminations of the pope only excited Henry to more decided
+opposition. The parliament, controlled by Cromwell, acknowledged him
+as the supreme head of the Church of England, and the separation from
+Rome was final and irrevocable. The tenths were annexed to the crown,
+and the bishops took a new oath of supremacy.
+
+The independence of the Church of England, effected in 1535, was
+followed by important consequences, and was the first step to the
+reformation, afterwards perfected by Edward VI. But as the first acts
+of the reformation were prompted by political considerations, the
+reformers in England, during the reign of Henry VIII., should be
+considered chiefly in a political point of view. The separation from
+Rome, during the reign of this prince, was not followed by the
+abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, nor any of the rites and
+ceremonies of that church. Nor was religious toleration secured. Every
+thing was subservient to the royal conscience, and a secular, instead
+of an ecclesiastical pope, still reigned in England.
+
+[Sidenote: Abolition of Monasteries.]
+
+Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English Church,
+imposed new duties and cares: he therefore established a separate
+department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over which he
+placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell--a fit minister to
+such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, and who looked solely
+to the pecuniary interests of his master, was thus placed over the
+highest prelates of the church. But Cromwell, in consulting the
+pecuniary interests of the king, also had an eye to the political
+interests of the kingdom. He was a sagacious and practical man of the
+world, and was disgusted with the vices of the clergy, and especially
+with the custom of sending money to Rome, in the shape of annates and
+taxes. This evil he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the
+country, for the popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He
+then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic
+institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell
+hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a
+great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they
+were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads,
+taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them.
+Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on
+religious grounds, and readily coöperated with Cromwell; while the
+king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no bounds, listened, with
+glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two favorite ministers. The
+nation was suddenly astounded with the intelligence that parliament
+had passed a bill, giving to the king and his heirs all the monastic
+establishments in the kingdom, which did not exceed two hundred pounds
+a year. Three hundred and eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king
+was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred
+thousand pounds ready money--an immense sum in that age. By this
+spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceedingly unjust and harsh, and
+in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced to
+beggary and misery, while there was scarcely an eminent man in the
+kingdom who did not come in for a share of the plunder. Vast grants of
+lands were bestowed by the king on his favorites and courtiers, in
+order to appease the nation; and thus the foundations of many of the
+great estates of the English nobility were laid. The spoliations,
+however, led to many serious riots and insurrections, especially in
+Lincolnshire. At one place there were forty thousand rebels under
+arms; but they were easily suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression of Monasteries.]
+
+The rapacious king was not satisfied with the plunder he had secured,
+and, in 1539, the final suppression of all the monasteries in England
+was decreed. Then followed the seizure of all the church property in
+England connected with monasteries--shrines, relics, gold and silver
+vessels of immense value and rarity, lands, and churches. Canterbury,
+Bath, Merton, Stratford, Bury St. Edmonds, Glastonbury, and St.
+Albans, suffered most, and many of those beautiful monuments of Gothic
+architecture were levelled with the dust. Their destruction deprived
+the people of many physical accommodations, for they had been
+hospitals and caravansaries, as well as "cages of unclean birds."
+Neither the church nor the universities profited much from the
+confiscation of so much property, and only six new bishoprics were
+formed, and only fourteen abbeys were converted into cathedrals and
+collegiate churches. The king and the nobles were the only gainers by
+the spoil; the people obtained no advantage in that age, although they
+have in succeeding ages.
+
+After renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing the
+monasteries, where were collected the treasures of the middle ages,
+one would naturally suppose that the king would have gone farther, and
+changed the religion of his people. But Henry hated Luther and his
+doctrines, and did not hate the pope, or the religion of which he was
+the sovereign pontiff. He loved gold and new wives better than the
+interests of the Catholic church. Reform proceeded no farther in his
+reign; while, on the other hand, he caused a decree to pass both
+houses of his timid, complying parliament, by which the doctrines of
+transubstantiation, the communion of one kind, the celibacy of the
+clergy, masses, and auricular confession, were established; and any
+departure from, or denial of, these subjected the offender to the
+punishment of death.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Anne Boleyn.]
+
+But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of
+monasteries--the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife,
+Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the
+very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the
+gratification of all worldly wishes. She had been very vain, and fond
+of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life were
+marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform doctrines. But
+her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen. She could win,
+but she could not retain, the affections of her royal husband. His
+passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of
+Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor,
+attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now
+became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by the
+divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity and
+freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against her,
+because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step between
+the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was
+committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without
+evidence, and executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had
+honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have
+believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he
+served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman
+who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the
+Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was
+past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom
+of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry VIII.
+
+The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for whose
+sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, and had
+kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, "the fairest,
+discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as the historians
+say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the affections of Henry
+and receive his addresses, while his queen was devoted to her husband.
+But Anne Boleyn had done so before her, and suffered a natural
+retribution.
+
+Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, and died
+two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was
+one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She
+indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful
+predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence
+or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy of preservation.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne of Cleves--Catharine Howard.]
+
+She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round for
+another wife, and besought Francis I. to send the most beautiful
+ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect them, and
+select one according to his taste. But this Oriental notion was not
+indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and
+Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses
+of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this
+royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was
+affianced to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on
+the banks of the Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf.
+
+The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed and
+disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, calling her
+a "great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consummated his marriage,
+although his disgust constantly increased. This mistake of Cromwell
+was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The king vented on him all the
+displeasure which had been gathering in his embittered soul.
+Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had offended an absolute monarch. He
+was accused of heresy and treason,--the common accusations in that age
+against men devoted to destruction,--tried by a servile board of
+judges, condemned, and judicially murdered, in 1540. In his
+misfortunes, he showed no more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere
+of a court is fatal to all moral elevation.
+
+But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and worthy
+woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, granddaughter of the victor
+of Flodden Field, became queen of England. The king now fancied that
+his domestic felicity was complete; but, soon after his marriage, it
+was discovered that his wife had formerly led a dissolute life, and
+had been unfaithful also to her royal master. When the proofs of her
+incontinence were presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears;
+but soon his natural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated
+her crime by death on the scaffold, in 1542.
+
+Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord
+Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. She
+favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep her opinions
+from the king, who would have executed her, had he suspected her real
+views. She survived her husband, who died four years after her
+marriage, in 1547.
+
+[Sidenote: Last Days of Henry.]
+
+The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry
+were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were
+deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He
+was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He
+added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for
+their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had
+left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey
+lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he
+was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the
+most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of
+pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and
+his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most
+inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was
+dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was
+impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into
+fits of madness and frenzy.
+
+In his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of
+the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given
+offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales,
+and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died
+before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the
+good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several
+thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his
+disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and
+the glory of their country.
+
+Tyrannical as was Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. He did
+not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament
+authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent
+measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the
+parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as
+did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for
+resistance, and the king had every thing after his own way.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Henry VIII.]
+
+By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his temper
+was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. The moroseness
+he exhibited in his latter days was partly the effect of physical
+disease, brought about, indeed, by intemperance and gluttony. He was
+faithful to his wives, so long as he lived with them; and, while he
+doted on them, listened to their advice. But few of his advisers dared
+tell him the truth; and Cranmer himself can never be exculpated from
+flattering his perverted conscience. No one had the courage to tell
+him he was dying but one of the nobles of the court. He died, in great
+agony, June, 1547, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, and the
+fifty-sixth of his age, and was buried, with great pomp, in St. George
+Chapel, Windsor Castle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The best English histories of the reign of
+     Henry VIII. are the standard ones of Hume and Lingard. The
+     Pictorial History, in spite of its pictures, is also
+     excellent. Burnet should be consulted in reference to
+     ecclesiastical matters, and Hallam, in reference to the
+     constitution. See also the lives of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More,
+     and Cranmer. The lives of Henry's queens have been best
+     narrated by Agnes Strickland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EDWARD VI. AND MARY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: War with Scotland.]
+
+Henry VIII. was succeeded by his son, Edward VI., a boy of nine years
+of age, learned, pious, and precocious. Still he was a boy; and, as
+such, was a king but in name. The history of his reign is the history
+of the acts of his ministers.
+
+The late king left a will, appointing sixteen persons, mostly members
+of his council, to be guardians of his son, and rulers of the nation
+during his minority. The Earl of Hertford, being uncle of the king,
+was unanimously named protector.
+
+The first thing the council did was to look after themselves, that is,
+to give themselves titles and revenues. Hertford became Duke of
+Somerset; Essex, Marquis of Northampton; Lisle, Earl of Warwick; the
+Chancellor Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. At the head of these
+nobles was Somerset. He was a Protestant, and therefore prosecuted
+those reforms which Cranmer had before projected. Cranmer, as member
+of the council, archbishop of Canterbury, and friend of Somerset, had
+ample scope to prosecute his measures.
+
+The history of this reign is not important in a political point of
+view, and relates chiefly to the completion of the reformation, and to
+the squabbles and jealousies of the great lords who formed the council
+of regency.
+
+The most important event, of a political character, was a war with
+Scotland, growing out of the attempts of the late king to unite both
+nations under one government. In consequence, Scotland was invaded by
+the Duke of Somerset, at the head of eighteen thousand men. A great
+battle was fought, in which ten thousand of the Scots were slain. But
+the protector was compelled to return to England, without following up
+the fruits of victory, in consequence of cabals at court. His brother,
+Lord Seymour, a man of reckless ambition, had married the queen
+dowager, and openly aspired to the government of the kingdom. He
+endeavored to seduce the youthful king, and he had provided arms for
+ten thousand men.
+
+The protector sought to win his brother from his treasonable designs
+by kindness and favors; but, all his measures proving ineffectual, he
+was arrested, tried, and executed, for high treason.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebellions and Discontents.]
+
+But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother; and this was
+the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity by his suppression
+of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the country had witnessed
+since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred years before. The discontent
+of the people appears to have arisen from their actual suffering. Coin
+had depreciated, without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was
+cheap, because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular
+discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers
+introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. The
+priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it broke out
+into a flame.
+
+The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a law which
+he caused to be passed against enclosures; and, as he lost influence,
+his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, at last, was obliged
+to resign his protectorship; and Warwick, who had suppressed the
+rebellion, formed the chief of a new council of regency. He was a man
+of greater talents than Somerset, and equal ambition, and more fitted
+for stormy times.
+
+As soon as his power was established, and the country was at peace,
+and he had gained friends, he began to execute those projects of
+ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of Northumberland
+having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired to the extinct title and
+the estates, and procured for himself a grant of the same, with the
+title of duke. But there still remained a bar to his elevation; and
+this was the opposition of the Duke of Somerset, who, though disgraced
+and unpopular, was still powerful. It is unfortunate to be in the way
+of a great man's career, and Somerset paid the penalty of his
+opposition--the common fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times.
+He was accused of treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.)
+
+[Sidenote: Rivalry of the Great Nobles.]
+
+Northumberland, as the new dictator, seemed to have attained the
+highest elevation to which a subject could aspire. In rank, power, and
+property, he was second only to the royal family, but his ambition
+knew no bounds, and he began his intrigues to induce the young king,
+whose health was rapidly failing, and who was zealously attached to
+Protestantism, to set aside the succession of his sister Mary to the
+throne, really in view of the danger to which the reformers would be
+subjected, but under pretence of her declared illegitimacy, which
+would also set aside the claims of the Princess Elizabeth. Mary, Queen
+of Scots, was to be set aside on the ground of the will of the late
+king, and the succession would therefore devolve on the Lady Jane
+Grey, granddaughter of the Duke of Suffolk and of the French queen,
+whom he hoped to unite in marriage with his son. This was a
+deeply-laid scheme, and came near being successful, since Edward
+listened to it with pleasure. Northumberland then sought to gain over
+the judges and other persons of distinction, and succeeded by bribery
+and intimidation. At this juncture, the young king died, possessed of
+all the accomplishments which could grace a youth of sixteen, but
+still a tool in the hands of his ministers.
+
+[Sidenote: Religious Reforms.]
+
+Such were the political movements of this reign--memorable for the
+rivalries of the great nobles. But it is chiefly distinguished for the
+changes which were made in the church establishment, and the
+introduction of the principles of the continental reformers. No
+changes of importance were ever made beyond what Cranmer and his
+associates effected. Indeed, all that an absolute monarch could do,
+was done, and done with prudence, sagacity, and moderation. The people
+quietly--except in some rural districts--acquiesced in the change.
+Most of the clergy took the new oath of allegiance to Edward VI., as
+supreme head of the church; and very few suffered from religious
+persecution. There is no period in English history when such important
+changes were made, with so little bloodshed. Cranmer always watched
+the temper of the nation, and did nothing without great caution. Still
+a great change was effected--no less than a complete change from
+Romanism to Protestantism. But it was not so radical a reform as the
+Puritans subsequently desired, since the hierarchy and a liturgy, and
+clerical badges and dresses, were retained. It was the fortune of
+Cranmer, during the six years of Edward's reign, to effect the two
+great objects of which the English church has ever since been
+proud--the removal of Roman abuses, and the establishment of the creed
+of Luther and Calvin; and this without sweeping away the union of
+church and state, which, indeed, was more intimate than before the
+reformation. The papal power was completely subverted. Nothing more
+remained to be done by Cranmer. He had compiled the Book of Common
+Prayer, abolished the old Latin service, the worship of images, the
+ceremony of the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars
+into communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service,
+caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the laity,
+added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies for the
+clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and magnificently
+endowed schools and universities.
+
+The Reformation is divested of much interest, since it was the work of
+_authority_, rather than the result of _popular convictions_. But
+Cranmer won immortal honor for his skilful management, and for making
+no more changes than he could sustain. A large part of the English
+nation still regard his works as perfect, and are sincerely and
+enthusiastically attached to the form which he gave to his church.
+
+The hopes of his party were suddenly dispelled by the death of the
+amiable prince whom he controlled, 6th of July, 1553. The succession
+to the throne fell to the Princess Mary, or, as princesses were then
+called, the _Lady_ Mary; nor could all the arts of Northumberland
+exclude her from the enjoyment of her rights. This ambitious nobleman
+contrived to keep the death of Edward VI. a secret two days, and
+secure from the Mayor and Alderman of London a promise to respect the
+will of the late king. In consequence, the Lady Jane Grey was
+proclaimed Queen of England. "So far was she from any desire of this
+advancement, that she began to act her part of royalty with many
+tears, thus plainly showing to those who had access to her, that she
+was forced by her relations and friends to this high, but dangerous
+post." She was accomplished, beautiful, and amiable, devoted to her
+young husband, and very fond of Plato, whom she read in the original.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Northumberland.]
+
+But Mary's friends exerted themselves, and her cause--the cause of
+legitimacy, rather than that of Catholicism--gained ground.
+Northumberland was unequal to this crisis, and he was very feebly
+sustained. His forces were suppressed, his schemes failed, and his
+hopes fled. From rebellion, to the scaffold, there is but a step; and
+this great nobleman suffered the fate of Somerset, his former rival.
+His execution confirms one of the most striking facts in the history
+of absolute monarchies, when the idea of legitimacy is firmly
+impressed on the national mind; and that is, that no subject, or
+confederacy of subjects, however powerful, stand much chance in
+resisting the claims or the will of a legitimate prince. A nod or a
+word, from such a king, can consign the greatest noble to hopeless
+impotence. And he can do this from the mighty and mysterious force of
+ideas alone. Neither king nor parliament can ever resist the
+omnipotence of popular ideas. When ideas establish despots on their
+thrones, they are safe. When ideas demand their dethronement, no
+forces can long sustain them. The age of Queen Mary was the period of
+the most unchecked absolutism in England. Mary was apparently a
+powerless woman when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen by the party
+of Northumberland, and still she had but to signify her intentions to
+claim her rights, and the nation was prostrate at her feet. The
+Protestant party dreaded her accession; but loyalty was a stronger
+principle than even Protestantism, and she was soon firmly established
+in the absolute throne of Henry VIII.
+
+Then almost immediately followed a total change in the administration,
+which affected both the political and religious state of the country.
+Those who had languished in confinement, on account of their religion,
+obtained their liberty, and were elevated to power. Gardiner, Bonner,
+and other Catholic bishops, were restored to their sees, while
+Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper Coverdale, and other eminent
+Protestants, were imprisoned. All the statutes of Edward VI.
+pertaining to religion were repealed, and the queen sent assurances to
+the pope of her allegiance to his see. Cardinal Pole, descended from
+the royal family of England, and a man of great probity, moderation,
+and worth, was sent as legate of the pope. Gardiner, Bishop of
+Winchester, was made lord chancellor, and became the prime minister.
+He and his associates recommended violent councils; and a reign,
+unparalleled in England for religious persecution, commenced.
+
+[Sidenote: Marriage of the Queen.]
+
+Soon after the queen's accession, she married Philip, son of the
+Emperor Charles, and heir of the Spanish monarchy. This marriage,
+brought about by the intrigues of the emperor, and favored by the
+Catholic party, was quite acceptable to Mary, whose issue would
+inherit the thrones of Spain and England. But ambitious matches are
+seldom happy, especially when the wife is much older than the husband,
+as was the fact in this instance. Mary, however, was attached to
+Philip, although he treated her with great indifference.
+
+This Spanish match, the most brilliant of that age, failed, however,
+to satisfy the English, who had no notion of becoming the subjects of
+the King of Spain. In consequence of this disaffection, a rebellion
+broke out, in which Sir Thomas Wyatt was the most conspicuous, and in
+which the Duke of Suffolk, and even the Lady Jane and her husband,
+were implicated, though unjustly. The rebellion was easily suppressed,
+and the leaders sent to the Tower. Then followed one of the most
+melancholy executions of this reign--that of the Lady Jane Grey, who
+had been reprieved three months before. The queen urged the plea of
+self-defence, and the safety of the realm--the same that Queen
+Elizabeth, in after times, made in reference to the Queen of the
+Scots. Her unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she
+suffered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband--two
+illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of
+their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of Suffolk,
+the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved his fate,
+according to the ideas of his age. The Princess Elizabeth expected
+also to be sacrificed, both because she was a Protestant and the next
+heiress to the throne. But she carefully avoided giving any offence,
+and managed with such consummate prudence, that she was preserved for
+the future glory and welfare of the realm.
+
+[Sidenote: Religious Persecution.]
+
+The year 1555 opened gloomily for the Protestants. The prisons were
+all crowded with the victims of religious persecution, and bigoted
+inquisitors had only to prepare their fagots and stakes. Over a
+thousand ministers were ejected from their livings, and such as
+escaped further persecution fled to the continent. No fewer than two
+hundred and eighty-eight persons, among whom were five bishops,
+twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were burned
+for religious opinions, besides many thousands who suffered various
+other forms of persecution. The constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and
+Hooper has immortalized their names on the list of illustrious
+martyrs: but the greatest of all the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop
+of Canterbury. The most artful and insinuating promises were held out
+to him, to induce him to retract. Life and dignities were promised
+him, if he would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he
+yielded to the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid,
+heartbroken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were
+stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. But,
+when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suffered
+patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life was
+useful; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his memory from
+shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great author of the English
+Reformation, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his
+age; but he was timid, politic, and time-serving. The Reformation
+produced no perfect characters in any country. Some great defect
+blemished the lives of all the illustrious men who have justly earned
+imperishable glory. But the character of such men as Cranmer, and
+Ridley, and Latimer, present an interesting contrast to those of
+Gardiner and Bonner. The former did show, however, some lenity in the
+latter years of this reign of Mary; but the latter, the Bishop of
+London, gloated to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed.
+He even whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once
+pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in
+the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he might
+realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel is religious
+intolerance.
+
+But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is
+attributed to Mary, but which, in strict justice, should be ascribed
+to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a popular
+and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The fires of
+Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, opened
+the eyes of the nation to the spirit of the old religion, and also
+caused the flight of many distinguished men to Frankfort and Geneva,
+where they learned the principles of both religious and civil liberty.
+"The blood of martyrs proved the seed of the church"--a sublime truth,
+revealed to Cranmer and Ridley amid the fires which consumed their
+venerable bodies; and not to them merely, but to all who witnessed
+their serenity, and heard their shouts of triumph when this mortal
+passed to immortality. Heretics increased with the progress of
+persecution, and firm conviction took the place of a blind confession
+of dogmas. "It was not," says Milman, "until Christ was lain in his
+rock-hewn sepulchre, that the history of Christianity commenced." We
+might add, it was not until the fires of Smithfield were lighted, that
+great spiritual ideas took hold of the popular mind, and the intense
+religious earnestness appeared which has so often characterized the
+English nation. The progress which man makes is generally seen through
+disaster, suffering, and sorrow. This is one of the fundamental truths
+which history teaches.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Mary.]
+
+The last years of the reign of Mary were miserable to herself, and
+disastrous to the nation. Her royal husband did not return her warm
+affections, and left England forever. She embarked in a ruinous war
+with France, and gained nothing but disgrace. Her health failed, and
+her disposition became gloomy. She continued, to the last, most
+intolerant in her religious opinions, and thought more of restoring
+Romanism, than of promoting the interests of her kingdom. Her heart
+was bruised and broken, and her life was a succession of sorrows. It
+is fashionable to call this unfortunate queen the "bloody Mary," and
+not allow her a single virtue; but she was affectionate, sincere,
+high-minded, and shrunk from the dissimulation and intrigue which
+characterized "the virgin queen"--the name given to her masculine but
+energetic successor. Mary was capable of the warmest friendship; was
+attentive and considerate to her servants, charitable to the poor, and
+sympathetic with the unfortunate, when not blinded by her religious
+prejudices. She had many accomplishments, and a very severe taste, and
+was not addicted to oaths, as was Queen Elizabeth and her royal
+father. She was, however, a bigoted Catholic; and how could partisan
+historians see or acknowledge her merits?
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Elizabeth.]
+
+But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthusiasm
+the accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. With her
+reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of Europe. Who does
+not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protestantism was established in
+England, when illustrious poets and philosophers adorned the
+literature of the country, when commerce and arts received a great
+impulse, when the colonies in North America were settled, and when a
+constellation of great statesmen raised England to a pitch of glory
+not before attained?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--See Hume's, and Lingard's, and other standard
+     Histories of England; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens
+     of England; Burnet's History of the Reformation; Life of
+     Cranmer; Fox's Book of Martyrs. These works contain all the
+     easily-accessible information respecting the reigns of
+     Edward and Mary, which is important.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ELIZABETH.
+
+
+Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn, was in her
+twenty-sixth year when she ascended the throne. She was crowned the
+15th of June, 1559, and soon assembled her parliament and selected her
+ministers. After establishing her own legitimacy, she set about
+settling the affairs of the church, but only restored the Protestant
+religion as Cranmer had left it. Indeed, she ever retained a fondness
+for ceremonial, and abhorred a reform spirit among the people. She
+insisted on her supremacy, as head of the church, and on conformity
+with her royal conscience. But she was not severe on the Catholics,
+and even the gluttonous and vindictive Bonner was permitted to end his
+days in peace.
+
+As soon as the Protestant religion was established, the queen turned
+her attention towards Scotland, from which much trouble was expected.
+
+[Sidenote: Mary, Queen of Scots.]
+
+Scotland was then governed by Mary, daughter of James V., and had
+succeeded her father while a mere infant, eight days after her birth,
+(1542.) In 1558, she married the dauphin, afterwards King of France,
+by which marriage she was Queen of France as well as of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: John Knox.]
+
+According to every canonical law of the Roman church, the claim of
+Mary Stuart to the English throne was preferable to that of her cousin
+Elizabeth. Her uncles, the Guises, represented that Anne Boleyn's
+marriage had never been lawful, and that Elizabeth was therefore
+illegitimate. In an evil hour, she and her husband quartered the arms
+of England with their own, and assumed the titles of King and Queen of
+Scotland and England. And Elizabeth's indignation was further excited
+by the insult which the pope had inflicted, in declaring her birth
+illegitimate. She, therefore, resolved to gratify, at once, both her
+ambition and her vengeance, encouraged by her ministers, who wished to
+advance the Protestant interest in the kingdom. Accordingly,
+Elizabeth, with consummate art, undermined the authority of Mary in
+Scotland, now distracted by religious as well as civil commotions.
+Mary was a Catholic, and had a perfect abhorrence and disgust of the
+opinions and customs of the reformers, especially of John Knox, whose
+influence in Scotland was almost druidical. The Catholics resolved to
+punish with fire and sword, while the Protestants were equally intent
+on defending themselves with the sword. And it so happened that some
+of the most powerful of the nobility were arrayed on the side of
+Protestantism. But the Scotch reformers were animated with a zeal
+unknown to Cranmer and his associates. The leaders had been trained at
+Geneva, under the guidance of Calvin, and had imbibed his opinions,
+and were, therefore, resolved to carry the work of reform after the
+model of the Genevan church. Accordingly, those pictures, and statues,
+and ornaments, and painted glass, and cathedrals, which Cranmer
+spared, were furiously destroyed by the Scotch reformers, who
+considered them as parts of an idolatrous worship. The antipathy to
+bishops and clerical vestments was equally strong, and a sweeping
+reform was carried on under the dictatorship of Knox. Elizabeth had no
+more sympathy with this bold, but uncouth, reformer and his movements,
+than had Mary herself, and never could forgive him for his book,
+written at Geneva, aimed against female government, called the "First
+Blast of a Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." But Knox
+cared not for either the English or the Scottish queens, and zealously
+and fearlessly prosecuted his work, and gained over to his side the
+moral strength of the kingdom. Of course, a Catholic queen resolved to
+suppress his doctrines; but nearly the whole Scottish nobility rallied
+around his standard, marching with the Bible in one hand, and the
+sword in the other. The queen brought in troops from France to support
+her insulted and tottering government, which only increased the zeal
+of the Protestant party, headed by the Earls of Argyle, Arran, Morton,
+and Glencairn, and James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrews, who styled
+themselves "Lords of the Congregation." A civil war now raged in
+Scotland, between the queen regent, who wished to suppress the
+national independence, and extinguish the Protestant religion, and the
+Protestants, who comprised a great part of the nation, and who were
+resolved on the utter extirpation of Romanism and the limitation of
+the regal power. The Lords of the Congregation implored the aid of
+England, which Elizabeth was ready to grant, both from political and
+religious motives. The Protestant cause was in the ascendant, when the
+queen regent died, in 1560. The same year died Francis II., of France;
+and Mary, now a widow, resolved to return to her own kingdom. She
+landed at Leith, August, 1561, and was received with the grandest
+demonstration of joy. For a time, affairs were tolerably tranquil,
+Mary having intrusted the great Protestant nobles with power. She was
+greatly annoyed, however, by Knox, who did not treat her with the
+respect due to a queen, and who called her Jezebel; but the reformer
+escaped punishment on account of his great power.
+
+[Sidenote: Marriage of Mary--Darnley.]
+
+In 1565, Mary married her cousin, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of
+Lennox,--a match exceedingly distasteful to Elizabeth, who was ever
+jealous of Mary, especially in matrimonial matters, since the Scottish
+queen had not renounced her pretensions to the throne of her
+grandfather, Henry VII. The character of Elizabeth now appears in its
+worst light; and meanness and jealousy took the place of that
+magnanimity which her admirers have ascribed to her. She fomented
+disturbances in Scotland, and incited the queen's natural brother, the
+Prior of St. Andrews, now Earl of Murray, to rebellion, with the
+expectation of obtaining the government of the country. He formed a
+conspiracy to seize the persons of Mary and her husband. The plot was
+discovered, and Murray fled to England; but it was still unremittingly
+pursued, till at length it was accomplished.
+
+Darnley, the consort of Mary, was a man of low tastes, profligate
+habits, and shallow understanding. Such a man could not long retain
+the affections of the most accomplished woman of her age, accustomed
+to flattery, and bent on pursuing her own pleasure, at any cost.
+Disgust and coldness therefore took place. Darnley, enraged at this
+increasing coldness, was taught to believe that he was supplanted in
+the queen's affections by an Italian favorite, the musician Rizzio,
+whom Mary had made her secretary. He therefore signed a bond, with
+certain lords, for the murder of the Italian, who seems to have been a
+man of no character. One evening, as the queen was at supper, in her
+private apartment, with the countess of Argyle and Rizzio, the Earl of
+Morton, with one hundred and sixty men, took possession of the palace
+of Holyrood, while Darnley himself showed the way to a band of
+ruffians to the royal presence. Rizzio was barbarously murdered in the
+presence of the queen, who endeavored to protect him.
+
+Darnley, in thus perpetrating this shocking murder, was but the tool
+of some of the great lords, who wished to make him hateful to the
+queen, and to the nation, and thus prepare the way for his own
+execution. And they succeeded. A plot was contrived for the murder of
+Darnley, of which Murray was probably the author. Shortly after, the
+house, in which he slept, was blown up by gunpowder, in the middle of
+the night.
+
+[Sidenote: Bothwell--Civil War in Scotland.]
+
+The public voice imputed to the Earl of Bothwell, a great favorite of
+the queen, the murder of Darnley. Nor did the queen herself escape
+suspicion. "But no inquiry or research," says Scott, "has ever been
+able to bring us either to that clear opinion upon the guilt of Mary
+which is expressed by many authors, or guide us to that triumphant
+conclusion in favor of her innocence of all accession, direct or
+tacit, to the death of her husband, which others have maintained with
+the same obstinacy." But whatever doubt exists as to the queen's
+guilt, there is none respecting her ministers--Maitland, Huntley,
+Morton, and Argyle. Still they offered a reward of two thousand pounds
+for the discovery of the murderers. The public voice accused Bothwell
+as the principal: and yet the ministers associated with him, and the
+queen, entirely exculpated him. He was brought to a trial, on the
+formal accusation of the Earl of Lennox, in the city of Edinburgh,
+which he was permitted to obtain possession of. In a place guarded by
+his own followers, it was not safe for any witnesses to appear against
+him, and he was therefore acquitted, though the whole nation believed
+him guilty.
+
+Mary was rash enough to marry, shortly after, the man whom public
+opinion pronounced to be the murderer of her husband; and Murray, her
+brother, was so ambitious and treacherous, as to favor the marriage,
+with the hope that the unpopularity of the act would lead to the
+destruction of the queen, and place him at the helm of state. No
+sooner was Mary married to Bothwell, than Murray and other lords threw
+off the mask, pretended to be terribly indignant, took up arms against
+the queen, with the view of making her prisoner, and with the pretence
+of delivering her from her husband. Bothwell escaped to Norway, and
+the queen surrendered herself, at Carberry Hill, to the insurgent
+army, the chiefs of which instantly assumed the reins of government,
+and confined the queen in the castle of Lochleven, and treated her
+with excessive harshness. Shortly after, (1567,) she resigned her
+crown to her infant son, and Murray, the prime mover of so many
+disturbances, became regent of the kingdom. Murray was a zealous
+Protestant, and had the support of Knox in all his measures, and the
+countenance of the English ministry. Abating his intrigue and
+ambition, he was a most estimable man, and deserved the affections of
+the nation, which he retained until his death. M'Crie, in his Life of
+Knox, represents him as a model of Christian virtue and integrity, and
+every way worthy of the place he held in the affections of his party.
+
+[Sidenote: Captivity of Queen Mary.]
+
+The unfortunate queen suffered great unkindness in her lonely
+confinement, and Knox, with the more zealous of his party, clamored
+for her death, as an adulteress and a murderer. She succeeded in
+escaping from her prison, raised an army, marched against the regent,
+was defeated at the battle of Langside, fled to England, and became,
+May, 1568, the prisoner-guest of her envious rival. Elizabeth obtained
+the object of her desires. But the captivity of Mary, confined in
+Tutbury Castle, against all the laws of hospitality and justice, gave
+rise to incessant disturbances, both in England and Scotland, until
+her execution, in 1587. And these form no inconsiderable part of the
+history of England for seventeen years. Scotland was the scene of
+anarchy, growing out of the contentions and jealousies of rival
+chieftains, who stooped to every crime that appeared to facilitate
+their objects. In 1570, the regent Murray was assassinated. He was
+succeeded by his enemy, the Earl of Lennox, who, in his turn, was shot
+by an assassin. The Earl of Mar succeeded him, but lived only a year.
+Morton became regent, the reward of his many crimes but retribution at
+last overtook him, being executed when James assumed the sovereignty.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Mary.]
+
+Meanwhile, the unfortunate Mary pined in hopeless captivity. It was
+natural for her to seek release, and also for her friends to help her.
+Among her friends was the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in
+England, and a zealous Catholic. He aspired to her hand; but Elizabeth
+chose to consider his courtship as a treasonable act, and Norfolk was
+arrested. On being afterwards released, he plotted for the liberation
+of Mary, and his intrigues brought him to the block. The unfortunate
+captive, wearied and impatient, naturally sought the assistance of
+foreign powers. She had her agents in Rome, France, Spain, and the Low
+Countries. The Catholics in England espoused her cause, and a
+conspiracy was formed to deliver her, assassinate Elizabeth, and
+restore the Catholic religion. From the fact that Mary was privy to
+that part of it which concerned her own deliverance, she was brought
+to trial as a criminal, found guilty by a court incompetent to sit on
+her case, and executed without remorse, 8th February, 1587.
+
+Few persons have excited more commiseration than this unfortunate
+queen, both on account of her exalted rank, and her splendid
+intellectual accomplishments. Whatever obloquy she merited for her
+acts as queen of Scotland, no one can blame her for meditating escape
+from the power of her zealous but more fortunate rival; and her
+execution is the greatest blot in the character of the queen of
+England, at this time in the zenith of her glory.
+
+Next to the troubles with Scotland growing out of the interference of
+Elizabeth, the great political events of the reign were the long and
+protracted war with Spain, and the Irish rebellion. Both of these
+events were important.
+
+Spain was at this time governed by Philip II., son of the emperor
+Charles, one of the most bigoted Catholics of the age, and allied with
+Catharine de Medicis of France for the entire suppression of
+Protestantism. She incited her son Charles IX. to the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew, and Philip established the inquisition in Flanders. This
+measure provoked an insurrection, to suppress which the Duke of Alva,
+one of the most celebrated of the generals of Charles V., was sent
+into the Netherlands with a large army, and almost unlimited powers.
+The cruelties of Alva were unparalleled. In six years, eighteen
+thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner, and Alva
+counted on the entire suppression of Protestantism by the mere force
+of armies. He could count the physical resources of the people, but he
+could not estimate the degree of their resistance when animated by the
+spirit of liberty or religion. Providence, too, takes care of those
+who strive to take care of themselves. A great leader appeared among
+the suffering Hollanders, almost driven to despair--the celebrated
+William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. He appeared as the champion of
+the oppressed and insulted people; they rallied around his standard,
+fought with desperate bravery, opened the dikes upon their cultivated
+fields, expelled their invaders, and laid the foundation of their
+liberties. But they could not have withstood the gigantic power of the
+Spanish monarchy, then in the fulness of its strength, and the most
+powerful in Europe, had it not been for aid rendered by Elizabeth. She
+compassionated their sufferings, and had respect for their cause. She
+entered into an alliance, defensive and offensive, and the Netherlands
+became the great theatre of war, even after they had thrown off the
+Spanish yoke. Although the United Provinces in the end obtained their
+liberty, they suffered incredible hardships, and lost some of the
+finest of their cities, Antwerp among the rest, long the rival of
+Amsterdam, and the scene of Rubens's labors.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Preparations of Philip II.]
+
+The assistance which Elizabeth rendered to the Hollanders, of course,
+provoked the resentment of Philip II., and this was increased by the
+legalized piracies of Sir Francis Drake, in the West Indies, and on
+the coasts of South America. This commander, in time of peace,
+insisted on a right to visit those ports which the Spaniards had
+closed, which, by the law of nations, is piracy. Philip, according to
+all political maxims, was forced to declare war with England, and he
+made immense preparations to subdue it. But the preparations of
+Elizabeth to resist the powerful monarch were also great, and Drake
+performed brilliant exploits on the sea, among other things,
+destroying one hundred ships in the Bay of Cadiz, and taking immense
+spoil. The preparations of the Spanish monarch were made on such a
+gigantic scale, that Elizabeth summoned a great council of war to meet
+the emergency, at which the all-accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh took a
+leading part. His advice was to meet the Spaniards on the sea.
+Although the royal navy consisted, at this time, of only thirty-six
+sail, such vigorous measures were prosecuted, that one hundred and
+ninety-one ships were collected, manned by seventeen thousand four
+hundred seamen. The merchants of London granted thirty ships and ten
+thousand men, and all England was aroused to meet the expected danger.
+Never was patriotism more signally evinced, never were more decisive
+proofs given of the popularity of a sovereign. Indeed, Elizabeth was
+always popular with the nation; and with all her ceremony, and state,
+and rudeness to the commons, and with all their apparent servility,
+she never violated the laws, or irritated the people by oppressive
+exactions. Many acts of the Tudor princes seem to indicate the reign
+of despotism in England, but this despotism was never grievous, and
+had all the benignity of a paternal government. Capricious and
+arbitrary as Elizabeth was, in regard to some unfortunate individuals
+who provoked her hatred or her jealousy, still she ever sedulously
+guarded the interests of the nation, and listened to the counsel of
+patriotic and able ministers. When England was threatened with a
+Spanish invasion, there was not a corner of the land which did not
+rise to protect a beloved sovereign; nor was there a single spot,
+where a landing might be effected, around which an army of twenty
+thousand could not be rallied in forty-eight hours.
+
+[Sidenote: Spanish Armada.]
+
+But Philip, nevertheless, expected the complete conquest of England;
+and, as his "Invincible Armada" of one hundred and thirty ships, left
+the mouth of the Tagus, commanded by Medina Sidonia, and manned by the
+noblest troops of Spain, he fancied his hour of triumph was at hand.
+But his hopes proved dreams, like most of the ambitious designs of
+men. The armada met with nothing but misfortunes, both from battle and
+from storms. Only fifty ships returned to Spain. An immense booty was
+divided among the English sailors, and Elizabeth sent, in her turn, a
+large fleet to Spain, the following year, (1589,) under the command of
+Drake, which, after burning a few towns, returned ingloriously to
+England, with a loss of ten thousand men. The war was continued with
+various success till 1598, when a peace was negotiated. The same year,
+died Philip II., and Lord Burleigh, who, for forty years, directed the
+councils of Elizabeth, and to whose voice she ever listened, even when
+opposed by such favorites as Leicester and Essex. Burleigh was not a
+great genius, but was a man admirably adapted to his station and his
+times,--was cool, sagacious, politic, and pacific, skilful in the
+details of business competent to advise, but not aspiring to command.
+He was splendidly rewarded for his services, and left behind him three
+hundred distinct landed estates.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Rebellion.]
+
+Meanwhile the attention of the queen was directed to the affairs of
+Ireland, which had been conquered by Henry II. in the year 1170, but
+over which only an imperfect sovereignty had been exercised. The Irish
+princes and nobles, divided among themselves, paid the exterior marks
+of obedience, but kept the country in a constant state of
+insurrection.
+
+The impolitic and romantic projects of the English princes for
+subduing France, prevented a due attention to Ireland, ever miserably
+governed. Elizabeth was the first of the English sovereigns to
+perceive the political importance of this island, and the necessity
+for the establishment of law and order. Besides furnishing governors
+of great capacity, she founded the university of Dublin, and attempted
+to civilize the half-barbarous people. Unfortunately, she also sought
+to make them Protestants, against their will, which laid the
+foundation of many subsequent troubles, not yet removed. A spirit of
+discontent pervaded the country, and the people were ready for
+rebellion. Hugh O'Neale, the head of a powerful clan, and who had been
+raised to the dignity of Earl of Tyrone, yet attached to the barbarous
+license in which he had been early trained, fomented the popular
+discontents, and excited a dangerous rebellion. Hostilities, of the
+most sanguinary character, commenced. The queen sent over her
+favorite, the Earl of Essex, with an army of twenty thousand men, to
+crush the rebellion. He was a brave commander, but was totally
+unacquainted with the country and the people he was expected to
+subdue, and was, consequently, unsuccessful. But his successor, Lord
+Mountjoy, succeeded in restoring the queen's authority, though at the
+cost of four millions and a half, an immense sum in that age, while
+poor Ireland was devastated with fire and sword, and suffered every
+aggravation of accumulated calamities.
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Essex.]
+
+Meanwhile, Essex, who had returned to England against the queen's
+orders, was treated with coldness, deprived of his employments, and
+sentenced to be confined. This was more than the haughty favorite
+could bear, accustomed as he had been to royal favor. At first, he
+acquiesced in his punishment, with every mark of penitence, and
+Elizabeth was beginning to relax in her severity for she never
+intended to ruin him; but he soon gave vent to his violent temper,
+indulged in great liberties of speech, and threw off all appearance of
+duty and respect. He even engaged in treasonable designs, encouraged
+Roman Catholics at his house, and corresponded with James VI. of
+Scotland about his succession. His proceedings were discovered, and he
+was summoned before the privy council. Instead of obedience, he armed
+himself and his followers, and, in conjunction with some discontented
+nobles, and about three hundred gentlemen, attempted to excite an
+insurrection in London, where he was very popular with the citizens.
+He was captured and committed to the Tower, with the Earl of
+Southampton. These rash but brave noblemen were tried by their peers,
+and condemned as guilty of high treason. In this trial, the celebrated
+Bacon appeared against his old patron, and likened him to the Duke of
+Guise. The great lawyer Coke, who was attorney-general, compared him
+to Catiline.
+
+Essex disdained to sue the queen for a pardon, and was privately
+beheaded in the Tower. He merited his fate, if the offence of which he
+was guilty deserved such a punishment. It is impossible not to be
+interested in the fate of a man so brave, high-spirited, and generous,
+the idol of the people, and the victor in so many enterprises. Some
+historians maintain that Elizabeth relented, and would have saved her
+favorite, had he only implored her clemency; but this statement is
+denied by others; nor have we any evidence to believe that Essex,
+caught with arms against the sovereign who had honored him, could have
+averted his fate.
+
+Elizabeth may have wept for the death of the nobleman she had loved.
+It is certain that, after his death, she never regained her spirits,
+and that a deep melancholy was visible in her countenance. All her
+actions showed a deeply-settled inward grief, and that she longed for
+death, having tasted the unsubstantial nature of human greatness. She
+survived the execution of Essex two years, but lived long enough to
+see the neglect into which she was every day falling, and to feel
+that, in spite of all her glory and power, she was not exempted from
+drinking the cup of bitterness.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Elizabeth.]
+
+Whatever unamiable qualities she evinced as a woman, in spite of her
+vanity, and jealousy, and imperious temper, her reign was one of the
+most glorious in the annals of her country. The policy of Burleigh was
+the policy of Sir Robert Walpole--that of peace, and a desire to
+increase the resources of the kingdom. Her taxes were never
+oppressive, and were raised without murmur; the people were loyal and
+contented; the Protestant religion was established on a firm
+foundation; and a constellation of great men shed around her throne
+the bright rays of immortal genius.
+
+The most unhappy peculiarity of her reign was the persecution of the
+Non-conformists, which, if not sanguinary, was irritating and severe.
+For some time after the accession of Elizabeth, the Puritans were
+permitted to indulge in their peculiarities, without being excluded
+from the established church; but when Elizabeth felt herself secure,
+then they were obliged to conform, or suffered imprisonment, fines,
+and other punishments. The original difficulty was their repugnance to
+the surplice, and to some few forms of worship, which gradually
+extended to an opposition to the order of bishops; to the temporal
+dignities of the church; to the various titles of the hierarchy; to
+the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts; to the promiscuous access of
+all persons to the communion table; to the liturgy; to the observance
+of holydays; to the cathedral worship; to the use of organs; to the
+presentation of living by patrons; and finally, to some of the
+doctrines of the established church. The separation of the Puritans
+from the Episcopal church, took place in 1566; and, from that time to
+the death of Elizabeth, they enjoyed no peace, although they sought
+redress in the most respectful manner, and raised no opposition to the
+royal authority. Thousands were ejected from their livings, and
+otherwise punished, for not conforming to the royal conscience. But
+persecution and penal laws fanned a fanatical spirit, which, in the
+reign of Charles, burst out into a destructive flame, and spread
+devastation and ruin through all parts of the kingdom.
+
+If the queen and her ministers did not understand the principles of
+religious toleration, they pursued a much more enlightened policy in
+regard to all financial and political subjects, than during any former
+reign. The commercial importance of England received a new impulse.
+The reign of Henry VIII. was a reign of spoliation. The king was
+enriched beyond all former precedent, but his riches did not keep pace
+with his spendthrift habits. The value of the abbey lands which Henry
+seized amounted, a century after his death, to six million pounds. The
+lands of the abbey of St. Alban's alone rented for two hundred
+thousand pounds. The king debased the coin, confiscated chapels and
+colleges, as well as monasteries, and raised money by embargoes,
+monopolies, and compulsory loans.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements Made in the Reign of Elizabeth.]
+
+But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, paid off the old ones,
+restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual
+revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the
+rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her
+frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant
+only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her
+economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were
+passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial
+industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation
+followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir
+Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company
+was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was
+discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade
+commenced--a traffic which has been productive of more human misery,
+and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any
+other event in the history of modern times.
+
+During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable;
+chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden
+trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and
+woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries,
+apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the
+damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory
+of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the
+soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the
+orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the
+prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays,
+which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us
+almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of
+philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of
+the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser
+dedicated to Elizabeth his "Fairy Queen," one of the most truly
+poetical compositions that genius ever produced. The age produced also
+great divines; but these did not occupy so prominent a place in the
+nation's eye as during the succeeding reigns.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections.]
+
+While the virgin queen was exercising so benign an influence on the
+English nation, great events, though not disconnected with English
+politics, were taking place on the continent. The most remarkable of
+these was the persecution of the Huguenots. The rise and fortunes of
+this sect, during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX.,
+Henry III., and Henry IV., now demand our attention. If a newspaper
+had, in that age, been conducted upon the principles it now is, the
+sufferings of the Huguenots would always be noticed. It is our
+province to describe just what a modern newspaper would have alluded
+to, had it been printed three hundred years ago. It would not have
+been filled with genealogies of kings, but with descriptions of great
+popular movements. And this is history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For the history of this reign, see Hume,
+     Lingard, and Hallam; Miss Strickland's Queens of England;
+     Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; M'Crie's Life of Knox;
+     Robertson's History of Scotland; Macaulay's Essay on Nares's
+     Life of Burleigh; Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; Neale's
+     History of the Puritans. Kenilworth may also be profitably
+     read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV.
+
+
+The history of France, from the death of Francis I. to the accession
+of Henry IV. is virtually the history of religious contentions and
+persecutions, and of those civil wars which grew out of them. The
+Huguenotic contest, then, is a great historical subject, and will be
+presented in connection with the history of France, until the death of
+Henry IV., the greatest of the French monarchs, and long the
+illustrious head of the Protestant party.
+
+The reform doctrines first began to spread in France during the reign
+of Francis I. As early as 1523, he became a persecutor, and burned
+many at the stake, among whom the descendants of the Waldenses were
+the most numerous. In 1540, sentence was pronounced against them by
+the parliament of Aix. Their doctrines were the same in substance as
+those of the Swiss reformers.
+
+While this persecution was raging, John Calvin fled from France to
+Ferrara, from which city he proceeded to Geneva. This was in the year
+1536, when his theological career commenced by the publication of his
+Institutes, which were dedicated to Francis I., one of the most
+masterly theological works ever written, although compended from the
+writings of Augustine. The Institutes of Calvin, the great text-book
+of the Swiss and French reformers, were distasteful to the French
+king, and he gave fresh order for the persecution of the Protestants.
+Notwithstanding the hostility of Francis, the new doctrines spread,
+and were embraced by some of the most distinguished of the French
+nobility. The violence of persecution was not much arrested during the
+reign of Henry II., and, through the influence of the Cardinal of
+Lorraine, the inquisition was established in the kingdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Catharine de Medicis.]
+
+The wife of Henry II. was the celebrated Catharine de Medicis; and she
+was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited her husband
+to the most cruel atrocities. Francis II. continued the persecution,
+and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the ruler of the nation.
+
+The power of the queen mother was much increased when Francis II.
+died, and when his brother, Charles IX., a boy of nine years of age,
+succeeded to the French crown. She exercised her power by the most
+unsparing religious persecution recorded in the history of modern
+Europe. There had been some hope that Protestantism would be
+established in France; but it did not succeed, owing to the violence
+of the persecution. It made, however, a desperate struggle before it
+was overcome.
+
+At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the Cardinal
+of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Constable
+Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of the Spaniards,
+and a great majority of the nation.
+
+The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of
+Henry IV., the Prince of Condé, his brother, and Admiral Coligny; and
+they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and the
+Protestants of Germany and England.
+
+[Sidenote: Civil War in France.]
+
+Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with various
+success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance did not lead
+to liberty. Civil war in France did not secure the object sought.
+Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could always assemble a
+large army, they maintained their ground. Their conduct was not marked
+by the religious earnestness which characterized the Puritans, or by
+the same strength of religious principle. Moreover, political motives
+were mingled with religious. The contest was a struggle for the
+ascendency of rival chiefs, as well as for the establishment of
+reformed doctrines. The Bourbons hated the Guises, and the Guises
+resolved to destroy the Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and
+warfare, the Duke of Guise was assassinated, and the King of Navarre,
+as well as the Prince of Condé, were killed.
+
+Charles IX. was fourteen years of age when the young king of
+Navarre,--at that time sixteen years of age,--and his cousin, the
+Prince of Condé, became the acknowledged heads of the Protestant
+party. Their education was learned in the camp and the field of
+battle.
+
+Charles IX., under the influence of his hateful mother, finding that
+civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without
+weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for their
+extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs he gave his
+sister, Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of Navarre, first
+prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age. Admiral Coligny was
+invited to Paris, and treated with distinguished courtesy.
+
+[Sidenote: Massacre of St. Bartholomew.]
+
+It was during the festivities which succeeded the marriage of the King
+of Navarre that Coligny was murdered, and the signal for the horrid
+slaughter of St. Bartholomew was given. At midnight, August 23, 1572,
+the great bell at the Hotel de Ville began to toll; torches were
+placed in the windows, chains were drawn across the streets, and armed
+bodies collected around the hotels. The doors of the houses were
+broken open, and neither age, condition, nor sex was spared, of such
+as were not distinguished by a white cross in the hat. The massacre at
+Paris was followed by one equally brutal in the provinces. Seventy
+thousand people were slain in cold blood. The King of Navarre and the
+Prince of Condé only escaped in consequence of their relationship with
+the king, and by renouncing the Protestant religion.
+
+Most of the European courts expressed their detestation of this
+foulest crime in the history of religious bigotry; but the pope went
+in grand procession to his cathedral, and ordered a _Te Deum_ to be
+sung in commemoration of an event which steeped his cause in infamy to
+the end of time.
+
+The Protestants, though nearly exterminated, again rallied, and the
+King of Navarre and his cousin the Prince of Condé escaped, renounced
+the religion which had been forced on them by fear of death, and
+prosecuted a bloody civil war, with the firm resolution of never
+abandoning it until religious liberty was guarantied.
+
+Meanwhile, Charles IX. died, as it was supposed, by poison. His last
+hours were wretched, and his remorse for the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew filled his soul with agony. He beheld spectres, and
+dreamed horrid dreams; his imagination constantly saw heaps of livid
+bodies, and his ears were assailed with imaginary groans. He became
+melancholy and ferocious, while his kingdom became the prey of
+factions and insurrections. But he was a timid and irresolute king,
+and was but the tool of his infamous mother, the grand patroness of
+assassins, against whom, on his death bed, he cautioned the king of
+Navarre.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry III.--Henry IV.]
+
+He was succeeded by his brother, the King of Poland, under the title
+of Henry III. The persecutions of the Huguenots were renewed, and the
+old scenes of treachery, assassination, and war were acted over again.
+The cause of religion was lost sight of in the labyrinth of
+contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and factions were
+endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, perished by the sword
+or the dagger. The Prince of Condé, the Duke of Guise, and his
+brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were assassinated. Shortly after,
+died the chief mover of all the troubles, Catharine de Medicis, a
+woman of talents and persuasive eloquence, but of most unprincipled
+ambition, perfidious, cruel, and dissolute. She encouraged the
+licentiousness of the court, and even the worst vices of her sons,
+that she might make them subservient to her designs. All her passions
+were subordinate to her calculations of policy, and every womanly
+virtue was suppressed by the desire of wielding a government which she
+usurped.
+
+Henry III. soon followed her to the grave, being, in turn,
+assassinated by a religious fanatic. His death (1589) secured the
+throne to the king of Navarre, who took the title of Henry IV.
+
+Henry IV., the first of the Bourbon line, was descended from Robert,
+the sixth son of St. Louis, who had married the daughter and heiress
+of John of Burgundy and Agnes of Bourbon. He was thirty-six years of
+age when he became king, and had passed through great experiences and
+many sorrows. Thus far he had contended for Protestant opinions, and
+was the acknowledged leader of the Protestant party in France. But a
+life of contention and bloodshed, and the new career opened to him as
+king of France, cooled his religious ardor, and he did not hesitate to
+accept the condition which the French nobles imposed, before they
+would take the oaths of allegiance. This was, that he should abjure
+Protestantism. "My kingdom," said he, "is well worth a mass." It will
+be ever laid to his reproach, by the Protestants, that he renounced
+his religion for worldly elevation. Nor is it easy to exculpate him on
+the highest principles of moral integrity. But there were many
+palliations for his conduct, which it is not now easy to appreciate.
+It is well known that the illustrious Sully, his prime minister, and,
+through life, a zealous Protestant, approved of his course. It was
+certainly clear that, without becoming a Catholic, he never could
+peaceably enjoy his crown, and France would be rent, for another
+generation, by those civil wars which none lamented more than Henry
+himself. Besides, four fifths of the population were Catholics, and
+the Protestants could not reasonably expect to gain the ascendency.
+All they could expect was religious toleration, and this Henry was
+willing to grant. It should also be considered that the king, though
+he professed the reform doctrines, was never what may be called a
+religious man, being devoted to pleasure, and to schemes of ambition.
+It is true he understood and consulted the interests of his kingdom,
+and strove to make his subjects happy. Herein consists his excellence.
+As a magnanimous, liberal-minded, and enterprising man, he surpassed
+all the French kings. But it is ridiculous to call him a religious
+man, or even strongly fixed in his religious opinions. "Do you," said
+the king to a great Protestant divine, "believe that a man may be
+saved by the Catholic religion?" "Undoubtedly," replied the clergyman,
+"if his life and heart be holy." "Then," said the king, "prudence
+dictates that I embrace the Catholic religion, and not yours; for, in
+that case, according to both Catholics and Protestants, I may be
+saved; but, if I embrace your religion, I shall not be saved,
+according to the Catholics."
+
+But the king's conversion to Catholicism did not immediately result in
+the tranquillity of the distracted country. The Catholics would not
+believe in his sincerity, and many battles had to be fought before he
+was in peaceable enjoyment of his throne. But there is nothing so
+hateful as civil war, especially to the inhabitants of great cities;
+and Paris, at last, and the chief places in the kingdom, acknowledged
+his sway. The king of Spain, the great Catholic prelates, and the
+pope, finally perceived how hopeless was the struggle against a man of
+great military experience, with a devoted army and an enthusiastic
+capital on his side.
+
+The peace of Verviens, in 1598, left the king without foreign or
+domestic enemies. From that period to his death, his life was devoted
+to the welfare of his country.
+
+[Sidenote: Edict of Nantes.]
+
+His first act was the celebrated Edict of Nantes, by which the
+Huguenots had quiet and undisturbed residence, the free exercise of
+their religion, and public worship, except in the court, the army, and
+within five leagues of Paris. They were eligible to all offices, civil
+and military; and all public prosecutions, on account of religion,
+were dropped. This edict also promulgated a general amnesty for
+political offences, and restored property and titles, as before the
+war; but the Protestants were prohibited from printing controversial
+books, and were compelled to pay tithes to the established clergy.
+
+Henry IV., considering the obstacles with which he had to contend, was
+the greatest general of the age; but it is his efforts in civilization
+which entitle him to his epithet of _Great_.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements during the Reign of Henry IV.]
+
+The first thing which demanded his attention, as a civil ruler, was
+the settlement of the finances--ever the leading cause of troubles
+with the French government. These were intrusted to the care of Rosny,
+afterward Duke of Sully, the most able and upright of all French
+financiers--a man of remarkable probity and elevation of sentiment. He
+ever continued to be the minister and the confidant of the king, and
+maintained his position without subserviency or flattery, almost the
+only man on the records of history who could tell, with impunity,
+wholesome truths to an absolute monarch. So wise were his financial
+arrangements, that a debt of three hundred million of livres was paid
+off in eight years. In five years, the taxes were reduced one half,
+the crown lands redeemed, the arsenals stored, the fortifications
+rebuilt, churches erected, canals dug, and improvements made in every
+part of the kingdom. On the death of the king, he had in his treasury
+nearly fifty millions of livres. Under the direction of this able
+minister, the laws were enforced, robbery and vagrancy were nearly
+stopped, and agriculture received a great impulse. But economy was the
+order of the day. The king himself set an illustrious example, and
+even dressed in gray cloth, with a doublet of taffeta, without
+embroidery, dispensed with all superfluity at his table, and dismissed
+all useless servants.
+
+The management and economy of the king enabled him to make great
+improvements, besides settling the deranged finances of the kingdom.
+He built innumerable churches, bridges, convents, hospitals,
+fortresses, and ships. Some of the finest palaces which adorn Paris
+were erected by him. He was also the patron of learning, the benefits
+of which he appreciated. He himself was well acquainted with the
+writings of the ancients. He was particularly fond of the society of
+the learned, with whom he conversed with freedom and affability. He
+increased the libraries, opened public schools, and invited
+distinguished foreigners to Paris, and rewarded them with stipends.
+Lipsius, Scaliger, and De Thou, were the ornaments of his court.
+
+And his tender regard to the happiness and welfare of his subjects was
+as marked as his generous appreciation of literature and science. It
+was his ambition to be the father of his people; and his memorable
+saying, "Yes, I will so manage matters that the poorest peasant in my
+kingdom may eat meat each day in the week, and, moreover, be enabled
+to put a fowl in the pot on a Sunday," has alone embalmed his memory
+in the affections of the French nation, who, of all their monarchs,
+are most partial to Henry IV.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace Scheme of Henry IV.]
+
+But this excellent king was also a philanthropist, and cherished the
+most enlightened views as to those subjects on which rests the
+happiness of nations. Though a warrior, the preservation of a lasting
+peace was the great idea of his life. He was even visionary in his
+projects to do good; for he imagined it was possible to convince
+monarchs that they ought to prefer purity, peace, and benevolence, to
+ambition and war. Hence, he proposed to establish a Congress of
+Nations, chosen from the various states of Europe, to whom all
+international difficulties should be referred, with power to settle
+them--a very desirable object, the most so conceivable; for war is the
+greatest of all national calamities and crimes. The scheme of the
+enlightened Henry, however, did not attract much attention; and, even
+had it been encouraged, would have been set aside in the next
+generation. What would such men as Frederic the Great, or Marlborough,
+or Louis XIV., or Napoleon have cared for such an object? But Henry,
+in his scheme, also had in view the regulation of such forces as the
+European monarchs should sustain, and this arose from his desire to
+preserve the "Balance of Power"--the great object of European
+politicians in these latter times.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Henry IV.]
+
+But Henry was not permitted, by Providence, to prosecute his
+benevolent designs. He was assassinated by a man whom he had never
+injured--by the most unscrupulous of all misguided men--a religious
+bigot. The Jesuit Ravaillac, in a mood, as it is to be hoped,
+bordering on madness, perpetrated the foul deed. But Henry only
+suffered the fate of nearly all the distinguished actors in those
+civil and religious contentions which desolated France for forty
+years. He died in 1610, at the age of fifty-seven, having reigned
+twenty-one years, nine of which were spent in uninterrupted warfare.
+
+By his death the kingdom was thrown into deep and undissembled
+mourning. Many fell speechless in the streets when the intelligence of
+his assassination was known; others died from excess of grief. All
+felt that they had lost more than a father, and nothing was
+anticipated but storms and commotions.
+
+He left no children by his wife, Margaret de Valois, who proved
+inconstant, and from whom he was separated. By his second wife, Mary
+de Medicis, he had three children, the oldest of whom was a child when
+he ascended the throne, by the title of Louis XIII. His daughter,
+Henrietta, married Charles I. of England.
+
+Though great advances were made in France during this reign, it was
+still far from that state of civilization which it attained a century
+afterwards. It contained about fifteen million of inhabitants, and
+Paris about one hundred and fifty thousand. The nobles were numerous
+and powerful, and engrossed the wealth of the nation. The people were
+not exactly slaves, but were reduced to great dependence, were
+uneducated, degraded, and enjoyed but few political or social
+privileges. They were oppressed by the government, by the nobles, and
+by the clergy.
+
+The highest official dignitary was the constable, the second the
+keeper of the seals, the third the chamberlain, then the six or eight
+marshals, then the secretary of state, then gentlemen of the
+household, and military commanders. The king was nearly absolute. The
+parliament was a judicial tribunal, which did not enact laws, but
+which registered the edicts of the king.
+
+Commerce and manufactures were extremely limited, and far from
+flourishing; and the arts were in an infant state. Architecture, the
+only art in which half-civilized nations have excelled, was the most
+advanced, and was displayed in the churches and royal palaces. Paris
+was crowded with uncomfortable houses, and the narrow streets were
+favorable to tumult as well as pestilence. Tapestry was the most
+common and the most expensive of the arts, and the hangings, in a
+single room, often reached a sum which would be equal, in these times,
+to one hundred thousand dollars. The floors of the palaces were spread
+with Turkey carpets. Chairs were used only in kings' palaces, and
+carriages were but just introduced, and were clumsy and awkward. Mules
+were chiefly used in travelling, the horses being reserved for war.
+Dress, especially of females, was gorgeous and extravagant; false
+hair, masks, trailed petticoats, and cork heels ten inches high, were
+some of the peculiarities. The French then, as now, were fond of the
+pleasures of the table, and the hour for dinner was eleven o'clock.
+Morals were extremely low, and gaming was a universal passion, in
+which Henry IV. himself extravagantly indulged. The advice of
+Catharine de Medicis to her son Charles IX. showed her knowledge of
+the French character, even as it exists now: "Twice a week give public
+assemblies, for the specific secret of the French government is, to
+keep the people always cheerful; for they are so restless you must
+occupy them, during peace, either with business or amusement, or else
+they will involve you in trouble."
+
+[Sidenote: France at the Death of Henry IV.]
+
+Such was France, at the death of Henry IV., 1610, one of the largest
+and most powerful of the European kingdoms, though far from the
+greatness it was destined afterwards to attain.
+
+A more powerful monarchy, at this period, was Spain. As this kingdom
+was then in the zenith of its power and glory, we will take a brief
+survey of it during the reign of Philip II., the successor of
+Charles V., a person to whom we have often referred. With his reign
+are closely connected the struggles of the Hollanders to secure their
+civil and religious independence. The Low Countries were provinces of
+Spain, and therefore to be considered in connection with Spanish
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For a knowledge of France during the reign of
+     Henry IV., see James's History of Henry IV.; James's Life of
+     Condé; History of the Huguenots. Rankin's and Crowe's
+     Histories of France are the best in English, but far
+     inferior to Sismondi's, Millot's, and Lacretelle's. Sully's
+     Memoirs throw considerable light on this period, and Dumas's
+     Margaret de Valois may be read with profit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Bigotry of Philip II.]
+
+Spain cannot be said to have been a powerful state until the reign of
+Ferdinand and Isabella; when the crowns of Castile and Arragon were
+united, and when the discoveries of Columbus added a new world to
+their extensive territories. Nor, during the reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, was the power of the crown as absolute as during the sway of
+the Austrian princes. The nobles were animated by a bold and free
+spirit, and the clergy dared to resist the encroachments of royalty,
+and even the usurpations of Rome. Charles V. succeeded in suppressing
+the power of the nobles, and all insurrections of the people, and laid
+the foundation for the power of his gloomy son, Philip II. With Philip
+commenced the grandeur of the Spanish monarchy. By him, also, were
+sown the seeds of its subsequent decay. Under him, the inquisition was
+disgraced by ten thousand enormities, Holland was overrun by the Duke
+of Alva, and America conquered by Cortes and Pizarro. It was he who
+built the gorgeous palaces of Spain, and who, with his Invincible
+Armada, meditated the conquest of England. The wealth of the Indies
+flowed into the royal treasury, and also enriched all orders and
+classes. Silver and gold became as plenty at Madrid as in old times at
+Jerusalem under the reign of Solomon. But Philip was a different
+prince from Solomon. His talents and attainments were respectable, but
+he had a jealous and selfish disposition, and exerted all the energies
+of his mind, and all the resources of his kingdom, to crush the
+Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe.
+
+Among the first acts of his reign was the effort to extinguish
+Protestantism in the Netherlands, an assemblage of seigniories, under
+various titles, subject to his authority. The opinions of Luther and
+Calvin made great progress in this country, and Philip, in order to
+repress them, created new bishops, and established the Inquisition.
+The people protested, and these protests were considered as
+rebellious.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of the Netherlands.]
+
+At the head of the nobility was William, the Prince of Orange, on whom
+Philip had conferred the government of Holland, Zealand, Friesland,
+and Utrecht, provinces of the Netherlands. He was a haughty but
+resolute and courageous character, and had adopted the opinions of
+Calvin, for which he lost the confidence of Philip. In the prospect of
+destruction, he embraced the resolution of delivering his country from
+the yoke of a merciless and bigoted master. Having reduced the most
+important garrisons of Holland and Zealand, he was proclaimed
+stadtholder, and openly threw off his allegiance to Spain.
+Hostilities, of course, commenced. Alva, the general of Philip, took
+the old city of Haerlem, and put fifteen hundred to the sword, among
+whom were all the magistrates, and all the Protestant clergy.
+
+Don John, Archduke of Austria, and the brother of Philip, succeeded
+the Duke of Alva, during whose administration the seven United
+Provinces formed themselves into a confederation, and chose the Prince
+of Orange to be the general of their armies, admiral of their fleets,
+and chief magistrate, by the title of _stadtholder_. But William was
+soon after assassinated by a wretch who had been bribed by the
+exasperated Philip, and Maurice, his son, received his title,
+dignities, and power. His military talents, as the antagonist of the
+Duke of Parma, lieutenant to Philip, in the Netherlands, secured him a
+high place in the estimation of warriors. To protect this prince and
+the infant republic of Holland, Queen Elizabeth sent four thousand men
+under the Earl of Leicester, her favorite; and, with this assistance,
+the Hollanders maintained their ground against the most powerful
+monarch in Europe, as has been already mentioned in the chapter on
+Elizabeth.
+
+After the loss of the Netherlands, the next great event of his reign
+was the acquisition of Portugal, to which he laid claim on the death
+of Don Henry, in 1581. There were several other claimants, but Philip,
+with an army of twenty thousand, was stronger than any of the others.
+He gained a decisive victory over Don Antonio, uncle to the last
+monarch, and was crowned at Lisbon without opposition.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of the Moriscoes.]
+
+The revolt of the Moriscoes occupies a prominent place in the annals
+of this reign. They were Christianized Moors, but, at heart,
+Mohammedans. A decree had been published that their children should
+frequent the Christian church, that the Arabic should no longer be
+used in writing, that both men and women should wear the Spanish
+costume, that they no longer should receive Mohammedan names, or marry
+without permission. The Moriscoes contended that no particular dress
+involved religious opinions, that the women used the veil according to
+their notions of modesty, that the use of their own language was no
+sin, and that baths were used, not from religious motives, but for the
+sake of cleanliness. These expostulations were, however, without
+effect. Nothing could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed
+cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties,
+and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of
+civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating
+picture of misery and crime. But in this war there was something
+fiendish. A clergyman was roasted over a brazier, and the women,
+wearied with his protracted death, despatched him with their needles
+and knives. The rebels ridiculed the sacrifice of the mass by
+slaughtering a pig on the high altar of a church. These insults were
+retaliated with that cruelty which Spanish bigotry and malice know so
+well how to inflict. Thousands of defenceless women and children were
+murdered in violation of the most solemn treaties. The whole Moorish
+population was finally exterminated, and Granada, with its beautiful
+mountains and fertile valleys, was made a desert. No less than six
+hundred thousand were driven to Africa--an act of great impolicy,
+since the Moriscoes were the most ingenious and industrious part of
+the population; and their exile contributed to undermine that national
+prosperity in which, at that day, every Spaniard gloried. But
+destruction ever succeeds pride: infatuation and blindness are the
+attendants of despotism.
+
+The destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the losses which the
+Spaniards suffered from Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Hawkins, have
+already been mentioned. But the pride of Philip was mortified, rather
+than that his power was diminished. His ambition received a check, and
+he found it impossible to conquer England. His finances, too, became
+deranged; still he remained the absolute master of the richest kingdom
+in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.]
+
+The decline of the Spanish monarchy dates from his death which took
+place in his magnificent palace of the Escurial, in 1598. Under his
+son Philip III., decline became very marked, and future ruin could be
+predicted.
+
+The principal cause of the decline of prosperity was the great
+increase of the clergy, and the extent of their wealth. In the Spanish
+dominions, which included Spain, Naples, Milan, Parma, Sicily,
+Sardinia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Indies, there were
+fifty-four archbishops, six hundred and eighty-four bishops, seven
+thousand hospitals, one hundred thousand abbeys and nunneries, six
+hundred thousand monks, and three hundred and ten thousand secular
+priests--a priest to every ten families. Almost every village had a
+monastery. The diocese of Seville had fourteen thousand priests,
+nearly the present number of all the clergy of the establishment in
+England. The cathedral of Seville gave support and occupation to one
+hundred priests.
+
+And this numerous clergy usurped the power and dignities of the state.
+They also encouraged that frightful inquisition, the very name of
+which conjures up the most horrid images of death and torture. This
+institution, committed to the care of Dominican monks, was instituted
+to put down heresy; that is, every thing in poetry, philosophy, or
+religion, which was distasteful to the despots of the human mind. The
+inquisitors had power to apprehend people even suspected of heresy,
+and, on the testimony of two witnesses, could condemn them to torture,
+imprisonment, and death. Resistance was vain; complaint was ruin.
+Arrests took place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a
+knowledge of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused.
+The most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known
+integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could
+bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. Should the jailer take compassion,
+and bestow a few crumbs of bread or drops of water, he would be
+punished as the greatest of traitors. Even nobles were not exempted
+from the supervision of this court, which was established in every
+village and town in Portugal and Spain, and which, in the single city
+of Toledo, condemned, in one year, seventeen thousand people. This
+institution was tolerated by the king, since he knew very well that
+there ever exists an intimate union between absolutism in religion and
+absolutism in government.
+
+[Sidenote: The Increase of Gold and Silver.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.]
+
+Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exercised
+over a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements of
+character, the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury,
+idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence of the
+gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the cultivation
+of those things which money could procure. Then followed a great rise
+in the prices of all kinds of provision and clothing. Houses, lands,
+and manufactures also soon rose in value. Hence money was delusive,
+since, with ten times the increase of specie, there was a
+corresponding decrease in those necessaries of life which gold and
+silver would purchase. Silver and gold are only the medium of trade,
+not the basis of wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon
+the amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous as
+crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The sudden influx
+of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a temporary wealth to
+the kingdom; but when habits of industry were lost, and the culture of
+the soil was neglected, the gold and silver of the Spaniards were
+exchanged for the productive industry of other nations. The Dutch and
+the English, whose manufactures and commerce were in a healthy state,
+became enriched at their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth,
+that is, industry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of
+sentiment, became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and
+amusements, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, pantomimes,
+and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking nation, while
+the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, with the
+exception of that of France. The country became exhausted by war. The
+finances were deranged, and province after province rebelled. Every
+where were military reverses, and a decrease of population. Taxes, in
+the mean while, increased, and a burdened people lamented in vain
+their misfortune and decline. The reign of Philip IV. was the most
+disastrous in the annals of the country. The Catalan insurrection, the
+loss of Jamaica, the Low Countries, and Portugal, were the results of
+his misrule and imbecility. So rapidly did Spain degenerate, that,
+upon the close of the Austrian dynasty, with all the natural
+advantages of the country, the best harbors and sea-coast in Europe,
+the richest soil, and the finest climate, and with the possession of
+the Indies also, the people were the poorest, the most ignorant, and
+the most helpless in Europe. The death of Charles II., a miserable,
+afflicted, superstitious, priest-ridden monarch, left Spain without a
+king, and the vacant throne became the prize of any monarch in Europe
+who could raise and send across the Pyrenees the largest army. It fell
+into the power of Louis XIV., and the Bourbon princes have ever since
+in vain attempted the restoration of the broken monarchy to its former
+glory. But, alas, Spain has, since the spoliation of the Mexicans and
+Peruvians, only a melancholy history--a history of crime, bigotry,
+anarchy, and poverty. The Spaniards committed awful crimes in their
+lust for gold and silver. "They had their request," but God, in his
+retributive justice, "sent leanness into their souls."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     For the history of Spain during the Austrian princes, see a
+     history in Lardner's Encyclopedia; Watson's Life of
+     Philip II.; James's Foreign Statesmen; Schiller's Revolt of
+     the Netherlands; Russell's Modern Europe; Prescott's
+     Conquest of Mexico and Peru.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+During the period we have just been considering, the most marked
+peculiarity was, the struggle between Protestantism and Romanism. It
+is true that objects of personal ambition also occupied the minds of
+princes, and many great events occurred, which were not connected with
+the struggles for religious liberty and light. But the great feature
+of the age was the insurrection of human intelligence. There was a
+spirit of innovation, which nothing could suppress, and this was
+directed, in the main, to matters of religion. The conflict was not
+between church and state, but between two great factions in each. "No
+man asked whether another belonged to the same country as himself, but
+whether he belonged to the same sect." Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox,
+Cranmer, and Bacon were the great pioneers in this march of
+innovation. They wished to explode the ideas of the middle ages, in
+philosophy and in religion. They made war upon the Roman Catholic
+Church, as the great supporter and defender of old ideas. They
+renounced her authority. She summoned her friends and vassals, rallied
+all her forces, and, with desperate energy, resolved to put down the
+spirit of reform. The struggles of the Protestants in England,
+Germany, France, and the Netherlands, alike manifested the same
+spirit, were produced by the same causes, and brought forth the same
+results. The insurrection was not suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Jesuits.]
+
+The hostile movements of Rome, for a while, were carried on by armies,
+massacres, assassinations, and inquisitions. The duke of Alva's
+cruelties in the Netherlands, St. Bartholomew's massacre in France,
+inquisitorial tortures in Spain, and Smithfield burnings in England,
+illustrate this assertion. But more subtle and artful agents were
+required, especially since violence had failed. Men of simple lives,
+of undoubted piety, of earnest zeal, and singular disinterestedness to
+their cause, arose, and did what the sword and the stake could not
+do,--revived Catholicism, and caused a reaction to Protestantism
+itself. These men were Jesuits, the most faithful, intrepid, and
+successful soldiers that ever enlisted under the banners of Rome. The
+rise and fortunes of this order of monks form one of the most
+important and interesting chapters in the history of the human race.
+Their victories, and the spirit which achieved them, are well worth
+our notice. In considering them, it must be borne in mind, that the
+Jesuits have exhibited traits so dissimilar and contradictory, that it
+is difficult to form a just judgment. While they were achieving their
+victories, they appeared in a totally different light from what
+distinguished them when they reposed on their laurels. In short, the
+_earlier_ and the _latter_ Jesuits were entirely different in their
+moral and social aspects, although they had the same external
+organization. The principles of their system were always the same. The
+men who defended them, at first, were marked by great virtues, but
+afterwards were deformed by equally as great vices. It was in the
+early days of Jesuitism that the events we have recorded took place.
+Hence our notice, at present, will be confined to the Jesuits when
+they were worthy of respect, and, in some things, even of admiration.
+Their courage, fidelity, zeal, learning, and intrepidity for half a
+century, have not been exaggerated.
+
+The founder of the order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of
+noble birth, who first appeared as a soldier at the siege of
+Pampeluna, where he was wounded, about the time that Luther was
+writing his theses, and disputing about indulgences. He amused
+himself, on his sick bed, by reading the lives of the saints. His
+enthusiastic mind was affected, and he resolved to pass from worldly
+to spiritual knighthood. He became a saint, after the notions of the
+age; that is, he fasted, wore sackcloth, lived on roots and herbs,
+practised austerities, retired to lonely places, and spent his time in
+contemplation and prayer. The people were attracted by his sanctity,
+and followed him in crowds. His heart burned to convert heretics; and,
+to prepare himself for his mission, he went to the universities, and
+devoted himself to study. There he made some distinguished converts,
+all of whom afterwards became famous. In his narrow cell, at Paris, he
+induced Francis Xavier, Faber, Laynez Bobadilla, and Rodriguez to
+embrace his views, and to form themselves into an association, for the
+conversion of the world. On the summit of Montmartre, these six young
+men, on one star-lit night, took the usual monastic vows of _poverty_,
+_chastity_, and _obedience_, and solemnly devoted themselves to their
+new mission.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Spread of the Jesuit Order.]
+
+They then went to Rome, to induce the pope to constitute them a new
+missionary order. But they were ridiculed as fanatics. Moreover, for
+several centuries, there had been great opposition in Rome against the
+institution of new monastic orders. It was thought that there were
+orders enough; that the old should be reformed, not new ones created.
+Even St. Dominic and St. Francis had great difficulty in getting their
+orders instituted. But Loyola and his companions made extraordinary
+offers. They professed their willingness to go wherever the pope
+should send them, among Turks, heathens, or heretics, instantly,
+without condition, or reward.
+
+How could the pope refuse to license them? His empire was in danger;
+Luther was in the midst of his victories; the power of ideas and truth
+was shaking to its centre the pontifical throne; all the old orders
+had become degenerate and inefficient, and the pope did not know where
+to look for efficient support. The venerable Benedictines were
+revelling in the wealth of their splendid abbeys, while the Dominicans
+and the Franciscans had become itinerant vagabonds, peddling relics
+and indulgences, and forgetful of those stern duties and virtues which
+originally characterized them. All the monks were inexhaustible
+subjects of sarcasm and mockery. They even made scholasticism
+ridiculous, and the papal dogmas contemptible. Erasmus laughed at
+them, and Luther mocked them. They were sensual, lazy, ignorant, and
+corrupt. The pope did not want such soldiers. But the followers of
+Loyola were full of ardor, talent, and zeal; willing to do any thing
+for a sinking cause; able to do any thing, so far as human will can
+avail. And they did not disappoint the pope. Great additions were
+made. They increased with marvellous rapidity. The zealous, devout,
+and energetic, throughout all ranks in the Catholic church, joined
+them. They spread into all lands. They became the confessors of kings,
+the teachers of youth, the most popular preachers, the most successful
+missionaries. In sixteen years after the scene of Montmartre, Loyola
+had established his society in the affections and confidence of
+Catholic Europe, against the voice of universities, the fears of
+monarchs, and the jealousy of the other monastic orders. In sixteen
+years, from the condition of a ridiculed fanatic, whose voice,
+however, would have been disregarded a century earlier or later, he
+became one of the most powerful dignitaries of the church, influencing
+the councils of the Vatican, moving the minds of kings, controlling
+the souls of a numerous fraternity, and making his power felt, even in
+the courts of Japan and China. Before he died, his spiritual sons had
+planted their missionary stations amid Peruvian mines, amid the marts
+of the African slave trade, in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and in
+the cities of Japan and China. Nay, his followers had secured the most
+important chairs in the universities of Europe, and had become
+confessors to the most powerful monarchs, teachers in the best schools
+of Christendom, and preachers in its principal pulpits. They had
+become an organization, instinct with life, endued with energy and
+will, and forming a body which could outwatch Argus with his hundred
+eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred arms. It had forty
+thousand eyes open upon every cabinet and private family in Europe,
+and forty thousand arms extended over the necks of both sovereigns and
+people. It had become a mighty power in the world, inseparably
+connected with the education and the religion of the age, the prime
+mover of all political affairs, the grand prop of absolute monarchies,
+the last hope of the papal hierarchy.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Spread of the Jesuits.]
+
+The sudden growth and enormous resources of the "Society of Jesus"
+impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We almost attribute
+them to the agency of mysterious powers, and forget the operations of
+natural causes. The history of society shows that no body of men ever
+obtained a wide-spread ascendency, except by the exercise of
+remarkable qualities of mind and heart. And this is the reason why the
+Jesuits prospered. When Catholic Europe saw young men, born to fortune
+and honors, voluntarily surrendering their rank and goods, devoting
+themselves to religious duties, spending their days in hospitals and
+schools, wandering, as missionaries, into the most unknown and
+dangerous parts of the world, exciting the young to study, making
+great attainments in all departments of literature and science, and
+shedding a light, wherever they went, by their genius and
+disinterestedness, it was natural that they would be received as
+preachers, teachers, and confessors. That they were characterized,
+during the first fifty years, by such excellencies, has never been
+denied. The Jesuit missionary called forth the praises of Baxter, and
+the panegyric of Leibnitz. He went forth, without fear, to encounter
+the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to him, for he knew
+that the altar, which might stream with his blood, would, in after
+times, be a cherished monument of his fame, and an impressive emblem
+of the power of his religion. Francis Xavier, one of the first
+converts of Loyola, a Spaniard of rank, traversed a tract of more than
+twice the circumference of the globe, preaching, disputing, and
+baptizing, until seventy thousand converts attested the fruits of his
+mission. In perils, fastings, and fatigues, was the life of this
+remarkable man passed, to convert the heathen world; and his labors
+have never been equalled, as a missionary, except by the apostle Paul.
+But China and Japan were not the only scenes of the enterprises of
+Jesuit missionaries. As early as 1634, they penetrated into Canada,
+and, shortly after to the sources of the Mississippi and the prairies
+of Illinois. "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, "is an envoy
+of France, to discover new countries; but I am an ambassador of God,
+to enlighten them with the gospel." But of all the missions of the
+Jesuits, those in Paraguay were the most successful. They there
+gathered together, in _reductions_, or villages, three hundred
+thousand Indians, and these were bound together by a common interest,
+were controlled by a paternal authority, taught useful arts, and
+trained to enjoy the blessings of civilization. On the distant banks
+of the La Plata, while the Spanish colonists were hunting the Mexicans
+and Peruvians with bloodhounds, or the English slave traders were
+consigning to eternal bondage the unhappy Africans, the Jesuits were
+realizing the ideal paradise of More--a Utopia, where no murders or
+robberies were committed, and where the blessed flowers of peace and
+harmony bloomed in a garden of almost primeval loveliness.
+
+[Sidenote: Extraordinary Virtues of the Older Jesuits.]
+
+In that age, the Jesuit excelled in any work to which he devoted his
+attention. He was not only an intrepid missionary, but a most
+successful teacher. Into the work of education he entered heart and
+soul. He taught gratuitously, without any crabbed harshness, and with
+a view to gain the heart. He entered into the feelings of his pupils,
+and taught them to subdue their tempers, and avoid quarrels and oaths.
+He excited them to enthusiasm, perceived their merits, and rewarded
+the successful with presents and favors. Hence the schools of the
+Jesuits were the best in Europe, and were highly praised even by the
+Protestants. The Jesuits were even more popular as preachers than they
+were as teachers; and they were equally prized as confessors. They
+were so successful and so respected, that they soon obtained an
+ascendency in Europe. Veneration secured wealth, and their
+establishments gradually became magnificently endowed. But all their
+influence was directed to one single end--to the building up of the
+power of the popes, whose obedient servants they were. Can we wonder
+that Catholicism should revive?
+
+[Sidenote: The Constitution of the Jesuits.]
+
+Again, their constitution was wonderful, and admirably adapted to the
+ends they had in view. Their vows were indeed substantially the same
+as those of other monks, but there was among them a more practical
+spirit of obedience. All the members were controlled by a single
+will--all were passive, instruments in the hands of the general of the
+order. He appointed presidents of colleges and of religious houses;
+admitted, dismissed, dispensed, and punished at his pleasure. His
+power was irresponsible, and for life. From his will there was no
+appeal. There were among them many gradations in rank, but each
+gradation was a gradation in slavery. The Jesuit was bound to obey
+even his own servant, if required by a superior. Obedience was the
+soul of the institution, absolute, unconditional, and unreserved--even
+the submission of the will, to the entire abnegation of self. The
+Jesuit gloried in being made a puppet, a piece of machinery, like a
+soldier, if the loss of his intellectual independence would advance
+the interests of his order. The _esprit de corps_ was perfectly
+wonderful, and this spirit was one secret of the disinterestedness of
+the body. "_Ad majorem Dei gloriam,_" was the motto emblazoned on
+their standards, and written on their hearts; but this glory of God
+was synonymous with the ascendency of their association.
+
+The unconditional obedience to a single will, which is the genius of
+Jesuitism, while it signally advanced the interests of the body, and
+of the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the most
+detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by man.
+The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a tool, rather
+than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by the orders of his
+superiors, and they alone were responsible for his actions.
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the Jesuits.]
+
+We can easily see how the extraordinary virtues and attainments of the
+early Jesuits, and the wonderful mechanism of their system, would
+promote the growth of the order and the interests of Rome, before the
+suspicions of good people would be aroused. It was a long time after
+their piety had passed to fraud, their simplicity to cunning, their
+poverty to wealth, their humility to pride, and their indifference to
+the world to cabals, intrigues, and crimes, before the change was
+felt. And, moreover, it was more than a century before the fruits of
+the system were fully reaped. With all the excellences of their
+schools and missions, dangerous notions and customs were taught in
+them, which gradually destroyed their efficacy. A bad system often
+works well for a while, but always carries the seeds of decay and
+ruin. It was so with the institution of Loyola, in spite of the
+enthusiasm and sincerity of the early members, and the masterly wisdom
+displayed by the founders. In after times, evils were perceived, which
+had, at first, escaped the eye. It was seen that the system of
+education, though specious, and, in many respects, excellent, was
+calculated to narrow the mind, while it filled it with knowledge.
+Young men, in their colleges, were taught blindly to follow a rigid
+mechanical code; they were closely watched; all books were taken from
+them of a liberal tendency; mutilated editions of such as could not be
+denied only were allowed; truths of great importance were concealed or
+glossed over; exploded errors were revived, and studies recommended
+which had no reference to the discussion of abstract questions on
+government or religion. And the boys were made spies on each other,
+their spirits were broken, and their tastes perverted. The Jesuits
+sought to guard the avenues to thought, not to open them, were jealous
+of all independence of mind, and never sought to go beyond their age,
+or base any movement on ideal standards.
+
+[Sidenote: Evils in the Jesuit System.]
+
+Again, as preachers, though popular and eloquent, they devoted their
+talents to convert men to the _Roman church_ rather than to _God_.
+They were bigoted sectarians; strove to make men Catholics rather than
+Christians. As missionaries, they were content with a mere nominal
+conversion. They gave men the crucifix, but not the Bible, and even
+permitted their converts to retain many of their ancient superstitions
+and prejudices. And thus they usurped the authority of native rulers,
+and sought to impose on China and Japan their despotic yoke. They
+greatly enriched themselves in consequence of the credulity of the
+natives, whom they flattered, and wielded an unlawful power. And this
+is one reason why they were expelled, and why they made no permanent
+conquests among the millions they converted in Japan. They wished not
+only to subjugate the European, but the Asiatic mind. Europe did not
+present a field sufficiently extensive for their cupidity and
+ambition.
+
+Finally, as confessors, they were peculiarly indulgent to those who
+sought absolution, provided their submission was complete. Then it was
+seen what an easy thing it was to bear the yoke of Christ. The
+offender was told that sin consisted in wilfulness, and wilfulness in
+the perfect knowledge of the nature of sin, according to which
+doctrine blindness and passion were sufficient exculpations. They
+invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so
+severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly
+determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of
+being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could
+thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry
+which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They
+tolerated, and some of them justified, crimes, if the same could be
+made subservient to the apparent interests of the church. Their
+principle was to do evil that good might come. Above all, they
+conformed to the inclinations of the great, especially to those of
+absolute princes, on whom they imposed no painful penance, or austere
+devotion. Their sympathies always were with absolutism, in all its
+forms and they were the chosen and trusted agents of the despots of
+mankind, until even the eyes of Europe were open to their vast
+ambition, which sought to erect an independent empire within the
+limits of despotism itself. But the corruptions of the Jesuits, their
+system of casuistry, their lax morality, their disgraceful intrigues,
+their unprincipled rapacity, do not belong to the age we have now been
+considering. These fruits of a bad system had not then been matured;
+and the infancy of the society was as beautiful as its latter days
+were disgraceful and fearful. In a future chapter, we shall glance at
+the decline and fall of this celebrated institution--the best adapted
+to its proposed ends of any system ever devised by the craft and
+wisdom of man.
+
+[Sidenote: The Popes in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+The great patrons of the Jesuits--the popes and their empire in the
+sixteenth century, after the death of Luther--demand some notice. The
+Catholic church, in this century, was remarkable for the reformation
+it attempted within its own body, and for the zeal, and ability, and
+virtue, which marked the character of many of the popes themselves.
+Had it not been for this counter reformation, Protestantism would have
+obtained a great ascendency in Europe. But the Protestants were
+divided among themselves, while the Catholics were united, and
+animated with singular zeal. They put forth their utmost energies to
+reconquer what they had lost. They did not succeed in this, but they
+secured the ascendency, on the whole, of the Catholic cause in Europe.
+For this ascendency the popes are indebted to the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: Nepotism of the Popes.]
+
+At the close of the sixteenth century, the popes possessed a
+well-situated, rich, and beautiful province. All writers celebrated
+its fertility. Scarcely a foot of land remained uncultivated. Corn was
+exported, and the ports were filled with ships. The people were
+courageous, and had great talents for business. The middle classes
+were peaceful and contented, but the nobles, who held in their hands
+the municipal authority, were turbulent, rapacious, and indifferent to
+intellectual culture. The popes were generally virtuous characters,
+and munificent patrons of genius. Gregory XIII. kept a list of men in
+every country who were likely to acquit themselves as bishops, and
+exhibited the greatest caution in appointing them. Sixtus V., whose
+father was an humble gardener, encouraged agriculture and
+manufactures, husbanded the resources of the state, and filled Rome
+with statues. He raised the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, and
+completed the dome of the Cathedral. Clement VIII. celebrated the mass
+himself, and scrupulously devoted himself to religious duties. He was
+careless of the pleasures which formerly characterized the popes, and
+admitted every day twelve poor persons to dine with him. Paul V. had
+equal talents and greater authority, but was bigoted and cold.
+Gregory XIV. had all the severity of an ancient monk. The only
+religious peculiarity of the popes, at the latter end of the sixteenth
+century, which we unhesitatingly condemn, was, their religious
+intolerance. But they saw that their empire would pass away, unless
+they used vigorous and desperate measures to retain it. During this
+period, the great victories of the Jesuits, the establishment of their
+colleges, and the splendid endowments of their churches took place.
+Gregory XV. built, at his own cost, the celebrated church of St.
+Ignatius, at Rome, and instituted the Propaganda, a missionary
+institution, under the control of the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+The popes, whether good or bad, did not relinquish their nepotism in
+this century, in consequence of which great families arose with every
+pope, and supplanted the old aristocracy. The Barberini family, in one
+pontificate, amassed one hundred and five millions of scudi--as great
+a fortune as that left by Mazarin. But they, enriched under
+Urban VII., had to flee from Rome under Innocent X. Jealousy and
+contention divided and distracted all the noble families, who vied
+with each other in titles and pomp, ceremony and pride. The ladies of
+the Savelli family never quitted their palace walls, except in closely
+veiled carriages. The Visconti decorated their walls with the
+portraits of the popes of their line. The Gaetana dwelt with pride on
+the memory of Boniface VIII. The Colonna and Orsini boasted that for
+centuries no peace had been concluded in Christendom, in which they
+had not been expressly included. But these old families had become
+gradually impoverished, and yielded, in wealth and power, though not
+in pride and dignity, to the Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini,
+Ludovisi, Giustiniani, Chigi, and the Barberini. All these families,
+from which popes had sprung, had splendid palaces, villas, pictures,
+libraries, and statues; and they contributed to make Rome the centre
+of attraction for the elegant and the literary throughout Europe. It
+was still the moral and social centre of Christendom. It was a place
+to which all strangers resorted, and from which all intrigues sprung.
+It was the scene of pleasure, gayety, and grandeur. And the splendid
+fabric, which was erected in the "ages of faith," in spite of all the
+calamities and ravages of time, remained still beautiful and
+attractive. Since the first secession, in the sixteenth century, Rome
+has lost none of her adherents, and those, who remained faithful, have
+become the more enthusiastic in their idolatry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Ranke's History of the Popes. Father Bouhour's
+     Life of Ignatius Loyola. A Life of Xavier, by the same
+     author. Stephens's Essay on Loyola. Charlevoix's History of
+     Paraguay. Pascal's Provincial Letters. Macaulay's Review of
+     Ranke's History of the Popes. Bancroft's chapter, in the
+     History of the United States, on the colonization of Canada.
+     "Secreta Monita." Histoire des Jésuites. "Spiritual
+     Exercises." Dr. Williams's Essay. History of Jesuit
+     Missions. The works on the Jesuits are very numerous; but
+     those which are most accessible are of a violent partisan
+     character. Eugene Sue, in his "Wandering Jew," has given
+     false, but strong, impressions. Infidel writers have
+     generally been the most bitter, with the exception of
+     English and Scotch authors, in the seventeenth century. The
+     great work of Ranke is the most impartial with which the
+     author is acquainted. Ranke's histories should never be
+     neglected, of which admirable translations have been made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THIRTY YEARS WAR.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Political Troubles after the Death of Luther.]
+
+The contests which arose from the discussion of religious ideas did
+not close with the sixteenth century. They were, on the other hand,
+continued with still greater acrimony. Protestantism had been
+suppressed in France, but not in Holland or Germany. In England, the
+struggle was to continue, not between the Catholics and Protestants,
+but between different parties among the Protestants themselves. In
+Germany, a long and devastating war of thirty years was to be carried
+on before even religious liberty could be guaranteed.
+
+This struggle is the most prominent event of the seventeenth century
+before the English Revolution, and was attended with the most
+important religious and political consequences. The event itself was
+one of the chief political consequences of the Reformation. Indeed,
+all the events of this period either originated in, or became mixed up
+with, questions of religion.
+
+From the very first agitation of the reform doctrines, the house of
+Austria devoted against their adherents the whole of its immense
+political power. Charles V. resolved to suppress Protestantism, and
+would have perhaps succeeded, had it not been for the various wars
+which distracted his attention, and for the decided stand which the
+Protestant princes of Germany took respecting Luther and his
+doctrines. As early as 1530, was formed the league of Smalcalde,
+headed by the elector of Saxony, the most powerful of the German
+princes, next to the archduke of Austria. The princes who formed this
+league, resolved to secure to their subjects the free exercise of
+their religion, in spite of all opposition from the Catholic powers.
+But hostilities did not commence until after Luther had breathed his
+last. The Catholics gained a great victory at the battle of Mühlberg,
+when the Elector of Saxony was taken prisoner. With the treaty of
+Smalcalde, the freedom of Germany seemed prostrate forever, and the
+power of Austria reached its meridian. But the cause of liberty
+revived under Maurice of Saxony, once its formidable enemy. All the
+fruits of victory were lost again in the congress of Passau, and the
+diet of Augsburg, when an equitable peace seemed guaranteed to the
+Protestants.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Augsburg.]
+
+The diet of Augsburg, 1555, the year of the resignation of Charles V.,
+divided Germany into two great political and religious parties, and
+recognized the independence of each. The Protestants were no longer
+looked upon as rebels, but as men who had a right to worship God as
+they pleased. Still, in reality, all that the Lutherans gained was
+toleration, not equality. The concessions of the Catholics were made
+to necessity, not to justice. Hence, the treaty of Augsburg proved
+only a truce, not a lasting peace. The boundaries of both parties were
+marked out by the sword, and by the sword only were they to be
+preserved.
+
+For a while, however, peace was preserved, and might have continued
+longer, had it not been for the dissensions of Protestants among
+themselves, caused by the followers of Calvin and Luther. The
+Lutherans would not include the Calvinists in their communion, and the
+Calvinists would not accede to the Lutheran church. During these
+dissensions, the Jesuits sowed tares, and the Protestants lost the
+chance of establishing their perfect equality with the Catholics.
+
+Notwithstanding all the bitterness and jealousy which existed between
+sects and parties, still the peace of Germany, in a political sense,
+was preserved during the reign of Ferdinand, the founder of the German
+branch of the house of Austria, and who succeeded his brother
+Charles V. On his death, in 1564, his son Maximilian II., was chosen
+emperor, and during his reign, and until his death, in 1576, Germany
+enjoyed tranquillity. His successor was his son Rodolph, a weak
+prince, and incapable of uniting the various territories which were
+hereditary in his family--Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia,
+Moravia, and Styria. There were troubles in each of these provinces,
+and one after another revolted, until Rodolph was left with but the
+empty title of emperor. But these provinces acknowledged the sway of
+his brother Matthias, who had delivered them from the Turks, and had
+granted the Protestants liberty of conscience. The emperor was weak
+enough to confirm his brother in his usurpation. In 1612, he died, and
+Matthias mounted the imperial throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Commencement of the Thirty Years War.]
+
+It was during the reign of this prince, that the Thirty Years' War
+commenced. In proportion as the reformed religion gained ground in
+Hungary and Bohemia,--two provinces very difficult to rule,--the
+Protestant princes of the empire became desirous of securing and
+extending their privileges. Their demands were refused, and they
+entered into a new confederacy, called the _Evangelical Union_. This
+association was opposed by another, called the _Catholic League_. The
+former was supported by Holland, England, and Henry IV., of France.
+The humiliation of Austria was the great object of Henry in supporting
+the Protestant princes of Germany, and he assembled an army of forty
+thousand men, which he designed to head himself. But, just as his
+preparations were completed, he was assassinated, and his death and
+the dissensions in the Austrian family prevented the war breaking out
+with the fury which afterwards characterized it.
+
+The Emperor Matthias died in 1618, and was succeeded by his cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, who was an inveterate enemy to the
+Protestant cause. His first care was to suppress the insurrection of
+the Protestants, which, just before his accession had broken out in
+Bohemia, under the celebrated Count Mansfeldt. The Bohemians renounced
+allegiance to Ferdinand II., and chose Frederic V., elector palatine,
+for their king. Frederic unwisely accepted the crown, which confirmed
+the quarrel between Ferdinand and the Bohemians. Frederic was seconded
+by all the Protestant princes, except the Elector of Saxony, by two
+thousand four hundred English volunteers, and by eight thousand troops
+from the United Provinces. But Ferdinand, assisted by the king of
+Spain and all the Catholic princes, was more than a match for
+Frederic, who wasted his time and strength in vain displays of
+sovereignty. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, commanded the forces of the
+Catholics, who, with twenty-five thousand troops from the Low
+Countries, invaded Bohemia. The Bohemian forces did not amount to
+thirty thousand, but they intrenched themselves near Prague, where
+they were attacked (1620) and routed, with immense slaughter. The
+battle of Prague decided the fate of Bohemia, put Frederic in
+possession of all his dominions, and invested him with an authority
+equal to what any of his predecessors had enjoyed. All his wishes were
+gratified, and, had he been wise, he might have maintained his
+ascendency in Germany. But he was blinded by his success, and, from a
+rebellion in Bohemia, the war extended through Germany, and afterwards
+throughout Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor Frederic.]
+
+The emperor had regained his dominions by the victorious arms of
+Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. To compensate him, without detriment to
+himself, he resolved to bestow upon him the dominions of the Count
+Palatine of the Rhine, who had injudiciously accepted the crown of
+Bohemia. Frederic must be totally ruined. He was put under the ban of
+the empire, and his territories were devastated by the Spanish general
+Spinola, with an army of twenty-five thousand men.
+
+Apparently there was no hope for Frederic, or the Protestant cause.
+The only Protestant princes capable of arresting the Austrian
+encroachments were the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. But the
+former, John George, preferred the aggrandizement of his house to the
+emancipation of his country, and tamely witnessed the victories of the
+emperor, without raising an arm for the relief of the Protestants, of
+whom he was the acknowledged head. George William of Brandenburg was
+still more shamefully fettered by the fear of Austria, and of losing
+his dominions; and he, too, cautiously avoided committing himself to
+either party.
+
+But while these two great princes ingloriously abandoned Frederic to
+his fate, a single soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his
+sword, Ernest Count Mansfield, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen,
+to defy the whole power of Austria. Undismayed by the reverses of the
+elector palatine, he succeeded in enlisting an army of twenty thousand
+men. With such an army, the cause of Frederic was not irretrievably
+lost. New prospects began to open, and his misfortunes raised up
+unexpected friends. James of England opened his treasures, and
+Christian of Denmark offered his powerful support. Mansfeldt was also
+joined by the Margrave of Baden. The courage of the count palatine
+revived, and he labored assiduously to arouse his Protestant brethren.
+Meanwhile, the generals of the emperor were on the alert, and the
+rising hopes of Frederic were dissipated by the victories of Tilly.
+The count palatine was again driven from his hereditary dominions, and
+sought refuge in Holland.
+
+[Sidenote: Count Wallenstein.]
+
+But, though the emperor was successful, his finances were exhausted,
+and he was disagreeably dependent on Bavaria. Under his circumstances,
+nothing was more welcome than the proposal of Wallenstein, an
+experienced officer, and the richest nobleman in Bohemia.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Wallenstein.]
+
+He offered, at his own expense, and that of his friends, to raise,
+clothe, and maintain an army for the emperor, if he were allowed to
+augment it to fifty thousand men. His project was ridiculed as
+visionary; but the offer was too valuable to be rejected. In a few
+months, he had collected an army of thirty thousand. His reputation,
+the prospect of promotion, and the hope of plunder, attracted
+adventurers from all parts of Germany. Knowing that so large a body
+could not be held together without great resources, and having none of
+his own, he marched his troops into the most fertile territories,
+which had not yet suffered from the war, where they subsisted by
+contributions and plunder, as obnoxious to their friends as they were
+to their enemies. Nothing shows the weakness of the imperial power,
+with all its apparent strength, and the barbarous notions and customs
+of the country, more than this grant to Wallenstein. And, with all his
+heroism and success, he cannot now be viewed in any other light than
+as a licensed robber. He was virtually at the head of a troop of
+banditti, who fought for the sake of plunder, and who would join any
+side which would present the greatest hopes of gain. The genius of
+Schiller, both in his dramas and histories, has immortalized the name
+of this unprincipled hero, and has excited a strange interest in his
+person, his family, and his fortunes. He is represented as "born to
+command. His acute eye distinguished at a glance, from among the
+multitude, such as were competent, and he assigned to each his proper
+place. His praise, from being rarely bestowed, animated and brought
+into full operation every faculty; while his steady, reserved, and
+earnest demeanor secured obedience and discipline. His very appearance
+excited awe and reverence; his figure was proud, lofty, and warlike,
+while his bright, piercing eye expressed profundity of thought,
+combined with gravity and mystery. His favorite study was that of the
+stars, and his most intimate friend was an Italian astrologer. He had
+a fondness for pomp and extravagance. He maintained sixty pages; his
+ante-chamber was guarded by fifty life-guards, and his table never
+consisted of less than one hundred covers. Six barons and as many
+knights were in constant attendance on his person. He never smiled,
+and the coldness of his temperament was proof against sensual
+seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he despised those
+amusements in which so many waste their lives. Terror was the talisman
+with which he worked: extreme in his punishments as in his rewards, he
+knew how to keep alive the zeal of his followers, while no general of
+ancient or modern times could boast of being obeyed with equal
+alacrity. Submission to his will was more prized by him than bravery,
+and he kept up the obedience of his troops by capricious orders. He
+was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short,
+red hair, and small, sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding
+seriousness sat upon his brow, and his munificent presents alone
+retained the trembling crowd of his dependants."
+
+Such was this enterprising nobleman, to whom the emperor Ferdinand
+committed so great authority. And the success of Wallenstein
+apparently justified the course of the emperor. The greater his
+extortions, and the greater his rewards, the greater was the concourse
+to his standard. Such is human nature. It is said that, in seven
+years, Wallenstein exacted not less than sixty millions of dollars
+from one half of Germany--an incredible sum, when the expenditure of
+the government of England, at this time, was less than two million
+pounds a year. His armies flourished, while the states through which
+they passed were ruined. What cared he for the curses of the people,
+or the complaints of princes, so long as his army adored him? It was
+his object to humble all the princes of the empire, and make himself
+so necessary to the emperor that he would gradually sink to become his
+tool. He already was created Duke of Friedland, and generalissimo of
+the imperial armies. Nor had his victorious career met with any severe
+check, but uninterrupted success seemed to promise the realization of
+his vast ambition. Germany lay bleeding at his feet, helpless and
+indignant.
+
+But the greatness and the insolence of Wallenstein raised up enemies
+against him in all parts of the empire. Fear and jealousy increased
+the opposition, even in the ranks of the Catholics. His dismissal was
+demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by Spain.
+Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, felt himself eclipsed by the successful
+general, and was at the head of the cabals against him.
+
+The emperor felt, at this crisis, as Ganganelli did when compelled to
+disband the Jesuits, that he was parting with the man to whom he owed
+all his supremacy. Long was he undecided whether or not he would make
+the sacrifice. But all Germany was clamorous, and the disgrace of
+Wallenstein was ordained.
+
+Would the ambitious chieftain, at the head of one hundred thousand
+devoted soldiers, regard the commands of the emperor? He made up his
+mind to obey, looking to the future for revenge, and feeling that he
+could afford to wait for it. Seni had read in the stars that glorious
+prospects still awaited him. Wallenstein retired to his estates in
+Bohemia, but maintained the pomp and splendor of a prince of the
+empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus.]
+
+Scarcely had he retired from the command of the army before his
+services were again demanded. One hero produces another. A Wellington
+is ever found to oppose a Napoleon. Providence raised up a friend to
+Germany, in its distress, in the person of Gustavus Adolphus, King of
+Sweden. It was not for personal aggrandizement that he lent his
+powerful arm to the Protestant princes, who, thus far, had vainly
+struggled against Maximilian, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Zeal for
+Protestantism, added to strong provocations, induced him to land in
+Germany with fifteen thousand men--a small body to oppose the
+victorious troops of the emperor, but they were brave and highly
+disciplined, and devoted to their royal master. He himself was
+indisputably the greatest general of the age, and had the full
+confidence of the Protestant princes, who were ready to rally the
+moment he obtained any signal advantage. Henceforth, Gustavus Adolphus
+was the hero of the war. He was more than a hero; he was a Christian,
+regardful of the morals of his soldiers, and devoted to the interests
+of spiritual religion. He was frugal, yet generous, serene in the
+greatest danger; and magnanimous beyond all precedent in the history
+of kings. On the 20th of May, 1630, taking his daughter Christiana in
+his arms, then only four years of age, he presented her to the states
+as their future sovereign, and made his farewell address. "Not
+lightly, not wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and you
+in this new and dangerous war. God is my witness that I do not fight
+to gratify my own ambition; but the emperor has wronged me, has
+supported my enemies, persecuted my friends, trampled my religion in
+the dust, and even stretched forth his revengeful arm against my
+crown. The oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by
+God's help, we will give them.
+
+"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed.
+I have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall
+always escape them. Hitherto, Providence has protected me; but I shall
+at last fall in defence of my country and my faith. I commend you to
+the protection of Heaven. Be just, conscientious, and upright, and we
+shall meet again in eternity. For the prosperity of all my subjects, I
+offer my warmest prayer to Heaven; and bid you all a sincere--it may
+be an eternal--farewell."
+
+He had scarcely landed in Germany before his victorious career began.
+France concluded a treaty with him, and he advanced against Tilly, who
+now headed the imperial armies.
+
+[Sidenote: Loss of Magdeburg.]
+
+The tardiness of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg in rendering
+assistance caused the loss of Magdeburg, the most important fortress
+of the Protestants. It was taken by assault, even while Gustavus was
+advancing to its relief. No pen can paint, and no imagination can
+conceive, the horrors which were perpetrated by the imperial soldiers
+in the sack of that unfortunate place. Neither childhood nor helpless
+age--neither youth, beauty, sex, nor rank could disarm the fury of the
+conquerors. No situation or retreat was sacred. In a single church
+fifty-three women were beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with
+throwing children into the flames. Pappenheim's Walloons stabbed
+infants at the breast. The city was reduced to ashes, and thirty
+thousand of the inhabitants were slain.
+
+But the loss of this important city was soon compensated by the battle
+of Leipsic, 1630, which the King of Sweden gained over the imperial
+forces, and in which the Elector of Saxony at last rendered valuable
+aid. The rout of Tilly, hitherto victorious, was complete, and he
+himself escaped only by chance. Saxony was freed from the enemy, while
+Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, were stripped of their
+defenders. Ferdinand was no longer secure in his capital; the freedom
+of Germany was secured. Gustavus was every where hailed as a
+deliverer, and admiration for his genius was only equalled by the
+admiration of his virtues. He rapidly regained all that the
+Protestants had lost, and the fruits of twelve years of war were
+snatched away from the emperor. Tilly was soon after killed, and all
+things indicated the complete triumph of the Protestants.
+
+It was now the turn of Ferdinand to tremble. The only person who could
+save him was dismissed and disgraced. Tilly was dead. Munich and
+Prague were in the hands of the Protestants, while the king of Sweden
+traversed Germany as a conqueror, law giver, and judge. No fortress
+was inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career. The Swedish
+standards were planted in Bavaria, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony,
+and along the banks of the Rhine. Meanwhile the Turks were preparing
+to attack Hungary, and a dangerous insurrection threatened his own
+capital. None came to his assistance in the hour of peril. On all
+sides, he was surrounded by hostile armies, while his own forces were
+dispirited and treacherous.
+
+[Sidenote: Wallenstein Reinstated in Power.]
+
+From such a hopeless state he was rescued by the man whom he had
+injured, but not until he had himself to beg his assistance.
+Wallenstein was in retirement, and secretly rejoiced in the victories
+of the Swedish king, knowing full well that the emperor would soon be
+compelled to summon him again to command his armies. Now he could
+dictate his terms. Now he could humiliate his sovereign, and at the
+same time obtain all the power his ambition craved. He declined
+entering his service unless he had the unlimited command of all the
+armies of Austria and Spain. No commission in the army was to be
+granted by the emperor, without his own approval. He demanded the
+ordinary pay, and an imperial hereditary estate. In short, he demanded
+sovereign authority; and with such humiliating terms the emperor, in
+his necessities, was obliged to comply.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Gustavus Adolphus.]
+
+No sooner did he raise his standard, than it was resorted to by the
+unprincipled, the rapacious, and the needy from all parts of the
+empire. But Wallenstein now resolved to pursue, exclusively, his own
+selfish interests, and directed all his aims to independent
+sovereignty. When his forces were united with those of Maximilian, he
+found himself at the head of sixty thousand men. Then really commenced
+the severity of the contest, for Wallenstein was now stronger than
+Gustavus. Nevertheless, the heroic Swede offered to give his rival
+battle at Nuremburg, which was declined. He then attacked his camp,
+but was repulsed with loss. At last, the two generals met on the
+plains of Lutzen, in Saxony, 1632. During the whole course of the war,
+two such generals had not been pitted against each other, nor had so
+much been staked on the chance of a battle. Victory declared for the
+troops of Gustavus, but the heroic leader himself was killed, in the
+fulness of his glory. It was his fortune to die with an untarnished
+fame. "By an untimely death," says Schiller, "his protecting genius
+rescued him from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting
+moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in the
+plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he
+would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over his grave,
+or maintained his title to the admiration with which posterity regards
+him,--as the first and only just conqueror that the world has
+produced. But it was no longer the benefactor of Germany who fell at
+Lutzen; the beneficent part of his career Gustavus Adolphus had
+already terminated; and now the greatest service which he could render
+to the liberties of Germany was--to die. The all-engrossing power of
+an individual was at an end; the equivocal assistance of an
+over-powerful protector gave place to a more noble self-exertion on
+the part of the estates; and those who formerly were the mere
+instruments of his aggrandizement, now began to work for themselves.
+The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired, unquestionably, to
+establish a power within Germany inconsistent with the liberties of
+the estates. His aim was the imperial crown; and this dignity,
+supported by his power, would be liable to more abuse than had ever
+been feared from the house of Austria. His sudden disappearance
+secured the liberties of Germany, and saved his own reputation, while
+it probably spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in
+arms against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by
+a disadvantageous peace."
+
+After the battle of Lutzen we almost lose sight of Wallenstein, and no
+victories were commensurate with his reputation and abilities. He
+continued inactive in Bohemia, while all Europe was awaiting the
+exploits which should efface the remembrance of his defeat. He
+exhausted the imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and his
+whole conduct seems singular and treacherous. His enemies at the
+imperial court now renewed their intrigues, and his conduct was
+reviewed with the most malicious criticism. But he possessed too great
+power to be openly assailed by the emperor, and measures were
+concerted to remove him by treachery. Wallenstein obtained notice of
+the designs against him, and now, too late, resolved on an open
+revolt. But he was betrayed, and his own generals, on whom he counted,
+deserted him, so soon as the emperor dared to deprive him of his
+command. But he was only removed by assassination, and just at the
+moment when he deemed himself secure against the whole power of the
+emperor. No man, however great, can stand before an authority which is
+universally deemed legitimate, however reduced and weakened that
+authority may be. In times of anarchy and revolution, there is
+confusion in men's minds respecting the persons in whom legitimate
+authority should be lodged, and this is the only reason why rebellion
+is ever successful.
+
+[Sidenote: Assassination of Wallenstein.]
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Westphalia.]
+
+The death of Wallenstein, in 1634, did not terminate the war. It raged
+eleven years longer, with various success, and involved the other
+European powers. France was then governed by Cardinal Richelieu, who,
+notwithstanding his Catholicism, lent assistance to the Protestants,
+with a view of reducing the power of Austria. Indeed, the war had
+destroyed the sentiments which produced it, and political motives
+became stronger than religious. Oxenstiern and Richelieu became the
+master spirits of the contest, and, in the recesses of their cabinets,
+regulated the campaigns of their generals. Battles were lost and won
+on both sides, and innumerable intrigues were plotted by interested
+statesmen. After all parties had exhausted their resources, and
+Germany was deluged with the blood of Spaniards, Hollanders,
+Frenchmen, Swedes, besides that of her own sons, the peace of
+Westphalia was concluded, (1648,)--the most important treaty in the
+history of Europe. All the princes and states of the empire were
+reëstablished in the lands, rights, and prerogatives which they
+enjoyed before the troubles in Bohemia, in 1619. The religious
+liberties of the Lutherans and Calvinists were guaranteed, and it was
+stipulated that the Imperial Chamber should consist of twenty-four
+Protestant members and twenty-six Catholic, and that the emperor
+should receive six Protestants into the Aulic Council, the highest
+judicial tribunal in the empire. This peace is the foundation of the
+whole system of modern European politics, of all modern treaties, of
+that which is called the freedom of Germany, and of a sort of balance
+of power among all the countries of Western Europe. Dearly was it
+purchased, by the perfect exhaustion of national energies, and the
+demoralizing sentiments which one of the longest and bloodiest wars in
+human history inevitably introduced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. Coleridge's Translation of
+     Wallenstein. Kohlrausch's History of Germany. See also a
+     history of Germany in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopedia. History of
+     Sweden. Plank on the Political Consequences of the
+     Reformation. The History of Schiller, however is a classic,
+     and is exceedingly interesting and beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.
+
+
+While Germany was rent with civil commotions, and the power of the
+emperors was limited by the stand taken against it by the Protestant
+princes, France was ruled with an iron hand, and a foundation was laid
+for the despotism of Louis XIV. The energetic genius of Cardinal
+Richelieu, during the whole period of the thirty years' war, affected
+the councils of all the different courts of Europe. He was
+indisputably the greatest statesman of his age and nation. To him
+France is chiefly indebted for the ascendency she enjoyed in the
+seventeenth century. Had Henry IV. lived to the age of Louis XIV.,
+France would probably have been permanently greater, although the
+power of the king might not have been so absolute.
+
+[Sidenote: Regency of Mary de Medicis.]
+
+When Henry IV. died, he left his kingdom to his son Louis XIII., a
+child nine years of age. The first thing to be done was the
+appointment of a regent. The Parliament of Paris, in whom this right
+seems to have been vested, nominated the queen mother, Mary de
+Medicis, and the young king, in a bed of justice,--the greatest of the
+royal prerogatives,--confirmed his mother in the regency. Her regency
+was any thing but favorable to the interests of the kingdom. The
+policy of the late king was disregarded, and a new course of measures
+was adopted. Sully, through whose counsels the reign of Henry IV. had
+been so beneficent, was dismissed. The queen regent had no sympathy
+with his views. Neither the corrupt court nor the powerful aristocracy
+cared any thing for the interests of the people, for the improvement
+of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, for the regulation of the
+finances, or for increasing the productive industry of the country, on
+which its material prosperity ever depends. The greedy courtiers
+obtained from a lavish queen the treasures which the wise care of
+Henry had amassed, and which he thoughtlessly bestowed in order to
+secure their fidelity. The foreign policy also was changed, and a
+strong alliance was made with the pope, with Spain, and with the
+Jesuits.
+
+On the retirement of the able and incorruptible Sully, favorites of no
+talent or worth arose to power. Concini, an Italian, controlled the
+queen regent, and through him all her favors flowed. He was succeeded
+by Luynes, a mere falconer, who made himself agreeable to the young
+king, and usurped the power of Concini, when the king attained his
+majority. He became constable of France, the highest officer in the
+realm, and surpassed all the old nobility in arrogance and cupidity.
+His mismanagement and selfishness led to an insurrection of some of
+the great nobles among whom were Condé and D'Épernon.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu.]
+
+While the kingdom was thus convulsed with civil war, and in every way
+mismanaged, Richelieu, Bishop of Luçon, appeared upon the stage. He
+was a man of high birth, was made doctor of the Sorbonne at the age of
+twenty-two, and, before he was twenty-five, a bishop. During the
+ascendency of Mancini, he attracted the attention of the queen, and
+was selected as secretary of state. Soon after the death of Luynes, he
+obtained a cardinal's hat, and a seat in the council. The moment he
+spoke, his genius predominated, and the monarch, with all his pride,
+bowed to the ascendency of intellect, and yielded, with a good grace,
+to a man whom it was impolitic to resist.
+
+From that moment, in 1622, the reins of empire were in the hands of a
+master, and the king himself, were it not for the splendor of his
+court, would have disappeared from the eye, both of statesmen and
+historians. The reign of anarchy, for a quarter of a century, at
+least, was over, and the way was prepared for the aggrandizement of
+the French monarchy. When Richelieu came into power, universal
+disorder prevailed. The finances were deranged, the Huguenots were
+troublesome, and the nobles were rebellious. Such was the internal
+state of France,--weakened, distracted, and anarchical. She had lost
+her position among the great powers, and Austria threatened to
+overturn the political relations of all the states of Europe. Austria,
+in the early part of the seventeenth century, was, unquestionably, the
+leading power in Christendom, and her ascendency boded no good to the
+liberties which men were beginning to assert.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression of the Huguenots.]
+
+Three great objects animated the genius of Richelieu, and in the
+attainment of these he was successful. These were, the suppression of
+the Huguenots, as a powerful party, the humiliation of the great
+barons, and the reduction of the power of Austria. For these objects
+he perseveringly contended for twenty years; and his struggles and
+intrigues to secure these ends constitute the history of France during
+the reign of Louis XIII. And they affected not only France, but the
+whole continent. His policy was to preserve peace with England and
+Spain,--the hereditary enemies of France,--with Sweden, and with the
+Protestants of Germany, even while he suppressed their religion within
+his own realm. It was the true policy of England to prevent the ruin
+of the Huguenots in France, as before she had aided the Protestants in
+Holland. But, unfortunately, England was then ruled by James and
+Charles, and they were controlled by profligate ministers, who were
+the tools of the crafty cardinal. A feeble assistance was rendered by
+James, but it availed nothing.
+
+In order to annihilate the political power of the Huguenots,--for
+Richelieu cared more for this than for their religious opinions,--it
+was necessary that he should possess himself of the city of La
+Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay, a strong fortress, which had resisted,
+during the reign of Charles IX., the whole power of the Catholics, and
+which continued to be the stronghold of the Huguenots. Here they could
+always retire and be safe, in times of danger. It was strongly
+fortified by sea, as well as by land; and only a vigorous blockade
+could exclude provisions and military stores from the people. But
+England was mistress of the ocean, and supplies from her would always
+relieve the besieged.
+
+After ineffectual but vigorous attempts to take the city by land,
+Richelieu determined to shut up its harbor, first by stakes, and then
+by a boom. Both of these measures failed. But the military genius of
+the cardinal was equal to his talents as a statesman. He remembered
+what Alexander did at the siege of Tyre. So, with a volume of Quintus
+Curtius in his hand, he projected and finished a mole, half a mile in
+length, across a gulf, into which the tide flowed. In some places, it
+was eight hundred and forty feet below the surface of the water, and
+sixty feet in breadth. At first, the besieged laughed at an attempt so
+gigantic and difficult. But the work steadily progressed, and the city
+was finally cut off from communication with the sea. The besieged,
+wasted by famine, surrendered; the fortifications were destroyed, the
+town lost its independence, and the power of the Huguenots was broken
+forever. But no vengeance was taken on the heroic citizens, and they
+were even permitted to enjoy their religion. Fifteen thousand,
+however, perished at this memorable siege.
+
+The next object of Richelieu was the humiliation of Austria. But the
+detail of his military operations would be complicated and tedious,
+since no grand and decisive battles were fought by his generals, and
+no able commanders appeared. Turenne and Condé belonged to the next
+age. The military operations consisted in frontier skirmishes, idle
+sieges, and fitful expeditions, in which, however, the cardinal had
+the advantage, and by which he gained, since he could better afford to
+pay for them. War is always ruinously expensive, and that party
+generally is successful which can the longer furnish resources. It is
+a proof that religious bigotry did not mainly influence him, since he
+supported the Protestant party. All motives of a religious kind were
+absorbed in his prevailing passion to aggrandize the French monarchy.
+Had it not been for the intrigues and forces of Richelieu, the peace
+of Westphalia might not have been secured, and Austria might again
+have overturned the "Balance of Power."
+
+[Sidenote: The Depression of the Great Nobles.]
+
+The third great aim of the minister, and the one which he most
+systematically pursued to the close of his life, was the depression of
+the nobles, whose power was dangerously exercised. They had almost
+feudal privileges, were enormously wealthy, numerous, corrupt, and
+dissolute. His efforts to suppress their power raised up numerous
+conspiracies.
+
+Among the earliest was one supported by the queen mother and Gaston,
+Duke of Orleans, brother to the king, and presumptive heir to the
+throne. Connected with this conspiracy were the Dukes of Bourbon and
+Vendome, the Prince de Chalais, and several others of the highest
+rank. It was intended to assassinate the cardinal and seize the reins
+of government. But he got timely notice of the plot, informed the
+king, and guarded himself. The conspirators were too formidable to be
+punished in a body; so he dissembled and resolved to cut them off in
+detail. He moreover threatened the king with resignation, and
+frightened him by predicting a civil war. In consequence, the king
+gave orders to arrest his brothers, the Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome,
+while the Prince of Chalais was executed. The Duke of Orleans, on the
+confession of Chalais, fled from the kingdom. The queen mother was
+arrested, Bassompierre was imprisoned in the Bastile, and the Duke of
+Guise sent on a pilgrimage to Rome. The powerful D'Épernon sued for
+pardon.
+
+Still Richelieu was not satisfied. He resolved to humble the
+parliament, because it had opposed an ordinance of the king declaring
+the partisans of the Duke of Orleans guilty of treason. It had rightly
+argued that such a condemnation could not be issued without a trial.
+"But," said the artful minister to the weak-minded king, "to refuse to
+verify a declaration which you yourself announced to the members of
+parliament, is to doubt your authority." An extraordinary council was
+convened, and the parliament, which was simply a court of judges, was
+summoned to the royal presence. They went in solemn procession,
+carrying with them the record which showed their refusal to register
+the edict. The king received them with stately pomp. They were
+required to kneel in his presence, and their decree was taken from the
+record and torn in pieces before their eyes, and the leading members
+were suspended and banished.
+
+The Court of Aids, by whom the money edicts were registered, also
+showed opposition. The members left the court when the next edict was
+to be registered. But they were suspended, until they humbly came to
+terms.
+
+"All the malcontents, the queen, the prince, the nobles, the
+parliament, and the Court of Aids hoped for the support of the people,
+and all were disappointed." And this is the reason why they failed and
+Richelieu triumphed. There never have been, among the French,
+disinterestedness and union in the cause of liberty, which never can
+be gained without perseverance and self-sacrifice.
+
+The next usurpation of Richelieu was the erection of a new tribunal
+for trying state criminals, in which no record of its proceedings
+should be preserved, and the members of which should be selected by
+himself. This court was worse than that of the Star Chamber.
+
+Richelieu showed a still more culpable disregard of the forms of
+justice in the trial of Marshal Marrillac, charged with crimes in the
+conduct of the army. He was brought before a commission, and not
+before his peers, condemned, and executed.
+
+In view of this judicial murder, the nobles, generally, were filled
+with indignation and alarm. They now saw that the minister aimed at
+the complete humiliation of their order, and therefore made another
+effort to resist the cardinal. At the head of this conspiracy was the
+Duke of Montmorency, admiral and constable of France, one of the most
+powerful nobles in the kingdom. He was governor of Provence, and
+deeply resented the insult offered to his rank in the condemnation of
+Marrillac. He moreover felt indignant that the king's brother should
+be driven into exile by the hostility of a priest. He therefore joined
+his forces with those of the Duke of Orleans, was defeated, tried, and
+executed for rebellion, against the entreaty and intercession of the
+most powerful families.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of Richelieu.]
+
+The cardinal minister was now triumphant over all his enemies. He had
+destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, extended the boundary
+of France, and decimated the nobles. He now turned his attention to
+the internal administration of the kingdom. He created a national
+navy, protected commerce and industry, rewarded genius, and formed the
+French Academy. He attained a greater pitch of greatness than any
+subject ever before or since enjoyed in his country, greater even than
+was possessed by Wolsey. Wolsey, powerful as he was, lived, like a
+Turkish vizier, in constant fear of his capricious master. But
+Richelieu controlled the king himself. Louis XIII. feared him, and
+felt that he could not reign without him. He did not love the
+cardinal, and was often tempted to dismiss him, but could never summon
+sufficient resolution. Richelieu was more powerful than the queen
+mother, the brothers of the king, the royal mistresses, or even all
+united, since he obtained an ascendency over all, doomed the queen
+mother to languish in exile at Cologne, and compelled the duke of
+Orleans to succumb to him. He was chief of three of the principal
+monastic orders, and possessed enormous wealth. He erected a palace as
+grand as Hampton Court, and appeared in public with great pomp and
+ceremony.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Richelieu.]
+
+But an end came to his greatness. In 1642, a mortal malady wasted him
+away; he summoned to his death bed his royal master; recommended
+Mazarin as his successor; and died like a man who knew no remorse, in
+the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the eighteenth of his reign as
+minister. He was eloquent, but his words served only to disguise his
+sentiments; he was direct and frank in his speech, and yet a perfect
+master of the art of dissimulation; he could not be imposed upon, and
+yet was passionately fond of flattery, which he liked in such large
+doses that it seemed hyperbolical; he was not learned, yet appreciated
+learning in others, and magnificently rewarded it; he was fond of
+pleasure, and easily fascinated by women, and yet was cold, politic,
+implacable, and cruel. But he was a great statesman, and aimed to
+suppress anarchy and preserve law. In view of his labors to preserve
+order, we may almost excuse his severity. "Placed," says Montrésor, as
+quoted by Miss Pardoe, "at an equal distance between Louis IX., whose
+aim was to abolish feudality, and the national convention, whose
+attempt was to crush aristocracy, he appeared, like them, to have
+received a mission of blood from heaven." The high nobility, repulsed
+under Louis XI. and Francis I., almost entirely succumbed under
+Richelieu, preparing, by its overthrow, the calm, unitarian, and
+despotic reign of Louis XIV., who looked around him in vain for a
+great noble, and found only courtiers. The great rebellion, which, for
+nearly two centuries, agitated France, almost entirely disappeared
+under the ministry of the cardinal. The Guises, who had touched with
+their hand the sceptre of Henry III., the Condés, who had placed their
+foot on the steps of the throne of Henry IV., and Gaston, who had
+tried upon his brow the crown of Louis XIII.,--all returned, at the
+voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into
+impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in that
+feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle which
+Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but for that
+of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, were not his
+enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he clung tenaciously by
+the side of a king, whom he compelled to live a melancholy, unhappy,
+and isolated life, whom he deprived successively of his friends, of
+his mistresses, and of his family, as a tree is stripped of its
+leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it was because friends,
+mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of the expiring royalty,
+which had need of all its egotism to prevent it from perishing. For it
+was not intestinal struggles merely,--there was also foreign war,
+which had connected itself fatally with them. All those great nobles
+whom he decimated, all those princes of the blood whom he exiled, were
+inviting foreigners to France; and these foreigners, answering eagerly
+to the summons, were entering the country on three different
+sides,--the English by Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the
+Austrians by Artois.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of Richelieu's Policy.]
+
+"He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Ré, and by
+besieging La Rochelle; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new
+kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from
+its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing
+dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not
+uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and
+Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his
+hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom.
+Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a
+great general. And when La Rochelle fell before those measures to
+which Schomberg and Bassompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the
+king, 'Sire, I am no prophet, but I assure your majesty that if you
+will condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in
+the month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be on
+your return in the month of August.' And each of these prophecies he
+accomplished in its time and place, and in such wise that, from that
+moment, Louis XIII. vowed to follow forever the counsels of a man by
+which he had so well profited. Finally, he died, as Montesquieu
+asserts, after having made the monarch enact the secondary character
+in the monarchy, but the first in Europe; after having abased the
+king, but after having made his reign illustrious; and after having
+mowed down rebellion so close to the soil, that the descendants of
+those who had composed the league could only form the Fronde, as,
+after the reign of Napoleon, the successors of the La Vendée of '93
+could only execute the Vendée of '32."
+
+Louis XIII. did not long survive this greatest of ministers. Naturally
+weak, he was still weaker by disease. He was reduced to skin and bone.
+In this state, he called a council, nominated his queen, Anne of
+Austria, regent, during the minority of his son Louis XIV., then four
+years of age, and shortly after died, in 1643.
+
+[Sidenote: Richelieu's Policy.]
+
+Mazarin, the new minister, followed out the policy of Richelieu. The
+war with Austria and Spain was continued, which was closed, on the
+Spanish side, by the victory of Rocroi, in 1643, obtained by the
+Prince of Condé, and in which battle twenty-three thousand Frenchmen
+completely routed twenty-six thousand Spaniards, killing eight
+thousand, and taking six thousand prisoners--one of the bloodiest
+battles ever fought. The great Condé here obtained those laurels which
+subsequent disgrace could never take away. The war on the side of
+Germany was closed, in 1648, by the peace of Westphalia. Turenne first
+appeared in the latter campaign of this long war, but gained no signal
+victory.
+
+Cardinal Mazarin, a subtle and intriguing Italian, while he pursued
+the policy of Richelieu, had not his genius or success. He was soon
+involved in domestic troubles. The aristocracy rebelled. Had they been
+united, they would have succeeded; but their rivalries, jealousies,
+and squabbles divided their strength and distracted their councils.
+Their cause was lost, and Mazarin triumphed, more from their divisions
+than from his own strength.
+
+He first had to oppose a clique of young nobles, full of arrogance and
+self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They hoped to
+recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The chief of these
+were the Dukes of Beaufort, Épernon, and Guise. They made use, as
+their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confidential friend of the queen
+regent. And she demanded of the minister that posts of honor and power
+should be given to her friends, which would secure that independence
+which Richelieu had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to
+amuse her, but, she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with
+her, and a conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily
+suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.]
+
+But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of De Retz,
+coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a man of
+boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless discontent.
+To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe a labyrinth.
+He succeeded, however, in keeping the country in perpetual turmoil,
+now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting insurrections
+among the nobles, and then, again, encouraging the parliaments in
+resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every movement was
+directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but committed no
+overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the celebrated
+Duchess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue
+as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde--a civil war which
+ended only in the reëstablishment of the monarchy on a firmer
+foundation. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of urchins,
+who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the wits of the
+court called the insurgents _frondeurs_, or slingers, insinuating that
+their force was trifling, and their aim mischief.
+
+[Sidenote: Prince of Condé.]
+
+Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy for six
+years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful nobles, and
+even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The people, too, were on
+the side of the rebels, since they were ground down by taxation, and
+hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. But the rebels took the
+side of the oppressed only for their private advantage, and the
+parliament itself lacked the perseverance and intrepidity necessary to
+secure its liberty. The civil war of the Fronde, though headed by
+discontented nobles, and animated by the intrigues of a turbulent
+ecclesiastic, was really the contest between the parliament and the
+arbitrary power of the government. And the insurrection would have
+been fearful and successful, had the people been firm or the nobles
+faithful to the cause they defended. But the English Revolution, then
+in progress, and in which a king had been executed, shocked the lovers
+of constitutional liberty in France, and reacted then, even as the
+French Revolution afterwards reacted on the English mind. Moreover,
+the excesses which the people perpetrated at Paris, alarmed the
+parliament and the nobles who were allied with it, while it urged on
+the ministers to desperate courses. The prince of Condé, whose
+victories had given him an immortality, dallied with both parties, as
+his interests served. Allied with the court, he could overpower the
+insurgents; but allied with the insurgents, he could control the
+court. Sometimes he sided with the minister and sometimes with the
+insurgents, but in neither case unless he exercised a power and
+enjoyed a remuneration dangerous in any government. Both parties were
+jealous of him, both feared him, both hated him, both insulted him, and
+both courted him. At one time, he headed the royal troops to attack
+Paris, which was generally in the hands of the people and of
+parliament; and then, at another, he fought like a tiger to defend
+himself in Paris against the royal troops. He had no sympathy with
+either the parliament or the people, while he fought for them; and he
+venerated the throne, while he rebelled against it. His name was Louis
+de Bourbon, and he was a prince of the blood. He contended against the
+crown only to wrest from it the ancient power of the great nobles; and
+to gain this object, he thought to make the parliament and the
+Parisian mob his tools. The parliament, sincerely devoted to liberty,
+thought to make the nobles its tools, and only leagued with them to
+secure their services. The crafty Mazarin quietly beheld these
+dissensions, and was sure of ultimate success, even though at one time
+banished to Cologne. And, like a reed, he was ever ready to bend to
+difficulties he could not control. But he stooped to conquer. He at
+last got the Prince of Condé, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the
+Duke of Longueville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of
+it, he said, "He has taken a good haul in the net; he has taken a
+lion, a fox, and a monkey." But the princes escaped from the net, and,
+leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other great
+nobles reached Paris, and were received with acclamations of joy by
+the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the ascendant. But
+the ascendency was no sooner gained than the victors quarrelled with
+themselves, and with the parliament, for whose cause they professed to
+contend. It was in their power, when united, to have deprived the
+queen regent of her authority, and to have established constitutional
+liberty in France. But they would not unite. There was no spirit of
+disinterestedness, nor of patriotism, nor public virtue, without which
+liberty is impossible, even though there were forces enough to batter
+down Mount Atlas. Condé, the victor, suffered himself to be again
+bribed by the court. He would not persevere in his alliance with
+either nobles or the parliament. He did not unite with the nobles
+because he felt that he was a prince. He did not continue with the
+parliament, because he had no sympathy with freedom. The cause of the
+nobles was lost for want of mutual confidence; that of the parliament
+for lack of the spirit of perseverance. The parliament, at length,
+grew weary of war and of popular commotions, and submitted to the
+court. All parties hated and distrusted each other, more than they did
+the iron despotism of Mazarin. The power of insurgent nobles declined.
+De Retz, the arch intriguer, was driven from Paris. The Duchess de
+Longueville sought refuge in the vale of Port Royal; and, in the
+Jansenist doctrines, sought that happiness which earthly grandeur
+could not secure. Condé quitted Paris to join the Spanish armies. The
+rest of the rebellious nobles made humble submission. The people found
+they had nothing to gain from any dominant party, and resigned
+themselves to another long period of political and social slavery. The
+magistrates abandoned, in despair and disgust, their high claims to
+political rights, while the young king, on his bed of justice, decreed
+that parliament should no more presume to discuss or meddle with state
+affairs. The submissive parliament registered, without a murmur, the
+edict which gave a finishing stroke to its liberties. The Fronde war
+was a complete failure, because all parties usurped powers which did
+not belong to them, and were jealous of the rights of each other. The
+nobles wished to control the king, and the magistracy put itself
+forward to represent the commons, when the states general alone was
+the ancient and true representative of the nation, and the body to
+which it should have appealed. The Fronde rebellion was a failure,
+because it did not consult constitutional forms, because it formed
+unnatural alliances, and because it did not throw itself upon the
+force of immortal principles, but sought to support itself by mere
+physical strength rather than by moral power, which alone is the
+secret and the glory of all great internal changes.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of Mazarin.]
+
+The return of Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of
+Louis XIV., was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to restore
+the public finances; his second was to secure his personal
+aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had enjoyed,
+and reproved the king, and such a king as Louis XIV., as he would a
+schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives, married them into
+the first families of France; and amassed a fortune of two hundred
+millions of livres, the largest perhaps that any subject has secured
+in modern times. He even aspired to the popedom; but this greatest of
+all human dignities, he was not permitted to obtain. A fatal malady
+seized him, and the physicians told him he had not two months to live.
+Some days after, he was seen in his dressing-gown, among his pictures,
+of which he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed, "Must I quit all
+these? Look at that Correggio, this Venus of Titian, this incomparable
+deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I have loved so
+dearly, and that have cost me so much."
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Mazarin.]
+
+The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with cards. He
+expired in 1661; and no minister after him was intrusted with such
+great power. He died unlamented, even by his sovereign, whose throne
+he had preserved, and whose fortune he had repaired. He had great
+talents of conversation, was witty, artful, and polite. He completed
+the work which Richelieu began; and, at his death, his master was the
+most absolute monarch that ever reigned in France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siècle. Miss Pardoe's History
+     of Louis XIV. Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis XIV.
+     Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Mémoires
+     de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Mémoires du Duc de Saint
+     Simon. Life of Cardinal de Retz, in which the Fronde war is
+     well traced. Memoir of the Duchess de Longueville.
+     Lacretelle's History of France. Rankin's History of France.
+     Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's History, in Lardner's
+     Cyclopedia. Rowring's History of the Huguenots. Lord Mahon's
+     Life of the Prince of Condé. The above works are the most
+     accessible to the American student.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.
+
+
+While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious
+liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, there
+was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the same great
+ends. With the accession of James I. a new era commences in English
+history, marked by the growing importance of the House of Commons, and
+their struggles for civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not
+been entirely silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members
+of them occasionally dared to assert those rights of which Englishmen
+are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing which
+pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the Tower any man
+who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects which she deemed that she
+and her ministers alone had the right to discuss. These forbidden
+subjects were those which pertained to the management of religion, to
+her particular courts, and to her succession to the crown. She never
+made an attack on what she conceived to be the constitution, but only
+zealously defended what she considered as her own rights. And she was
+ever sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had
+asserted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the
+appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to
+extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she showed
+great wisdom; so that, in spite of all her crimes and caprices, she
+ever retained the affections of the English people.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of James I.]
+
+The son of her rival Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne,
+(1603,) under the title of _James I._, and was the first of the Stuart
+kings. He had been king of Scotland under the title of _James VI._,
+and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly in
+consequence of the turbulence of the nobles, and the bigotry of the
+reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English inheritance,
+but was so poor that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent
+him the money. He was crowned, with great ceremony, in Westminster
+Abbey, on the 25th of June.
+
+The first acts of his reign were unpopular; and it was subsequently
+disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. To detail
+these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the events of his
+inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this History.
+Moreover, from this period, modern history becomes very complicated
+and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this work is, an
+allusion to the principal events.
+
+[Sidenote: The Genius of the Reign of James.]
+
+The genius of this reign is the contest between _royal prerogative and
+popular freedom_. The proceedings in parliament were characterized by
+a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, while the
+speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obstinate and stupid
+pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from
+their subjects in former ages of despotism and darkness. The boldness
+of the Commons and the bigotry of the king led to incessant
+disagreement and discontent; and, finally, under Charles I., to open
+rupture, revolution, and strife.
+
+The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of the
+most important and instructive chapters in the history of society and
+the young student cannot make himself too familiar with details, of
+which our limits forbid a description.
+
+The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed until
+after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffering, and
+strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the Stuart dynasty,
+great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to perceive the true
+interests and rights of the people, and a heart and a hand to defend
+them. No period and no nation have ever been more fertile in great men
+than England was from the accession of James I. to the abdication of
+James II., a period of eighty-five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, Coke,
+Bacon, Cecil, Selden, Pym, Wentworth, Hollis, Leighton, Taylor,
+Baxter, Howe, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon,
+Burnet, Shaftesbury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a
+light down to our own times, and will continue to shine through all
+future ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took
+part, more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of
+the seventeenth century. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or
+divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their little island
+the moral centre of the world.
+
+But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of
+James I., before the struggle between prerogative and liberty
+attracted the attention of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+One of the first was the conspiracy against the king, in which Lord
+Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh were engaged. We lament that so great a
+favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, so universal a
+genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, should have even
+been suspected of a treasonable project, and without the excuse of
+some traitors, that they wished to deliver their country from tyranny.
+But there is no perfection in man. Sir Walter was restless and
+ambitious, and had an eye mainly to his own advantage. His wit,
+gallantry, and chivalry were doubtless very pleasing qualities in a
+courtier, but are not the best qualities of a patriot. He was
+disappointed because he could not keep pace with Cecil in the favor of
+his sovereign, and because the king took away the monopolies he had
+enjoyed. Hence, in conjunction with other disappointed politicians, he
+was accused of an attempt to seize the king's person, to change the
+ministry, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against
+Raleigh appeared no less a person than the great Coke, who prosecuted
+him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and condemned
+to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear as the evidence
+of his ambition; and much must be attributed to party animosity.
+Though condemned, he was not executed; but lived to write many more
+books, and make many more voyages, to the great delight both of the
+cultivated and the adventurous. That there was a plot to seize the
+king is clear, and the conspirators were detected and executed.
+Raleigh was suspected of this, and perhaps was privy to it; but the
+proofs of his crime were not apparent, except to the judges, and to
+the attorney-general, Coke, who compared the different plots to
+Samson's foxes, joined in the tails, though their heads were
+separated.
+
+[Sidenote: Gunpowder Plot.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Catholics.]
+
+The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history of the
+kingdom was the Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and other
+disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the king, and
+the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing the sympathies
+of James for their religion, the Catholics had expected toleration, at
+least. But when persecution continued against them, some reckless and
+unprincipled men united in a design to blow up the parliament. Percy,
+a relation of the Earl of Northumberland, was concerned in the plot,
+and many of the other conspirators were men of good families and
+fortunes, but were implacable bigots. They hired a cellar, under the
+parliament house, which had been used for coals; and there they
+deposited thirty-one barrels of gunpowder, waiting several months for
+a favorable time to perpetrate one of the most horrid crimes ever
+projected. It was resolved that Guy Fawkes, one of the number, should
+set fire to the train. They were all ready, and the 5th of November,
+1605, was at hand, the day to which parliament was prorogued; but
+Percy was anxious to save _his_ kinsman from the impending ruin, Sir
+Everard Digby wished to warn some of _his_ friends, and Tresham was
+resolved to give _his_ brother-in-law, Lord Mounteagle, a caution. It
+seems that this peer received a letter so peculiar, that he carried it
+to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and the king detected or
+suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar was explored by the
+lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was found, with all the
+materials for striking a light, near the vault in which the coal and
+the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized, interrogated, tortured,
+and imprisoned; but the wretch would not reveal the names of his
+associates, although he gloried in the crime he was about to commit,
+and alleged, as his excuse, that violent diseases required desperate
+remedies, the maxim of the Jesuits. But most of the conspirators
+revealed their guilt by flight. They might have escaped, had they fled
+from the kingdom; but they hastened only into the country to collect
+their friends, and head an insurrection, which, of course, was easily
+suppressed. The leaders in this plot were captured and executed, and
+richly deserved their fate, although it was clear that they were
+infatuated. But in all crime there is infatuation. It was suspected
+that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the conspiracy; and the whole
+Catholic population suffered reproach from the blindness and folly of
+a few bigots, from whom no sect or party ever yet has been free. But
+there is no evidence that any of the Catholic clergy were even privy
+to the intended crime, which was known only to the absolute plotters.
+Some Jesuits were indeed suspected, arrested, tortured, and executed;
+but no evidence of guilt was brought against them sufficient to
+convict them. But their acquittal was impossible in such a state of
+national alarm and horror. Nothing ever made a more lasting and
+profound impression on the English mind than this intended crime; and
+it strengthened the prejudices against the Catholics even more than
+the persecutions under Queen Mary. Had the crime been consummated, it
+would only have proved a blunder. It would have shocked and irritated
+the nation beyond all self-control; and it is probable that the whole
+Catholic population would have been assassinated, or hunted out, as
+victims for the scaffold, in every corner of England. It proved,
+however, a great misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever
+received in England. Thus God overrules all human wickedness. There
+was one person who suffered, in consequence of the excited suspicions
+of the nation, whose fate we cannot but compassionate; and this person
+was the Earl of Northumberland, who was sentenced to pay a fine of
+thirty thousand pounds, to be deprived of all his offices, and to be
+imprisoned in the Tower for life, and simply because he was the head
+of the Catholic party, and a promoter of toleration. Indeed, penal
+statutes against the Catholics were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic
+was permitted to appear at court, or live in London, or within ten
+miles of it, or remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his
+home, without especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to
+practise surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer
+of any court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator,
+executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child
+baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one
+hundred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was compelled
+to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every recusant was
+outlawed; his house might be broken open; his books and furniture
+destroyed; and his horses and arms taken from him. Such was the severe
+treatment with which the Catholics, even those who were good citizens,
+were treated by our fathers in England; and this persecution was
+defended by some of the greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which
+England has produced. And yet some maintain that there has been no
+progress in society, except in material civilization!
+
+[Sidenote: Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.]
+
+One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency
+which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and
+vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their favorites; but
+they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey,
+Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great men, and worthy of the trust
+reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft,
+with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity,
+reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
+It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his
+secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and Coke was his chief justice.
+But Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and
+were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master.
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness and Fall of Somerset.]
+
+Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early
+been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would
+make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the
+king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall.
+In presenting his lord's shield to the king, his horse fell and threw
+him at James's feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made.
+James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident,
+sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him
+Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been
+neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster
+than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so
+that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of
+the age." Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was
+knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as
+they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied
+with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends.
+He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, was created Viscount
+Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then
+Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as
+lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place as treasurer. Rochester, in
+effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created
+Earl of Somerset, in order that he might marry the Countess of Essex,
+the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English court. She was
+daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of
+Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first
+family in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age of thirteen,
+but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enamored of
+the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she obtained a
+divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and through
+the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he delighted
+to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the ruin of
+all who opposed her wishes. But she proved a beautiful demon, a
+fascinating fury, as might be expected from such an unprincipled
+woman, although ennobled by "the blood of all the Howards." Her reign
+lasted, however, only during the ascendency of her husband. For a
+time, "glorious days were succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks
+and dancings had a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the
+spirit of the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly
+things." But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fashion,
+leaves. Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For
+the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in the
+Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess were
+tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, and,
+after a few years' imprisonment, retired to the country, with his
+lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the Lady Anna
+Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the first duke of
+Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who died on the scaffold,
+a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles II. The origin of the
+noble families of England is curious. Some few are descended from
+successful Norman chieftains, who came over with William the
+Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. Others are the
+descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, or warriors,
+obtained great position, power, and wealth, during former reigns. Many
+owe their greatness to the fact that they are the offspring of the
+illegitimate children of kings, or the descendants of the ignoble
+minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in the peerage on account of
+their great wealth; and a still smaller number for the eminent
+services they have rendered their country like Wellington, Brougham,
+or Ellenborough. A vast majority can boast only the merit or the
+successful baseness of their ancestors. But all of them are
+interlinked by marriages, and therefore share together the glory or
+the shame of their progenitors, so far as glory and shame can be
+transmitted from father to son, independently of all individual virtue
+or vice.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Buckingham.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Bacon.]
+
+Carr was succeeded in the royal favor by Villiers, and he, more
+fortunate, ever retained the ascendency over the mind and heart of
+James, as well as of his son Charles I. George Villiers owed his
+fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, his
+Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. He
+became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy council,
+then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, lord high
+admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of Westminster,
+constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in eyre of the parks
+and forests. "The doting and gloating king" had taught Somerset Latin;
+he attempted to teach Buckingham divinity, and called him ever by the
+name of "Steenie." And never was there such a mixture of finery,
+effeminacy, insolence, and sycophancy in any royal minion before or
+since. Beau Brummell never equalled him in dress, Wolsey in
+magnificence, Mazarin in peculation, Walpole in corruption, Jeffries
+in insolence, or Norfolk in pride. He was the constant companion of
+the king, to whose vices he pandered, and through him the royal favor
+flowed. But no rewards, or favors, or greatness satisfied him; not so
+much because he was ambitious, as because, like a spoiled child, he
+did not appreciate the magnitude of the gifts which were bestowed on
+him. Nor did he ever know his place; but made love to the queen of
+France herself, when he was sent on an embassy. He trampled on the
+constitution, subverted the laws, ground down the people by taxes, and
+taught the king to disregard the affections of his subjects, and to
+view them as his slaves. But such a triumph of iniquity could not be
+endured; and Buckingham was finally assassinated, after he had gained
+an elevation higher than any English subject ever before attained,
+except Wolsey, and without the exercise of any qualities which
+entitled him to a higher position than a master of ceremonies at a
+fashionable ball. It is easy to conceive that such a minion should
+arrive at power under such a monarch as James; but how can we
+understand that such a man as Lord Bacon, the chancellor, the
+philosopher, the statesman, the man of learning, genius, and wisdom,
+should have bowed down to the dust, in vile subserviency, to this
+infamous favorite of the king. Surely, what lessons of the frailty of
+human nature does the reign of James teach us! The most melancholy
+instance of all the singular cases of human inconsistency, at this
+time, is the conduct of the great Bacon himself, who reached the
+zenith of his power during this reign. It is not the receiving of a
+bribe, while exercising the highest judicial authority in the land, on
+which alone his shame rests, but his insolent conduct to his
+inferiors, his acquiescence in wrong, his base and unmanly sycophancy,
+his ingratitude to his friends and patrons, his intense selfishness
+and unscrupulous ambition while climbing to power, and, above all, his
+willingness to be the tool of a despot who trampled on the rights and
+liberties which God had given him to guard; and this in an age of
+light, of awakened intelligence, when even his crabbed rival Coke was
+seeking to explode the abuses of the Dark Ages. But "the difference
+between the soaring angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of
+the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the
+attorney-general, Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the
+Seals." As the author of the Novum Organum, as the pioneer of modern
+science, as the calm and patient investigator of nature's laws, as the
+miner and sapper of the old false systems of philosophy which enslaved
+the human mind, as the writer for future generations, he has received,
+as he has deserved, all the glory which admiring and grateful millions
+can bestow, of his own nation, and of all nations. No name in British
+annals is more illustrious than his, and none which is shaded with
+more lasting shame. Pope alone would have given him an immortality as
+the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." The only defence for the
+political baseness of Bacon--and this is insufficient--is, that all
+were base around him. The years when he was in power are among the
+darkest and most disgraceful in English history.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial and Execution of Raleigh.]
+
+Allusion has been made to the reign of favorites; but this was but a
+small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad and at home
+was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were multiplied; the most
+grievous exactions were made; indefensible executions were ordered;
+the laws were perverted; justice was sold; and an ignominious war was
+closed by a still more ignominious peace. The execution of Raleigh was
+a disgrace to the king, the court, and the nation, because the manner
+of it was so cowardly and cruel. He had been convicted, in the early
+part of the reign, of treason, and committed to the Tower. There he
+languished twelve years, amusing himself by writing a universal
+history, and in seeking the elixir of life; for, in the mysteries of
+chemistry, and in the mazes of historical lore, as in the intrigues of
+courts, and dangers of camps, he was equally at home.
+
+He was released from his prison in order to take command of an
+adventurous expedition to Guiana in quest of gold. In a former voyage
+he had visited the banks of the Oronoco in quest of the city of Manoa,
+where precious stones and gold existed in exhaustless treasures. That
+El Dorado he could not find; but now, in prison, he proposed to
+Secretary Winwood an expedition to secure what he had before sought in
+vain. The king wavered a while between his cupidity and fear; for,
+while he longed for gold, as the traveller does for water on the
+desert of Sahara, he was afraid of giving offence to the Spanish
+ambassador. But his cupidity was the stronger feeling, and Raleigh was
+sent with fourteen ships to the coasts of South America. The
+expedition was in every respect unfortunate to Raleigh and to the
+king. The gallant commander lost his private fortune and a promising
+son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied and
+deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to meet a
+disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such times, failure
+is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for offences he never
+committed. The most glaring injustice, harshness, and sophistry were
+resorted to, even by Bacon; but still Raleigh triumphantly defended
+himself. But no innocence or eloquence could save him; and he was
+executed on the sentence which had been pronounced against him for
+treason fifteen years before. To such meanness and cowardice did his
+enemies resort to rid the world of a universal genius, whose crime--if
+crime he ever committed--had long been consigned to oblivion.
+
+[Sidenote: Encroachments of James.]
+
+But we cannot longer dwell on the lives of eminent individuals during
+the reign of James. However interesting may be the details of their
+fortunes, their history dwindles into insignificance when compared
+with the great public injuries which an infatuated monarch inflicted.
+Not cruel in his temper, not stained by personal crimes, quite learned
+in Greek and Latin, but weak and ignorant of his duties as a king, he
+was inclined to trespass on the rights of his subjects. As has been
+already remarked, the genius of his reign was the contest between
+prerogative and liberty. The Commons did not acquiesce in his
+measures, or yield to his wishes, as they did during the reign of
+Elizabeth. He had a notion that the duty of a king was to command, and
+that of the subject was to obey, in all things; that kings ruled by
+divine right, and were raised by the Almighty above all law. But such
+notions were not approved by a parliament which swarmed with Puritans,
+and who were not careful to conceal their views from the king. They
+insisted on their privileges as tenaciously as the king insisted on
+his prerogative, and often came into collision with him. And they
+instituted an inquiry into monopolies, and attacked the monstrous
+abuses of purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by which,
+among other things, the king became guardian to wards, and received
+the profits of their estates during their minority. These feudal
+claims, by which the king, in part, received his revenue, were every
+year becoming less valuable to the crown, and more offensive to the
+people. The king, at length, was willing to compound, and make a
+bargain with the Commons, by which he was to receive two hundred
+thousand pounds a year, instead of the privileges of wardship, and
+other feudal rights. But his necessities required additional grants,
+which the Commons were unwilling to bestow; and the king then resorted
+to the sale of monopolies and even peerages, sent the more turbulent
+of the Commons to prison, and frequently dissolved parliament. He was
+resolved to tax the people if supplies were not granted him, while the
+Commons maintained that no taxation could be allowed without their
+consent. Moreover, the Commons refused to grant such supplies as the
+king fancied he needed, unless certain grievances were redressed,
+among which was the High Commission Court, an arbitrary tribunal,
+which fined and imprisoned without appeal. But James, though pressed
+for money, stood firm to his notions of prerogative, and supplied his
+most urgent necessities by illegal means. People were dragged to the
+Star Chamber, on all kinds of accusations, that they might be
+sentenced to pay enormous fines; new privileges and monopolies were
+invented, and new dignities created. Baronets, who are hereditary
+knights, were instituted, and baronetcies were sold for one thousand
+pounds each.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel between James and Parliament.]
+
+But the monopolies which the king granted, in order to raise money,
+did not inflame the Commons so much as the projected marriage between
+the prince of Wales and the infanta of Spain. James flattered himself
+that this Spanish match, to arrange which he had sent Buckingham to
+the court of Madrid, would procure the restitution of the Palatinate
+to the elector, who had been driven from his throne. But the Commons
+thought differently. They, as well as the people generally, were
+indignant in view of the inactivity of the government in not sending
+aid to the distressed Protestants of Germany; and the loss of the
+Palatinate was regarded as a national calamity. They saw no good which
+would accrue from an alliance with the enemies and persecutors of
+these Protestants; but, on the other hand, much evil. As the
+constitutional guardians, therefore, of the public welfare and
+liberty, they framed a remonstrance to the king, representing the
+overgrown power of Austria as dangerous to the liberties of Europe,
+and entreated his majesty to take up arms against Spain, which was
+allied with Austria, and by whose wealth Austrian armies were
+supported.
+
+James was inflamed with indignation at this remonstrance, which
+militated against all his maxims of government; and he forthwith wrote
+a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, commanding him to
+admonish the members "not to presume to meddle with matters of state
+which were beyond their capacity, and especially not to touch on his
+son's marriage." The Commons, not dismayed, and conscious of strength,
+sent up a new remonstrance in which they affirmed that they _were_
+entitled to interpose with their counsel in all matters of state, and
+that entire freedom of speech was their ancient and undoubted right,
+transmitted from their ancestors. The king, in reply, told the
+Commons, that "their remonstrance was more like a denunciation of war,
+than an address of dutiful subjects, and that their pretension to
+inquire into state affairs was a plenipotence to which none of their
+ancestors, even during the weakest reigns, had ever dared to aspire."
+He farther insinuated that their privileges were derived from royal
+favor. On this, the Commons framed another protest,--that the
+liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are
+the ancient and undoubted birthright of Englishmen, and that every
+member has the right of freedom of speech. This protest they entered
+upon their journals, upon which James lost all temper, ordered the
+clerk to bring him the journals, erased the protestation with his own
+hand, in presence of the judges and the council, and then dissolved
+the parliament.
+
+Nothing else of note occurred in this reign, except the prosecution of
+the Spanish match, which was so odious to the nation that Buckingham,
+to preserve his popularity, broke off the negotiations, and by a
+system of treachery and duplicity as hateful as were his original
+efforts to promote the match. War with Spain was the result of the
+insult offered to the infanta and the court. An alliance was now made
+with France, and Prince Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of
+Henry IV. The Commons then granted abundant supplies for war, to
+recover the Palatinate; and liberty of conscience was granted by the
+monarch, on the demands of Richelieu, to the Catholics--so long and,
+perseveringly oppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of James I.]
+
+Shortly after, (March 27, 1625,) King James died at Theobalds, his
+favorite palace, from a disease produced by anxiety, gluttony, and
+sweet wines, after a reign in England of twenty-two years; and his
+son, Charles I., before the breath was out of his body, was proclaimed
+king in his stead.
+
+The course pursued by James I. was adopted by his son; and, as their
+reigns were memorable for the same struggle, we shall consider them
+together until revolution gave the victory to the advocates of
+freedom.
+
+Charles I. was twenty-five years of age when he began his reign. In a
+moral and social point of view he was a more respectable man than his
+father, but had the same absurd notions of the royal prerogative, the
+same contempt of the people, the same dislike of constitutional
+liberty, and the same resolution of maintaining the absolute power of
+the crown, at any cost. He was moreover, perplexed by the same
+embarrassments, was involved in debt, had great necessities, and was
+dependent on the House of Commons for aid to prosecute his wars and
+support the dignity of the crown. But he did not consider the changing
+circumstances and spirit of the age, and the hostile and turbulent
+nature of his people. He increased, rather than diminished, the odious
+monopolies which irritated the nation during the reign of his father;
+he clung to all the old feudal privileges; he retained the detestable
+and frivolous Buckingham as his chief minister; and, when Buckingham
+was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and
+unscrupulous; he insisted on taxing the people without their consent,
+threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebellion. In
+all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every allowance
+for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man would have seen the
+rising storm, and might possibly have averted it. But Charles never
+dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury on his devoted head, and
+consigned him to the martyr's grave. We pity his fate, but lament
+still more his blindness. And so great was this blindness, that it
+almost seems as if Providence had marked him out to be a victim on the
+altar of human progress.
+
+With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most exciting
+period of English history, and a period to which historians have given
+more attention than to any other great historical era, the French
+Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe the leading events
+in this exciting age and reign would be, in this connection, absurd;
+and yet some notice of them cannot be avoided.
+
+[Sidenote: The Struggle of Classes.]
+
+For more than ten centuries, great struggles have been going on in
+society between the dominant orders and sects. The victories gained by
+the oppressed millions, over their different masters, constitute what
+is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of the people have
+occasionally arisen from orders to which they did not belong. When,
+then, any great order defended the cause of the people against the
+tyranny and selfishness of another order, then the people have
+advanced a step in civil and social freedom.
+
+When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, "the clergy sought,
+on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and the poor
+man had no other asylum than the churches, no other protectors than
+the priests; and, as the priests offered food to the moral nature of
+man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the preponderance passed
+from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid of the church, royalty also
+rose above feudalism, and aided the popular cause.
+
+The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to enslave the
+kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from humiliated nobles
+and from the people, became the dominant power in Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Popular Power.]
+
+In these struggles between nobles and the clergy, and between the
+clergy and kings, the people had acquired political importance. They
+had obtained a knowledge of their rights and of their strength; and
+they were determined to maintain them. They liked not the tyranny of
+either nobles, priests, or kings; but they bent all their energies to
+suppress the power of the latter, since the two former had been
+already humiliated.
+
+The struggle of the people against royalty is preëminently the genius
+of the English Revolution. It is to be doubted whether any king could
+have resisted the storm of popular fury which hurled Charles from his
+throne. But no king could have managed worse than he, no king could be
+more unfortunately and unpropitiously placed; and his own imprudence
+and folly hastened the catastrophe.
+
+The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, spirit, and
+popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived the difficulties
+and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate or generous effort to
+relieve him from them. Some of the more turbulent rejoiced in them.
+They knew that kings, like other men, were selfish, and that it was
+not natural for people to part with their privileges and power without
+a struggle, even though this power was injurious to the interests of
+society. In the Middle Ages, barons, bishops, and popes had fought
+desperately in the struggle of classes; and it was only from their
+necessities that either kings or people had obtained what they
+demanded. King Charles, no more than Pope Boniface VIII., would
+surrender, as a boon to man, without compulsion, his supposed
+omnipotence.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel between the King and the Commons.]
+
+The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his father, and
+by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but would not pay for.
+They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain his honor, the
+paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and the duties of
+tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was customary, but for a year.
+Nothing could be more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money
+was soon spent, and the king wanted more, and had a right to expect
+more. But, if the Commons granted what the king required, he would be
+made independent of them, and he would rule tyrannically, as the kings
+of England did before him. So they resolved not to grant necessary
+supplies to carry on the government, unless the king would part with
+the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those old feudal
+privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the people.
+Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in his age,
+would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil war was
+inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were resolved
+on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the Commons
+could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and, moreover, in
+case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he fancied that
+he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit of
+resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons
+were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the
+sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the
+Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to
+enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles
+of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and
+religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed
+that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them,
+they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their
+constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in
+debate. These notions of the people were _ideas_. On ideas all
+governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt
+they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of
+Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support
+given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could
+he do? What could Louis XVI. do one hundred and fifty years
+afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without
+the loyalty of the people, is a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion,
+unless he have physical force to sustain him; and even then armies
+will rebel, if they feel they are not bound to obey, and if it is not
+for their interest to obey.
+
+Now Charles had neither _loyalty_ nor _force_ to hold him on his
+throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in
+speculations destroyed the former; the House of Commons would not
+grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant
+supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the people
+better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by his
+concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would not make
+the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal to arms.
+
+[Sidenote: The Counsellors of Charles.]
+
+But Charles was not without friends, and some of his advisers were men
+of sagacity and talent. It is true they did not fully appreciate the
+weakness of the king, or the strength of his enemies; but they saw his
+distress, and tried to remove it. They, very naturally in such an age,
+recommended violent courses--to grant new monopolies, to extort fines,
+to exercise all his feudal privileges, to pawn the crown jewels, even,
+in order to raise money; for money, at all events, he must have. They
+advised him to arrest turbulent and incendiary members of the Commons,
+to prorogue and dissolve parliaments, to raise forced loans, to impose
+new duties, to shut up ports, to levy fresh taxes, and to raise armies
+friendly to his cause. In short, they recommended unconstitutional
+measures--measures which both they and the king knew to be
+unconstitutional, but which they justified on the ground of necessity.
+And the king, in his perplexity, did what his ministers advised. But
+every person who was sent to the Tower, every new tax, every sentence
+of the Star Chamber, every seizure of property, every arbitrary
+command, every violation of the liberties of the people, raised up new
+enemies to the king, and inflamed the people with new discontents.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Buckingham--Petition of Right.]
+
+At first the Commons felt that they could obtain what they wanted--a
+redress of grievances, if the king's favorite adviser and minister
+were removed. Besides, they all hated Buckingham--peers, commons, and
+people,--and all sought his downfall. He had no friends among the
+people, as Essex had in the time of Elizabeth. His extravagance, pomp,
+and insolence disgusted all orders; and his reign seemed to be an
+insult to the nation. Even the people regarded him as an upstart,
+setting himself above the old nobility, and enriching himself by royal
+domains, worth two hundred eighty-four thousand three hundred and
+ninety-five pounds. So the Commons violently attacked his
+administration, and impeached him. But he was shielded by the king,
+and even appointed to command an expedition to relieve La Rochelle,
+then besieged by Richelieu. But he was stabbed by a religious fanatic,
+by the name of Felton, as he was about to embark at Portsmouth. His
+body was removed to London, and he was buried with great state in
+Westminster Abbey, much lamented by the king, who lost his early
+friend, one of the worst ministers, but not the worst man, which that
+age despised, (1628.)
+
+Meanwhile the indignant Commons persevered with their work. They
+passed what is called the "Petition of Right,"--a string of
+resolutions which asserted that no freeman ought to be detained in
+prison, without being brought to trial, and that no taxes could be
+lawfully levied, without consent of the Commons--the two great pillars
+of the English constitution, yet truths involved in political
+difficulty, especially in cases of rebellion. The personal liberty of
+the subject is a great point indeed; and the act of _habeas corpus_,
+passed in later times, is a great step in popular freedom; but, if
+never to be suspended, no government could guard against conspiracy in
+revolutionary times.
+
+The Petition of Right, however, obtained the king's assent, though
+unwillingly, grudgingly, and insincerely given; and the Commons,
+gratified for once, voted to the king supplies.
+
+But Charles had no notion of keeping his word, and soon resorted to
+unconstitutional measures, as before. But he felt the need of able
+counsellors. His "dear Steenie" was dead, and he knew not in whom to
+repose confidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Earl of Strafford.]
+
+The demon of despotism raised up an agent in the person of Thomas
+Wentworth, a man of wealth, talents, energy, and indomitable courage;
+a man who had, in the early part of his career, defended the cause of
+liberty; who had even suffered imprisonment sooner than contribute to
+an unlawful loan, and in whom the hopes of the liberal party were
+placed. But he was bribed. His patriotism was not equal to his
+ambition. Seduced by a peerage, and by the love of power, he went over
+to the side of the king, and defended his arbitrary rule as zealously
+as he had before advocated the cause of constitutional liberty. He was
+created Viscount Wentworth, and afterwards earl of Strafford--the most
+prominent man of the royalist party, and the greatest traitor to the
+cause of liberty which England had ever known. His picture, as painted
+by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall of his descendant, Earl
+Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of what history represents him--a
+cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupulous tyrant, with an eye capable of
+reading the secrets of the soul, a brow lowering with care and
+thought, and a lip compressed with determination, and twisted into
+contempt of mankind. If Wentworth did not love his countrymen, he
+loved to rule over them: and he gained his end, and continued the
+prime minister of absolutism until an insulted nation rose in their
+might, and placed his head upon the block.
+
+[Sidenote: John Hampden.]
+
+Under the rule of this minister, whom every one feared, the Puritans
+every where fled, preferring the deserts of America, with freedom, to
+the fair lands of England, with liberty trodden under foot. The reigns
+of both James and Charles are memorable for the resistance and despair
+of this intrepid and religious sect, in which were enrolled some of
+the finest minds and most intelligent patriots of the country. Pym,
+Cromwell, Hazelrig, and even Hampden, are said to have actually
+embarked; but Providence detained them in England, they having a
+mission of blood to perform there. In another chapter, the Puritans,
+their struggles, and principles, will be more fully presented; and we
+therefore, in this connection, abstain from further notice. It may,
+however, be remarked, that they were the most inflexible enemies of
+the king, and were determined to give him and his minister no rest
+until all their ends were gained. They hated Archbishop Laud even more
+intensely than they hated Wentworth; and Laud, if possible, was a
+greater foe to religious and civil liberty. Strafford and Laud are
+generally coupled together in the description of the abuses of
+arbitrary power. The churchman, however, was honest and sincere, only
+his views were narrow and his temper irritable. His vices were those
+of the bigot--such as disgraced St. Dominic or Torquemada, but faults
+which he deemed excellencies. He was an enthusiast in high churchism
+and toryism; and his zeal in defence of royal prerogative and the
+divine rights of bishops has won for him the panegyrics of his
+friends, as well as the curses of his enemies. For Strafford, too,
+there is admiration, but only for his talents, his courage, his
+strength--the qualities which one might see in Milton's Satan, or in
+Carlyle's picture gallery of heroes.
+
+While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and
+contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the Tower,
+fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new imposition
+called out the energies of a great patriot and a great man, John
+Hampden--a fit antagonist of the haughty Wentworth. This new exaction
+was a tax called _ship money_.
+
+It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General Noy, two
+subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and designed to
+extort money from the inland counties, as well as from the cities, for
+furnishing ships--a demand that Elizabeth did not make, in all her
+power, even when threatened by the Spanish Armada. Clarendon even
+admits that this tax was not for the support of the navy, "but for a
+spring and magazine which should have no bottom, and for an
+everlasting supply on all occasions." And this the nation completely
+understood, and resolved desperately to resist.
+
+Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share assessed on
+him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an illegal tax. He
+was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. Hampden appealed to a
+decision of the judges in regard to the legality of the tax, and the
+king permitted the question to be settled by the laws. The trial
+lasted thirteen days, but ended in the condemnation of Hampden, who
+had shown great moderation, as well as courage, and had won the favor
+of the people. It was shortly after this that Hampden, as some
+historians assert, resolved to leave England with his cousin Oliver
+Cromwell. But the king prevented the ships, in which they and other
+emigrants had embarked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new
+trials and new labors.
+
+[Sidenote: Insurrection in Scotland.]
+
+About a month after Hampden's condemnation, an insurrection broke out
+in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It was produced
+by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the English liturgy on the
+Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterianism by Episcopacy. The
+revolutions in Scotland, from the time of Knox, had been popular; not
+produced by great men, but by the diffusion of great ideas. The people
+believed in the spiritual independence of their church, and not in the
+supremacy of a king. The instant, therefore, that the Episcopal
+worship was introduced, by authority, in the cathedral of Edinburgh,
+there was an insurrection, which rapidly spread through all parts of
+the country. An immense multitude came to Edinburgh to protest against
+the innovation, and crowded all the houses, streets, and halls of the
+city. The king ordered the petitioners home, without answering their
+complaints. They obeyed the injunction, but soon returned in greater
+numbers. An organization of resistance was made, and a provisional
+government appointed. All classes joined the insurgents, who, menaced,
+but united, at last bound themselves, by a solemn league and covenant,
+not to separate until their rights and liberties were secured. A vast
+majority of all the population of Scotland--gentlemen, clergy,
+citizens, and laborers, men, women, and children--assembled in the
+church, and swore fealty to the covenant. Force, of course, was
+necessary to reduce the rebels, and civil war commenced in Scotland.
+But war increased the necessities of the king, and he was compelled to
+make peace with the insurgent army.
+
+Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last
+parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without one,
+and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of the crown
+lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Imposts fallen into
+desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, royal forests extended
+beyond the limits they had in feudal times, fines past all endurance,
+confiscations without end, imprisonments, tortures, and
+executions,--all marked these eleven years. The sum for fines alone,
+in this period, amounted to more than two hundred thousand pounds. The
+forest of Rockingham was enlarged from six to sixty miles in circuit,
+and the earl of Salisbury was fined twenty thousand pounds for
+encroaching upon it. Individuals and companies had monopolies of salt,
+soap, coals, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer,
+distilled liquors, herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth, rags, hops,
+gunpowder, and divers other articles, which, of course, deranged the
+whole trade of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand pounds, and
+had his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an offensive
+book; and his sufferings were not greater than what divers others
+experienced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty.
+
+At last, the king's necessities compelled him to summon another
+parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise money. His army
+clamored for pay; and he was overburdened with debts.
+
+[Sidenote: Long Parliament.]
+
+On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew its
+strength, and was determined now, more than ever, to exercise it. It
+immediately took the power into its own hands, and from remonstrances
+and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities; from the
+denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample on
+the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irritated
+and threatened, and some of their number had been seized and
+imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, and was
+resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The struggle became
+one of desperation on both sides--a struggle for ascendency--and not
+for rights.
+
+One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeachment of
+Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, where, as lord
+lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power and regal audacity; he
+had been summoned by his perplexed and desponding master to assist him
+by his counsels. Reluctantly he obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had
+scarcely arrived in London when the intrepid Pym accused him of high
+treason. The Lords accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister
+was committed to the Tower.
+
+The impeachment of Laud soon followed; but he was too sincere in his
+tyranny to understand why he should be committed. Nor was he feared,
+as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance of the parliament was
+especially directed. A secret committee, invested with immense powers,
+was commissioned to scrutinize his whole life, and his destruction was
+resolved upon. On the 22d of March his trial began, and lasted
+seventeen days, during which time, unaided, he defended himself
+against thirteen accusers, with consummate ability. Indeed, he had
+studied his charges and despised his adversaries. Under ordinary
+circumstances, he would have been acquitted, for there was not
+sufficient evidence to convict him of high treason; but an
+unscrupulous and infuriated body of men were thirsting for his blood,
+and it was proposed to convict him by bill of attainder; that is, by
+act of parliament, on its own paramount authority, with or without the
+law. The bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence
+of the attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the Tower.
+
+Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister; had he been
+magnanimous, he would have stood by him to the last. But he had
+neither the power to save him, nor the will to make adequate
+sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and gave his
+consent to the execution of the main agent of all his aggressions on
+the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Strafford deserved his
+fate, although the manner of his execution was not according to law.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebellion of Ireland.]
+
+A few months after the execution of Strafford, an event occurred which
+proved exceedingly unfortunate to the royal cause; and this was the
+rebellion of Ireland, and the massacre of the Protestant population,
+caused, primarily, by the oppressive government of England, and the
+harsh and severe measures of the late lord lieutenant. In the course
+of a few weeks, the English and Scottish colonies seemed almost
+uprooted; one of the most frightful butcheries was committed that ever
+occurred. The Protestants exaggerated their loss; but it is probable
+that at least fifty thousand were massacred. The local government of
+Dublin was paralyzed. The English nation was filled with deadly and
+implacable hostility, not against the Irish merely, but against the
+Catholics every where. It was supposed that there was a general
+conspiracy among the Catholics to destroy the whole nation; and it was
+whispered that the queen herself had aided the revolted Irish. The
+most vigorous measures were adopted to raise money and troops for
+Ireland. The Commons took occasion of the general spirit of discontent
+and insurrection to prepare a grand remonstrance on the evils of the
+kingdom, which were traced to a "coalition of Papists, Arminian
+bishops and clergymen, and evil courtiers and counsellors." The
+Commons recited all the evils of the last sixteen years, and declared
+the necessity of taking away the root of them, which was the arbitrary
+power of the sovereign. The king, in reply, told the Commons that
+their remonstrance was unparliamentary; that he could not understand
+what they meant by a wicked party; that bishops were entitled to their
+votes in parliament; and that, as to the removal of evil counsellors,
+they must name whom they were. The remonstrance was printed and
+circulated by the Commons, which was of more effect than an army could
+have been.
+
+Thus were affairs rapidly reaching a crisis, when the attempt to seize
+five of the most refractory and able members of parliament consummated
+it. The members were Hollis, Hazelrig, Pym, Hampden, and Strode; and
+they were accused of high treason. This movement of the king was one
+of the greatest blunders and one of the most unconstitutional acts he
+ever committed. The Commons refused to surrender their members; and
+then the king went down to the house, with an armed force, to seize
+them. But Pym and others got intelligence of the design of Charles,
+and had time to withdraw before he arrived. "The baffled tyrant
+returned to Whitehall with his company of bravoes," while the city of
+London sheltered Hampden and his friends. The shops were shut, the
+streets were filled with crowds, and the greatest excitement
+prevailed. The friends of Charles, who were inclined to constitutional
+measures, were filled with shame. It was now feared that the king
+would not respect his word or the constitution, and, with all his
+promises, was still bent on tyrannical courses. All classes, but
+bigoted royalists, now felt that something must be done promptly, or
+that their liberties would be subverted.
+
+Then it was, and not till then, that the Commons openly defied him,
+while the king remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and
+bewildered, "feeling," says Clarendon, "the trouble and agony which
+usually attend generous minds upon their having committed errors;" or,
+as Macaulay says, "the despicable repentance which attends the
+bungling villain, who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that
+he has only committed a folly."
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King from London.]
+
+In a few days, the king fled from Whitehall, which he was never
+destined to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold. He
+went into the country to raise forces to control the parliament, and
+the parliament made vigorous measures to put itself and the kingdom in
+a state of resistance. On the 23d of April, the king, with three
+hundred horse, advanced to Hull, and were refused admission by the
+governor. This was tantamount to a declaration of war. It was so
+considered. Thirty-two Lords, and sixty members of the Commons
+departed for York to join the king. The parliament decreed an army,
+and civil war began.
+
+Before this can be traced we must consider the Puritans, which is
+necessary in order fully to appreciate the Revolution. The reign of
+Charles I. was now virtually ended, and that of the Parliament and
+Cromwell had begun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Puritans.]
+
+Dissensions among the Protestants themselves did not occur until the
+reign of Elizabeth, and were first caused by difficulties about a
+clerical dress, which again led to the advocacy of simpler forms of
+worship, stricter rules of life, more definite forms of faith, and
+more democratic principles of government, both ecclesiastical and
+civil. The first promoters of these opinions were the foreign divines
+who came from Geneva, at the invitation of Cranmer, of whom Peter
+Martyr, Martin Bucer, John à Lasco, were the most distinguished. Some
+Englishmen, also, who had been travelling on the continent, brought
+with them the doctrines of Calvin. Among these was Hooper, who, on
+being nominated to the bishopric of Gloucester, refused to submit to
+the appointed form of consecration and admission. He objected to what
+he called the _Aaronical_ habits--the square cap, tippet, and
+surplice, worn by bishops. But dissent became more marked and
+determined when the exiles returned to England, on the accession of
+Elizabeth, and who were for advancing the reformation according to
+their own standard. The queen and her advisers, generally, were
+content with King Edward's liturgy; but the majority of the exiles
+desired the simpler services of Geneva. The new bishops, most of whom
+had been their companions abroad, endeavored to soften them for the
+present, declaring that they would use all their influence at court to
+secure them indulgence. The queen herself connived at non-conformity,
+until her government was established, but then firmly declared that
+she had fixed her standard, and insisted on her subjects conforming to
+it. The bishops, seeing this, changed their conduct, explained away
+their promises, and became severe towards their dissenting brethren.
+
+The standard of the queen was the Thirty-Nine Articles. She admitted
+that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith, but declared that
+individuals must interpret Scripture as expounded in the articles and
+formularies of the English church, in violation of the great principle
+of Protestantism, which even the Puritans themselves did not fully
+recognize--the right and the duty of every individual to interpret
+Scripture himself, whether his interpretation interfered with the
+Established Church or not.
+
+[Sidenote: Original Difficulties and Differences.]
+
+The first dissenters did not claim this right, but only urged that
+certain points, about which they felt scruples, should be left as
+matters indifferent. On all essential points, they, as well as the
+strictest conformists, believed in the necessity of a uniformity of
+public worship, and of using the sword of the magistrate in defence of
+their doctrines. The standard of conformity, according to the bishops,
+was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the
+Puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods.
+
+At first, many of the Puritans overcame their scruples so far as to
+comply with the required oath and accept livings in the Establishment.
+But they indulged in many irregularities, which, during the first year
+of the reign of Elizabeth, were winked at by the authorities. "Some
+performed," says an old author, "divine service in the chancel, others
+in the body of the church; some in a seat made in the church; some in
+a pulpit, with their faces to the people; some keeping precisely to
+the order of the book; some intermix psalms in metre; some say with a
+surplice, and others without one. The table stands in the body of the
+church in some places, in others it stands in the chancel; in some
+places the table stands altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in
+others in the middle of the chancel, north and south. Some administer
+the communion with surplice and cap, some with a surplice alone,
+others with none; some with chalice, others with a communion cup,
+others with a common cup; some with unleavened bread, and some with
+leavened; some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting; some
+baptize in a font, some in a basin; some sign with the sign of the
+cross, other sign not; some minister with a surplice, others without;
+some with a square cap, others with a round cap; some with a button
+cap, and some with a hat, some in scholar's clothes, some in common
+clothes."
+
+These differences in public worship, which, by many, were considered
+as indifferent matters, and by others were unduly magnified, seem to
+have constituted the chief peculiarity of the early Puritans. In
+regard to the queen's supremacy, the union of church and state, the
+necessity of supporting religion by law, and articles of theological
+belief, there was no disagreement. Most of the non-conformists were
+men of learning and piety, and among the ornaments of the church.
+
+The metropolitan bishop, at this time, was Parker, a great stickler
+for the forms of the church, and very intolerant in all his opinions.
+He and others of the bishops had been appointed as commissioners to
+investigate the causes of dissent, and to suspend all who refused to
+conform to the rubric of the church. Hence arose the famous Court of
+the Ecclesiastical Commission, so much abused during the reigns of
+James and Charles.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution during the Reign of Elizabeth.]
+
+Under the direction of Parker, great numbers were suspended from their
+livings for non-conformity, and sent to wander in a state of
+destitution. Among these were some of the most learned men in the
+church. They had no means of defence or livelihood, and resorted to
+the press in order to vindicate their opinions. For this they were
+even more harshly dealt with; an order was issued from the Star
+Chamber, that no person should print a book against the queen's
+injunctions, upon the penalty of fines and imprisonment; and authority
+was given to church-wardens to search all suspected places where books
+might be concealed. Great multitudes suffered in consequence of these
+tyrannical laws.
+
+But the non-conformists were further molested. They were forbidden to
+assemble together to read the Scriptures and pray, but were required
+to attend regularly the churches of the Establishment, on penalty of
+heavy fines for neglect.
+
+At length, worried, disgusted, and irritated, they resolved upon
+setting up the Genevan service, and upon withdrawing entirely from the
+Church of England. The separation, once made, (1566,) became wider and
+wider, and the Puritans soon after opposed the claims of bishops as a
+superior order of the clergy. They were opposed to the temporal
+dignities annexed to the episcopal office to the titles and office of
+archdeacons, deans, and chapters; to the jurisdiction of spiritual
+courts; to the promiscuous access of all persons to the communion; to
+the liturgy; to the prohibition, in the public service of prayer, by
+the clergyman himself; to the use of godfathers and godmothers; to the
+custom of confirmation; to the cathedral worship and organs; to
+pluralities and non-residency; to the observance of Lent and of the
+holy days; and to the appointment of ministers by the crown, bishops,
+or lay patrons, instead of election by the people.
+
+The schism was now complete, and had grown out of such small
+differences as refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, and to use the
+cross in baptism.
+
+In our times, the Puritans would have been permitted to worship God in
+their own way, but they were not thus allowed in the time of
+Elizabeth. Religious toleration was not then understood or practised;
+and it was the fault of the age, since the Puritans themselves, when
+they obtained the power, persecuted with great severity the Quakers
+and the Catholics. But, during the whole reign of Elizabeth,
+especially the life of Archbishop Parker, they were in a minority, and
+suffered--as minorities ever have suffered--all the miseries which
+unreasonable majorities could inflict.
+
+[Sidenote: Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift.]
+
+Archbishop Grindal, who succeeded Parker in 1575, recommended milder
+measures to the queen; but she had no charity for those who denied the
+supremacy of her royal conscience.
+
+Grindal was succeeded, in 1583, by Dr. Whitgift, the antagonist of the
+learned Dr. Cartwright, and he proved a ruler of the church according
+to her majesty's mind. He commenced a most violent crusade against the
+non-conformists, and was so harsh, cruel, and unreasonable, that
+Cecil--Lord Burleigh--was obliged to remonstrate, being much more
+enlightened than the prelate. "I have read over," said he, "your
+twenty-four articles, and I find them so curiously penned, that I
+think that the Spanish Inquisition used not so many questions to
+entrap the priests." Nevertheless fines, imprisonment, and the gibbet
+continued to do their work in the vain attempt to put down opinions,
+till within four or five years of the queen's death when there was a
+cessation of persecution.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution under James.]
+
+[Sidenote: Puritans in Exile.]
+
+But the Scottish Solomon, as James was called, renewed the severity
+which Elizabeth found it wise to remit. Hitherto, the Puritans had
+been chiefly Presbyterians; but now the Independents arose, who
+carried their views still further, even to wildness and radicalism.
+They were stricter Calvinists, and inclined to republican views of
+civil government. Consequently, they were still more odious than were
+the Presbyterians to an arbitrary government. They were now persecuted
+for their doctrines of faith, as well as for their forms of worship.
+The Church of England retained the thirty-nine articles; but many of
+her leading clergy sympathized with the views of Arminius, and among
+them was the primate himself. So strictly were Arminian doctrines
+cherished, that no person under a dean was permitted to discourse on
+predestination, election, reprobation, efficacy, or universality of
+God's grace. And the king himself would hear no doctrines preached,
+except those he had condemned at the synod of Dort. But this act was
+aimed against the Puritans, who, of all parties, were fond of
+preaching on what was called "the Five Points of Calvinism." But they
+paid dearly for their independence. James absolutely detested them,
+regarded them as a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth,
+and punished them with the greatest severity. Their theological
+doctrines, their notions of church government, and, above all, their
+spirit of democratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop
+Bancroft, who succeeded Whitgift in 1604, went beyond all his
+predecessors in bigotry, but had not their commanding intellects. His
+measures were so injudicious, so vexatious, so annoying, so severe,
+and so cruel, that the Puritans became, if possible, still more
+estranged. With the popular discontents, and with the progress of
+persecution, their numbers increased, both in Scotland and England.
+With the increase of Puritanism was also a corresponding change in the
+Church of England, since ceremony and forms increased almost to a
+revival of Catholicism. And this reaction towards Rome, favored by the
+court, incensed still more the Puritans, and led to language
+unnecessarily violent and abusive on their side. Their controversial
+tracts were pervaded with a spirit of bitterness and treason which, in
+the opinion of James, fully justified the imprisonments, fines, and
+mutilations which his minister inflicted. The Puritans, in despair,
+fled to Holland, and from thence to New England, to establish, amid
+its barren hills and desolate forests, that worship which alone they
+thought would be acceptable to God. Persecution elevated them, and
+none can deny that they were characterized by moral virtues and a
+spirit of liberty which no people ever before or since exhibited.
+Almost their only fault was intolerance respecting the opinions and
+pleasures of many good people who did not join their ranks.
+
+James's death did not remit their sufferings; but, by this time, they
+had so multiplied that they became a party too formidable to be
+crushed. The High Commission Court and the Star Chamber still filled
+the prisons and pillories with victims; but every sentence of these
+courts fanned the flame of discontent, and hastened the catastrophe
+which was rapidly approaching. The volcano, over whose fearful brink
+the royal family and the haughty hierarchy were standing, was now
+sending forth those frightful noises which indicated approaching
+convulsions.
+
+During the years that Charles dispensed with the parliaments, when
+Laud was both minister and archbishop, the persecution reached its
+height, and also popular discontent. During this period, the greatest
+emigration was made to New England, and even Hampden and Cromwell
+contemplated joining their brethren in America. Arianism and Popery
+advanced with Puritanism, and all parties prepared for the approaching
+contest. The advocates of royal usurpation became more unreasonable,
+the friends of popular liberty became more violent. Those who had the
+power, exercised it without reflection. The history of the times is
+simply this--despotism striving to put Puritanism and liberty beneath
+its feet, and Puritanism aiming to subvert the crown.
+
+But the greatest commotions were in Scotland, where the people were
+generally Presbyterians; and it was the zeal of Archbishop Laud in
+suppressing these, and attempting to change the religion of the land,
+which precipitated the ruin of Charles I.
+
+[Sidenote: Troubles in Scotland.]
+
+Ever since the time of Knox, Scotland had been the scene of violent
+religious animosities. In that country, the reformation, from the
+first, had been a popular movement. It was so impetuous, and decided
+under the guidance of the uncompromising Knox, that even before the
+dethronement of Mary, it was complete. In the year 1592, through the
+influence of Andrew Melville, the Presbyterian government was fairly
+established, and King James is said to have thus expressed himself: "I
+praise God that I was born in the time of the light of the gospel, and
+in such a place as to be king of the purest kirk in the world." The
+Church of Scotland, however, had severe struggles from the period of
+its institution, 1560, to the year 1584, when the papal influence was
+finally destroyed by the expulsion of the earl of Arran from the
+councils of the young king. Nor did these struggles end even there.
+James, perceiving that Episcopacy was much more consonant with
+monarchy than Presbyterianism, attempted to remodel the Scottish
+church on the English basis, which attempt resulted in discontent and
+rebellion. James, however, succeeded in reducing to contempt the
+general assemblies of the Presbyterian church, and in confirming
+Archbishop Spotswood in the chief administration of ecclesiastical
+affairs, which, it must be confessed, were regulated with great
+prudence and moderation.
+
+When Charles came to the throne, he complained of the laxity of the
+Scotch primate, and sent him a set of rules by which he was to
+regulate his conduct. Charles also added new dignities to his see, and
+ordained that he, as primate, should take precedence over all the
+temporal lords, which irritated the proud Scotch nobility. He moreover
+contemplated the recovery of tithes and church lands for the benefit
+of the Episcopal government, and the imposition of a liturgy on the
+Scotch nation, a great majority of whom were Presbyterians. This was
+the darling scheme of Laud, who believed that there could scarcely be
+salvation out of his church, and which church he strove to make as
+much like the Catholic as possible, and yet maintain independence of
+the pope. But nothing was absolutely done towards changing the
+religion of Scotland until Charles came down to Edinburgh (1633) to be
+crowned, when a liturgy was prepared for the Scotch nation, subjected
+to the revision of Laud, but which was not submitted to or seen by,
+the General Assembly, or any convocation of ministers in Scotland.
+Nothing could be more ill timed or ill judged than this conflict with
+the religious prejudices of a people zealously attached to their own
+forms of worship. The clergy united with the aristocracy, and both
+with the people, in denouncing the conduct of the king and his
+ministers as tyrannical and unjust. The canons, especially, which Laud
+had prepared, were, in the eyes of the Scotch, puerile and
+superstitious; they could not conceive why a Protestant prelate should
+make so much account of the position of the font or of the communion
+table, turned into an altar. Indeed, his liturgy was not much other
+than an English translation of the Roman Missal, and excited the
+detestation of all classes. Yet it was resolved to introduce it into
+the churches, and the day was fixed for its introduction, which was
+Easter Sunday, 1637. But such a ferment was produced, that the
+experiment was put off to Sunday, 23d of July. On that day, the
+archbishops and bishops, lords of session, and magistrates were all
+present, by command, in the Church of St. Giles. But no sooner had the
+dean opened the service book, and begun to read out of it, than the
+people, who had assembled in great crowds, began to fill the church
+with uproar. The bishop of Edinburgh, who was to preach, stepped into
+the pulpit, and attempted to appease the tumultuous people. But this
+increased the tumult, when an old woman, seizing a stool, hurled it at
+the bishop's head. Sticks, stones, and dirt followed the stool, with
+loud cries of "Down with the priest of Baal!" "A pape, a pape!"
+"Antichrist!" "Pull him down!" This was the beginning of the
+insurrection, which spread from city to village, until all Scotland
+was in arms, and Episcopacy, as an established religion, was
+subverted. In February, 1638, the covenant was drawn up in Edinburgh,
+and was subscribed to by all classes, in all parts of Scotland; and,
+in November, the General Assembly met in Glasgow, the first that had
+been called for twenty years, and Presbyterianism was reëstablished in
+the kingdom, if not legally, yet in reality.
+
+From the day on which the Convocation opened, until the conquest of
+the country by Cromwell, the Kirk reigned supreme, there being no
+power in the government, or in the country, able or disposed to resist
+or question its authority. This was the golden age of Presbyterianism,
+when the clergy enjoyed autocratic power --a sort of Druidical
+ascendency over the minds and consciences of the people, in affairs
+temporal as well as spiritual.
+
+[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Puritanism in England.]
+
+Puritanism did not pervade the English, as it did the Scotch mind,
+although it soon obtained an ascendency. Most of the great political
+chieftains who controlled the House of Commons, and who clamored for
+the death of Strafford and Laud, were Puritans. But they were not all
+Presbyterians. In England, after the flight of the king from
+Whitehall, the Independents attracted notice, and eventually seized
+the reins of government. Cromwell was an Independent.
+
+The difference between these two sects was chiefly in their views
+about government, civil and ecclesiastical. Both Presbyterians and
+Independents were rigid Calvinists, practised a severe morality, were
+opposed to gay amusements, disliked organs and ceremonies, strictly
+observed the Sabbath, and attached great importance to the close
+observance of the Mosaic ritual. The Presbyterians were not behind the
+Episcopalians in hatred of sects and a free press. They had their
+model of worship, and declared it to be of divine origin. They looked
+upon schism as the parent of licentiousness, insisted on entire
+uniformity, maintained the divine right of the clergy to the
+management of ecclesiastical affairs, and claimed the sword of the
+magistrate to punish schismatics and heretics. They believed in the
+union of church and state, but would give the clergy the ascendency
+they possessed in the Middle Ages. They did not desire the entire
+prostration of royal authority, but only aimed to limit and curtail
+it.
+
+The Independents wished a total disruption of church and state, and
+disliked synods almost as much as they did bishops. They believed that
+every congregation was a distinct church, and had a right to elect the
+pastor. They preferred the greatest variety of sects to the ascendency
+of any one, by means of the civil sword. They rejected all spiritual
+courts, and claimed the right of each church to reject, punish, or
+receive members. In politics, they wished a total overthrow of the
+government--monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy; and were averse to any
+peace which did not secure complete toleration of opinions, and the
+complete subversion of the established order of things.
+
+[Sidenote: Conflicts among the Puritans.]
+
+Between the Presbyterians and the Independents, therefore, there could
+not be any lasting sympathy or alliance. They only united to crush the
+common foe; and, when Charles was beheaded, and Cromwell installed in
+power, they turned their arms against each other.
+
+The great religious contest, after the rise of Cromwell, was not
+between the Puritans and the Episcopalians, but between the different
+sects of Puritans themselves. At first, the Independents harmonized
+with the Presbyterians. Their theological and ethical opinions were
+the same, and both cordially hated and despised the government of the
+Stuarts. But when the Presbyterians obtained the ascendency, the
+Independents were grieved and enraged to discover that religious
+toleration was stigmatized as the parent of all heresy and schism.
+While in power, the Presbyterians shackled the press, and their
+intolerance brought out John Milton's famous tract on the liberty of
+unlicensed printing--one of the most masterly arguments which the
+advocates of freedom have ever made. The idea that any dominant
+religious sect should be incorporated with the political power, was
+the fatal error of Presbyterianism, and raised up enemies against it,
+after the royal power was suppressed. Cromwell was persuaded that the
+cause of religious liberty would be lost unless Presbyterianism, as
+well as Episcopacy, was disconnected with the state; and hence one
+great reason of his assuming the dictatorship. And he granted a more
+extended toleration than had before been known in England, although it
+was not perfect. The Catholics and the Quakers were not partakers of
+the boon which he gave to his country; so hard is it for men to learn
+the rights of others, when they have power in their own hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Puritans.]
+
+The Restoration was a victory over both the Independents and the
+general swarm of sectaries which an age of unparalleled religious
+excitement had produced. It is difficult to conceive of the intensity
+of the passions which inflamed all parties of religious disputants.
+But if the Puritan contest developed fanatical zeal, it also brought
+out the highest qualities of mind and heart which any age has
+witnessed. With all the faults and weaknesses of the Puritans, there
+never lived a better class of men,--men of more elevated piety, more
+enlarged views, or greater disinterestedness, patriotism, and moral
+worth. They made sacrifices which our age can scarcely appreciate, and
+had difficulties to contend with which were unparalleled in the
+history of reform. They made blunders which approximated to crimes,
+but they made them in their inexperience and zeal to promote the cause
+of religion and liberty. They were conscientious men--men who acted
+from the fear of God, and with a view to promote the highest welfare
+of future generations. They launched their bark boldly upon an unknown
+sea, and heroically endured its dangers and sufferings, with a view of
+conferring immortal blessings on their children and country. More
+prudent men would have avoided the perils of an unknown navigation;
+but, by such men, a great experiment for humanity would not have been
+tried. It may have failed, but the world has learned immortal wisdom
+from the failure. But the Puritans were not mere adventurers or
+martyrs. They have done something of lasting benefit to mankind, and
+they have done this by the power of faith, and by loyalty to their
+consciences, perverted as they were in some respects. The Puritans
+were not agreeable companions to the idle, luxurious, or frivolous;
+they were rigid ever, to austerity; their expressions degenerated into
+cant, and they were hostile to many innocent amusements. But these
+were peculiarities which furnished subjects of ridicule merely, and
+did not disgrace or degrade them. These were a small offset to their
+moral wisdom, their firm endurance, their elevation of sentiment,
+their love of liberty, and their fear of God. Such are the men whom
+Providence ordains to give impulse to society, and effect great and
+useful reforms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now return to consider the changes which they attempted in
+government. The civil war, of which Cromwell was the hero, now claims
+our attention.
+
+The refusal of the governor of Hull to admit the king was virtually
+the declaration of war, for which both parties had vigorously
+prepared.
+
+The standard of the king was first raised in Nottingham, while the
+head-quarters of the parliamentarians were in London. The first action
+of any note was the battle of Edge Hill, (October 23, 1642,) but was
+undecisive. Indeed, both parties hesitated to plunge into desperate
+war, at least until, by skirmishings and military manoeuvres, they
+were better prepared for it.
+
+The forces of the belligerents, at this period, were nearly equal but
+the parliamentarians had the ablest leaders. It was the misfortune of
+the king to have no man of commanding talents, as his counsellor,
+after the arrest of Strafford. Hyde, afterwards lord chancellor, and
+Earl of Clarendon, was the ablest of the royalist party. Falkland and
+Culpeper were also eminent men; but neither of them was the equal of
+Pym or Hampden.
+
+[Sidenote: John Hampden.]
+
+The latter was doubtless the ablest man in England at this time, and
+the only one who could have saved it from the evils which afterwards
+afflicted it. On him the hopes and affections of the nation centred.
+He was great in council and great in debate. He was the acknowledged
+leader of the House of Commons. He was eloquent, honest, unwearied,
+sagacious, and prudent. "Never had a man inspired a nation with
+greater confidence: the more moderate had faith in his wisdom; the
+more violent in his devoted patriotism; the more honest in his
+uprightness; the more intriguing in his talents." He spared neither
+his fortune nor his person, as soon as hostilities were inevitable. He
+subscribed two thousand pounds to the public cause, took a colonel's
+commission, and raised a regiment of infantry, so well known during
+the war for its green uniform, and the celebrated motto of its
+intrepid leader,--"_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_." He possessed the
+talents of a great statesman and a great general, and all the united
+qualities requisite for the crisis in which he appeared--"the valor
+and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the
+humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale,
+the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others could conquer; he alone
+could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who
+turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his
+watched the Scottish army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But
+it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had succeeded
+the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency,
+and burning for revenge; it was when the vices and ignorance, which
+the old tyranny had generated, threatened the new freedom with
+destruction, that England missed that sobriety, that self-command,
+that perfect soundness of judgment, that perfect rectitude of
+intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel,
+or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone."[1]
+
+               [Footnote 1: Macaulay.]
+
+[Sidenote: Oliver Cromwell.]
+
+This great man was removed by Providence from the scene of violence
+and faction at an early period of the contest. He was mortally wounded
+in one of those skirmishes in which the detachments of both armies had
+thus far engaged, and which made the campaigns of 1642-3 so undecided,
+so tedious, and so irritating--campaigns in which the generals of both
+armies reaped no laurels, and which created the necessity for a
+greater genius than had thus far appeared. That genius was Oliver
+Cromwell. At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of
+horse, and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. He
+was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hampden, and had
+secured the attention of the members in spite of his slovenly
+appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. Under his
+rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not perceived, except by
+two or three penetrating intellects; but they were shortly to appear,
+and to be developed, not in the House of Commons, but on the field of
+battle. The rise of Oliver Cromwell can scarcely be dated until the
+death of John Hampden; nor were the eyes of the nation fixed on him,
+as their deliverer, until some time after. The Earl of Essex was still
+the commander of the forces, while the Earl of Bedford, Lord
+Manchester, Lord Fairfax, Skippon, Sir William Waller, Leslie, and
+others held high posts. Cromwell was still a subordinate; but genius
+breaks through all obstacles, and overleaps all boundaries. The time
+had not yet come for the exercise of his great military talents. The
+period of negotiation had not fully passed, and the king, at his
+head-quarters at Oxford, "that seat of pure, unspotted loyalty," still
+hoped to amuse the parliament, gain time, and finally overwhelm its
+forces. Prince Rupert--brave, ardent, reckless, unprincipled--still
+ravaged the country without reaping any permanent advantage. The
+parliament was perplexed and the people were disappointed. On the
+whole, the king's forces were in the ascendant, and were augmenting;
+while plots and insurrections were constantly revealing to the
+parliamentarians the dangers which threatened them. Had not an able
+leader, at this crisis, appeared among the insurgents, or had an able
+general been given to Charles, it is probable that the king would have
+secured his ends; for popular enthusiasm without the organization
+which a master spirit alone can form, soon burns itself out.
+
+[Sidenote: The King at Oxford.]
+
+The state of the contending parties, from the battle of Edge Hill, for
+nearly two years, was very singular and very complicated. The king
+remained at Oxford, distracted by opposing counsels, and perplexed by
+various difficulties. The head-quarters of his enemies, at London,
+were no less the seat of intrigues and party animosities. The
+Presbyterians were the most powerful, and were nearly as distrustful
+of the Independents as they were of the king, and feared a victory
+over the king nearly as much as they did a defeat by him, and the
+dissensions among the various sects and leaders were no secret in the
+royalist camp, and doubtless encouraged Charles in his endless
+intrigues and dissimulations. But he was not equal to decisive
+measures, and without them, in revolutionary times, any party must be
+ruined. While he was meditating and scheming, he heard the news of an
+alliance between Scotland and the parliament, in which the
+Presbyterian interest was in the ascendency. This was the first great
+blow he received since the commencement of the war, and the united
+forces of his enemies now resolved upon more vigorous measures.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, the parliament had five armies--that
+of the Scots, of twenty-one thousand; that of Essex, ten thousand five
+hundred; that of Waller, five thousand one hundred; that of
+Manchester, fourteen thousand; and that of Fairfax, five thousand five
+hundred--in all, about fifty-six thousand men, of whom the committee
+of the two kingdoms had the entire disposal. In May, Essex and Waller
+invested Oxford, while Fairfax, Manchester, and the Scots met under
+the walls of York. Thus these two great royalist cities were attacked
+at once by all the forces of parliament. Charles, invested by a
+stronger force, and being deprived of the assistance of the princes,
+Rupert and Maurice, his nephews, who were absent on their marauding
+expeditions, escaped from Oxford, and proceeded towards Exeter. In the
+mean time, he ordered Prince Rupert to advance to the relief of York,
+which was defended by the marquis of Newcastle. The united royalist
+army now amounted to twenty-six thousand men, with a numerous and well
+appointed cavalry; and this great force obliged the armies of the
+parliament to raise the siege of York. Had Rupert been contented with
+this success, and intrenched himself in the strongest city of the
+north of England, he and Newcastle might have maintained their ground;
+but Rupert, against the advice of Newcastle, resolved on an engagement
+with the parliamentary generals, who had retreated to Marston Moor, on
+the banks of the Ouse, five miles from the city.
+
+The next day after the relief of York was fought the famous battle of
+Marston Moor, (July 2, 1644,) the bloodiest in the war, which resulted
+in the entire discomfiture of the royalist forces, and the ruin of the
+royal interests at the north. York was captured in a few days. Rupert
+retreated to Lancashire to recruit his army, and Newcastle, disgusted
+with Rupert, and with the turn affairs had taken, withdrew beyond
+seas. The Scots soon stormed the town of Newcastle, and the whole
+north of England fell into the hands of the victors.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell after the Battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of the Independents.]
+
+This great battle was decided by the ability of Cromwell, now
+lieutenant-general in the army of the parliament. He had distinguished
+himself in all subordinate stations, in the field of battle, in
+raising forces, and in councils of war, for which he had been promoted
+to serve as second under the Earl of Manchester. But his remarkable
+military genius was not apparent to the parliament until the battle of
+Marston Moor, and on him the eyes of the nation now began to be
+centred. He was now forty-five years of age, in the vigor of his
+manhood, burning with religious enthusiasm, and eager to deliver his
+country from the tyranny of Charles I., and of all kings. He was an
+Independent and a radical, opposed to the Episcopalians, to the
+Presbyterians, to the Scots, to all moderate men, to all moderate
+measures, to all jurisdiction in matters of religion, and to all
+authority in political affairs, which did not directly emanate from
+the people, who were called upon to regulate themselves by their
+individual reason. He was the idol of the Independent party, which now
+began to gain the ascendency in that stormy crisis. For three years,
+the Presbyterians had been in the ascendant, but had not realized the
+hopes or expectations of the enthusiastic advocates of freedom. By
+turns imperious and wavering, fanatical and moderate, they sought to
+curtail and humble the king, not to ruin him; to depress Episcopacy,
+but to establish another religion by the sword of the magistrate.
+Their leaders were timid, insincere, and disunited; few among them had
+definite views respecting the future government of the realm: and they
+gradually lost the confidence of the nation. But the Independents
+reposed fearlessly on the greatness and grandeur of their abstract
+principles, and pronounced, without a scruple, those potent words
+which kindled a popular enthusiasm--equality of rights, the just
+distribution of property, and the removal of all abuses. Above all,
+they were enthusiasts in religion, as well as in liberty, and devoutly
+attached to the doctrines of Calvin. They abominated all pleasures and
+pursuits which diverted their minds from the contemplation of God, or
+the reality of a future state. Cromwell himself lived in the ecstasy
+of religious excitement. His language was the language of the Bible,
+and its solemn truths were not dogmas, but convictions to his ardent
+mind. In the ardor of his zeal and the frenzy of his hopes, he fondly
+fancied that the people of England were to rise in simultaneous
+confederation, shake off all the old shackles of priests and kings,
+and be governed in all their actions, by the principles of the Bible.
+A sort of Jewish theocracy was to be restored on earth, and he was to
+be the organ of the divine will, as was Joshua of old, when he led the
+Israelites against the pagan inhabitants of the promised land. Up to
+this time, no inconsistencies disgraced him. His prayers and his
+exhortations were in accordance with his actions, and the most
+scrutinizing malignity could attribute nothing to him but sincerity
+and ardor in the cause which he had so warmly espoused. As magistrate,
+as member of parliament, as farmer, or as general, he slighted no
+religious duties, and was devoted to the apparent interests of
+England. Such a man, so fervent, enthusiastic, honest, patriotic, and
+able, of course was pointed out as a future leader, especially when
+his great military talents were observed at Marston Moor. From the
+memorable 2d of July he became the most marked and influential man in
+England. Hampden had offered up his life as a martyr, and Pym, the
+great lawyer and statesman, had died from exhaustion. Essex had won no
+victory commensurate with the public expectations, and Waller lost his
+army by desertions and indecisive measures. Both Essex and Manchester,
+with their large estates, their aristocratic connections, and their
+Presbyterian sympathies, were afraid of treating the king too well.
+The battle of Newbury, which shortly after was gained by the
+parliamentarians, was without decisive results, in consequence of the
+indecision of Manchester. The parliament and the nation looked for
+another leader, who would pursue his advantages, and adopt more
+vigorous measures. At this point, the Presbyterians would have made
+peace with the king, who still continued his insincere negotiations;
+but it was too late. The Independents had gained the ascendency, and
+their voice was for war--no more dallying, no more treaties, no more
+half measures, but uncompromising war. It was plain that either the
+king or the Independents must be the absolute rulers of England.
+
+Then was passed (April 3, 1645) the famous Self-Denying Ordinance, by
+which all members of parliament were excluded from command in the
+army, an act designed to get rid of Essex and Manchester, and prepare
+the way for the elevation of Cromwell. Sir Thomas Fairfax was
+appointed to the supreme command, and Cromwell was despatched into the
+inland counties to raise recruits. But it was soon obvious that the
+army could do nothing without him, although it was remodelled and
+reënforced; and even Fairfax and his officers petitioned parliament
+that Cromwell might be appointed lieutenant-general again, and
+commander-in-chief of the horse; which request was granted, and
+Cromwell rejoined the army, of which he was its hope and idol.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Naseby.]
+
+He joined it in time to win the most decisive battle of the war, the
+battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645. The forces of both armies were nearly
+balanced, and the royalists were commanded by the king in person,
+assisted by his ablest generals. But the rout of the king's forces was
+complete, his fortunes were prostrated, and he was driven, with the
+remnants of his army, from one part of the kingdom to the other, while
+the victorious parliamentarians were filled with exultation and joy.
+Cromwell, however, was modest and composed, and ascribed the victory
+to the God of battles, whose servant, he fancied, he preëminently was.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Parliamentary Army.]
+
+The parliamentary army continued its successes. Montrose gained the
+battle of Alford; Bridgewater surrendered to Fairfax; Glasgow and
+Edinburgh surrendered to Montrose; Prince Rupert was driven from
+Bristol, and, as the king thought, most disgracefully, which
+misfortune gave new joy to the parliament, and caused new
+thanksgivings from Cromwell, who gained the victory. From Bristol, the
+army turned southward, and encountered what royalist force there was
+in that quarter, stormed Bridgewater, drove the royalist generals into
+Cornwall, took Winchester, battered down Basing House, rich in
+provisions, ammunition, and silver plate, and completely prostrated
+all the hopes of the king in the south of England. Charles fled from
+Oxford, secretly, to join the Scottish army.
+
+By the 24th of June, 1646, all the garrisons of England and Wales,
+except those in the north, were in the hands of the parliament. In
+July, the parliament sent their final propositions to the king at
+Newcastle, which were extremely humiliating, and which he rejected.
+Negotiations were then entered into between the parliament and the
+Scots, which were long protracted, but which finally ended in an
+agreement, by the Scots, to surrender the king to the parliament, for
+the payment of their dues. They accordingly marched home with an
+instalment of two hundred thousand pounds, and the king was given up,
+not to the Independents, but to the Commissioners of parliament, in
+which body the Presbyterian interest predominated.
+
+At this juncture, (January, 1647,) Cromwell, rather than the king, was
+in danger of losing his head. The Presbyterians, who did not wish to
+abolish royalty, but establish uniformity with their mode of worship,
+began to be extremely jealous of the Independents, who were bent on
+more complete toleration of opinions, and who aimed at a total
+overthrow of many of the old institutions of the country. So soon as
+the king was humbled, and in their hands, it was proposed to disband
+the army which had gloriously finished the war, and which was chiefly
+composed of the Independents, and to create a new one on a
+Presbyterian model. The excuse was, that the contest was ended, while,
+indeed, the royalists were rather dispersed and humbled, than subdued.
+It was voted that, in the reduced army, no one should have, except
+Fairfax, a higher rank than colonel, a measure aimed directly at
+Cromwell, now both feared and distrusted by the Presbyterians. But the
+army refused to be disbanded without payment of its arrears, and,
+moreover, marched upon London, in spite of the vote of the parliament
+that it should not come within twenty-five miles. Several irritating
+resolutions were passed by the parliament, which only had the effect
+of uniting the army more strongly together, in resistance against
+parliament, as well as against the king. The Lords and Commons then
+voted that the king should be brought nearer London, and new
+negotiations opened with him, which were prevented from being carried
+into effect by the seizure of the king at Holmby House, by Cornet
+Joyce, with a strong party of horse belonging to Whalley's regiment,
+probably at the instigation of Cromwell and Ireton. His majesty was
+now in the hands of the army, his worst enemy, and, though treated
+with respect and deference, was really guarded closely, and watched by
+the Independent generals. The same day, Cromwell left London in haste,
+and joined the army, knowing full well that he was in imminent danger
+of arrest. He was cordially received, and forthwith the army resolved
+not to disband until all the national grievances were redressed, thus
+setting itself up virtually against all the constituted authorities.
+Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and Hammond, with other high officers, then
+waited on the king, and protested that they had nothing to do with the
+seizure of his person, and even invited him to return to Holmby House.
+But the king never liked the Presbyterians, and was willing to remain
+with the army instead, especially since he was permitted to have
+Episcopal chaplains, and to see whomsoever he pleased.
+
+[Sidenote: Seizure of the King.]
+
+The generals of the army were not content with the seizure of his
+majesty's person, but now caused eleven of the most obnoxious of the
+Presbyterian leaders of parliament to be accused, upon which they hid
+themselves, while the army advanced towards London. The parliament, at
+first, made a show of resistance, but soon abandoned its course, and
+now voted that the army should be treated with more respect and care.
+It was evident now to all persons where the seat of power rested.
+
+In the mean time, the king was removed from Newmarket to Kingston,
+from Hatfield to Woburn Abbey, and thence to Windsor Castle, which was
+the scene of new intrigues and negotiations on his part, and on the
+part of parliament, and even on the part of Cromwell. This was the
+last chance the king had. Had he cordially sided now with either the
+Presbyterians or the Independents, his subsequent misfortunes might
+have been averted. But he hated both parties, and trifled with both,
+and hoped to conquer both. He was unable to see the crisis of his
+affairs, or to adapt himself to it. He was incapable of fair dealing
+with any party. His duplicity and dissimulation were fully made known
+to Cromwell and Ireton by a letter of the king to his wife, which they
+intercepted; and they made up their minds to more decided courses. The
+king was more closely guarded; the army marched to the immediate
+vicinity of London; a committee of safety was named, and parliament
+was intimidated into the passing of a resolution, by which the city of
+London and the Tower were intrusted to Fairfax and Cromwell. The
+Presbyterian party was forever depressed, its leading members fled to
+France, and the army had every thing after its own way. Parliament
+still was ostensibly the supreme power in the land; but it was
+entirely controlled by the Independent leaders and generals.
+
+[Sidenote: Triumph of the Independents.]
+
+The victorious Independents then made their celebrated proposals to
+the king, as the Presbyterians had done before them; only the
+conditions which the former imposed were more liberal, and would have
+granted to the king powers almost as great as are now exercised by the
+sovereign. But he would not accept them, and continued to play his
+game of kingcraft.
+
+Shortly after, the king contrived to escape from Windsor to the Isle
+of Wight, with the connivance of Cromwell. At Carisbrook Castle, where
+he quartered himself, he was more closely guarded than before. Seeing
+this, he renewed his negotiations with the Scots, and attempted to
+escape. But escape was impossible. He was now in the hands of men who
+aimed at his life. A strong party in the army, called the _Levellers_,
+openly advocated his execution, and the establishment of a republic;
+and parliament itself resolved to have no further treaty with him. His
+only hope was now from the Scots, and they prepared to rescue him.
+
+Although the government of the country was now virtually in the hands
+of the Independents and of the army, the state of affairs was
+extremely critical, and none other than Cromwell could have extricated
+the dominant party from the difficulties. In one quarter was an
+imprisoned and intriguing king in league with the Scots, while the
+royalist party was waiting for the first reverse to rise up again with
+new strength in various parts of the land. Indeed, there were several
+insurrections, which required all the vigor of Cromwell to suppress.
+The city of London, which held the purse-strings, was at heart
+Presbyterian, and was extremely dissatisfied with the course affairs
+were taking. Then, again, there was a large, headstrong, levelling,
+mutineer party in the army, which clamored for violent courses, which
+at that time would have ruined every thing. Finally, the Scotch
+parliament had voted to raise a force of forty thousand men, to invade
+England and rescue the king. Cromwell, before he could settle the
+peace of the country, must overcome all these difficulties. Who, but
+he, could have triumphed over so many obstacles, and such apparent
+anarchy?
+
+The first thing Cromwell did was to restore order in England; and
+therefore he obtained leave to march against the rebels, who had
+arisen in various parts of the country. Scarcely were these subdued,
+before he heard of the advance of the Scottish army, under the Duke of
+Hamilton. A second civil war now commenced, and all parties witnessed
+the result with fearful anxiety.
+
+The army of Hamilton was not as large as he had hoped. Still he had
+fifteen thousand men, and crossed the borders, while Cromwell was
+besieging Pembroke, in a distant part of the kingdom. But Pembroke
+soon surrendered; and Cromwell advanced, by rapid marches, against the
+Scottish army, more than twice as large as his own. The hostile forces
+met in Lancashire. Hamilton was successively defeated at Preston,
+Wigan, and Warrington. Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter,
+August 25, 1648, and his invading army was completely annihilated.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Invades Scotland.]
+
+Cromwell then resolved to invade, in his turn, Scotland itself, and,
+by a series of military actions, to give to the army a still greater
+ascendency. He was welcomed at Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle, the
+head of an opposing faction, and was styled "the Preserver of
+Scotland." That country was indeed rent with most unhappy divisions,
+which Lieutenant-General Cromwell remedied in the best way he could;
+and then he rapidly retraced his steps, to compose greater
+difficulties at home. In his absence, the Presbyterians had rallied,
+and were again negotiating with the king on the Isle of Wight, while
+Cromwell was openly denounced in the House of Lords as ambitious,
+treacherous, and perfidious. Fairfax, his superior in command, but
+inferior in influence, was subduing the rebel royalists, who made a
+firm resistance at Colchester, and all the various parties were
+sending their remonstrances to parliament.
+
+Among these was a remarkable one from the regiments of Ireton,
+Ingoldsby, Fleetwood, Whalley, and Overton, which imputed to
+parliament the neglect of the affairs of the realm, called upon it to
+proclaim the sovereignty of the people and the election of a supreme
+magistrate, and threatened to take matters into their own hands. This
+was in November, 1646; but, long before this, a republican government
+was contemplated, although the leaders of the army had not joined in
+with the hue and cry which the fanatical Levellers had made.
+
+[Sidenote: Seizure of the King a Second Time.]
+
+In the midst of the storm which the petition from the army had raised,
+the news arrived that the king had been seized a second time, and had
+been carried a prisoner to Hurst Castle, on the coast opposite the
+island, where he was closely confined by command of the army.
+Parliament was justly indignant, and the debate relative to peace was
+resumed with redoubled earnestness. It is probable that, at this
+crisis, so irritated was parliament against the army, peace would have
+been made with the king, and the Independent party suppressed, had not
+most decisive measures been taken by the army. A rupture between the
+parliament and the army was inevitable. But Cromwell and the army
+chiefs had resolved upon their courses. The mighty stream of
+revolution could no longer be checked. Twenty thousand men had vowed
+that parliament should be purged. On the morning of December 6,
+Colonel Pride and Colonel Rich, with troops, surrounded the House of
+Commons; and, as the members were going into the house, the most
+obnoxious were seized and sent to prison, among whom were Primrose,
+who had lost his ears in his contest against the crown, Waller,
+Harley, Walker, and various other men, who had distinguished
+themselves as advocates of constitutional liberty. None now remained
+in the House of Commons but some forty Independents, who were the
+tools of the army, and who voted to Cromwell their hearty thanks. "The
+minority had now become a majority,"--which is not unusual in
+revolutionary times,--and proceeded to the work, in good earnest,
+which he had long contemplated.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial of the King.]
+
+This was the trial of the king, whose apartments at Whitehall were now
+occupied by his victorious general, and whose treasures were now
+lavished on his triumphant soldiers.
+
+On the 17th of December, 1648, in the middle of the night, the
+drawbridge of the Castle of Hurst was lowered, and a troop of horse
+entered the yard. Two days after, the king was removed to Windsor. On
+the 23d, the Commons voted that he should be brought to trial. On the
+20th of January, Charles Stuart, King of England, was brought before
+the Court of High Commission, in Westminster Hall, and placed at the
+bar, to be tried by this self-constituted body for his life. In the
+indictment, he was charged with being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer.
+To such an indictment, and before such a body, the dignified but
+unfortunate successor of William the Conqueror demurred. He refused to
+acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. But the solemn mockery of
+the trial proceeded nevertheless, and on the 27th, sentence of death
+was pronounced upon the prisoner--that prisoner the King of England, a
+few years before the absolute ruler of the state. On January 30, the
+bloody sentence was executed, and the soul of the murdered king
+ascended to that God who pardons those who put their trust in him, in
+spite of all their mistakes, errors, and delusions. The career of
+Charles I. is the most melancholy in English history. That he was
+tyrannical, that he disregarded the laws by which he swore to rule,
+that he was narrow, and bigoted, that he was deceitful in his
+promises, that he was bent on overturning the liberties of England,
+and did not comprehend the wants and circumstances of his times, can
+scarcely be questioned. But that he was sincere in his religion,
+upright in his private life, of respectable talents, and good
+intentions, must also be admitted. His execution, or rather his
+martyrdom, made a deep and melancholy impression in all Christian
+countries, and was the great blunder which the republicans made--a
+blunder which Hampden would have avoided. His death, however, removed
+from England a most dangerous intriguer, and, for a while, cemented
+the power of Cromwell and his party, who now had undisputed ascendency
+in the government of the realm. Charles's exactions and tyranny
+provoked the resistance of parliament, and the indignation of the
+people, then intensely excited in discussing the abstract principles
+of civil and religious liberty. The resistance of parliament created
+the necessity of an army, and the indignation of the people filled it
+with enthusiasts. The army flushed with success, forgot its relations
+and duties, and usurped the government it had destroyed, and a
+military dictatorship, the almost inevitable result of revolution,
+though under the name of a republic, succeeded to the despotism of the
+Stuart kings. This republic, therefore, next claims attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The standard Histories of England. Guizot's
+     History of the English Revolution. Clarendon's History of
+     the Rebellion. Forster's Life of the Statesmen of the
+     Commonwealth. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     Essays. Lives of Bacon, Raleigh, Strafford, Laud, Hampden,
+     and Cromwell. These works furnish all the common
+     information. Few American students have the opportunity to
+     investigate Thurlow's State Papers, or Rushworth,
+     Whitelocke, Dugdale, or Mrs. Hutchinson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Protectorate.]
+
+On the day of the king's execution, January 30, 1649, the House of
+Commons--being but the shadow of a House of Commons, yet ostensibly
+the supreme authority in England--passed an act prohibiting the
+proclamation of the Prince of Wales, or any other person, to be king
+of England. On the 6th of February, the House of Peers was decreed
+useless and dangerous, and was also dispensed with. On the next day,
+royalty was formally abolished. The supreme executive power was vested
+in a council of state of forty members, the president of which was
+Bradshaw, the relative and friend of Milton, who employed his immortal
+genius in advocating the new government. The army remained under the
+command of Fairfax and Cromwell; the navy was controlled by a board of
+admiralty, headed by Sir Harry Vane. A greater toleration of religion
+was proclaimed than had ever been known before, much to the annoyance
+of the Presbyterians, who were additionally vexed that the state was
+separated entirely from the church.
+
+The Independents pursued their victory with considerable moderation,
+and only the Duke of Hamilton, and Lords Holland and Capel, were
+executed for treason, while a few others were shut up in the Tower.
+Never was so mighty a revolution accomplished with so little
+bloodshed. But it required all the wisdom and vigor of Fairfax and
+Cromwell to repress the ultra radical spirit which had crept into
+several detachments of the army, and to baffle the movements which the
+Scots were making in favor of Charles Stuart, who had already been
+proclaimed king by the parliament of Scotland, and in Ireland by the
+Marquis of Ormond.
+
+[Sidenote: Storming of Drogheda and Wexford.]
+
+The insurrection in Ireland first required the notice of the new
+English government. Cromwell accepted the conduct of the war, and the
+office of lord lieutenant. Dublin and Derry were the only places which
+held out for the parliament. All other parts of the country were in a
+state of insurrection. On the 15th of August, Cromwell and his
+son-in-law, Ireton, landed near Dublin with an army of six thousand
+foot and three thousand horse only; but it was an army of Ironsides
+and Titans. In six months, the complete reconquest of the country was
+effected. The policy of the conqueror was severe and questionable; but
+it was successful. In the hope of bringing the war to a speedy
+termination, Cromwell proceeded in such a way as to bring terror to
+his name, and curses on his memory. Drogheda and Wexford were not only
+taken by storm, but nearly the whole garrison, of more than five
+thousand men, were barbarously put to the sword. The Irish quailed
+before such a victor, and town after town hastened to make peace.
+Cromwell's excuse for his undeniable cruelties was, the necessity of
+the case, of which we may reasonably suppose him to be a judge.
+Scotland was in array, and English affairs, scarcely settled, demanded
+his presence in London. An imperfect conquest, on the principles of
+Rousseau's philanthropy, did not suit the taste or the notions of
+Cromwell. If he had consumed a few more months than he actually
+employed, either in treaty-making with a deceitful though oppressed
+people, or in battles on the principles of the military science then
+in vogue, the cause of Independency would have been lost; and that
+cause, associated with that of liberty, in the eyes of Cromwell, was
+of more value than the whole Irish nation, or any other nation.
+Cromwell was a devotee to a cause. Principles, with him, were every
+thing; men were nothing in comparison. To advance the principles for
+which he fought, he scrupled to use no means or instruments. In this
+he may have erred. But this policy was the secret of his success. We
+cannot justify his cruelties in war, because it is hard to justify the
+war itself. But if we acknowledge its necessity, we should remember
+that such a master of war as was Cromwell knew his circumstances
+better than we do or can know. To his immortal glory it can be said
+that he never inflicted cruelty when he deemed it unnecessary; that he
+never fought for the love of fighting; and that he stopped fighting
+when the cause for which he fought was won. And this is more than can
+be said of most conquerors, even of those imbued with sentimental
+horror of bloodshed. Our world is full of cant. Cromwell's language
+sometimes sounds like it, especially when he speaks of the "hand of
+the Lord" in "these mighty changes," who "breaketh the enemies of his
+church in pieces."
+
+When the conquest of Ireland was completed, Cromwell hastened to
+London to receive the thanks of parliament and the acclamations of the
+people; and then he hurried to Scotland to do battle with the Scots,
+who had made a treaty with the king, and were resolved to establish
+Presbyterianism and royalty. Cromwell now superseded Fairfax, and was
+created captain-general of the forces of the commonwealth. Cromwell
+passed the borders, reached Edinburgh without molestation, and then
+advanced on the Scotch army of twenty-seven thousand men, under
+Lesley, at Dunbar, where was fought a most desperate battle, but which
+Cromwell gained with marvellous intrepidity and skill. Three thousand
+men were killed, and ten thousand taken prisoners, and the hopes of
+the Scots blasted. The lord-general made a halt, and the whole army
+sang the one hundred and seventeenth psalm, and then advanced upon the
+capital, which opened its gates. Glasgow followed the example; the
+whole south of Scotland submitted; while the king fled towards the
+Highlands, but soon rallied, and even took the bold resolution of
+marching into England, while Cromwell was besieging Perth. Charles
+reached Worcester before he was overtaken, established himself with
+sixteen thousand men, but was attacked by Cromwell, was defeated, and
+with difficulty fled. He reached France, however, and quietly rested
+until he was brought back by General Monk.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Worcester.]
+
+With the battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, which Cromwell called
+his "crowning mercy," ended his military life. From that day to the
+time when be became protector, the most noticeable point in his
+history is his conduct towards the parliament. And this conduct is the
+most objectionable part of his life and character; for in this he
+violated the very principles he originally professed, and committed
+the same usurpations which he condemned in Charles I. Here he was not
+true to himself or his cause. Here he laid himself open to the censure
+of all posterity; and although he had great excuses, and his course
+has many palliations, still it would seem a mockery of all moral
+distinctions not to condemn in him what we would condemn in another,
+or what Cromwell himself condemned in the murdered king. It is true he
+did not, at once, turn usurper, not until circumstances seemed to
+warrant the usurpation--the utter impossibility of governing England,
+except by exercising the rights and privileges of an absolute monarch.
+On the principles of expediency, he has been vindicated, and will be
+vindicated, so long as his cause is advocated by partisan historians,
+or expediency itself is advocated as a rule of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Cromwell.]
+
+After the battle of Worcester, Cromwell lost, in a measure, his
+democratic sympathies, and naturally, in view of the great excesses of
+the party with which he had been identified. That he desired the
+public good we cannot reasonably doubt; and he adapted himself to
+those circumstances which seemed to advance it, and which a spirit of
+wild democratic license assuredly did not. So far as it contributed to
+overturn the throne of the Stuarts, and the whole system of public
+abuses, civil and ecclesiastical, Cromwell favored it. But no further.
+When it seemed subversive of law and order, the grand ends of all
+civil governments, then he opposed it. And in this he showed that he
+was much more conservative in his spirit than has often been supposed;
+and, in this conservatism he resembled Luther and other great
+reformers, who were not unreflecting incendiaries, as is sometimes
+thought--men who destroy, but do not reconstruct. Luther, at heart,
+was a conservative, and never sought a change to which he was not led
+by strong inward tempests--forced to make it by the voice of his
+conscience, which he ever obeyed, and loyalty to which so remarkably
+characterized the early reformers, and no class of men more than the
+Puritans. Cromwell abhorred the government of Charles, because it was
+not a government which respected justice, and which set at defiance
+the higher laws of God. It was not because Charles violated the
+constitution, it was because he violated truth and equity, and the
+nation's good, that he opposed him. Cromwell usurped his prerogatives,
+and violated the English constitution; but he did not transgress those
+great primal principles of truth, for which constitutions are made. He
+looked beyond constitutions to abstract laws of justice; and it never
+can be laid to his charge that he slighted these, or proved a weak or
+wicked ruler. He quarrelled with parliament, because the parliament
+wished to perpetuate its existence unlawfully and meanly, and was
+moreover unwilling and unable to cope with many difficulties which
+constantly arose. It may be supposed that Cromwell may thus have
+thought: "I will not support the parliament, for it will not maintain
+law; it will not legislate wisely or beneficently; it seeks its own,
+not the nation's good. And therefore I take away its existence, and
+rule myself; for I have the fear of God before my eyes, and am
+determined to rule by his laws, and to advance his glory." Deluded he
+was; blinded by ambition he may have been but he sought to elevate his
+country; and his efforts in her behalf are appreciated and praised by
+the very men who are most severe on his undoubted usurpation.
+
+[Sidenote: The Rump Parliament.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dispersion of the Parliament.]
+
+Shortly after the Long Parliament was purged, at the instigation of
+Cromwell, and had become the Rump Parliament, as it was derisively
+called, it appointed a committee to take into consideration the time
+when their powers should cease. But the battle of Worcester was fought
+before any thing was done, except to determine that future parliaments
+should consist of four hundred members, and that the existing members
+should be returned, in the next parliament, for the places they then
+represented. At length, in December, 1651, it was decided, through the
+urgent entreaties of Cromwell, but only by a small majority, that the
+present parliament should cease in November, 1654. Thus it was obvious
+to Cromwell that the parliament, reduced as it was, and composed of
+Independents, was jealous of him, and also was aiming to perpetuate
+its own existence, against all the principles of a representative
+government. Such are men, so greedy of power themselves, so censorious
+in regard to the violation of justice by others, so blind to the
+violation of justice by themselves. Cromwell was not the man to permit
+the usurpation of power by a body of forty or sixty Independents,
+however willing he was to assume it himself. Beside, the Rump
+Parliament was inefficient, and did not consult the interests of the
+country. There was general complaint. But none complained more
+bitterly than Cromwell himself. Meeting Whitelock, who then held the
+great seal, he said that the "army was beginning to have a strange
+distaste against them; that their pride, and ambition, and
+self-seeking; their engrossing all places of honor and profit to
+themselves and their friends; their daily breaking into new and
+violent parties; their delays of business, and design to perpetuate
+themselves, and continue the power in their own hands; their meddling
+in private matters between party and party, their injustice and
+partiality; the scandalous lives of some of them, do give too much
+ground for people to open their mouths against them; and unless there
+be some power to check them, it will be impossible to prevent our
+ruin." These things Whitelock admitted, but did not see how they could
+be removed since both he and Cromwell held their commissions from this
+same parliament, which was the supreme authority. But Cromwell thought
+there was nothing to hope, and every thing to fear, from such a body
+of men; that they would destroy what the Lord had done. "We all forget
+God," said he, "and God will forget us. He will give us up to
+confusion, and these men will help it on, if left to themselves." Then
+he asked the great lawyer and chancellor, "What if a man should take
+upon himself to be king?"--evidently having in view the regal power.
+But Whitelock presented such powerful reasons against it, that
+Cromwell gave up the idea, though he was resolved to destroy the
+parliament. He then held repeated conferences with the officers of the
+army, who sympathized with him, and who supported him. At last, while
+parliament was about to pass an obnoxious bill, Cromwell hurried to
+the House, taking with him a file of musketeers, having resolved what
+he would do. These he left in the lobby, and, taking his seat,
+listened a while to the discussion, and then rose, and addressed the
+House. Waxing warm, he told them, in violent language, "that they were
+deniers of justice, were oppressive, profane men, were planning to
+bring in Presbyterians, and would lose no time in destroying the cause
+they had deserted." Sir Harry Vane and Sir Peter Wentworth rose to
+remonstrate, but Cromwell, leaving his seat, walked up and down the
+floor, with his hat on, reproached the different members, who again
+remonstrated. But Cromwell, raising his voice, exclaimed, "You are no
+parliament. Get you gone. Give way to honester men." Then, stamping
+with his feet, the door opened, and the musketeers entered, and the
+members were dispersed, after giving vent to their feelings in the
+language of reproach. Most of them wore swords, but none offered
+resistance to the man they feared, and tamely departed.
+
+Thus was the constitution utterly subverted, and parliament, as well
+as the throne, destroyed. Cromwell published, the next day, a
+vindication of his conduct, setting forth the incapacity, selfishness
+and corruption of the parliament, in which were some of the best men
+England ever had, including Sir Harry Vane, Algernon Sydney, and Sir
+Peter Wentworth.
+
+His next step was to order the continuance of all the courts of
+justice, as before, and summon a new parliament, the members of which
+were nominated by himself and his council of officers. The army, with
+Cromwell at the head, was now the supreme authority.
+
+The new parliament, composed of one hundred and twenty persons,
+assembled on the 4th of July, when Cromwell explained the reason of
+his conduct, and set forth the mercies of the Lord to England. This
+parliament was not constitutional, since it was not elected by the
+people of England, but by Cromwell, and therefore would be likely to
+be his tool. But had the elections been left free, the Presbyterians
+would have been returned as the largest party, and they would have
+ruined the cause which Cromwell and the Independents sought to
+support. In revolutions, there cannot be pursued half measures.
+Revolutions are the contest between parties. The strongest party gains
+the ascendency, and keeps it if it can--never by old, constituted
+laws. In the English Revolution the Independents gained this
+ascendency by their valor, enthusiasm, and wisdom. And their great
+representative ruled in their name.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Assumes the Protectorship.]
+
+The new members of parliament reappointed the old Council of State, at
+the head of which was Cromwell, abolished the High Court of Chancery,
+nominated commissioners to preside in courts of justice, and proceeded
+to other sweeping changes, which alarmed their great nominator, who
+induced them to dissolve themselves and surrender their trust into his
+hands, under the title of Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland. On the 16th of December, he was installed in his great
+office, with considerable pomp, in the Court of Chancery, and the new
+constitution was read, which invested him with all the powers of a
+king. It, however, ordained that he should rule with the aid of a
+parliament, which should have all the functions and powers of the old
+parliaments, should be assembled within five months, should last three
+years, and should consist of four hundred and sixty members. It
+provided for the maintenance of the army and navy, of which the
+protector was the head, and decided that the great officers of state
+should be chosen by approbation of parliament. Religious toleration
+was proclaimed, and provision made for the support of the clergy.
+
+[Sidenote: The Dutch War.]
+
+Thus was the constitution of the nation changed, and a republic
+substituted for a monarchy, at the head of which was the ablest man of
+his age. And there was need of all his abilities. England then was
+engaged in war with the Dutch, and the internal state of the nation
+demanded the attention of a vigorous mind and a still more vigorous
+arm.
+
+The Dutch war was prosecuted with great vigor, and was signalized by
+the naval victories of Blake, Dean, and Monk over the celebrated Van
+Tromp and De Ruyter, the Dutch admirals. The war was caused by the
+commercial jealousies of the two nations, and by the unwillingness of
+the Prince of Orange, who had married a daughter of Charles I., to
+acknowledge the ambassador of the new English republic. But the
+superiority which the English sailors evinced, soon taught the Dutch
+how dangerous it was to provoke a nation which should be its ally on
+all grounds of national policy, and peace was therefore honorably
+secured after a most successful war.
+
+The war being ended, the protector had more leisure to attend to
+business at home. Sir Matthew Hale was made chief justice, and
+Thurloe, secretary of state; disorganizers were punished; an
+insurrection in Scotland was quelled by General Monk; and order and
+law were restored.
+
+Meanwhile, the new parliament, the first which had been freely elected
+for fourteen years, soon manifested a spirit of opposition to
+Cromwell, deferred to vote him supplies, and annoyed him all in its
+power. Still he permitted the members to discuss trifling subjects and
+waste their time for five months; but, at the earliest time the new
+constitution would allow, he summoned them to the Painted Chamber,
+made them a long speech, reminded them of their neglect in attending
+to the interests of the nation, while disputing about abstract
+questions, even while it was beset with dangers and difficulties, and
+then dissolved them, (January 22, 1656.)
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Rules without a Parliament.]
+
+For the next eighteen months, he ruled without a parliament and found
+no difficulty in raising supplies, and supporting his now unlimited
+power. During this time, he suppressed a dangerous insurrection in
+England itself, and carried on a successful and brilliant war against
+Spain, a power which he hated with all the capacity of hatred of which
+his nation has shown itself occasionally so capable. In the naval war
+with Spain, Blake was again the hero. During the contest the rich
+island of Jamaica was conquered from the Spanish, a possession which
+England has ever since greatly valued.
+
+Encouraged by his successes, Cromwell now called a third parliament,
+which he opened the 17th of September, 1656, after ejecting one
+hundred of the members, on account of their political sentiments. The
+new House voted for the prosecution of the Spanish war, granted ample
+supplies, and offered to Cromwell the title of king. But his council
+violently opposed it, and Cromwell found it expedient to relinquish
+this object of his heart. But his protectorate was continued to him,
+and he was empowered to nominate his successor.
+
+In a short time, however, the spirit of the new parliament was
+manifested, not only by violent opposition to the protector, but in
+acts which would, if carried out, have subverted the government again,
+and have plunged England in anarchy. It was plain that the protector
+could not rule with a real representation of the nation. So he
+dissolved it; and thus ended the last effort of Cromwell to rule with
+a parliament; or, as his advocates say, to restore the constitution of
+his country. It was plain that there was too much party animosity and
+party ambition to permit the protector, shackled by the law, to carry
+out his designs of order and good government. Self-preservation
+compelled him to be suspicious and despotic, and also to prohibit the
+exercise of the Catholic worship, and to curtail the religious rights
+of the Quakers, Socinians, and Jews. The continual plottings and
+political disaffections of these parties forced him to rule on a
+system to which he was not at first inclined. England was not yet
+prepared for the civil and religious liberty at which the advocates of
+revolution had at first aimed.
+
+So Cromwell now resolved to rule alone. And he ruled well. His armies
+were victorious on the continent, and England was respected abroad,
+and prospered at home. The most able and upright men were appointed to
+office. The chairs of the universities were filled with illustrious
+scholars, and the bench adorned with learned and honest judges. He
+defended the great interests of Protestantism on the Continent, and
+formed alliances which contributed to the political and commercial
+greatness of his country. He generously assisted the persecuted
+Protestants in the valleys of Piedmont, and refused to make treaties
+with hostile powers unless the religious liberties of the Protestants
+were respected. He lived at Hampton Court, the old palace of Cardinal
+Wolsey, in simple and sober dignity; nor was debauchery or riot seen
+at his court. He lived simply and unostentatiously, and to the last
+preserved the form, and perhaps the spirit, of his early piety. He
+surrounded himself with learned men, and patronized poets and
+scholars. Milton was his familiar guest, and the youthful Dryden was
+not excluded from his table. An outward morality, at least, was
+generally observed, and the strictest discipline was kept at his
+court.
+
+Had Cromwell's life been prolonged to threescore and ten, the history
+of England might have been different for the next two hundred years.
+But such was not his fortune. Providence removed him from the scene of
+his conflicts and his heroism not long after the dissolution of his
+last parliament. The death of a favorite daughter preyed upon his
+mind, and the cares of government undermined his constitution. He died
+on the 3d of September, 1658, the anniversary of his great battles of
+Worcester and Dunbar, in the sixtieth year of his age.
+
+Two or three nights before he died, he was heard to ejaculate the
+following prayer, in the anticipation of his speedy departure; "Lord,
+though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with
+thee, through thy grace; and I may, I will come to thee, for thy
+people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to
+do them good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high
+value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. Lord,
+however Thou disposest of me, continue and go on to do good to them.
+Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and,
+with the work of reformation, go on to deliver them, and make the name
+of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy
+instrument to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to
+trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And
+pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake.
+And give me a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen."
+
+Thus closed the career of Oliver Cromwell, the most remarkable man in
+the list of England's heroes. His motives and his honesty have often
+been impeached, and sometimes by the most excellent and
+discriminating, but oftener by heated partisans, who had no sympathy
+with his reforms or opinions. His genius, however, has never been
+questioned, nor his extraordinary talent, for governing a nation in
+the most eventful period of its history. And there is a large class,
+and that class an increasing one, not confined to Independents or
+republicans, who look upon him as one habitually governed by a stern
+sense of duty, as a man who feared God and regarded justice, as a man
+sincerely devoted to the best interests of his country, and deserving
+of the highest praises of all enlightened critics. No man has ever
+been more extravagantly eulogized, or been the subject of more
+unsparing abuse and more cordial detestation. Some are incapable of
+viewing him in any other light than as a profound hypocrite and
+ambitious despot, while others see in him nothing but the saint and
+unspotted ruler. He had his defects; for human nature, in all
+instances, is weak; but in spite of these, and of many and great
+inconsistencies, from which no sophistry can clear him, his great and
+varied excellences will ever entitle him to the rank accorded to him
+by such writers as Vaughan and Carlyle.
+
+[Sidenote: Regal Government Restored.]
+
+With the death of Cromwell virtually ended the republic. "Puritanism
+without its king, is kingless, anarchic, falls into dislocation,
+staggers, and plunges into even deeper anarchy." His son Richard,
+according to his will, was proclaimed protector in his stead. But his
+reign was short. Petitions poured in from every quarter for the
+restoration of parliament. It was restored, and also with it royalty
+itself. General Monk advanced with his army from Scotland, and
+quartered in London. In May, 1660, Charles II. was proclaimed king at
+the gates of Westminster Hall. The experiment of a republic had been
+tried, and failed. Puritanism veiled its face. It was no longer the
+spirit of the nation. A great reaction commenced. Royalty, with new
+but disguised despotism, resumed its sway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Carlyle's, Dr. Vaughan's, and D'Aubigné's Life
+     of Cromwell. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     History of England. Godwin's Commonwealth. The common
+     histories of England. Milton's prose writings may be
+     profitably read in this connection, and the various reviews
+     and essays which have of late been written, on the character
+     of Cromwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Restoration.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great Public Rejoicings.]
+
+Few events in English history have ever been hailed with greater
+popular enthusiasm than the restoration of Charles II. On the 25th of
+May, 1660, he landed near Dover, with his two brothers, the Dukes of
+York and Gloucester. On the 29th of May, he made his triumphal entry
+into London. It was his birthday, he was thirty years of age, and in
+the full maturity of manly beauty, while his gracious manners and
+captivating speech made him the favorite of the people, as well as of
+the old nobility. The season was full of charms, and the spirits of
+all classes were buoyant with hope. Every thing conspired to give a
+glow to the popular enthusiasm. A long line of illustrious monarchs
+was restored. The hateful fires of religious fanaticism were
+apparently extinguished. An accomplished sovereign, disciplined in the
+school of adversity, of brilliant talents, amiable temper, fascinating
+manners, and singular experiences, had returned to the throne of his
+ancestors, and had sworn to rule by the laws, to forget old offences,
+and promote liberty of conscience. No longer should there be a
+government of soldiers, nor the rule of a man hostile to those
+pleasures and opinions which had ever been dear to the English people.
+With the return of the exiled prince, should also return joy, peace,
+and prosperity. For seventeen years, there had been violent political
+and social animosities, war, tyranny, social restraints, and religious
+fanaticism. But order and law were now to be reëstablished, and the
+reign of cant and hypocrisy was now to end. Justice and mercy were to
+meet together in the person of a king who was represented to have all
+the virtues and none of the vices of his station and his times. So
+people reasoned and felt, of all classes and conditions. And why
+should they not rejoice in the restoration of such blessings? The ways
+were strewn with flowers, the bells sent forth a merry peal, the
+streets were hung with tapestries; while aldermen with their heavy
+chains, nobles in their robes of pomp, ladies with their silks and
+satins, and waving handkerchiefs, filling all the balconies and
+windows; musicians, dancers, and exulting crowds,--all welcomed the
+return of Charles. Never was there so great a jubilee in London; and
+never did monarch receive such addresses of flattery and loyalty.
+"Dread monarch," said the Earl of Manchester, in the House of Lords,
+"I offer no flattering titles. You are the desire of three kingdoms,
+the strength and stay of the tribes of the people." "Most royal
+sovereign," said one of the deputations, "the hearts of all are filled
+with veneration for you, confidence in you, longings for you. All
+degrees, and ages, and sexes, high, low, rich and poor, men, women,
+and children, join in sending up to Heaven one prayer, 'Long live King
+Charles II.;' so that the English air is not susceptible of any other
+sound, bells, bonfires, peals of ordnance, shouts, and acclamations of
+the people bear no other moral; nor can his majesty conceive with what
+joy, what cheerfulness, what lettings out of the soul, what
+expressions of transported minds, a stupendous concourse of people
+attended the proclamation of their most potent, most mighty, and most
+undoubted king." Such was the adulatory language addressed by the
+English people to the son of the king they had murdered, and to a man
+noted for every frivolity and vice that could degrade a sovereign.
+What are we to think of that public joy, and public sycophancy, after
+so many years of hard fighting for civil and religious liberty? For
+what were the battles of Naseby and Worcester? For what the Solemn
+League and Covenant? For what the trial and execution of Charles I.?
+For what the elevation of Cromwell? Alas! for what were all the
+experiments and sufferings of twenty years, the breaking up of old and
+mighty customs, and twenty years of blood, usurpation, and change?
+What were the benefits of the Revolution? Or, had it no benefits? How
+happened it that a whole nation should simultaneously rise and expel
+their monarch from a throne which his ancestors had enjoyed for six
+hundred years, and then, in so short a time, have elevated to this old
+throne, which was supposed to be subverted forever, the son of their
+insulted, humiliated, and murdered king? and this without bloodshed,
+with every demonstration of national rejoicings, and with every
+external mark of repentance for their past conduct. Charles, too, was
+restored without any of those limitations by which the nation sought
+to curtail the power of his father. The nation surrendered to him more
+absolute power than the most ambitious kings, since the reign of John,
+had ever claimed,--more than he ever dared to expect. How shall we
+explain these things? And what is the moral which they teach?
+
+[Sidenote: Reaction to Revolutionary Principles.]
+
+One fact is obvious,--that a great reaction had taken place in the
+national mind as to revolutionary principles. It is evident that a
+great disgust for the government of Cromwell had succeeded the
+antipathy to the royal government of Charles. All classes as ardently
+desired the restoration, as they had before favored the rebellion.
+Even the old parliamentarians hailed the return of Charles,
+notwithstanding it was admitted that the protectorate was a vigorous
+administration; that law and order were enforced; that religious
+liberty was proclaimed; that the rights of conscience were respected;
+that literature and science were encouraged; that the morals of the
+people were purified; that the ordinances of religion were observed;
+that vice and folly were discouraged; that justice was ably
+administered; that peace and plenty were enjoyed; that prosperity
+attended the English arms abroad; and that the nation was as much
+respected abroad as it was prosperous at home. These things were
+admitted by the very people who rejoiced in the restoration. And yet,
+in spite of all these substantial blessings, the reign of Cromwell was
+odious. Why was this?
+
+It can only be explained on the supposition that there were
+_unendurable evils_ connected with the administration of Cromwell,
+which more than balanced the benefits he conferred; or, that
+expectations were held out by Charles of national benefits greater
+than those conferred by the republic; or, that the nation had so
+retrograded in elevation of sentiment as to be unable to appreciate
+the excellences of Cromwell's administration.
+
+There is much to support all of these suppositions. In regard to the
+evils connected with the republic, it is certain that a large standing
+army was supported, and was necessary to uphold the government of the
+protector, in order to give to it efficiency and character. This army
+was expensive, and the people felt the burden. They always complain
+under taxation, whether necessary or not. Taxes ever make any
+government unpopular, and made the administration of Cromwell
+especially so. And the army showed the existence of a military
+despotism, which, however imperatively called for, or rendered
+unavoidable by revolution, was still a hateful fact. The English never
+have liked the principle of a military despotism. And it was a bitter
+reflection to feel that so much blood and treasure had been expended
+to get rid of the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts, only to introduce a
+still more expensive and arbitrary government, under the name of a
+republic. Moreover, the eyes of the people were opened to the moral
+corruptions incident to the support of a large army, without which the
+power of Cromwell would have been unsubstantial. He may originally
+have desired to establish his power on a civil basis, rather than a
+military one; but his desires were not realized. The parliaments which
+he assembled were unpractical and disorderly. He was forced to rule
+without them. But the nation could not forget this great insult to
+their liberties, and to those privileges which had ever been dear to
+them. The preponderance of the civil power has, for several centuries,
+characterized the government; and no blessings were sufficiently great
+to balance the evil, in the eye of an Englishman, of the preponderance
+of a military government, neither the excellence of Cromwell's life,
+nor the glory and greatness to which he raised the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: Excellences in Charles's Government.]
+
+Again, much was expected of Charles II., and there was much in his
+character and early administration to produce content. His manners
+were agreeable. He had no personal antipathies or jealousies. He
+selected, at first, the wisest and best of all parties to be his
+counsellors and ministers. He seemed to forget old offences. He was
+fond of pleasure; was good-natured and affable. He summoned a free
+parliament. His interests were made to appear identical with those of
+the people. He promised to rule by the laws. He did not openly
+infringe on the constitution. And he restored, what has ever been so
+dear to the great body of the nation, the Episcopal Church in all its
+beauty and grandeur, while he did not recommence the persecution of
+Puritans until some time had elapsed from his restoration. Above all,
+he disbanded the army, which was always distasteful to the
+people,--odious, onerous, and oppressive. The civil power again
+triumphed over that of the military, and circumstances existed which
+rendered the subversion of liberty very difficult. Many adverse events
+transpired during his unfortunate and disgraceful reign; but these, in
+the early part of it, had not, of course, been anticipated.
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of the Puritan Experiment.]
+
+There is also force in the third supposition, that the nation had
+retrograded in moral elevation. All writers speak of a strong reaction
+to the religious fervor of the early revolutionists. The moral
+influence of the army had proved destructive to the habits and
+sentiments of the people. A strong love of pleasure and demoralizing
+amusements existed, when Charles was recalled. A general laxity of
+morals was lamented by the wisest and best of the nation. The
+religious convictions of enthusiasts survived their sympathies.
+Hypocrisy and cant succeeded fervor and honesty. Infidelity lurked in
+many a bosom in which devotional ardor had once warmly burned.
+Distrust of all philanthropy and all human virtue was as marked, as
+faith in the same previously had been. The ordinances of religion
+became irksome, and it was remembered with bitterness that the
+Puritans, in the days of their ascendency, had cruelly proscribed the
+most favorite pleasures and time-honored festivals of old England. But
+the love of them returned with redoubled vigor. May-poles,
+wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing,
+betting, rope-dancing, romping under the mistletoe on Christmas,
+eating boars' heads, attending the theatres, health-drinking,--all
+these old-fashioned ways, in which the English sought merriment, were
+restored. The evil was chiefly in the excess to which these pleasures
+were carried; and every thing, which bore any resemblance to the
+Puritans, was ridiculed and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not
+love Puritanism, or any thing pertaining to it, after the deep
+religious excitement had passed away. The people were ashamed of
+prayer-meetings, of speaking through their noses, of wearing their
+hair straight, of having their garments cut primly, of calling their
+children by the name of Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Obadiah, &c.; and, in
+short, of all customs and opinions peculiar to the Extreme Puritans.
+So general was the disgust of Puritanism, so eager were all to indulge
+in the pleasures that had been forbidden under the reign of Cromwell,
+so sick were they of the very name of republicanism, that Puritanism
+may be said to have proved, in England, a signal failure.
+
+Such were some of the reasons of popular acclamation on the
+restoration of Charles II., and which we cannot consider entirely
+without force. A state of mind existed in England as favorable to the
+encroachments of royalty, as, twenty years before, it had been
+unfavorable.
+
+Charles was not a high-minded, or honest, or patriotic king; and
+therefore we might naturally expect the growth of absolutism during
+his reign. The progress of absolutism is, indeed, one of its features.
+This, for a time, demands our notice.
+
+On the restoration of Charles II., his subjects made no particular
+stipulations respecting their liberties, which were incautiously
+intrusted to his hands. But, at first, he did not seem inclined to
+grasp at greater powers than what the constitution allowed him. He had
+the right to appoint the great officers of state, the privilege of
+veto on legislative enactments, the control of the army and navy, the
+regulation of all foreign intercourse, and the right of making peace
+and war. But the constitution did not allow him to rule without a
+parliament, or to raise taxes without its consent. The parliament
+might grant or withhold supplies at pleasure, and all money bills
+originated and were discussed in the House of Commons alone. These
+were the great principles of the English constitution, which Charles
+swore to maintain.
+
+[Sidenote: Repeal of the Triennial Bill.]
+
+The first form in which the encroaching temper of the king was
+manifested was, in causing the Triennial Bill to be repealed. This was
+indeed done by the parliament, but through the royal influence. This
+bill was not that a parliament should be assembled every three years,
+but that the interval between one session and another should not
+exceed that period. But this wise law, which had passed by acclamation
+during the reign of Charles I., and for which even Clarendon had
+voted, was regarded by Charles II. as subversive of the liberty of his
+crown; and a supple, degenerate and sycophantic parliament gratified
+his wishes.
+
+About the same time was passed the Corporation Act, which enjoined all
+magistrates, and persons of trust in corporations, to swear that they
+believed it unlawful, under any pretence whatever to take arms against
+the king. The Presbyterians refused to take this oath; and they were
+therefore excluded from offices of dignity and trust. The act bore
+hard upon all bodies of Dissenters and Roman Catholics, the former of
+whom were most cruelly persecuted in this reign.
+
+[Sidenote: Secret Alliance with Louis XIV.]
+
+The next most noticeable effort of Charles to extend his power
+independently of the law, was his secret alliance with Louis XIV. This
+was not known to the nation, and even but to few of his ministers, and
+was the most disgraceful act of his reign. For the miserable stipend
+of two hundred thousand pounds a year, he was ready to compromise the
+interests of the kingdom, and make himself the slave of the most
+ambitious sovereign in Europe. He became a pensioner of France, and
+yet did not feel his disgrace. Clarendon, attached as he was to
+monarchy, and to the house of Stuart, could not join him in his base
+intrigues; and therefore lost, as was to be expected, the royal favor.
+He had been the companion and counsellor of Charles in the days of his
+exile; he had attempted to enkindle in his mind the desire of great
+deeds and virtues; he had faithfully served him as chancellor and
+prime minister; he was impartial and incorruptible; he was as much
+attached to Episcopacy, as he was to monarchy; he had even advised
+Charles to rule without a parliament; and yet he was disgraced because
+he would not comply with all the wishes of his unscrupulous master.
+But Clarendon was, nevertheless, unpopular with the nation. He had
+advised Charles to sell Dunkirk, the proudest trophy of the
+Revolution, and had built for himself a splendid palace, on the site
+of the present Clarendon Hotel, in Albemarle Street, which the people
+called _Dunkirk House_. He was proud, ostentatious, and dictatorial,
+and was bitterly hostile to all democratic influences. He was too good
+for one party, and not good enough for the other, and therefore fell
+to the ground; but he retired, if not with dignity, at least with
+safety. He retreated to the Continent, and there wrote his celebrated
+history of the Great Rebellion, a partial and bitter history, yet a
+valuable record of the great events of the age of revolution which he
+had witnessed and detested.
+
+Charles received the bribe of two hundred thousand pounds from the
+French king, with the hope of being made independent of his
+parliament, and with the condition of assisting Louis XIV. in his
+aggressive wars on the liberties of Europe, especially those of
+Holland. He was, at heart an absolutist, and rejoiced in the victories
+of the "Grand Monarch." But this supply was scarcely sufficient even
+for his pleasures, much less to support the ordinary pomp of a
+monarchy, and the civil and military powers of the state. So he had to
+resort to other means.
+
+[Sidenote: Venality and Sycophancy of Parliament.]
+
+It happened, fortunately for his encroachments, but unfortunately for
+the nation, that the English parliament, at that period, was more
+corrupt, venal, base, and sycophantic than at any period under the
+Tudor kings, or at any subsequent period under the Hanoverian princes.
+The House of Commons made no indignant resistance; it sent up but few
+spirited remonstrances; but tamely acquiesced in the measures of
+Charles and his ministers. Its members were bought and sold with
+unblushing facility, and even were corrupted by the agents of the
+French king. One member received six thousand pounds for his vote.
+Twenty-nine of the members received from five hundred to twelve
+hundred pounds a year. Charles I. attempted to rule by opposition to
+the parliament; Charles II. by corrupting it. Hence it was nearly
+silent in view of his arbitrary spirit, his repeated encroachments,
+and his worthless public character.
+
+Among his worst acts was his shutting up the Exchequer, where the
+bankers and merchants had been in the habit of depositing money on the
+security of the funds, receiving a large interest of from eight to ten
+per cent. By closing the Exchequer, the bankers, unable to draw out
+their money, stopped payment; and a universal panic was the
+consequence, during which many great failures happened. By this base
+violation of the public faith, Charles obtained one million three
+hundred thousand pounds. But it undermined his popularity more than
+any of his acts, since he touched the pockets of the people. The
+odium, however, fell chiefly on his ministers, especially those who
+received the name of the _Cabal_, from the fact that the initials of
+their names spelt that odious term of reproach, not unmerited in their
+case.
+
+These five ministers were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and
+Lauderdale, and they were the great instruments of his tyranny. None
+of them had the talents or audacity of Strafford, or the narrowness
+and bigotry of Laud; but their counsels were injurious to the nation.
+
+Clifford and Arlington were tolerably respectable but indifferent to
+the glory and shame of their country; while Buckingham, Ashley, and
+Lauderdale were profligate, unprincipled, and dishonest to a great
+degree. They aided Charles to corrupt the parliament and deceive the
+nation. They removed all restraints on his will, and pandered to his
+depraved tastes. It was by their suggestion that the king shut up the
+Exchequer. They also favored restrictions on the press.
+
+[Sidenote: Restrictions on the Press.]
+
+These restrictions were another abomination in the reign of Charles,
+but one ever peculiar to a despotic government. No book could be
+printed out of London, York, or the Universities. But these were not
+made wholly with a view of shackling the mind, but to prevent those
+libels and lampoons which made the government ridiculous in the eyes
+of the people.
+
+Nothing caused more popular indignation, during this reign, than the
+Forfeiture of the Corporation of the City of London. The power of the
+democracy resided, at this time, with the corporations, and as long as
+they were actuated by the spirit of liberty, there was no prospect of
+obtaining a parliament entirely subservient to the king. It was
+determined to take away their charters; and the infamous Judge
+Jeffreys was found a most subservient tool of royalty in undermining
+the liberties of the country. The corporation of London, however,
+received back its charter, after having yielded to the king the right
+of conferring the appointments of mayor, recorder, and sheriffs.
+
+Among other infringements on the constitution was the fining of jurors
+when they refused to act according to the direction of the judges.
+Juries were constantly intimidated, and their privileges were
+abridged. A new parliament, moreover, was not convoked after three
+years had elapsed from the dissolution of the old one, which
+infringement was the more reprehensible, since the king had nothing to
+fear from the new House of Commons, the members of which vied with
+each other in a base compliancy with the royal will.
+
+But their sycophancy was nothing compared with what the bishops and
+clergy of the Established Church generally evinced. Absolute
+non-resistance was inculcated from the pulpits, and the doctrine
+ridiculed that power emanated from the people. The divine rights of
+kings, and the divine ordination of absolute power were the themes of
+divines, while Oxford proclaimed doctrines worthy of Mariana and the
+Jesuits.
+
+Thus various influences contributed to make Charles II. absolute in
+England--the Courts of Justice, the Parliaments, the Universities, and
+the Church of England. Had he been as ambitious as he was fond of
+pleasure, as capable of ruling as he was capable of telling stories at
+the dinner table, he would, like Louis XIV., have reared an absolute
+throne in England. But he was too easy, too careless, too fond of
+pleasure to concentrate his thoughts on devising means to enslave his
+subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: Habeas Corpus Act.]
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that all his subjects were
+indifferent to his encroachments, in spite of the great reaction which
+had succeeded to liberal sentiments. Before he died, the spirit of
+resistance was beginning to be seen, and some checks to royal power
+were imposed by parliament itself. The Habeas Corpus Act, the most
+important since the declaration of Magna Charta, was passed, and
+through the influence of one of his former ministers, Ashley, now
+become Earl of Shaftesbury, who took the popular side, after having
+served all sides, but always with a view of advancing his own
+interests, a man of great versatility of genius, of great sagacity,
+and of varied learning. Had Charles continued much longer on the
+throne, it cannot be doubted that the nation would have been finally
+aroused to resist his spirit of encroachment, for the principles of
+liberty had not been proclaimed in vain.
+
+Charles II. was a tyrant, and one of the worst kings that ever sat on
+the English throne. His leading defect was want of earnestness of
+character, which made him indifferent to the welfare of his country.
+England, during his reign, was reduced to comparative insignificance
+in the eyes of foreigners, and was neither feared nor respected. Her
+king was neither a powerful friend nor an implacable enemy, and left
+the Continental Powers to pursue their own ends unmolested and
+unrebuked. Most of the administrations of the English kings are
+interlinked with the whole system of European politics. But the reign
+of Charles is chiefly interesting in relation to the domestic history
+of England. This history is chiefly the cabals of ministers, the
+intrigues of the court, the pleasures and follies of the king, the
+attacks he made on the constitution without any direct warfare with
+his parliament and the system of religious persecution, which was most
+intolerant.
+
+The king was at heart a Catholic; and yet the persecution of the
+Catholics is one of the most signal events of the times. We can
+scarcely conceive, in this age, of the spirit of distrust and fear
+which pervaded the national mind in reference to the Catholics. Every
+calumny was believed. Every trifling offence was exaggerated, and by
+nearly all classes in the community, by the Episcopalians, as well as
+by the Presbyterians and the Independents.
+
+[Sidenote: Titus Oates.]
+
+The most memorable of all the delusions and slanders of the times was
+produced by the perjuries of an unprincipled wretch called Titus
+Oates, who took advantage of the general infatuation to advance his
+individual interests. Like an artful politician, he had only to appeal
+to a dominant passion or prejudice, and he was sure of making his
+fortune. Like a cunning, popular orator, he had only to inflame the
+passions of the people, and he would pass as a genius and a prophet.
+Few are so abstractedly and coldly intellectual as not to be mainly
+governed by their tastes or passions. Even men of strong intellect
+have frequently strong prejudices, and one has only to make himself
+master of these, in order to lead those who are infinitely their
+superiors. There is no proof that all who persecuted the Catholics in
+Charles's time were either weak or ignorant. But there is evidence of
+unbounded animosity, a traditional hatred, not much diminished since
+the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes. The whole nation was ready to
+believe any thing against the Catholics, and especially against their
+church, which was supposed to be persecuting and diabolical in all its
+principles and in all its practice. In this state of the popular mind,
+Oates made his hideous revelations.
+
+[Sidenote: Oates's Revelations.]
+
+He was a broken-down clergyman of the Established Church, and had lost
+caste for disgraceful irregularities. But he professed to hate the
+Catholics, and such a virtue secured him friends. Among these was the
+Rev. Dr. Tonge, a man very weak, very credulous, and full of fears
+respecting the intrigues of the Catholics but honest in his fears.
+Oates went to this clergyman, and a plan was concerted between them,
+by which Oates should get a knowledge of the supposed intrigues of the
+Church of Rome. He professed himself a Catholic, went to the
+Continent, and entered a Catholic seminary, but was soon discharged
+for his scandalous irregularities. But he had been a Catholic long
+enough for his purposes. He returned to London, and revealed his
+pretended discoveries, among which he declared that the Jesuits had
+undertaken to restore the Catholic religion in England by force; that
+they were resolved to take the king's life, and had actually offered a
+bribe of fifteen thousand pounds to the queen's physician; that they
+had planned to burn London, and to set fire to all the shipping in the
+Thames; that they were plotting to make a general massacre of the
+Protestants; that a French army was about to invade England; and that
+all the horrors of St. Bartholomew were to be again acted over!
+Ridiculous as were these assertions, they were believed, and without a
+particle of evidence; so great was the national infatuation. The king
+and the Duke of York both pronounced the whole matter a forgery, and
+laughed at the credulity of the people, but had not sufficient
+generosity to prevent the triumph of the libellers. But Oates's
+testimony was not enough to convict any one, the law requiring two
+witnesses. But, in such a corrupt age, false witnesses could easily be
+procured. An infamous wretch, by the name of Bedloe, was bribed, a man
+who had been imprisoned in Newgate for swindling. Others equally
+unscrupulous were soon added to the list of informers, and no
+calumnies, however gross and absurd, prevented the people from
+believing them.
+
+It happened that a man, by the name of Coleman, was suspected of
+intrigues. His papers were searched, and some passages in them,
+unfortunately, seemed to confirm the statements of Oates. To impartial
+eyes, these papers simply indicated a desire and a hope that the
+Catholic religion would be reëstablished, in view of the predilections
+of Charles and James, and the general posture of affairs, just as some
+enthusiastic Jesuit missionary in the valley of the Mississippi may be
+supposed to write to his superior that America is on the eve of
+conversion to Catholicism.
+
+[Sidenote: Penal Laws against Catholics.]
+
+But the general ferment was still more increased by the disappearance
+of an eminent justice of the peace, who had taken the depositions of
+Oates against Coleman. Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey was found dead, and
+with every mark of violence, in a field near London, and was probably
+murdered by some fanatical persons in the communion of the Church of
+Rome. But if so, the murder was a great blunder. It was worse than a
+crime. The whole community were mad with rage and fear. The old penal
+laws were strictly enforced against the Catholics. The jails were
+filled with victims. London wore the appearance of a besieged city.
+The houses of the Catholics were every where searched, and two
+thousand of them imprisoned. Posts were planted in the street, that
+chains might be thrown across them on the first alarm. The military,
+the train bands, and the volunteers were called out. Forty thousand
+men were kept under guard during the night. Numerous patrols paraded
+the streets. The gates of the Palace were closed, and the guards of
+the city were doubled. Oates was pronounced to be the savior of his
+country, lodged at Whitehall and pensioned with twelve hundred pounds
+a year.
+
+Then flowed more innocent blood than had been shed for a long period.
+Catholics who were noble, and Catholics who were obscure, were alike
+judicially murdered; and the courts of justice, instead of being
+places of refuge, were disgraced by the foulest abominations. Every
+day new witnesses were produced of crimes which never happened, and
+new victims were offered up to appease the wrath of a prejudiced
+people. Among these victims of popular frenzy was the Earl of
+Stafford, a venerable and venerated nobleman of sixty-nine years of
+age, against whom sufficient evidence was not found to convict him;
+and whose only crime was in being at the head of the Catholic party.
+Yet he was found guilty by the House of Peers, fifty-five out of
+eighty-six having voted for his execution. He died on the scaffold,
+but with the greatest serenity, forgiving his persecutors, and
+compassionating their delusions. A future generation, during the reign
+of George IV., however, reversed his attainder, and did justice to his
+memory, and restored his descendants to their rank and fortune.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of Dissenters.]
+
+If no other illustrious victims suffered, persecution was nevertheless
+directed into other channels. Parliament passed an act that no person
+should sit in either House, unless he had previously taken the oath of
+allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration that the
+worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled
+from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, from receiving any
+legacy, and from acting as executors or administrators of estates.
+This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole Catholic population, had
+repeatedly miscarried, but, under influence of the panic which Oates
+and his confederates created, was now triumphantly passed. Charles
+himself gave his royal assent because he was afraid to stem the
+torrent of popular infatuation. And the English nation permitted one
+hundred and thirty years to elapse before the civil disabilities of
+the Catholics were removed, and then only by the most strenuous
+exertions of such a statesman as Sir Robert Peel.
+
+It is some satisfaction to know that justice at last overtook the
+chief authors of this diabolical infatuation. During the reign of
+James II., Oates and others were punished as they deserved. Oates's
+credit gradually passed away. He was fined, imprisoned, and whipped at
+the pillory until life itself had nearly fled. He died unlamented and
+detested, leaving behind him, to all posterity an infamous notoriety.
+
+But the sufferings of the Catholics, during this reign, were more than
+exceeded by the sufferings of Dissenters, who were cruelly persecuted.
+All the various sects of the Protestants were odious and ridiculous in
+the eyes of the king. They were regarded as hostile in their
+sympathies, and treasonable in their designs. They were fined,
+imprisoned, mutilated, and whipped. An Act of Uniformity was passed,
+which restored the old penal laws of Elizabeth, and which subjected
+all to their penalty who did not use the Book of Common Prayer, and
+adhere strictly to the ritual of the Church of England. The
+oligarchical power of the bishops was restored, and two thousand
+ministers were driven from their livings, and compelled to seek a
+precarious support. Many other acts of flagrant injustice were passed
+by a subservient parliament, and cruelly carried into execution by
+unfeeling judges. But the religious persecution of dissenters was not
+consummated until the reign of James under whose favor or direction
+the inhuman Jeffreys inflicted the most atrocious crimes which have
+ever been committed under the sanction of the law. But these will be
+more appropriately noticed under the reign of James II. Charles was
+not so cruel in his temper, or bigoted in his sentiments, as his
+brother James. He was rather a Gallio than a persecutor. He would
+permit any thing rather than suffer himself to be interrupted in his
+pleasures. He was governed by his favorites and his women. He had not
+sufficient moral elevation to be earnest in any thing, even to be a
+bigot in religion. He vacillated between the infidelity of Hobbes and
+the superstitions of Rome. He lived a scoffer, and died a Catholic.
+His temper was easy, but so easy as not to prevent the persecution and
+ruin of his best supporters, when they had become odious to the
+nation. If he was incapable of enmity, he was also incapable of
+friendship. If he hated no one with long-continued malignity, it was
+only because it was too much trouble to hate perseveringly. But he
+loved with no more constancy than he hated. He had no patriotism, and
+no appreciation of moral excellence. He would rather see half of the
+merchants of London ruined, and half of the Dissenters immured in
+gloomy prisons, than lose two hours of inglorious dalliance with one
+of his numerous concubines. A more contemptible prince never sat on
+the English throne, or one whose whole reign was disgraced by a more
+constant succession of political blunders and social crimes. And yet
+he never fully lost his popularity, nor was his reign felt to be as
+burdensome as was that of the protector, Cromwell, thus showing how
+little the moral excellence of rulers is ordinarily appreciated or
+valued by a wilful or blinded generation. We love not the rebukers of
+our sins, or the opposers of our pleasures. We love those who prophesy
+smooth things, and "cry peace, when there is no peace." Such is man in
+his weakness and his degeneracy; and only an omnipotent power can
+change this ordinary temper of the devotees to pleasure and inglorious
+gains.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Russell and Sydney.]
+
+Among the saddest events during the reign of Charles, were the
+executions of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney. They were concerned,
+with a few other great men, in a conspiracy, which had for its object
+the restoration of greater liberty. They contemplated an insurrection,
+known by the name of the _Rye House Plot_; but it was discovered, and
+Russell and Sydney became martyrs. The former was the son of the Earl
+of Bedford, and the latter was the brother of the Earl of Leicester.
+Russell was a devoted Churchman, of pure morals, and greatly beloved
+by the people. Sydney was a strenuous republican, and was opposed to
+any particular form of church government. He thought that religion
+should be like a divine philosophy in the mind, and had great
+veneration for the doctrines of Plato. Nothing could save these
+illustrious men. The Duke of York and Jeffreys declared that, if they
+were not executed, there would be no safety for themselves. They both
+suffered with great intrepidity, and the friends of liberty have ever
+since cherished their memory with peculiar fondness.
+
+[Sidenote: Manners and Customs of England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Milton--Dryden.]
+
+Mr. Macaulay, in his recent History, has presented the manners and
+customs of England during the disgraceful reign of Charles II. It is
+impossible, in this brief survey, to allude to all those customs; but
+we direct particularly the attention of readers to them, as described
+in his third chapter, from which it would appear, that a most manifest
+and most glorious progress has been made since that period in all the
+arts of civilization, both useful and ornamental. In those times,
+travelling was difficult and slow, from the badness of the roads and
+the imperfections of the carriages. Highwaymen were secreted along the
+thoroughfares, and, in mounted troops, defied the law, and distressed
+the whole travelling community. The transmission of letters by post
+was tardy and unfrequent, and the scandal of coffee-houses supplied
+the greatest want and the greatest luxury of modern times, the
+newspaper. There was great scarcity of books in the country places,
+and the only press in England north of the Trent seems to have been at
+York. Literature was but feebly cultivated by country squires or
+country parsons, and female education was disgracefully neglected. Few
+rich men had libraries as large or valuable as are now common to
+shopkeepers and mechanics; while the literary stores of a lady of the
+manor were confined chiefly to the prayer-book and the receipt-book.
+And those works which were produced or read were disgraced by
+licentious ribaldry, which had succeeded religious austerity. The
+drama was the only department of literature which compensated authors,
+and this was scandalous in the extreme. We cannot turn over the pages
+of one of the popular dramatists of the age without being shocked by
+the most culpable indecency. Even Dryden was no exception to the rule;
+and his poetry, some of which is the most beautiful in the language,
+can hardly be put into the hands of the young without danger of
+corrupting them. Poets and all literary men lived by the bounty of the
+rich and great, and prospered only as they pandered to depraved
+passions. Many, of great intellectual excellence, died from want and
+mortification; so that the poverty and distress of literary men became
+proverbial, and all worldly-wise people shunned contact with them as
+expensive and degrading. They were hunted from cocklofts to cellars by
+the minions of the law, and the foulest jails were often their only
+resting-place. The restoration of Charles proved unfortunate to one
+great and immortal genius, whom no temptations could assail, and no
+rewards could bribe. He "possessed his soul in patience," and "soared
+above the Aonian mount," amid general levity and profligacy. Had he
+written for a pure, classic, and learned age, he could not have
+written with greater moral beauty. But he lived when no moral
+excellence was appreciated, and his claims on the gratitude of the
+world are beyond all estimation, when we remember that he wrote with
+the full consciousness, like the great Bacon, that his works would
+only be valued or read by future generations. Milton was, indeed,
+unmolested; but he was sadly neglected in his blindness and in his
+greatness. But, like all the great teachers of the world, he was
+sustained by something higher than earthly applause, and labored, like
+an immortal artist, from the love which his labor excited,--labored to
+realize the work of art which his imagination had conceived, as well
+as to propagate ideas and sentiments which should tend to elevate
+mankind. Dryden was his contemporary, but obtained a greater homage,
+not because he was more worthy, but because he adapted his genius to
+the taste of a frivolous and corrupt people. He afterwards wrote more
+unexceptionably, composed lyrics instead of farces, and satires
+instead of plays. In his latter days, he could afford to write in a
+purer style; and, as he became independent, he reared the
+superstructure of his glorious fame. But Dryden spent the best parts
+of his life as a panderer to the vices of the town, and was an idol
+chiefly, in Wills's Coffee House, of lampooners, and idlers, and
+scandal-mongers. Nor were there many people, in the church or in the
+state, sufficiently influential and noble to stem the torrent. The
+city clergy were the most respectable, and the pulpits of London were
+occupied with twelve men who afterwards became bishops, and who are
+among the great ornaments of the sacred literature of their country.
+Sherlock, Tillotson, Wake, Collier, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
+Fowler, Sharp, Tennison, and Beveridge made the Established Church
+respected in the town; but the country clergy, as a whole, were
+ignorant and depressed. Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent
+to bring up a family comfortably or respectably. The clergyman was
+disdained even by the county attorney, was hardly tolerated at the
+table of his patron, and could scarcely marry beyond the rank of a
+cook or housekeeper. And his poverty and bondage continued so long
+that, in the times of Swift, the parson was a byword and a jest among
+the various servants in the households of the great. Still there were
+eminent clergymen amid the general depression of their order, both in
+and out of the Established Church. Besides the London preachers were
+many connected with the Universities and Cathedrals; and there were
+some distinguished Dissenters, among whom Baxter, Howe, and Alleine if
+there were no others, would alone have made the name of Puritan
+respectable.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of the People.]
+
+The saddest fact, in connection with the internal history of England,
+at this time, was the condition of the people. They had small wages,
+and many privations. They had no social rank, and were disgraced by
+many vices. They were ignorant and brutal. The wages of laborers only
+averaged four shillings a week, while those of mechanics were not
+equal to what some ordinarily earn, in this country and in these
+times, in a single day. Both peasants, and artisans were not only ill
+paid, but ill used, and they died, miserably and prematurely, from
+famine and disease. Nor did sympathy exist for the misfortunes of the
+poor. There were no institutions of public philanthropy. Jails were
+unvisited by the ministers of mercy, and the abodes of poverty were
+left by a careless generation to be dens of infamy and crime. Such was
+England two hundred years ago; and there is no delusion more
+unwarranted by sober facts than that which supposes that those former
+times were better than our own, in any thing which abridges the labors
+or alleviates the miseries of mankind. "It is now the fashion to place
+the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of
+comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman;
+when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of
+which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster
+in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential
+lanes of our towns; and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns
+than they now die on the coast of Guinea. But we too shall, in our
+turn, be outstripped, and, in our turn, envied. There is constant
+improvement, as there also is constant discontent; and future
+generations may talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as a time when
+England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together
+by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the
+poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Of all the works which have yet appeared,
+     respecting this interesting epoch, the new History of
+     Macaulay is the most brilliant and instructive. Indeed, the
+     student scarcely needs any other history, in spite of
+     Macaulay's Whig doctrines. He may sacrifice something to
+     effect; and he may give us pictures, instead of philosophy;
+     but, nevertheless, his book has transcendent merit, and will
+     be read, by all classes, so long as English history is
+     prized. Mackintosh's fragment, on the same period, is more
+     philosophical, and possesses very great merits. Lingard's
+     History is very valuable on this reign, and should be
+     consulted. Hume, also, will never cease to please. Burnet is
+     a prejudiced historian, but his work is an authority. The
+     lives of Milton, Dryden, and Clarendon should also be read
+     in this connection. Hallam has but treated the
+     constitutional history of these times. See also Temple's
+     Works; the Life of William Lord Russell; Rapin's History.
+     Pepys, Dalrymple, Rymeri Foedera, the Commons' Journal, and
+     the Howell State Trials are not easily accessible, and not
+     necessary, except to the historian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+REIGN OF JAMES II.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of James II.]
+
+Charles II. died on the 6th of February, 1685, and his brother, the
+Duke of York, ascended his throne, without opposition, under the title
+of _James II._ As is usual with princes, on their accession, he made
+many promises of ruling by the laws, and of defending the liberties of
+the nation. And he commenced his administration under good auspices.
+The country was at peace, he was not unpopular, and all classes and
+parties readily acquiesced in his government.
+
+He retained all the great officers who had served under his brother
+that he could trust; and Rochester became prime minister, Sunderland
+kept possession of the Seals, and Godolphin was made lord chamberlain.
+He did not dismiss Halifax, Ormond, or Guildford, although he disliked
+and distrusted them, but abridged their powers, and mortified them by
+neglect.
+
+The Commons voted him one million two hundred thousand pounds, and the
+Scottish parliament added twenty-five thousand pounds more, and the
+Customs for life. But this sum he did not deem sufficient for his
+wants, and therefore, like his brother, applied for aid to Louis XIV.,
+and consented to become his pensioner and vassal, and for the paltry
+sum of two hundred thousand pounds. James received the money with
+tears of gratitude, hoping by this infamous pension to rule the nation
+without a parliament. It was not, of course, known to the nation, or
+even to his ministers, generally.
+
+He was scarcely crowned before England was invaded by the Duke of
+Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., and Scotland by the Duke of
+Argyle, with a view of ejecting James from the throne.
+
+Both these noblemen were exiles in Holland, and both were justly
+obnoxious to the government for their treasonable intentions and acts.
+Argyle was loath to engage in an enterprise so desperate as the
+conquest of England; but he was an enthusiast, was at the head of the
+most powerful of the Scottish clans, the Campbells, and he hoped for a
+general rising throughout Scotland, to put down what was regarded as
+idolatry, and to strike a blow for liberty and the Kirk.
+
+Having concerted his measures with Monmouth, he set sail from Holland,
+the 2d of May, 1685, in spite of all the efforts of the English
+minister, and landed at Kirkwall, one of the Orkney Islands. But his
+objects were well known, and the whole militia of the land were put
+under arms to resist him. He, however, collected a force of two
+thousand five hundred Highlanders, and marched towards Glasgow; but he
+was miserably betrayed and deserted. His forces were dispersed, and he
+himself was seized while attempting to escape in disguise, brought to
+Edinburgh, and beheaded. His followers were treated with great
+harshness, but the rebellion was completely suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Monmouth Lands in England.]
+
+Monmouth had agreed to sail in six days from the departure of Argyle;
+but he lingered at Brussels, loath to part from a beautiful mistress,
+the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. It was a month before he set sail from
+the Texel, with about eighty officers and one hundred and fifty
+followers--a small force to overturn the throne. But he relied on his
+popularity with the people, and on a false and exaggerated account of
+the unpopularity of James. He landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, about
+the middle of June, and forthwith issued a flaming proclamation,
+inviting all to join his standard, as a deliverer from the cruel
+despotism of a Catholic prince, whom he accused of every crime--of the
+burning of London, of the Popish Plot, of the condemnation of Russell
+and Sydney, of poisoning the late king, and of infringements on the
+constitution. In this declaration, falsehood was mingled with truth,
+but well adapted to inflame the passions of the people. He was
+supported by many who firmly believed that his mother, Lucy Walters,
+was the lawful wife of Charles II. He, of course, claimed the English
+throne, but professed to waive his rights until they should be settled
+by a parliament. The adventurer grossly misunderstood the temper of
+the people, and the extent to which his claims were recognized. He was
+unprovided with money, with generals, and with troops. He collected a
+few regiments from the common people, and advanced to Somersetshire.
+At Taunton his reception was flattering. All classes welcomed him as a
+deliverer from Heaven, and the poor rent the air with acclamations and
+shouts. His path was strewed with flowers, and the windows were
+crowded with ladies, who waved their handkerchiefs, and even waited
+upon him with a large deputation. Twenty-six lovely maidens presented
+the handsome son of Charles II. with standards and a Bible, which he
+kissed, and promised to defend.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Sedgemoor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Monmouth.]
+
+But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of Albemarle--the
+son of General Monk, who restored Charles II.--advanced against him
+with the militia of the country, and Monmouth was supported only by
+the vulgar, the weak, and the credulous. Not a single nobleman joined
+his standard, and but few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders.
+He lost time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who
+followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of England,
+where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. But all men of
+station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged and dismayed, he
+reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture Bristol, then the second
+city in the kingdom. He was again disappointed. He was forced, from
+unexpected calamities, to abandon the enterprise. He then turned his
+eye to Wilts; but when he arrived at the borders of the county, he
+found that none of the bodies on which he had calculated had made
+their appearance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which
+ended favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton,
+natural son of Charles II., distinguished himself against his half
+brother; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridgewater.
+Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at Sedgemoor. Here
+was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal to the rebels, "the last
+deserving the name of _battle_, that has been fought on English
+ground." Monmouth, when all was lost, fled from the field, and
+hastened to the British Channel, hoping to gain the Continent. He was
+found near the New Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and
+fatigue. He was sent, under a strong guard, to Ringwood; and all that
+was left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he
+clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He
+abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant who
+never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a friend, when
+even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from a man he
+both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, lodged in the
+Tower, and executed in a bungling manner by "Jack Ketch"--the name
+given for several centuries to the public executioner. He was buried
+under St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower, where reposed the headless
+bodies of so many noted saints and political martyrs--the great
+Somerset, and the still greater Northumberland, the two Earls of
+Essex, and the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and other great men who figured
+in the reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors.
+
+Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most signal
+vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. No mercy was
+shown, on the part of government, to any party or person.
+
+Of the agents of James in punishing all concerned in the rebellion,
+there were two, preëminently, whose names are consigned to an infamous
+immortality. The records of English history contain no two names so
+loathsome and hateful as Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffreys.
+
+The former was left, by Feversham, in command of the royal forces at
+Bridgewater, after the battle of Sedgemoor. He had already gained an
+unenviable notoriety, as governor of Tangier, where he displayed the
+worst vices of a tyrant and a sensualist; and his regiment had
+imitated him in his disgraceful brutality. But this leader and these
+troops were now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. One hundred
+captives were put to death during the week which succeeded the battle.
+His irregular butcheries, however, were not according to the taste of
+the king. A more systematic slaughter, under the sanctions of the law,
+was devised, and Jeffreys was sent into the Western Circuit, to try
+the numerous persons who were immured in the jails of the western
+counties.
+
+Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench,
+was not deficient in talent, but was constitutionally the victim of
+violent passions. He first attracted notice as an insolent barrister
+at the Old Bailey Court, who had a rare tact in cross-examining
+criminals and browbeating witnesses. According to Macaulay, "impudence
+and ferocity sat upon his brow, while all tenderness for the feelings
+of others, all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were
+obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the
+rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The
+profusion of his maledictions could hardly be rivalled in the Fish
+Market or Bear Garden. His yell of fury sounded, as one who often
+heard it said, like the thunder of the judgment day. He early became
+common serjeant, and then recorder of London. As soon as he obtained
+all the city could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass
+and his tongue of venom to the court." He was just the man whom
+Charles II. wanted as a tool. He was made chief justice of the highest
+court of criminal law in the realm, and discharged its duties entirely
+to the satisfaction of a king resolved on the subjection of the
+English nation. His violence, at all times, was frightful; but when he
+was drunk, it was terrific: and he was generally intoxicated. His
+first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sydney. On the death
+of Charles, he obtained from James a peerage, and a seat in the
+Cabinet, a signal mark of royal approbation. In prospect of yet
+greater honors, he was ready to do whatever James required. James
+wished the most summary vengeance inflicted on the rebels, and
+Jeffreys, with his tiger ferocity, was ready to execute his will.
+
+[Sidenote: Brutality of Jeffreys.]
+
+Nothing is more memorable than those "bloody assizes" which he held in
+those counties through which Monmouth had passed. Nothing is
+remembered with more execration. Nothing ever equalled the brutal
+cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar
+violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and
+I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of
+villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting
+Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the
+rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were accused, to be hanged or
+burned; and the excess of his barbarities called forth pity and
+indignation even from devoted loyalists. He boasted that he had hanged
+more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest.
+On a single circuit, he hanged three hundred and fifty; some of these
+were people of great worth, and many of them were innocent; while many
+whom he spared from an ignominious death, were sentenced to the most
+cruel punishments--to the lash of the pillory, to imprisonment in the
+foulest jails, to mutilation, to banishment, and to heavy fines.
+
+King James watched the conduct of the inhuman Jeffreys with delight,
+and rewarded him with the Great Seal. The Old Bailey lawyer had now
+climbed to the greatest height to which a subject could aspire. He was
+Lord Chancellor of England--the confidential friend and agent of the
+king, and his unscrupulous instrument in imposing the yoke of bondage
+on an insulted nation.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Dissenters.]
+
+At this period, the condition of the Puritans was deplorable. At no
+previous time was persecution more inveterate, not even under the
+administration of Laud and Strafford. The persecution commenced soon
+after the restoration of Charles II., and increased in malignity until
+the elevation of Jeffreys to the chancellorship. The sufferings of no
+class of sectaries bore any proportion to theirs. They found it
+difficult to meet together for prayer or exhortation even in the
+smallest assemblies. Their ministers were introduced in disguise.
+Their houses were searched. They were fined, imprisoned, and banished.
+Among the ministers who were deprived of their livings, were Gilpin,
+Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who
+still, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, enjoy a
+wide-spread reputation as standard writers on theological subjects.
+These great lights of the seventeenth century were doomed to privation
+and poverty, with thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been
+educated at the Universities, and were among the best men in the
+kingdom. All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated
+them more than Charles II. and James II. Under their sanction,
+complying parliaments passed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty.
+The laws which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were
+reënacted and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two
+thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to
+conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Conventicle Act
+ordained that if any person, above sixteen years of age, should be
+present at any religious meeting, in any other manner than allowed by
+the Church of England, he should suffer three months' imprisonment, or
+pay a fine of five pounds, that six months imprisonment and ten pounds
+fine should be inflicted as a penalty for the second offence, and
+banishment for the third. Married women taken at "conventicles," were
+sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is calculated that
+twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy prisons, and
+that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during their
+imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the jails,
+added to cruel treatment.
+
+Among the illustrious men who suffered most unjustly, was Richard
+Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He was minister at
+Kidderminster, where he was content to labor in an humble sphere,
+having refused a bishopric. He had written one hundred and forty-five
+distinct treatises, in two hundred volumes, which were characterized
+for learning and talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor
+commanding virtues could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys;
+and, in fifteen years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings
+drew tears from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friendship he had been
+honored. "But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of judges,
+was cruelly insulted by the worst." When he wished to plead his cause,
+the drunken chief justice replied, "O Richard, Richard, thou art an
+old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a
+cart, every one of which is as full of sedition as an egg is full of
+meat. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of
+the brotherhood in corners, and a doctor of divinity at your elbow;
+but, by the grace of God, I will crush you all."
+
+Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential or
+learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the Baptists,
+and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius--the most
+successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. The Pilgrim's
+Progress is the most popular religious work ever published, full of
+genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of the Calvinistic
+theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. This book shows
+the triumph of genius over learning, and the people's appreciation of
+exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate tinker, a travelling
+preacher, who spent the best part of his life between the houses of
+the poor and the county jails, the object of reproach and ignominy,
+now, however, takes a proud place, in the world's estimation, with the
+master minds of all nations--with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. He
+has arisen above the prejudices of the great and fashionable; and the
+learned and aristocratic Southey has sought to be the biographer of
+his sorrows and the expounder of his visions. The proud bishops who
+disdained him, the haughty judges who condemned him, are now chiefly
+known as his persecutors, while he continues to be more honored and
+extolled with every succeeding generation.
+
+[Sidenote: George Fox.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Quakers.]
+
+Another illustrious victim of religious persecution in that age,
+illustrious in our eyes, but ignoble in the eyes of his
+contemporaries, was George Fox, the founder of the sect of the
+Quakers. He, like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education.
+Like him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own
+soul--from inward experiences--from religious contemplations. He was a
+man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual action.
+His first studies were the mysteries of theology--the great questions
+respecting duty and destiny; and these agitated his earnest mind
+almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought consolation from the
+clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his soul. Like an old
+Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfrequented solitudes, where he
+gave loose to his imagination, and where celestial beings came to
+comfort him. He despised alike the reasonings of philosophers, the
+dogmas of divines, and the disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose
+above all their prejudices, and sought light and truth from original
+sources. His peace was based on the conviction that God's Holy Spirit
+spoke directly to his soul; and this was above reason, above
+authority, a surer guide than any outward or written revelation. While
+this divine voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with
+them, for they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the
+Scriptures were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and
+literally to be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his
+life, nor to save a world, because he was directly commanded to
+abstain from swearing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of
+expediency, and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him
+assured him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all
+tribulations. He believed in the power of justice to protect itself,
+and reposed on the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an
+omnipotent weapon. He disdained force to accomplish important ends,
+and sought no control over government, except by intelligence. He
+believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis of all great and
+permanent revolutions; these he was ever ready to declare; these were
+sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms; these would be
+revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all forms and pompous
+ceremonials in the worship of God, for they seemed useless and
+idolatrous. God was a Spirit, and to be worshipped in spirit and in
+truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of
+prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected
+to splendid places for the worship of God, and dispensed with
+steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless,
+being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but
+to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the
+Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all
+titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
+Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the
+Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too,
+would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he
+fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the
+church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity
+and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar
+star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar
+genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty
+and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of
+conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in
+all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the
+notion of special divine illumination?
+
+No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at
+nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They
+shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men
+attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical
+theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties
+attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor
+their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism
+could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
+They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But
+they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their
+faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they belonged to the
+humbler classes, although some men illustrious for birth and wealth
+joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was
+William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the
+glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flourishing and
+virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the
+wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their
+enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk
+of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and
+vengeance.
+
+James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with
+fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges
+and the bishops were ready to coöperate with his ministers in imposing
+a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment
+they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even
+judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools.
+
+[Sidenote: Despotic Power of James.]
+
+His power, to all appearance, was consolidated; and he now began,
+without disguise, to advance the two great objects which were dearest
+to his heart--the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the
+imposition of a despotic yoke. He wished to be, like Louis XIV., a
+despotic and absolute prince; and, to secure this end, he was ready to
+violate the constitution of his country. The three inglorious years of
+his reign were a succession of encroachments and usurpations.
+
+Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue without
+an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary power, the
+court procured addresses from public bodies, in which the king was
+thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs and excise.
+
+In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under the
+last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted bodies.
+So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all who were
+imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired universal
+toleration, this act would merit our highest praises; but it was soon
+evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the expense of all
+the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee to the Church of
+Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he could but advance the
+interests of a party, to which nearly the whole nation was bitterly
+opposed. Roman Catholics were proscribed by the laws. The Test Act
+excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the
+Established Church. The laws were unjust, but still they were the laws
+which James had sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed them, and
+kept his faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in good time
+have been modified.
+
+[Sidenote: Favor Extended to Catholics.]
+
+But James would not wait for constitutional measures. He resolved to
+elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the
+church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great
+majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics
+to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential
+advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal
+nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy
+Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure
+the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from
+office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was
+turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre
+of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He
+united with Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was
+sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When
+opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or
+dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.
+
+[Sidenote: High Commission Court.]
+
+Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even
+in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a
+prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly
+defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all
+offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic
+body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and
+tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were
+compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been
+infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly
+illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held
+office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times,
+for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so
+requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers
+accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
+As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the
+constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy
+counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted
+to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ
+Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a
+notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been
+done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who
+was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a
+sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to
+restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy
+the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a
+tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated High
+Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great
+object of the revolutionists who brought Charles I. to the block--the
+most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The
+members of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try
+all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions,
+notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents--Jeffreys,
+the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester;
+the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President;
+and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned
+Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not
+suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do
+so by the king--a man who had committed no crime, but simply
+discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his
+spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to
+two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous
+clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray
+their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two
+greatest corporations in the land,--the Universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge,--institutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in
+their crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel
+with these great bodies, because they would not approve of his
+measures to overturn the church with which they were connected, and
+which it was their duty and interest to uphold. The king had commanded
+Cambridge to bestow the degree of master of arts on a Benedictine
+monk, which was against the laws of the University and of parliament.
+The University refused to act against the law, and, in consequence,
+the vice-chancellor and the senate, which consisted of doctors and
+masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission. The
+vice-chancellor, Pechell, was deprived of his office and emoluments,
+which were of the nature of freehold property. But this was not the
+worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on imposing a Roman
+Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen College, one of the
+richest and most venerable of the University of Oxford, against even
+the friendly remonstrances of his best friends, even of his Catholic
+counsellors, and not only against the advice of his friends, but
+against all the laws of the land and of the rights of the University;
+for the proposed president, Farmer, was a Catholic, and was not a
+fellow of the college, and therefore especially disqualified. He was
+also a man of depraved morals. The fellows refused to elect Farmer,
+and chose John Hough instead. They were accordingly cited to the
+infamous court of which Jeffreys was the presiding and controlling
+genius. Their election was set aside, but Farmer was not confirmed,
+being too vile even for Jeffreys to sustain.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Universities.]
+
+The king was exceedingly enraged at the opposition he received from
+the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he summoned
+the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them to obey him in the
+matter of a president. They still held out in opposition, and the
+king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to resort to bolder
+measures. A special commission was instituted. Hough was forcibly
+ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, against the voice of all
+the fellows but two. But the blinded king was not yet content. The
+fellows were expelled from the University by a royal edict, and the
+high commissioner pronounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever
+holding any church preferment.
+
+But these severities were blunders, and produced a different effect
+from what was anticipated. The nation was indignant; the Universities
+lost all reverence; the clergy, in a body, were alienated; and the
+whole aristocracy were filled with defiance.
+
+[Sidenote: Magdalen College.]
+
+But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all
+opposition; and, now that the fellows of Magdalen College were
+expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one day
+twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman Catholic
+bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to the
+extremities of the kingdom; and bitter resentment took the place of
+former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old friends even, as a
+tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. And, indeed, he seemed
+like one completely infatuated, bent on the ruin of that church which
+even James I. and the other Stuart kings regarded as the surest and
+firmest pillar of the throne.
+
+The bishops of the English Church had in times past, as well as the
+Universities, inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience; and
+oppression must be very grievous indeed which would induce them to
+oppose the royal will. But James had completely alienated them, and
+they, reluctantly, at last, threw themselves into the ranks of
+opposition. Had they remained true to him, he might still have held
+his sceptre; but it was impossible that any body of men could longer
+bear his injustice and tyranny.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of the Seven Bishops.]
+
+From motives as impossible to fathom, as it is difficult to account
+for the actions of a madman, he ordered that the Declaration of
+Indulgence, an unconstitutional act, should be read publicly from all
+the pulpits in the kingdom. The London clergy, the most respectable
+and influential in the realm, made up their minds to disregard the
+order, and the bishops sustained them in their refusal. The archbishop
+and six bishops accordingly signed a petition to the king, which
+embodied the views of the London clergy. It was presented to the
+tyrant, by the prelates in a body, at his palace. He chose to consider
+it as a treasonable and libellous act--as nothing short of rebellion.
+The conduct of the prelates was generally and enthusiastically
+approved by the nation, and especially by the Dissenters, who now
+united with the members of the Established Church. James had recently
+courted the Dissenters, not wishing to oppose too many enemies at a
+time. He had conferred on them many indulgences, and had elevated some
+of them to high positions, with the hope that they would unite with
+him in breaking down the Establishment. But while some of the more
+fanatical were gained over, the great body were not so easily
+deceived. They knew well enough that, after crushing the Church of
+England, he would crush them. And they hated Catholicism and tyranny
+more than they did Episcopacy, in spite of their many persecutions.
+Some of the more eminent of the Dissenters took a noble stand, and
+their conduct was fully appreciated by the Established clergy. For the
+first time, since the accession of Elizabeth, the Dissenters and the
+Episcopalians treated each other with that courtesy and forbearance
+which enlightened charity demands. The fear of a common enemy united
+them. But time, also, had, at length, removed many of their mutual
+asperities.
+
+Nothing could exceed the vexation of James when he found that not only
+the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were
+sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have
+yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a
+bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most
+clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the
+bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most
+interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried at the
+Court of the King's Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were
+employed as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted
+to by the servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a
+verdict of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts
+and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, whom the
+king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe London, partook of the
+enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All classes were united in
+expressions of joy that the tyrant for once was baffled. The king was
+indeed signally defeated; but his defeat did not teach him wisdom. It
+only made him the more resolved to crush the liberties of the Church,
+and the liberties of the nation. But it also arrayed against him all
+classes and all parties of Protestants, who now began to form
+alliances, and devise measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the
+very courts which James had instituted to crush liberty proved
+refractory. Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his
+resignation as one of the Lord Commissioners. The very meanness of his
+spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection peculiarly
+alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble. The Court
+of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the Established Church,
+especially when its odious character was loudly denounced by all
+classes in the kingdom--even by some of the agents of tyranny itself.
+The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness.
+
+[Sidenote: Tyranny and Infatuation of James.]
+
+But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parliament was
+necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free parliament it was
+impossible to obtain. He resolved to bring together, by corruption and
+intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent
+distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a parliament,
+and might be willing to register any edict he proposed. And,
+accordingly, every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, was made
+to understand that he must support the throne or lose his office. He
+set himself vigorously to pack a parliament. A committee of seven
+privy counsellors sat at Whitehall for the purpose of regulating the
+municipal corporations. Father Petre was made a privy councillor.
+Committees, after the model of the one at Whitehall, were established
+in all parts of the realm. The lord lieutenants received written
+orders to go down to their respective counties, and superintend the
+work of corruption and fraud. But half of them refused to perform the
+ignominious work, and were immediately dismissed from their posts,
+which were posts of great honor and consideration. Among these were
+the great Earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Pembroke, Rutland,
+Bridgewater, Thanet, Northampton, Abingdon, and Gainsborough, whose
+families were of high antiquity, wealth, and political influence. Nor
+could those nobles, who consented to conform to the wishes and orders
+of the king, make any progress in their counties, on account of the
+general opposition of the gentry. The county squires, as a body, stood
+out in fierce resistance. They refused to send up any men to
+parliament who would vote away the liberties and interests of the
+nation. The justices and deputy lieutenants declared that they would
+sustain, at all hazard, the Protestant religion. And these persons
+were not odious republicans, but zealous royalists, now firmly united
+and resolved to oppose unlawful acts, though commanded by the king.
+
+James and his ministers next resolved to take away the power of the
+municipal corporations. The boroughs were required to surrender their
+charters. But a great majority firmly refused to part with their
+privileges. They were prosecuted and intimidated, but still they held
+out. Oxford, by a vote of eighty to two, voted to defend its
+franchises. Other towns did the same. Meanwhile, all the public
+departments were subjected to a strict inquisition, and all, who would
+not support the policy of the king, were turned out of office, and
+among them were some who had been heretofore the zealous servants of
+the crown.
+
+[Sidenote: Organized Opposition.]
+
+It was now full time for the organization of a powerful confederacy
+against the king. It was obvious, to men of all parties, and all
+ranks, that he meditated the complete subversion of English liberties.
+The fundamental laws of the kingdom had been systematically violated.
+The power of dispensing with acts of parliament had been strained, so
+that the king had usurped nearly all legislative authority. The courts
+of justice had been filled with unscrupulous judges, who were ready to
+obey all the king's injunctions, whether legal or illegal. Roman
+Catholics had been elevated to places of dignity in the Established
+Church. An infamous and tyrannical Court of High Commission had been
+created; persons, who could not legally set foot in England, had been
+placed at the head of colleges, and had taken their seat at the royal
+council-board. Lord lieutenants of counties, and other servants of the
+crown, had been dismissed for refusing to obey illegal commands; the
+franchises of almost every borough had been invaded; the courts of
+justice were venal and corrupt; an army of Irish Catholics, whom the
+nation abhorred, had been brought over to England; even the sacred
+right of petition was disregarded, and respectful petitioners were
+treated as criminals; and a free parliament was prevented from
+assembling.
+
+Under such circumstances, and in view of these unquestioned facts, a
+great conspiracy was set on foot to dethrone the king and overturn the
+hateful dynasty.
+
+Among the conspirators were some of the English nobles, the chief of
+whom was the Earl of Devonshire, and one of the leaders of the Whig
+party. Shrewsbury and Danby also joined them, the latter nobleman
+having been one of the most zealous advocates of the doctrine of
+passive obedience which many of the High Churchmen and Tories had
+defended in the reign of Charles II. It was under his administration,
+as prime minister, that a law had been proposed to parliament to
+exclude all persons from office who refused to take an oath, declaring
+that they thought resistance in all cases unlawful. Compton, the
+Bishop of London, who had been insolently treated by the court, joined
+the conspirators, whose designs were communicated to the Prince of
+Orange by Edward Russell and Henry Sydney, brothers of those two great
+political martyrs who had been executed in the last reign. The Prince
+of Orange, who had married a daughter of James II., agreed to invade
+England with a well-appointed army.
+
+[Sidenote: William, Prince of Orange.]
+
+William of Orange was doubtless the greatest statesman and warrior of
+his age, and one of the ablest men who ever wore a crown. He was at
+the head of the great Protestant party in Europe, and was the
+inveterate foe of Louis XIV. When a youth, his country had been
+invaded by Louis, and desolated and abandoned to pillage and cruelty.
+It was amid unexampled calamities, when the population were every
+where flying before triumphant armies, and the dikes of Holland had
+been opened for the ravages of the sea in order to avoid the more
+cruel ravages of war, that William was called to be at the head of
+affairs. He had scarcely emerged from boyhood; but his boyhood was
+passed in scenes of danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents
+were most precociously developed. His tastes were warlike; but he was
+a warrior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military
+glory, but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure
+the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambitious
+monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating principle of his
+existence; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly the policy and
+enterprises of the French king, even to the disadvantage of his native
+country and the country which adopted him.
+
+William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which the
+discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the
+Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of
+the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had long been
+fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny of James. He was a
+sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising genius, and a consummate
+statesman. But he delayed taking any decisive measures until affairs
+were ripe for his projects--until the misgovernment and encroachments
+of James drove the nation to the borders of frenzy. He then obtained
+the consent of the States General for the meditated invasion of
+England, and made immense preparations, which, however, were carefully
+concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape,
+however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who
+remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and
+offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not
+believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a
+spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence.
+Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of
+William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, and
+supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend of the
+Prince of Orange. Then he made haste to fit out a fleet; and thirty
+ships of the line were put under the command of Lord Dartmouth. An
+army of forty thousand men--the largest that any king of England had
+ever commanded--was also sent to the seaboard; a force more than
+sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion.
+
+[Sidenote: Critical Condition of James.]
+
+At the same time, the king made great concessions. He abolished the
+Court of High Commission. He restored the charter of the city of
+London. He permitted the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen
+College, to make any reforms he pleased. He would not, however, part
+with an iota of his dispensing power, and still hoped to rout William,
+and change the religion of his country. But all his concessions were
+too late. Whigs and Tories, Dissenters and Churchmen, were ready to
+welcome their Dutch deliverer. Nor had James any friends on whom he
+could rely. His prime minister, Sunderland, was in treaty with the
+conspirators, and waiting to betray him. Churchill, who held one of
+the highest commissions in the army, and who was under great
+obligations to the king, was ready to join the standard of William.
+Jeffreys, the lord chancellor, was indeed true in his allegiance, but
+his crimes were past all forgiveness by the nation; and even had he
+rebelled,--and he was base enough to do so,--his services would have
+been spurned by William and all his adherents.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of England by William.]
+
+On the 29th of October, 1688, the armament of William put to sea; but
+the ships had scarcely gained half the distance to England when they
+were dispersed and driven back to Holland by a violent tempest. The
+hopes of James revived; but they were soon dissipated. The fleet of
+William, on the 1st of November, again put to sea. It was composed of
+more than six hundred vessels, five hundred of which were men of war,
+and they were favored by auspicious gales. The same winds which
+favored the Dutch ships retarded the fleet of Dartmouth. On the 5th of
+November, the troops of William disembarked at Brixham, near Torbay in
+Devonshire, without opposition. On the 6th, he advanced to Newton
+Abbot, and, on the 9th, reached Exeter. He was cordially received, and
+magnificently entertained. He and his lieutenant-general, Marshal
+Schomberg, one of the greatest commanders in Europe, entered Exeter
+together in the grand military procession, which was like a Roman
+triumph. Near him also was Bentinck, his intimate friend and
+counsellor, the founder of a great ducal family. The procession
+marched to the splendid Cathedral, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and Burnet
+preached a sermon.
+
+Thus far all things had been favorable, and William was fairly
+established on English ground. Still his affairs were precarious, and
+James's condition not utterly hopeless or desperate. In spite of the
+unpopularity of the king, his numerous encroachments, and his
+disaffected army, the enterprise of William was hazardous. He was an
+invader, and the slightest repulse would have been dangerous to his
+interests. James was yet a king, and had the control of the army, the
+navy, and the treasury. He was a legitimate king, whose claims were
+undisputed. And he was the father of a son, and that son,
+notwithstanding the efforts of the Protestants to represent him as a
+false heir, was indeed the Prince of Wales. William had no claim to
+the throne so long as that prince was living. Nor had the nobles and
+gentry flocked to his standard as he had anticipated. It was nearly a
+week before a single person of rank or consequence joined him.
+Devonshire was in Derbyshire, and Churchill had still the confidence
+of his sovereign. The forces of the king were greatly superior to his
+own. And James had it in his power to make concessions which would
+have satisfied a great part of the nation.
+
+But William had not miscalculated. He had profoundly studied the
+character of James, and the temper of the English. He knew that a
+fatal blindness and obstinacy had been sent upon him, and that he
+never would relinquish his darling scheme of changing the religion of
+the nation; and he knew that the nation would never acquiesce in that
+change; that Popery was hateful in their sight. He also trusted to his
+own good sword, and to fortunate circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
+
+And he was not long doomed to suspense, which is generally so
+difficult to bear. In a few days, Lord Cornbury, colonel of a
+regiment, and son of the Earl of Clarendon, and therefore a relative
+of James himself, deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined him
+in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer that
+ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, who commanded
+at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at the prince's disposal,
+with the fortress which he was intrusted to guard. His army swelled in
+numbers and importance. Devonshire raised the standard of rebellion at
+Chatsworth. London was in a ferment. James was with his army at
+Salisbury, but gave the order to retreat, not daring to face the
+greatest captain in Europe. Soon after, he sent away the queen and the
+Prince of Wales to France, and made preparations for his own
+ignominious flight--the very thing his enemies desired, for his life
+was in no danger, and his affairs even then might have been
+compromised, in spite of the rapid defection of his friends, and the
+advance of William, with daily augmenting forces, upon London. On the
+11th of December, the king fled from London, with the intention of
+embarking at Sheerness, and was detained by the fishermen of the
+coast; but, by an order from the Lords, was set at liberty, and
+returned to the capital. William, nearly at the same time, reached
+London, and took up his quarters at St. James's Palace. It is needless
+to add, that the population of the city were friendly to his cause,
+and that he was now virtually the king of England. It is a
+satisfaction also to add, that the most infamous instrument of royal
+tyranny was seized in the act of flight, at Wapping, in the mean
+disguise of a sailor. He was discovered by the horrible fierceness of
+his countenance. Jeffreys was committed to the Tower; and the Tower
+screened him from a worse calamity, for the mob would have torn him in
+pieces. Catholic priests were also arrested, and their chapels and
+houses destroyed.
+
+Meanwhile parliament assembled and deliberated on the state of
+affairs. Many propositions were made and rejected. The king fled a
+second time, and the throne was declared vacant. But the crown was not
+immediately offered to the Prince of Orange, although addresses were
+made to him as a national benefactor. Many were in favor of a regency.
+Another party was for placing the Princess Mary on the throne, and
+giving to William, during her life, the title of king, and such a
+share of the administration as she chose to give him.
+
+But William had risked every thing for a throne, and nothing less than
+the crown of England would now content him. He gave the convention to
+understand that, much as he esteemed his wife, he would never accept a
+subordinate and precarious place in her government; "that he would not
+submit to be tied to the apron-strings of the best of wives;" that,
+unless he were offered the crown for life, he should return to
+Holland.
+
+It was accordingly settled by parliament that he should hold the regal
+dignity conjointly with his wife, but that the whole power of the
+government should be placed in his hands. And the Princess Mary
+willingly acceded, being devoted to her husband, and unambitious for
+herself.
+
+[Sidenote: Consummation of the Revolution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Declaration of Rights.]
+
+Thus was consummated the English Revolution of 1688, bloodless, but
+glorious. A tyrant was ejected from an absolute throne, and a noble
+and magnanimous prince reigned in his stead, after having taken an
+oath to observe the laws of the realm--an oath which he never
+violated. Of all revolutions, this proved the most beneficent. It
+closed the long struggle of one hundred and fifty years. Royal
+prerogative bowed before the will of the people, and true religious
+and civil liberty commenced its reign. The Prince of Orange was called
+to the throne by the voice of the nation, as set forth in an
+instrument known as the Declaration of Rights. This celebrated act of
+settlement recapitulated the crimes and errors of James, and merely
+asserted the ancient rights and liberties of England--that the
+dispensing power had no legal existence; that no money could be raised
+without grant of parliament; and that no army could be kept up in time
+of peace without its consent; and it also asserted the right of
+petition, the right of electors to choose their representatives
+freely, the right of parliament to freedom of debate, and the right of
+the nation to a pure and merciful administration of justice. No new
+rights were put forth, but simply the old ones were reëstablished.
+William accepted the crown on the conditions proposed, and swore to
+rule by the laws. "Not a single flower of the crown," says Macaulay,
+"was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The
+Declaration of Rights, although it made nothing law which was not law
+before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to
+the Dissenters; of the law which secured the independence of judges;
+of the law which limited the duration of parliaments; of the law which
+placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries; of the
+law which abolished the sacramental test; of the law which relieved
+the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities; of the law which reformed
+the representative system; of every good law which has been passed
+during one hundred and sixty years; of every good law which may
+hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the
+public weal, and satisfy the demands of public opinion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's
+     Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution
+     of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James--a beautiful
+     fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History
+     of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's
+     Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of
+     William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the
+     condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of
+     England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge
+     Jeffreys.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+LOUIS XIV.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Louis XIV.]
+
+We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of
+Louis XIV.--a man who filled a very large space in the history of
+Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign forms an
+epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to liberty or
+civilization, but because, for more than half a century, he was the
+central mover of European politics. His reign commemorates the triumph
+in France, of despotic principles, the complete suppression of popular
+interests, and almost the absorption of national interests in his own
+personal aggrandizement. It commemorates the ascendency of fashion,
+and the great refinement of material life. The camp and the court of
+Louis XIV. ingulphed all that is interesting in the history of France
+during the greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned
+seventy-two years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are
+supposed to have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His
+palaces consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed as
+a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights were
+dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, during
+his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the central
+orb around which every other light revolved, and to contribute to his
+glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most emphatically, the
+state. He was France. A man, therefore, who, in the eye of
+contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so powerful, and so absolute,
+claims a special notice. It is the province of history to record great
+influences, whether they come from the people, from great popular
+ideas, from literature and science, or from a single man. The lives of
+individuals are comparatively insignificant in the history of the
+United States; but the lives of such men as Cæsar, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon, furnish very great subjects for the pen of the philosophical
+historian, since great controlling influences emanated from them,
+rather than from the people whom they ruled.
+
+[Sidenote: His Power and Resources.]
+
+Louis XIV. was not a great general, like Henry IV., nor a great
+statesman, like William III., nor a philosopher, like Frederic the
+Great, nor a universal genius, like Napoleon; but his reign filled the
+eyes of contemporaries, and circumstances combined to make him the
+absolute master of a great empire. Moreover, he had sufficient talent
+and ambition to make use of fortunate opportunities, and of the
+resources of his kingdom, for his own aggrandizement. But France,
+nevertheless, was sacrificed. The French Revolution was as much the
+effect of his vanity and egotism, as his own power was the fruit of
+the policy of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. By their labors in the
+cause of absolutism, he came in possession of armies and treasures.
+But armies and treasures were expended in objects of vain ambition,
+for the gratification of selfish pleasures, for expensive pageants,
+and for gorgeous palaces. These finally embarrassed the nation, and
+ground it down to the earth by the load of taxation, and maddened it
+by the prospect of ruin, by the poverty and degradation of the people,
+and, at the same time, by the extravagance and insolence of an
+overbearing aristocracy. The aristocracy formed the glory and pride of
+the throne and both nobles and the throne fell, and great was the fall
+thereof.
+
+Our notice of Louis XIV. begins, not with his birth, but at the time
+when he resolved to be his own prime minister, on the death of
+Cardinal Mazarin, (1661.)
+
+Louis XIV. was then twenty-three years of age--frank, beautiful,
+imperious, and ambitious. His education had been neglected, but his
+pride and selfishness had been stimulated. During his minority, he had
+been straitened for money by the avaricious cardinal; but avaricious
+for his youthful master, since, at his death, besides his private
+fortune, which amounted to two hundred millions of livres, he left
+fifteen millions of livres, not specified in his will, which, of
+course, the king seized, and thus became the richest monarch of
+Europe. He was married, shortly before the death of Mazarin, to the
+Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain. But,
+long before his marriage, he had become attached to Mary de Mancini,
+niece of Mazarin, who returned his love with passionate ardor. She
+afterwards married Prince Colonna, a Roman noble, and lived a most
+abandoned life.
+
+The enormous wealth left by Cardinal Mazarin was, doubtless, one
+motive which induced Louis XIV., though only a young man of
+twenty-three, to be his own prime minister. Henceforth, to his death,
+all his ministers made their regular reports to him, and none were
+permitted to go beyond the limits which he prescribed to them.
+
+He accepted, at first, the ministers whom the dying cardinal had
+recommended. The most prominent of these were Le Tellier, De Lionne,
+and Fouquet. The last was intrusted with the public chest, who found
+the means to supply the dissipated young monarch with all the money he
+desired for the indulgence of his expensive tastes and ruinous
+pleasures.
+
+[Sidenote: Habits and Pleasures of Louis.]
+
+The thoughts and time of the king, from the death of Mazarin, for six
+or seven years, were chiefly occupied with his pleasures. It was then
+that the court of France was so debauched, splendid, and far-famed. It
+was during this time that the king was ruled by La Vallière, one of
+the most noted of all his favorites, a woman of considerable beauty
+and taste, and not so unprincipled as royal favorites generally have
+been. She was created a duchess, and her children were legitimatized,
+and also became dukes and princes. Of these the king was very fond,
+and his love for them survived the love for their unfortunate mother,
+who, though beautiful and affectionate, was not sufficiently
+intellectual to retain the affections with which she inspired the most
+selfish monarch of his age. She was supplanted in the king's
+affections by Madame de Montespan, an imperious beauty, whose
+extravagances and follies shocked and astonished even the most
+licentious court in Europe; and La Vallière, broken-hearted,
+disconsolate, and mortified, sought the shelter of a Carmelite
+convent, in which she dragged out thirty-six melancholy and dreary
+years, amid the most rigorous severities of self-inflicted penance, in
+the anxious hope of that heavenly mansion where her sins would be no
+longer remembered, and where the weary would be at rest.
+
+It was during these years of extravagance and pleasure that Versailles
+attracted the admiring gaze of Christendom, the most gorgeous palace
+which the world has seen since the fall of Babylon. Amid its gardens
+and groves, its parks and marble halls, did the modern Nebuchadnezzar
+revel in a pomp and grandeur unparalleled in the history of Europe,
+surrounded by eminent prelates, poets, philosophers, and statesmen,
+and all that rank and beauty had ennobled throughout his vast
+dominions. Intoxicated by their united flatteries, by all the incense
+which sycophancy, carried to a science, could burn before him, he
+almost fancied himself a deity, and gave no bounds to his
+self-indulgence, his vanity, and his pride. Every thing was
+subordinate to his pleasure and his egotism--an egotism alike
+regardless of the tears of discarded favorites, and the groans of his
+overburdened subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: His Military Ambition.]
+
+But Louis, at last, palled with pleasure, was aroused from the
+festivities of Versailles by dreams of military ambition. He knew
+nothing of war, of its dangers, its reverses, or of its ruinous
+expenses; but he fancied it would be a beautiful sport for a wealthy
+and absolute monarch to engage in the costly game. He cast his eyes on
+Holland, a state extremely weak in land forces, and resolved to add it
+to the great kingdom over which he ruled.
+
+The only power capable of rendering effectual assistance to Holland,
+when menaced by Louis XIV., was England; but England was ruled by
+Charles II., and all he cared for were his pleasures and independence
+from parliamentary control. The French king easily induced him to
+break his alliance with the Dutch by a timely bribe, while, at the
+same time, he insured the neutrality of Spain, by inflaming the
+hereditary prejudices of the Spanish court against the Low Countries.
+
+War, therefore, without even a decent pretence, and without
+provocation, was declared against Holland, with a view of annexing the
+Low Countries to France.
+
+Before the Dutch were able to prepare for resistance, Louis XIV.
+appeared on the banks of the Rhine with an army of one hundred and
+twenty thousand, marshalled by such able generals as Luxembourg,
+Condé, and Turenne. The king commanded in person, and with all the
+pomp of an ancient Persian monarch, surrounded with women and nobles.
+Without any adequate force to resist him, his march could not but be
+triumphant. He crossed the Rhine,--an exploit much celebrated, by his
+flatterers, though nothing at all extraordinary,--and, in the course
+of a few weeks, nearly all the United Provinces had surrendered to the
+royal victor. The reduction of Holland and Zealand alone was necessary
+to crown his enterprise with complete success. But he wasted time in
+vain parade at Utrecht, where he held his court, and where his
+splendid army revelled in pleasure and pomp. Amsterdam alone, amid the
+general despondency and consternation which the French inundation
+produced, was true to herself, and to the liberties of Holland; and
+this was chiefly by means of the gallant efforts of the Prince of
+Orange.
+
+[Sidenote: William, Prince of Orange.]
+
+At this time, (1672,) he was twenty-two years of age, and had received
+an excellent education, and shown considerable military abilities. In
+consequence of his precocity of talent, his unquestioned patriotism,
+and the great services which his family had rendered to the state, he
+was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the republic, and
+was encouraged to aspire to the office of stadtholder, the highest in
+the commonwealth. And his power was much increased after the massacre
+of the De Witts--the innocent victims of popular jealousy, who, though
+patriotic and illustrious, inclined to a different policy than what
+the Orange party advocated. William advised the States to reject with
+scorn the humiliating terms of peace which Louis XIV. offered, and to
+make any sacrifice in defence of their very last ditch. The heroic
+spirit which animated his bosom he communicated to his countrymen, on
+the borders of despair, and in the prospect of national ruin; and so
+great was the popular enthusiasm, that preparations were made for
+fifty thousand families to fly to the Dutch possessions in the East
+Indies, and establish there a new empire, in case they were
+overwhelmed by their triumphant enemy.
+
+Never, in the history of war, were such energies put forth as by the
+Hollanders in the hour of their extremity. They opened their dikes,
+and overflowed their villages and their farms. They rallied around the
+standard of their heroic leader, who, with twenty-two thousand men,
+kept the vast armies of Condé and Turenne at bay. Providence, too,
+assisted men who were willing to help themselves. The fleets of their
+enemies were dispersed by storms, and their armies were driven back by
+the timely inundation.
+
+The heroism of William called forth universal admiration. Louis
+attempted to bribe him, and offered him the sovereignty of Holland,
+which offer he unhesitatingly rejected. He had seen the lowest point
+in the depression of his country, and was confident of ultimate
+success.
+
+The resistance of Holland was unexpected, and Louis, wearied with the
+campaign, retired to Versailles, to be fed with the incense of his
+flatterers, and to publish the manifestoes of his glory and success.
+
+The states of Europe, jealous of the encroachments of Louis, at last
+resolved to come to the assistance of the struggling republic of
+Holland. Charles II. ingloriously sided with the great despot of
+Europe; but the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Brandenburg, and
+the King of Spain declared war against France. Moreover, the Dutch
+gained some signal naval battles. The celebrated admirals De Ruyter
+and Van Tromp redeemed the ancient glories of the Dutch flag. The
+French were nearly driven out of Holland; and Charles II., in spite of
+his secret treaties with Louis, was compelled to make peace with the
+little state which had hitherto defied him in the plenitude of his
+power.
+
+[Sidenote: Second Invasion of Holland.]
+
+But the ambitious King of France was determined not to be baffled in
+his scheme, since he had all the mighty resources of his kingdom at
+his entire disposal, and was burning with the passion of military
+aggrandizement. So he recommenced preparations for the conquest of
+Holland on a greater scale than ever, and assembled four immense
+armies. Condé led one against Flanders, and fought a bloody but
+indecisive battle with the Prince of Orange, in which twelve thousand
+men were killed on each side. Turenne commanded another on the side of
+Germany, and possessed himself of the Palatinate, gained several
+brilliant successes, but disgraced them by needless cruelties.
+Manheim, and numerous towns and villages, were burnt, and the country
+laid waste and desolate. The elector was so overcome with indignation,
+that he challenged the French general to single combat, which the
+great marshal declined.
+
+Louis himself headed a third army, and invaded Franche Comté, which he
+subdued in six weeks. The fourth army was sent to the frontiers of
+Roussillon, but effected nothing of importance.
+
+[Sidenote: Dutch War.]
+
+This great war was prosecuted for four years longer, in which the
+contending parties obtained various success. The only decisive effect
+of the contest was to reduce the strength of all the contending
+powers. Some great battles were fought, but Holland still held out
+with inferior forces. Louis lost the great Turenne, who was killed on
+the eve of a battle with the celebrated Montecuculi, who commanded the
+German armies; but, in a succeeding campaign, this loss was
+compensated by the surrender of Valenciennes, by the victories of
+Luxembourg over the Prince of Orange, and by another treaty of peace
+with Charles II.
+
+At last, all the contending parties were exhausted, and Louis was
+willing to make terms of peace. He had not reduced Holland, but, on
+account of his vast resources, he had obtained considerable
+advantages. The treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, secured to him Franche
+Comté, which he had twice conquered, and several important cities and
+fortresses in Flanders. He considerably extended his dominions, in
+spite of a powerful confederacy, and only retreated from the field of
+triumph to meditate more gigantic enterprises.
+
+For nine years, Europe enjoyed a respite from the horrors of war,
+during which Louis XIV. acted like a universal monarch. During these
+nine years, he indulged in his passion of palace building, and
+surrounded himself with every pleasure which could intoxicate a mind
+on which, already, had been exhausted all the arts of flattery, and
+all the resources of wealth.
+
+The man to whom Louis was most indebted for the means to prosecute his
+victories and build his palaces, was Colbert, minister of finance, who
+succeeded Fouquet. France was indebted to this able and patriotic
+minister for her richest manufactures of silks, laces, tapestries, and
+carpets, and for various internal improvements. He founded the Gobelin
+tapestries; erected the Royal Library, the colonnade of the Louvre,
+the Royal Observatory, the Hotel of the Invalids, and the palaces of
+the Tuileries, Vincennes, Meudon, and Versailles. He encouraged all
+forms of industry, and protected the Huguenots. But his great services
+were not fully appreciated by the king, and he was obnoxious to the
+nobility, who envied his eminence, and to the people, because he
+desired the prosperity of France more than the gratification of their
+pleasures. He was succeeded by Louvois, who long retained a great
+ascendency by obsequious attention to all the king's wishes.
+
+[Sidenote: Madame Montespan.]
+
+At this period, the reigning favorite at court was Madame de
+Montespan--the most infamous and unprincipled, but most witty and
+brilliant of all the king's mistresses, and the haughtiest woman of
+her age. Her tastes were expensive, and her habits extravagant and
+luxurious. On her the sovereign showered diamonds and rubies. He could
+refuse her nothing. She received so much from him, that she could
+afford to endow a convent--the mere building of which cost one million
+eight hundred thousand livres. Her children were legitimatized, and
+declared princes of the blood. Through her the royal favors flowed.
+Ambassadors, ministers, and even prelates, paid their court to her. On
+her the reproofs of Bossuet fell without effect. Secure in her
+ascendency over the mind of Louis, she triumphed over his court, and
+insulted the nation. But, at last, he grew weary of her, although she
+remained at court eighteen years, and she was dismissed from
+Versailles, on a pension of a sum equal to six hundred thousand
+dollars a year. She lived twenty-two years after her exile from court,
+and in great splendor, sometimes hoping to regain the ascendency she
+had once enjoyed, and at others in those rigorous penances which her
+church inflicts as the expiation for sin. To the last, however, she
+was haughty and imperious, and kept up the vain etiquette of a court.
+Her husband, whom she had abandoned, and to whom, after her disgrace,
+she sought to be reconciled, never would hear her name mentioned; and
+the king, whom, for nearly twenty years, she had enthralled, heard of
+her death with indifference, as he was starting for a hunting
+excursion. "Ah, indeed," said Louis XIV., "so the marchioness is dead!
+I should have thought that she would have lasted longer. Are you
+ready, M. de la Rochefoucauld? I have no doubt that, after this last
+shower, the scent will lie well for the dogs. Let us be off at once."
+
+[Sidenote: Madame de Maintenon.]
+
+As the Marchioness de Montespan lost her power over the royal egotist,
+Madame de Maintenon gained hers. She was the wife of the poet Scarron,
+and was first known to the king as the governess of the children of
+Montespan. She was an estimable woman on the whole, very intellectual,
+very proper, very artful, and very ambitious. No person ever had so
+great an influence over Louis XIV. as she; and hers was the ascendency
+of a strong mind over a weak one. She endeavored to make peace at
+court, and to dissuade the king from those vices to which he had so
+long been addicted. And she partially reclaimed him, although, while
+her counsels were still regarded, Louis was enslaved by Madame de
+Fontanges--a luxurious beauty, whom he made a duchess, and on whom he
+squandered the revenues of a province. But her reign was short. Mere
+physical charms must soon yield to the superior power of intellect and
+wit, and, after her death, the reign of Madame de Maintenon was
+complete. As the king could not live without her, and as she refused
+to follow the footsteps of her predecessors, the king made her his
+wife. And she was worthy of his choice; and her influence was, on the
+whole, good, although she befriended the Jesuits, and prompted the
+king to many acts of religious intolerance. It was chiefly through her
+influence, added to that of the Jesuits, that the king revoked the
+edict of Nantes, and its revocation was attended by great sufferings
+and privations among the persecuted Huguenots. He had, on ascending
+the throne, in 1643, confirmed the privileges of the Protestants; but,
+gradually, he worried them by exactions and restraints, and, finally,
+in 1685, by the revocation of the edict which Henry IV. had passed, he
+withdrew his protection, and subjected them to a more bitter
+persecution than at any preceding period. All the Protestant ministers
+were banished, or sent to the galleys, and the children of Protestants
+were taken from their parents, and committed to the care of their
+nearest Catholic relations, or such persons as judges appointed. All
+the terrors of military execution, all the artifices of priestcraft,
+were put forth to make converts and such as relapsed were subjected to
+cruel torments. A twentieth part of them were executed, and the
+remainder hunted from place to place. By these cruelties, France was
+deprived of nearly six hundred thousand of the best people in the
+land--a great misfortune, since they contributed, in their dispersion
+and exile, to enrich, by their agriculture and manufactures, the
+countries to which they fled.
+
+From this period of his reign to his death, Louis XIV. was a religious
+bigot, and the interests of the Roman Church, next to the triumph of
+absolutism, became the great desire of his life. He was punctual and
+rigid in the outward ceremonials of his religion, and professed to
+regret the follies and vices of his early life. Through the influence
+of his confessor, the Jesuit La Chaise, and his wife, Madame de
+Maintenon, he sent away Montespan from his court, and discouraged
+those gayeties for which it had once been distinguished. But he was
+always fond of ceremony of all kinds, and the etiquette of his court
+was most irksome and oppressive, and wearied Madame de Maintenon
+herself, and caused her to exclaim, in a letter to her brother, "Save
+those who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfortunate
+than those who envy them."
+
+The favorite minister of the king at this time was Louvois, a very
+able but extremely prodigal man, who plunged Louis XIV. into
+innumerable expenses, and encouraged his taste both for palaces and
+war. It was probably through his intrigues, in order to make himself
+necessary to the king, that a general war again broke out in Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: League of Augsburg.]
+
+In 1687 was formed the famous League of Augsburg, by which the leading
+princes of Europe united in a great confederacy to suppress the power
+and encroachments of the French king. Louvois intrigued to secure the
+election of the Cardinal de Furstemberg to the archbishopric of
+Cologne, in opposition to the interests of Bavaria, the natural ally
+of France, conscious that, by so doing, he must provoke hostilities.
+But this act was only the occasion, not the cause, of war. Louis had
+enraged the Protestant world by his persecution of the Huguenots. He
+had insulted even the pope himself by sending an ambassador to Rome,
+with guards and armed attendants equal to an army, in order to enforce
+some privileges which it was not for the interest or the dignity of
+the pope to grant; he had encouraged the invasion of Germany by the
+Turks; he had seized Strasburg, the capital of Alsace; he bombarded
+Genoa, because they sold powder to the Algerines, and compelled the
+doge to visit him as a suppliant; he laid siege to some cities which
+belonged to Spain; and he prepared to annex the Low Countries to his
+dominions. Indeed, he treated all other powers as if he were the
+absolute monarch of Europe, and fear and jealousy united them against
+them. Germany, Spain, and Holland, and afterwards England, Denmark,
+Sweden, and Savoy, coöperated together to crush the common enemy of
+European liberties.
+
+Louis made enormous exertions to resist this powerful confederacy.
+Four hundred thousand men were sent into the field, divided into four
+armies. Two of these were sent into Flanders, one into Catalonia, and
+one into Germany, which laid waste the Palatinate with fire and sword.
+Louvois gave the order, and Louis sanctioned it, which was executed
+with such unsparing cruelty that all Europe was filled with
+indignation and defiance.
+
+[Sidenote: Opposing Armies and Generals.]
+
+The forces of Louis were immense, but those of the allies were
+greater. The Spaniards, Dutch, and English, had an army of fifty
+thousand men in Flanders, eleven thousand of whom were commanded by
+the Earl of Marlborough. The Germans sent three more armies into the
+field; one commanded by the Elector of Bavaria, on the Upper Rhine;
+another by the Duke of Lorraine, on the Middle Rhine; and a third by
+the Elector of Brandenburg, on the Lower Rhine; and these, in the
+first campaign, obtained signal successes. The next year, the Duke of
+Savoy joined the allies, whose army was commanded by Victor Amadeus;
+but he was beaten by Marshal Catinat, one of the most distinguished of
+the French generals. Luxembourg also was successful in Flanders, and
+gained the great battle of Charleroi over the Germans and Dutch: The
+combined fleet of the English and Dutch was also defeated by the
+French at the battle of Beachy Head. In the next campaign, Prince
+Eugene and the Duke of Schomberg distinguished themselves in checking
+the victorious career of Catinat; but nothing of importance was
+effected. The following spring, William III. and Louis XIV., the two
+great heads of the contending parties, took the field themselves; and
+Louis, with the aid of Luxembourg, took Namur, in spite of the efforts
+of William to succor it. Some other successes were gained by the
+French, and Louis retired to Versailles to celebrate the victories of
+his generals. The next campaign witnessed another splendid victory
+over William and the allies, by Luxembourg, at Neerwinden, when twelve
+thousand men were killed; and also another, by Catinat, at Marsaglia,
+in Italy, over the Duke of Savoy. The military glory of Louis was now
+at its height; but, in the campaign of 1694-95, he met with great
+reverses. Luxembourg, the greatest of his generals, died. The allies
+retook Huy and Namur, and the French king, exhausted by the long war,
+was forced to make peace. The treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, secured the
+tranquillity of Europe for four years--long enough only for the
+contending parties to recover their energies, and prepare for a more
+desperate contest. Louis XIV., however, now acted on the defensive.
+The allied powers were resolved on his complete humiliation.
+
+[Sidenote: War of the Spanish Succession.]
+
+War broke out again in 1701, and in consequence of the accession of
+Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., to the throne of Spain. This great
+war of the Spanish Succession, during which Marlborough so greatly
+distinguished himself, claims a few explanatory remarks.
+
+Charles II., King of Spain, and the last of the line of the Austrian
+princes, being without an heir, and about to die, selected as his
+successor Leopold of Bavaria, a boy five years of age, whose
+grandmother was Maria Theresa. But there were also two other
+claimants--the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., whose claim
+rested in being the grandson of Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV.,
+and sister of Charles II., and the Emperor of Germany, whose mother
+was the daughter of Philip III. The various European states looked
+with extreme jealousy on the claims of the Emperor of Germany and the
+Duke of Anjou, because they feared that the balance of power would be
+seriously disturbed if either an Austrian or a Bourbon prince became
+King of Spain. They, therefore, generally supported the claims of the
+Bavarian prince, especially England and Holland.
+
+But the Prince of Bavaria suddenly died, as it was supposed by poison,
+and Louis XIV. so successfully intrigued, that his grandson was
+nominated by the Spanish monarch as heir to his throne. This incensed
+Leopold II. of Germany, and especially William III., who was resolved
+that the house of Bourbon should be no further aggrandized.
+
+On the accession of the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne, in 1701,
+a grand alliance was formed, headed by the Emperor of Germany and the
+King of England, to dethrone him. Louis XIV. long hesitated between
+his ambition and the interests of his kingdom; but ambition triumphed.
+He well knew that he could only secure a crown to his grandson by a
+desperate contest with indignant Europe. Austria, Holland, Savoy, and
+England were arrayed against France. And this war of the Spanish
+Succession was the longest, the bloodiest, and the most disastrous war
+in which Louis was ever engaged. It commenced the last year of the
+reign of William III., and lasted thirteen years.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+The great hero of this war was doubtless the Duke of Marlborough,
+although Prince Eugene gained with him as imperishable glories as war
+can bestow. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, cannot be said to be
+one of those geniuses who have impressed their minds on nations and
+centuries; but he was a man who gave great lustre to the British name,
+and who attained to a higher pitch of military fame than any general
+whom England has produced since Oliver Cromwell, with the exception of
+Wellington.
+
+He was born in 1650, of respectable parents, and was page of honor to
+the Duke of York, afterwards James II. While a mere boy, his bent of
+mind was discernible, and he solicited and obtained from the duke an
+ensign's commission, and rapidly passed through the military grades of
+lieutenant, captain, major, and colonel. During the infamous alliance
+between Louis XIV. and Charles II., he served under Marshal Turenne,
+and learned from him the art of war. But he also distinguished himself
+as a diplomatic agent of Charles II., in his intrigues with Holland
+and France. Before the accession of James II., he was created a
+Scottish peer, by the title of Baron Churchill. He followed his royal
+patron in his various peregrinations, and, when he succeeded to the
+English throne, he was raised to an English peerage. But Marlborough
+deserted his patron on the landing of William III., and was made a
+member of his Privy Council, and lord of the bed-chamber. Two days
+before the coronation of William, he was made Earl of Marlborough; but
+was not intrusted with as high military command as his genius and
+services merited, William being apparently jealous of his fame. On the
+accession of Anne, he was sent to the Continent with the supreme
+command of the English armies in the war with Louis about the Spanish
+Succession. His services in the campaign of 1702 secured a dukedom,
+and deservedly, for he contended against great obstacles--against the
+obstinacy and stupidity of the Dutch deputies; against the timidity of
+the English government at home; and against the veteran armies of
+Louis, led on by the celebrated Villars. But neither the campaigns of
+1702 or 1703 were marked by any decisive battles. In 1704 was fought
+the celebrated battle of Blenheim, by which the French power was
+crippled, and the hopes of Louis prostrated.
+
+The campaign of 1703 closed disastrously for the allies. Europe was
+never in greater peril. Bavaria united with France and Spain to crush
+Austria. The Austrians had only twenty thousand men, while the
+Bavarians had forty-five thousand men in the centre of Germany, and
+Marshal Tallard was posted, with forty-five thousand men, on the Upper
+Rhine. Marshal Villeroy opposed Marlborough in the Netherlands.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Blenheim.]
+
+But Marlborough conceived the bold project of marching his troops to
+the banks of the Danube, and there uniting with the Imperialists under
+Prince Eugene, to cut off the forces of the enemy before they could
+unite. So he left the Dutch to defend themselves against Villeroy,
+rapidly ascended the Rhine, before any of the enemy dreamed of his
+designs. From Mentz, he proceeded with forty thousand men to
+Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg to Donauworth, on the Danube, where
+his troops, which had effected a junction with the Austrians and
+Prussians, successfully engaged the Bavarians. But the Bavarians and
+the French also succeeded in uniting their forces; and both parties
+prepared for a desperate conflict. There were about eighty thousand
+men on each side. The French and Bavarians were strongly intrenched at
+the village of Blenheim; and Marlborough, against the advice of most
+of his generals, resolved to attack their fortified camp before it was
+reënforced by a large detachment of troops which Villeroy had sent. "I
+know the danger," said Marlborough; "but a battle is absolutely
+necessary." He was victorious. Forty thousand of the enemy were killed
+or taken prisoners; Tallard himself was taken, and every trophy was
+secured which marks a decisive victory. By his great victory, the
+Emperor of Austria was relieved from his fears, the Hungarians were
+overawed, Bavaria fell under the sway of the emperor, and the armies
+of Louis were dejected and discouraged. Marlborough marched back again
+to Holland without interruption, was made a prince of the empire, and
+received pensions and lands from the English government, which made
+him one of the richest and greatest of the English nobility. The
+palace of Blenheim was built, and he received the praises and plaudits
+of the civilized world.
+
+The French were hardly able to cope with Marlborough during the next
+campaign, but rallied in 1706, during which year the great battle of
+Ramillies was fought, and won by Marlborough. The conquest of Brabant,
+and the greater part of Spanish Flanders, resulted from this victory;
+and Louis, crippled and humiliated, made overtures of peace. Though
+equitable, they were rejected; the allies having resolved that no
+peace should be made with the house of Bourbon while a prince of that
+house continued to sit upon the throne of Spain. Louis appealed now,
+in his distress, to the national honor, sent his plate to the mint,
+and resolved, in his turn, to contend, to the last extremity, with his
+enemies, whom success had intoxicated.
+
+The English, not content with opposing Louis in the Netherlands and in
+Germany, sent their armies into Spain, also, who, united with the
+Austrians, overran the country, and nearly completed its conquest. One
+of the most gallant and memorable exploits of the war was the siege
+and capture of Barcelona by the Earl of Peterborough, the city having
+made one of the noblest and most desperate defences since the siege of
+Numantia.
+
+[Sidenote: Exertions and Necessities of Louis.]
+
+The exertions of Louis were equal to his necessities; and, in 1707, he
+was able to send large armies into the field. None of his generals
+were able to resist the Duke of Marlborough, who gained new victories,
+and took important cities; but, in Spain, the English met with
+reverses. In 1708, Louis again offered terms of peace, which were
+again rejected. His country was impoverished, his resources were
+exhausted, and a famine carried away his subjects. He agreed to yield
+the whole Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria, without any
+equivalent; to cede to the emperor his conquests on the Rhine, and to
+the Dutch the great cities which Marlborough had taken; to acknowledge
+the Elector of Brandenburg as King of Prussia, and Anne as Queen of
+England; to remove the Pretender from his dominions; to acknowledge
+the succession of the house of Hanover; to restore every thing
+required by the Duke of Savoy; and agree to the cessions made to the
+King of Portugal.
+
+And yet these conditions, so honorable and advantageous to the allies,
+were rejected, chiefly through the influence of Marlborough, Eugene,
+and the pensionary Heinsius, who acted from entirely selfish motives.
+Louis was not permitted to cherish the most remote hope of peace
+without surrendering the strongest cities of his dominions as pledges
+for the entire evacuation of the Spanish monarchy by his grandson.
+This he would not agree to. He threw himself, in his distress, upon
+the loyalty of his people. Their pride and honor were excited; and, in
+spite of all their misfortunes, they prepared to make new efforts.
+Again were the French defeated at the great battle of Malplaquet, when
+ninety thousand men contended on each side; and again did Louis sue
+for peace. Again were his overtures rejected, and again did he rally
+his exhausted nation. Some victories in Spain were obtained over the
+confederates; but the allies gradually were hemming him around, and
+the king-hunt was nearly up, when unexpected dissensions among the
+allies relieved him of his enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Utrecht.]
+
+These dissensions were the struggles between the Whigs and Tories in
+England; the former maintaining that no peace should be made; the
+latter, that the war had been carried far enough, and was prolonged
+only to gratify the ambition of Marlborough. The great general, in
+consequence, lost popularity; and the Tories succeeded in securing a
+peace, just as Louis was on the verge of ruin. Another campaign, had
+the allies been united, would probably have enabled Marlborough to
+penetrate to Paris. That was his aim; that was the aim of his party.
+But the nation was weary of war, and at last made peace with Louis. By
+the treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) Philip V. resumed the throne of Spain,
+but was compelled to yield his rights to the crown of France in case
+of the death of a sickly infant, the great-grandson of Louis XIV., who
+was heir apparent to the throne; but, in other respects, the terms
+were not more favorable than what Louis had offered in 1706, and very
+inadequate to the expenses of the war. The allies should have yielded
+to the overtures of Louis before, or should have persevered. But party
+spirit, and division in the English cabinet and parliament, prevented
+the consummation which the Whigs desired, and Louis was saved from
+further humiliation and losses.
+
+[Sidenote: Last Days of Louis.]
+
+But his power was broken. He was no longer the autocrat of Europe, but
+a miserable old man, who had lived to see irreparable calamities
+indicted on his nation, and calamities in consequence of his ambition.
+His latter years were melancholy. He survived his son and his
+grandson. He saw himself an object of reproach, of ridicule, and of
+compassion. He sought the religious consolation of his church, but was
+the victim of miserable superstition, and a tool of the Jesuits. He
+was ruled by his wife, the widow of the poet Scarron, whom his
+children refused to honor. His last days were imbittered by
+disappointments and mortifications, disasters in war, and domestic
+afflictions. No man ever, for a while, enjoyed a prouder preëminence.
+No man ever drank deeper of the bitter cup of disappointed ambition
+and alienated affections. No man ever more fully realized the vanity
+of this world. None of the courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, he
+could trust, and all his experiences led to a disbelief in human
+virtue. He saw, with shame, that his palaces, his wars, and his
+pleasures, had consumed the resources of the nation, and had sowed the
+seeds of a fearful revolution. He lost his spirits; his temper became
+soured; mistrust and suspicion preyed upon his mind. His love of pomp
+survived all his other weaknesses, and his court, to the last, was
+most rigid in its wearisome formalities. But the pageantry of
+Versailles was a poor antidote to the sorrows which bowed his head to
+the ground, except on those great public occasions when his pride
+triumphed over his grief. Every day, in his last years, something
+occurred to wound his vanity, and alienate him from all the world but
+Madame de Maintenon, the only being whom he fully trusted, and who did
+not deceive him. Indeed, the humiliated monarch was an object of pity
+as well as of reproach, and his death was a relief to himself, as well
+as to his family. He died in 1715, two years after the peace of
+Utrecht, not much regretted by the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: His Character.]
+
+Louis XIV. cannot be numbered among the monsters of the human race who
+have worn the purple of royalty. His chief and worst vice was egotism,
+which was born with him, which was cultivated by all the influences of
+his education, and by all the circumstances of his position. This
+absorbing egotism made him insensible to the miseries he inflicted,
+and cherished in his soul the notion that France was created for him
+alone. His mistresses, his friends, his wives, his children, his
+court, and the whole nation, were viewed only as the instruments of
+his pride and pleasure. All his crimes and blunders proceeded from his
+extraordinary selfishness. If we could look on him without this moral
+taint, which corrupted and disgraced him, we should see an indulgent
+father and a generous friend. He attended zealously to the duties of
+his station, and sought not to shake off his responsibilities. He
+loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not forget the affairs of
+the realm. He rewarded literature, and appreciated merit. He honored
+the institutions of religion, and, in his latter days, was devoted to
+its duties, so far as he understood them. He has been foolishly
+panegyrized, and as foolishly censured. Still his reign was baneful,
+on the whole, especially to the interests of enlightened Christianity
+and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted Catholic, and sought to
+erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an absolute and universal
+throne. He failed; and instead of bequeathing to his successors the
+power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts, a distracted empire,
+and a discontented people. He bequeathed to France the revolution
+which hurled her monarch from his throne, but which was overruled for
+her ultimate good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siècle. Voltaire's and Miss
+     Pardoe's Histories of the Reign of Louis XIV. James's Life
+     of Louis XIV. Mémoires du Duc de St. Simon. The Abbé
+     Millot's History. D'Anquetil's Louis XIV., sa Cour, et le
+     Régent. Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's and Rankin's
+     Histories of France. Lord Mahon's War of the Spanish
+     Succession. Temple's Memoirs. Coxe's Life of Marlborough.
+     Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Sévigné's Letters.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is
+     one of the most interesting ever written. It may have too
+     much gossip for what is called the "dignity of history;" but
+     that fault, if fault it be, has been made by Macaulay also,
+     and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by those most
+     incapable of appreciating philosophical history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+WILLIAM AND MARY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: William and Mary.]
+
+From Louis XIV. we turn to consider the reign of his illustrious
+rival, William III., King of England, who enjoyed the throne
+conjointly with Mary, daughter of James II.
+
+The early life and struggles of this heroic prince have been already
+alluded to, in the two previous chapters, and will not be further
+discussed. On the 12th day of February, 1689, he arrived at Whitehall,
+the favorite palace of the Stuart kings, and, on the 11th of April, he
+and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Their reign is chiefly memorable for the war with Louis XIV., the
+rebellion in Ireland, fomented by the intrigues of James II., and for
+the discussion of several great questions pertaining to the liberties
+and the prosperity of the English nation, questions in relation to the
+civil list, the Place Bill, the Triennial Bill, the liberty of the
+press, a standing army, the responsibility of ministers, the veto of
+the crown, the administration of Ireland, the East India Company, the
+Bank of England, and the funded debt. These topics make the domestic
+history of the country, especially in a constitutional point of view,
+extremely important.
+
+The great struggle with Louis XIV. has already received all the notice
+which the limits of this work will allow, in which it was made to
+appear that, if Louis XIV. was the greater king, William III. was the
+greater man; and, although his military enterprises were, in one
+sense, unsuccessful, since he did not triumph in splendid victories,
+still he opposed successfully what would have been, without his
+heroism, an overwhelming torrent of invasion and conquest, in
+consequence of vastly superior forces. The French king was eventually
+humbled, and the liberties of continental Europe were preserved.
+
+Under the wise, tolerant, and liberal administration of William, the
+British empire was preserved from disunion, and invaluable liberties
+and privileges were guaranteed.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Rebellion.]
+
+Scarcely was he seated on the throne, which his wife inherited from
+the proud descendants of the Norman Conqueror, when a rebellion in
+Ireland broke out, and demanded his presence in that distracted and
+unfortunate country.
+
+The Irish people, being Roman Catholics, had sympathized with
+James II. in all his troubles, and were resolved to defend his cause
+against a Calvinistic king. In a short time after his establishment at
+St. Germain's, through the bounty of the French king, he began to
+intrigue with the disaffected Irish chieftains. The most noted of
+these was Tyrconnel, who contrived to deprive the Protestants of Lord
+Mountjoy, their most trusted and able leader, by sending him on a
+mission to James II., by whose influence he was confined, on his
+arrival at Paris, in the Bastile. Tyrconnel then proceeded to disarm
+the Protestants, and recruit the Catholic army, which was raised in
+two months to a force of forty thousand men, burning to revenge their
+past injuries, and recover their ancient possessions and privileges.
+James II. was invited by the army to take possession of his throne. He
+accepted the invitation, and, early in 1689, made his triumphal entry
+into Dublin, and was received with a pomp and homage equal to his
+dignity. But James did not go to Ireland merely to enjoy the homage
+and plaudits of the Irish people, but to defend the last foothold
+which he retained as King of England, trusting that success in Ireland
+would eventually restore to him the throne of his ancestors. And he
+was cordially, but not powerfully, supported by the French king, who
+was at war with England, and who justly regarded Ireland as the most
+assailable part of the British empire.
+
+The Irish parliament, in the interest of James, passed an act of
+attainder against all Protestants who had assisted William, among whom
+were two archbishops, one duke, seventeen earls, eighteen barons, and
+eighty-three clergymen. By another act, Ireland was made independent
+of England. The Protestants were every where despoiled and insulted.
+
+But James was unequal to the task he had assumed, incapable either of
+preserving Ireland or retaking England. He was irresolute and
+undecided. He could not manage an Irish House of Commons any better
+than he could an English one. He debased the coin, and resorted to
+irritating measures to raise money.
+
+At last he concluded to subdue the Protestants in Ulster, and advanced
+to lay siege to Londonderry, upon which depended the fate of the north
+of Ireland. It was bravely defended by the inhabitants, and finally
+relieved by the troops sent over from England under the command of
+Kirke--the same who inflicted the cruelties in the west of England
+under James II. But William wanted able officers, and he took them
+indiscriminately from all parties. Nine thousand people miserably
+perished by famine and disease in the town, before the siege was
+raised, one of the most memorable in the annals of war.
+
+Ulster was now safe, and the discomfiture of James was rapidly
+effected. Old Marshal Schomberg was sent into Ireland with sixteen
+thousand veteran troops, and, shortly after, William himself (June 14,
+1690) landed at Carrickfergus, near Belfast, with additional men, who
+swelled the Protestant army to forty thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: King James in Ireland.]
+
+The contending forces advanced to the conflict, and on the 1st of July
+was fought the battle of the Boyne, in which Schomberg was killed, but
+which resulted in the defeat of the troops of James II. The
+discomfited king fled to Dublin, but quitted it as soon as he had
+entered it, and embarked hastily at Waterford for France, leaving the
+Earl of Tyrconnel to contend with vastly superior forces, and to make
+the best terms in his power.
+
+The country was speedily subdued, and all the important cities and
+fortresses, one after the other, surrendered to the king. Limerick
+held out the longest, and made an obstinate resistance, but finally
+yielded to the conqueror; and with its surrender terminated the final
+efforts of the old Irish inhabitants to regain the freedom which they
+had lost. Four thousand persons were outlawed, and their possessions
+confiscated. Indeed, at different times, the whole country has been
+confiscated, with the exception of the possessions of a few families
+of English blood. In the reign of James I., the whole province of
+Ulster, containing three millions of acres, was divided among the new
+inhabitants. At the restoration, eight millions of acres, and, after
+the surrender of Limerick, one million more of acres, were
+confiscated. During the reign of William and Mary, the Catholic Irish
+were treated with extreme rigor, and Ireland became a field for
+place-hunters. All important or lucrative offices in the church, the
+state, and the army, were filled with the needy dependants of the
+great Whig families. Injustice to the nation was constantly exercised,
+and penal laws were imposed by the English parliament, and in
+reference to matters which before came under the jurisdiction of the
+Irish parliament. But, with all these rigorous measures, Ireland was
+still ruled with more mildness than at any previous period in its
+history, and no great disturbance again occurred until the reign of
+George III.
+
+But the reign of William III., however beneficial to the liberties of
+England and of Europe, was far from peaceful. Apart from his great
+struggle with the French king, his comfort and his composure of mind
+were continually disturbed by domestic embarrassments, arising from
+the jealousies between the Whigs and Tories, the intrigues of
+statesmen with the exiled family, and discussions in parliament in
+reference to those great questions which attended the settlement of
+the constitution. A bill was passed, called the _Place Bill_,
+excluding all officers of the crown from the House of Commons, which
+showed the jealousy of the people respecting royal encroachments. A
+law also was passed, called the _Triennial Bill_, which limited the
+duration of parliament to three years, but which, in a subsequent
+reign, was repealed, and one substituted which extended the duration
+of a parliament to seven years. An important bill was also passed
+which regulated trials in case of treason, in which the prisoner was
+furnished with a copy of the indictment, with the names and residences
+of jurors, with the privilege of peremptory challenge, and with full
+defence of counsel. This bill guaranteed new privileges and rights to
+prisoners.
+
+[Sidenote: Freedom of the Press.]
+
+The great question pertaining to the Liberty of the Press was
+discussed at this time--one of the most vital questions which affect
+the stability of government on the one side, and the liberties of the
+people on the other. So desirable have all governments deemed the
+control of the press by themselves, that parliament, when it abolished
+the Star Chamber, in the reign of Charles I., still assumed its powers
+respecting the licensing of books. Various modifications were, from
+time to time, made in the laws pertaining to licensing books, until,
+in the reign of William, the liberty of the press was established
+nearly upon its present basis.
+
+William, in general, was in favor of those movements which proved
+beneficial in after times, or which the wisdom of a subsequent age saw
+fit to adopt. Among these was the union of England and Scotland, which
+he recommended. Under his auspices, the affairs of the East India
+Company were considered and new charters granted; the Bank of England
+was erected; benevolent action for the suppression of vice and for the
+amelioration of the condition of the poor took place; the coinage was
+adjusted and financial experiments were made.
+
+The crown, on the whole, lost power during this reign, which was
+transferred to the House of Commons. The Commons acquired the complete
+control of the purse, which is considered paramount to all other
+authority. Prior to the Revolution, the supply for the public service
+was placed at the disposal of the sovereign, but the definite sum of
+seven hundred thousand pounds, yearly, was placed at the disposal of
+William, to defray the expense of the civil list and his other
+expenses, while the other contingent expenses of government, including
+those for the support of the army and navy, were annually appropriated
+by the Commons.
+
+[Sidenote: Act of Settlement--Death of William III.]
+
+The most important legislative act of this reign was the Act of
+Settlement, March 12, 1701, which provided that England should be
+freed from the obligation of engaging in any war for the defence of
+the foreign dominions of the king; that all succeeding kings must be
+of the communion of the Church of England; that no succeeding king
+should go out of the British dominions without consent of parliament;
+that no person in office, or pensioner, should be a member of the
+Commons; that the religious liberties of the people should be further
+secured; that the judges should hold office during good behavior, and
+have their salaries ascertained; and that the succession to the throne
+should be confined to Protestant princes.
+
+King William reigned in England thirteen years, with much ability, and
+sagacity, and prudence, and never attempted to subvert the
+constitution, for which his memory is dear to the English people. But
+most of his time, as king, was occupied in directing warlike
+operations on the Continent, and in which he showed a great jealousy
+of the genius of Marlborough, whose merits he nevertheless finally
+admitted. He died March 8, 1702, and was buried in the sepulchre of
+the kings of England.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of William.]
+
+Notwithstanding the animosity of different parties against
+William III., public opinion now generally awards to him, considering
+the difficulties with which he had to contend, the first place among
+the English kings. He had many enemies and many defects. The Jacobites
+hated him because "he upset their theory of the divine rights of
+kings; the High Churchmen because he was indifferent to the forms of
+church government; the Tories because he favored the Whigs; and the
+Republicans because he did not again try the hopeless experiment of a
+republic." He was not a popular idol, in spite of his great services
+and great qualities, because he was cold, reserved, and unyielding;
+because he disdained to flatter, and loved his native better than his
+adopted country. But his faults were chiefly offences against good
+manners, and against the prejudices of the nation. He distrusted human
+nature, and disdained human sympathy. He was ambitious, and his
+ambition was allied with selfishness. He permitted the slaughter of
+the De Witts, and never gave Marlborough a command worthy of his
+talents. He had no taste for literature, wit, or the fine arts. His
+favorite tastes were hunting, gardening and upholstery. That he was,
+however, capable of friendship, is attested by his long and devoted
+attachment to Bentinck, whom he created Earl of Portland, and
+splendidly rewarded with rich and extensive manors in every part of
+the land. His reserve and coldness may in part be traced to his
+profound knowledge of mankind, whom he feared to trust. But if he was
+not beloved by the nation, he secured their eternal respect by being
+the first to solve the problem of constitutional monarchy, and by
+successfully ruling, at a very critical period, the Dutch, the
+English, the Scotch, and the Irish, who had all separate interests and
+jealousies; by yielding, when in possession of great power, to
+restraints he did not like; and by undermining the intrigues and power
+of so mighty an enemy of European liberties as Louis XIV. His heroism
+shone brilliantly in defeat and disaster, and his courage and exertion
+never flagged when all Europe desponded, and when he himself labored
+under all the pains and lassitude of protracted disease. He died
+serenely, but hiding from his attendants, as he did all his days, the
+profoundest impressions which agitated his earnest and heroic soul.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke.]
+
+Among the great men whom he encouraged and rewarded, may be mentioned
+the historian Burnet, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury, and Tillotson
+and Tennison, whom he elevated to archiepiscopal thrones. Dr. South
+and Dr. Bentley also adorned this age of eminent divines. The great
+poets of the period were Prior, Dryden, Swift, and Pope, who, however,
+are numbered more frequently among the wits of the reign of Anne.
+Robert Boyle distinguished himself for experiments in natural science,
+and zeal for Christian knowledge; and Christopher Wren for his genius
+in architectural art. But the two great lights of this reign were,
+doubtless, Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke, to whom the realm of
+natural and intellectual philosophy is more indebted than to any other
+men of genius from the time of Bacon. The discoveries of Newton are
+scarcely without a parallel, and he is generally regarded as the
+greatest mathematical intellect that England has produced. To him the
+world is indebted for the binomial theorem, discovered at the age of
+twenty-two; for the invention of fluxions; for the demonstration of
+the law of gravitation; and for the discovery of the different
+refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise on Optics and his
+_Principia_, in which he brought to light the new theory of the
+universe, place him at the head of modern philosophers--on a high
+vantage ground, to which none have been elevated, of his age, with the
+exception of Leibnitz and Galileo. But his greatest glory was his
+modesty, and the splendid tribute he rendered to the truths of
+Christianity, whose importance and sublime beauty he was ever most
+proud to acknowledge in an age of levity and indifference.
+
+John Locke is a name which almost exclusively belongs to the reign of
+William III., and he will also ever be honorably mentioned in the
+constellation of the very great geniuses and Christians of the world.
+His treatises on Religious Toleration are the most masterly ever
+written, while his Essay on the Human Understanding is a great system
+of truth, as complete, original, and logical, in the department of
+mental science, as was the system of Calvin in the realm of theology.
+Locke's Essay has had its enemies and detractors, and, while many
+eminent men have dissented from it, it nevertheless remains, one of
+the most enduring and proudest monuments of the immortal and
+ever-expanding intellect of man.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne.]
+
+On the death of William III., (1702,) the Princess Anne, daughter of
+James II., peaceably ascended the throne. She was thirty-seven years
+of age, a woman of great weaknesses, and possessing but few
+interesting qualities. Nevertheless, her reign is radiant with the
+glory of military successes, and adorned with every grace of fancy,
+wit, and style in literature. The personal talent and exclusive
+ambition of William suppressed the national genius; but the incapacity
+of Anne gave scope for the commanding abilities of Marlborough in the
+field, and Godolphin in the cabinet.
+
+The memorable events connected with her reign of twelve years, were,
+the war of the Spanish succession, in which Marlborough humbled the
+pride of Louis XIV.; the struggles of the Whigs and Tories; the union
+of Scotland with England; the discussion and settlement of great
+questions pertaining to the constitution, and the security of the
+Protestant religion; and the impulse which literature received from
+the constellation of learned men who were patronized by the
+government, and who filled an unusual place in public estimation.
+
+In a political point of view, this reign is but the continuation of
+the reign of William, since the same objects were pursued, the same
+policy was adopted, and the same great characters were intrusted with
+power. The animating object of William's life was the suppression of
+the power of Louis XIV.; and this object was never lost sight of by
+the English government under the reign of Anne.
+
+Hence the great political event of the reign was the war of the
+Spanish succession, which, however, pertains to the reign of Louis as
+well as to that of Anne. It was during this war that the great battles
+of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet attested the genius of the
+greatest military commander that England had ever sent into the field.
+It was this war which exhausted the energies and resources of all the
+contending states of Europe, and created a necessity for many years of
+slumbering repose. It was this war which completed the humiliation of
+a monarch who aspired to the sovereignty of Europe, which preserved
+the balance of power, and secured the liberties of Europe. Yet it was
+a war which laid the foundation of the national debt, inflamed the
+English mind with a mad passion for military glory, which demoralized
+the nation, and fostered those international jealousies and enmities
+which are still a subject of reproach to the two most powerful states
+of Europe. This war made England a more prominent actor on the arena
+of European strife, and perhaps contributed to her political
+aggrandizement. The greatness of the British empire begins to date
+from this period, although this greatness is more to be traced to
+colonial possessions, manufactures, and commercial wealth, than to the
+victories of Marlborough.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+It will ever remain an open question whether or not it was wise in the
+English nation to continue so long the struggle with Louis XIV. In a
+financial and material point of view, the war proved disastrous. But
+it is difficult to measure the real greatness of a country, and solid
+and enduring blessings, by pounds, shillings, and pence. All such
+calculations, however statistically startling, are erroneous and
+deceptive. The real strength of nations consists in loyalty,
+patriotism, and public spirit; and no sacrifices can be too great to
+secure these unbought blessings--"this cheap defence." If the
+victories of Marlborough secured these, gave dignity to the British
+name, and an honorable and lofty self-respect to the English people,
+they were not dearly purchased. But the settlement of these questions
+cannot be easily made.
+
+As to the remarkable genius of the great man who infused courage into
+the English mind, there can be no question. Marlborough, in spite of
+his many faults, his selfishness and parsimony, his ambition and
+duplicity, will ever enjoy an enviable fame. He was not so great a
+moral hero as William, nor did he contend against such superior forces
+as the royal hero. But he was a great hero, nevertheless. His glory
+was reached by no sudden indulgence of fortune, by no fortunate
+movements, by no accidental circumstances. His fame was progressive.
+He never made a great mistake; he never lost the soundness of his
+judgment. No success unduly elated him, and no reverses discouraged
+him. He never forgot the interests of the nation in his own personal
+annoyances or enmities. He was magnanimously indulgent to those Dutch
+deputies who thwarted his measures, criticized his plans, and lectured
+him on the art of war. The glory of his country was the prevailing
+desire of his soul. He was as great in diplomacy and statesmanship as
+on the field of Blenheim. He ever sacrificed his feelings as a
+victorious general to his duty as a subject. His sagacity was only
+equalled by his prudence and patience, and these contributed, as well
+as his personal bravery, to his splendid successes, which secured for
+him magnificent rewards--palaces and parks, peerages, and a nation's
+gratitude and praise.
+
+But there is a limit to all human glory. Marlborough was undermined by
+his political enemies, and he himself lost the confidence of the queen
+whom he had served, partly by his own imperious conduct, and partly
+from the overbearing insolence of his wife. From the height of popular
+favor, he descended to the depth of popular hatred. He was held up, by
+the sarcasm of the writers whom he despised, to derision and obloquy;
+was accused of insolence, cruelty, ambition, extortion, and avarice,
+discharged from his high offices, and obliged to seek safety by exile.
+He never regained the confidence of the nation, although, when he
+died, parliament decreed him a splendid funeral, and a grave in
+Westminster Abbey.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Marlborough.]
+
+In private life, he was amiable and kind; was patient under
+contradiction, and placid in manners; had great self-possession, and
+extraordinary dignity. His person was beautiful, and his address
+commanding. He was feared as a general, but loved as a man. He never
+lost his affections for his home, and loved to idolatry his imperious
+wife, his equal, if not superior, in the knowledge of human nature.
+These qualities as a man, a general, and a statesman, in spite of his
+defects, have immortalized his name, and he will, for a long time to
+come, be called, and called with justice, the _great_ Duke of
+Marlborough.
+
+Scarcely less than he, was Lord Godolphin, the able prime minister of
+Anne, with whom Marlborough was united by family ties, by friendship,
+by official relations, and by interest. He was a Tory by profession,
+but a Whig in his policy. He rose with Marlborough, and fell with him,
+being an unflinching advocate for the prosecution of the war to the
+utmost limits, for which his government was distasteful to the Tories.
+His life was not stainless; but, in an age of corruption, he ably
+administered the treasury department, and had control of unbounded
+wealth, without becoming rich--the highest praise which can ever be
+awarded to a minister of finance. It was only through the coöperation
+of this sagacious and far-sighted statesman that Marlborough himself
+was enabled to prosecute his brilliant military career.
+
+[Sidenote: Whigs and Tories.]
+
+It was during his administration that party animosity was at its
+height--the great struggle which has been going on, in England, for
+nearly two hundred years, between the Whigs and Tories. These names
+originated in the reign of Charles II., and were terms of reproach.
+The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to
+the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of
+the _Whigs_; and the country party pretended to find a resemblance
+between the courtiers and the Popish banditti of Ireland, to whom the
+appellation of _Tory_ was affixed. The High Church party and the
+advocates of absolutism belonged to the Tories; the more liberal party
+and the advocates of constitutional reform, to the Whigs. The former
+were conservative, the latter professed a sympathy with improvements.
+But the leaders of both parties were among the greatest nobles in the
+realm, and probably cared less for any great innovation than they did
+for themselves. These two great parties, in the progress of society,
+have changed their views, and the opinions once held by the Whigs were
+afterwards adopted by the Tories. On the whole, the Whigs were in
+advance in liberality of mind, and in enlightened plans of government.
+But both parties, in England, have ever been aristocratic, and both
+have felt nearly an equal disgust of popular influences. Charles and
+James sympathized with the Tories more than with the Whigs; but
+William III. was supported by the Whigs, who had the ascendency in his
+reign. Queen Anne was a Tory, as was to be expected from a princess of
+the house of Stuart; but, in the early part of her reign, was obliged
+to yield to the supremacy of the Whigs. The advocates for war were
+Whigs, and those who desired peace were Tories. The Whigs looked to
+the future glory of the country; the Tories, to the expenses which war
+created. The Tories at last got the ascendency, and expelled
+Godolphin, Marlborough, and Sunderland from power.
+
+Of the Tory leaders, Harley, (Earl of Oxford,) St. John, (Lord
+Bolingbroke,) the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Ormond, the Earl
+of Rochester, and Lord Dartmouth, were the most prominent, but this
+Tory party was itself divided, in consequence of jealousies between
+the chiefs, the intrigues of Harley, and the measureless ambition of
+Bolingbroke. Under the ascendency of the Tories the treaty of Utrecht
+was made, now generally condemned by historians of both Whig and Tory
+politics. It was disproportioned to the success of the war, although
+it secured the ends of the grand alliance.
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. Henry Sacheverell.]
+
+One of the causes which led to the overthrow of the Whigs was the
+impeachment and trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an event which excited
+intense interest at the time, and, though insignificant in itself,
+touched some vital principles of the constitution.
+
+This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation for
+learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, an
+outrageous Whig; but, finding his services disregarded, he became a
+violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and scurrilous
+rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the valuable
+living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his railings against
+the late king and the revolution at last attracted the notice of
+government; and for two sermons which he printed, and in which he
+inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive obedience,
+consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused the great
+principle of religious toleration, he was formally impeached. All
+England was excited by the trial. The queen herself privately
+attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted for his loyalty, and
+persecuted for defending his church. The finest orators and lawyers of
+the day put forth all their energies. Bishop Atterbury wrote for
+Sacheverell his defence, which was endorsed by a conclave of High
+Church divines. The result of the trial was the condemnation of the
+doctor, and with it the fall of his adversaries. He was suspended for
+three years, but his defeat was a triumph. He was received, in college
+halls and private mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the
+reverence of a saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The
+great body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles,
+took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers developed
+some great principles--led to the assertion of the doctrines of
+toleration; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of the state and
+church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be curbed and
+suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by opposing the bigoted
+Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justified the revolution, and
+upheld the conquest by William III. And their speeches are upon
+record, that they asserted the great principles of civil and religious
+liberty, in the face of all the authority, dignity, and wisdom of the
+realm. It is true they lost as a party, on account of the bigotry of
+the times; but they furnished another pillar to uphold the
+constitution, and adduced new and powerful arguments in support of
+constitutional liberty. The country gained, if they, as a party, lost;
+and though Sacheverell was lauded by his church, his conviction was a
+triumph to the friends of freedom. Good resulted in many other ways.
+Political leaders learned moral wisdom; they saw the folly of
+persecuting men for libels, when such men had the sympathy of the
+people; that such persecutions were undignified, and that, while they
+gained their end, they lost more by victory than by defeat. The trial
+of Sacheverell, while it brought to view more clearly some great
+constitutional truths, also more effectually advanced the liberty of
+the press; for, surely, restriction on the press is a worse evil, than
+the violence and vituperation of occasional libels.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of Scotland and England.]
+
+The great domestic event of this reign was doubtless the union of
+Scotland and England; a consummation of lasting peace between the two
+countries, which William III. had proposed. Nothing could be more
+beneficent for both the countries; and the only wonder is, that it was
+not done before, when James II. ascended the English throne; and
+nothing then, perhaps, prevented it, but the bitter jealousy which had
+so long existed between these countries; a jealousy, dislike, and
+prejudice which have hardly yet passed away.
+
+Scotland, until the reign of James II., was theoretically and
+practically independent of England, but was not so fortunately placed,
+as the latter country, for the development of energies. The country
+was smaller, more barren, and less cultivated. The people were less
+civilized; and had less influence on the political welfare of the
+state. The aristocracy were more powerful, and were more jealous of
+royal authority. There were constant feuds and jealousies between
+dominant classes, which checked the growth in political importance,
+wealth, and civilization. But the people were more generally imbued
+with the ultra principles of the Reformation, were more religious, and
+cherished a peculiar attachment to the Presbyterian form of church
+government, and a peculiar hatred of every thing which resembled Roman
+Catholicism. They were, moreover, distinguished for patriotism, and
+had great jealousy of English influences.
+
+James II. was the legitimate King of Scotland, as well as of England;
+but he soon acquired a greater love for England, than he retained for
+his native country; and England being the greater country, the
+interests of Scotland were frequently sacrificed to those of England.
+
+Queen Anne, as the daughter of James II., was also the legitimate
+sovereign of Scotland; and, on her decease, the Scotch were not bound
+to acknowledge the Elector of Hanover as their legitimate king.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Hamilton.]
+
+Many ardent and patriotic Scotchmen, including the Duke of Hamilton
+and Fletcher of Saltoun, deemed it a favorable time to assert, on the
+death of Queen Anne, their national independence, since the English
+government was neither just nor generous to the lesser country.
+
+Under these circumstances, there were many obstacles to a permanent
+union, and it was more bitterly opposed in Scotland than in England.
+The more patriotic desired complete independence. Many were jealous of
+the superior prosperity of England. The people in the Highlands and
+the north of Scotland were Jacobinical in their principles, and were
+attached to the Stuart dynasty. The Presbyterians feared the influence
+of English Episcopacy, and Scottish peers deprecated a servile
+dependence on the parliament of England.
+
+But the English government, on the whole, much as it hated Scotch
+Presbyterianism and Scotch influence, desired a union, in order to
+secure the peaceful succession of the house of Hanover, for the north
+of Scotland was favorable to the Stuarts, and without a union, English
+liberties would be endangered by Jacobinical intrigues. English
+statesmen felt this, and used every measure to secure this end.
+
+The Scotch were overreached. Force, bribery, and corruption were
+resorted to. The Duke of Hamilton proved a traitor, and the union was
+effected--a union exceedingly important to the peace of both
+countries, but especially desirable to England. Important concessions
+were made by the English, to which they were driven only by fear. They
+might have ruled Scotland as they did Ireland, but for the intrepidity
+and firmness of the Scotch, who while negotiations were pending,
+passed the famous Act of Security, by which the Scottish parliament
+decreed the succession in Scotland, on the death of the queen, open
+and elective; the independence and power of parliaments; freedom in
+trade and commerce; and the liberty of Scotland to engage or not in
+the English continental wars. The English parliament retaliated,
+indeed, by an act restricting the trade of Scotland, and declaring
+Scotchmen aliens throughout the English dominions. But the conflicts
+between the Whigs and Tories induced government to repeal the act; and
+the commissioners for the union secured their end.
+
+It was agreed, in the famous treaty they at last effected, that the
+two kingdoms of England and Scotland be united into one, by the name
+of _Great Britain_.
+
+That the succession to the United Kingdom shall remain to the Princess
+Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being
+Protestants; and that all Papists, and persons marrying Papists, shall
+be excluded from, and be forever incapable of inheriting, the crown of
+Great Britain;
+
+That the whole people of Great Britain shall be represented by one
+parliament, in which sixteen peers and forty-five commoners, chosen
+for Scotland, should sit and vote;
+
+That the subjects of the United Kingdom shall enjoy an entire freedom
+and intercourse of trade and navigation, and reciprocal communication
+of all other rights, privileges, and advantages belonging to the
+subjects of either kingdom;
+
+That the laws, in regard to public rights and civil government, shall
+be the same in both countries, but that no alteration shall be made in
+the laws respecting private rights, unless for the evident utility of
+the subjects residing in Scotland;
+
+That the Court of Session, and all other courts of judicature in
+Scotland, remain as before the union, subject, however, to such
+regulations as may be made by the parliament of Great Britain.
+
+Beside these permanent regulations, a sum of three hundred and
+ninety-eight thousand pounds was granted to Scotland, as an equivalent
+to the augmentation of the customs and excise.
+
+By this treaty, the Scotch became identified with the English in
+interest. They lost their independence; but they gained security and
+peace; and rose in wealth and consequence. The nation moreover, was
+burdened by the growth of the national debt. The advantage was mutual,
+but England gained the greater advantage by shifting a portion of her
+burdens on Scotland, by securing the hardy people of that noble
+country to fight her battles, and by converting a nation of enemies
+into a nation of friends.
+
+We come now to glance at those illustrious men who adorned the
+literature of England in this brilliant age, celebrated for political
+as well as literary writings.
+
+Of these, Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Bentley, Warburton, Arbuthnot,
+Gay, Pope, Tickell, Halifax, Parnell, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Steele,
+and Berkeley, were the most distinguished. Dryden belonged to the
+preceding age; to the period of license and gayety--the greatest but
+most immoral of all the great poets of England, from the time of
+Milton to that of Pope.
+
+[Sidenote: Wits of Queen Anne's Reign.]
+
+The wits of Queen Anne's reign were political writers as well as
+poets, and their services were sought for and paid by the great
+statesmen of the times, chiefly of the Tory party. Marlborough
+neglected the poets, and they contributed to undermine his power.
+
+Of these wits the most distinguished and respectable was Addison, born
+1672. He was well educated, and distinguished himself at Oxford, and
+was a fellow of Magdalen College. His early verses, which would now be
+pronounced very inferior, however attracted the notice of Dryden, then
+the great autocrat of letters, and the oracle of the literary clubs.
+At the age of twenty-seven, Addison was provided with a pension from
+the Whig government, and set out on his travels. He was afterwards
+made secretary to Lord Halifax, and elected a member of the House of
+Commons, but was never able to make a speech. He, however, made up for
+his failure as an orator by his power as a writer, being a perfect
+master of elegant satire. He was also charming in private
+conversation, and his society was much sought by eminent statesmen,
+scholars, and noblemen. In 1708, he became secretary for Ireland, and,
+while he resided at Dublin, wrote those delightful papers on which his
+fame chiefly rests. Not as the author of Rosamond, nor of Latin
+verses, nor of the treatise on Medals, nor of Letters from Italy, nor
+of the tragedy of Cato, would he now be known to us. His glory is
+derived from the Tatler and Spectator--an entirely new species of
+writing in his age, original, simple, and beautiful, but chiefly
+marked for polished and elegant satire against the follies and bad
+taste of his age. Moreover, his numbers of the Spectator are
+distinguished for elevation of sentiment, and moral purity, without
+harshness, and without misanthropy. He wrote three sevenths of that
+immortal production, and on every variety of subject, without any
+attempt to be eloquent or _intense_, without pedantry and without
+affectation. The success of the work was immense, and every one who
+could afford it, had it served on the breakfast table with the tea and
+toast. It was the general subject of conversation in all polite
+circles, and did much to improve the taste and reform the morals of
+the age. There was nothing which he so severely ridiculed as the show
+of learning without the reality, coxcombry in conversation,
+extravagance in dress, female flirts and butterflies, gay and
+fashionable women, and all false modesty and affectation. But he
+blamed without bitterness, and reformed without exhortation, while he
+exalted what was simple, and painted in most beautiful colors the
+virtues of contentment, simplicity, sincerity, and cheerfulness.
+
+His latter days were imbittered by party animosity, and the malignant
+stings of literary rivals. Nor was he happy in his domestic life,
+having married a proud countess, who did not appreciate his genius. He
+also became addicted to intemperate habits. Still he was ever honored
+and respected, and, when he died, was buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+[Sidenote: Swift.]
+
+Next to Addison in fame, and superior in genius, was Swift, born in
+Ireland, in 1677, educated at Dublin, and patronized by Sir William
+Temple. He was rewarded, finally, with the deanery of St. Patrick's.
+He was very useful to his party by his political writings; but his
+fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and his Gulliver's Travels, marked
+and disgraced by his savage sarcasm on woman, and his vilification of
+human nature. He was a great master of venomous satire. He spared
+neither friends nor enemies. He was ambitious, misanthropic and
+selfish. His treatment of woman was disgraceful and heartless in the
+extreme. But he was witty, learned, and natural. He was never known to
+laugh, while he convulsed the circles into which he was thrown. He was
+rough to his servants, insolent to inferiors, and sycophantic to men
+of rank. His distinguishing power was his unsparing and unscrupulous
+sarcasm and his invective was as dreadful as the personal ridicule of
+Voltaire. As a poet he was respectable, and as a writer he was
+original. He was indifferent to literary fame, and never attempted any
+higher style of composition than that in which he could excel. His
+last days were miserable, and he lingered a long while in hopeless and
+melancholy idiocy.
+
+[Sidenote: Pope--Bolingbroke--Gay--Prior.]
+
+Pope properly belongs to a succeeding age, though his first writings
+attracted considerable attention during the life of Addison, who first
+raised him from obscurity. He is the greatest, after Dryden, of all
+the second class poets of his country. His Rape of the Lock, the most
+original of his poems, established his fame. But his greatest works
+were the translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Dunciad, and his
+Essay on Man. He was well paid for his labors, and lived in a
+beautiful villa at Twickenham, the friend of Bolingbroke, and the
+greatest literary star of his age. But he was bitter and satirical,
+irritable, parsimonious, and vain. As a versifier, he has never been
+equalled. He died in 1744, in the Romish faith, beloved but by few,
+and disliked by the world generally.
+
+[Sidenote: Writers of the Age of Queen Anne.]
+
+Bolingbroke was not a poet, but a man of vast genius, a great
+statesman, and a great writer on history and political philosophy, a
+man of most fascinating manners and conversation, brilliant, witty,
+and learned, but unprincipled and intriguing, the great leader of the
+Tory party. Gay, as a poet, was respectable, but poor, unfortunate, a
+hanger on of great people, and miserably paid for his sycophancy. His
+fame rests on his Fables and his Beggar's Opera. Prior first made
+himself distinguished by his satire called A City Mouse and a Country
+Mouse, aimed against Dryden. He was well rewarded by government, and
+was sent as minister to Paris. Like most of the wits of his time, he
+was convivial, and not always particular in the choice of his
+associates. Humor was the natural turn of his mind. Steele was editor
+of the Spectator and wrote some excellent papers, although vastly
+inferior to Addison's. He is the father of the periodical essay, was a
+man of fashion and pleasure, and had great experience in the follies
+and vanities of the world. It is doubtful whether the writings of the
+great men who adorned the age of Anne will ever regain the ascendency
+they once enjoyed, since they have all been surpassed in succeeding
+times. They had not the fire, enthusiasm, or genius which satisfies
+the wants of the present generation. As poets, they had no greatness
+of fancy; and as philosophers, they were cold and superficial. Nor did
+they write for the people, but for the great, with whom they sought to
+associate, by whose praises they were consoled, and by whose bread
+they were sustained. They wrote for a class, and that class alone,
+that chiefly seeks to avoid ridicule and abstain from absurdity, that
+never attempts the sublime, and never sinks to the ridiculous; a class
+keen of observation, fond of the satirical, and indifferent to all
+institutions and enterprises which have for their object the elevation
+of the masses, or the triumph of the abstract principles of truth and
+justice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Lord Mahon's History of England, which
+     commences with the peace of Utrecht, is one of the most
+     useful and interesting works which have lately appeared.
+     Smollett's continuation of Hume should be consulted,
+     although the author was greater as a novelist than as an
+     historian. Burnet's history on this period is a standard.
+     Hallam should be read in reference to all constitutional
+     questions. Coxe's Life of Marlborough throws great light on
+     the period, and is very valuable. Macaulay's work will, of
+     course, be read. See, also, Bolingbroke's Letters, and the
+     Duke of Berwick's Memoirs. A chapter in the Pictorial
+     History is very good as to literary history and the progress
+     of the arts and sciences. See, also, Johnson's Lives of the
+     Poets; Nichols's Life of Addison; Scott's Life of Swift;
+     Macaulay's Essay on Addison; and the Spectator and Tatler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Early History of Russia.]
+
+While Louis XIV. was prosecuting his schemes of aggrandizement, and
+William III. was opposing those schemes; while Villeroy, Villars,
+Marlborough, and Eugene were contending, at the head of great armies,
+for their respective masters; a new power was arising at the north,
+destined soon to become prominent among the great empires of the
+world. The political importance of Russia was not appreciated at the
+close of the seventeenth century, until the great resources of the
+country were brought to the view of Europe by the extraordinary genius
+of Peter the Great.
+
+The history of Russia, before the reign of this great prince, has not
+excited much interest, and is not particularly eventful or important.
+The Russians are descended from the ancient Sclavonic race, supposed
+to be much inferior to the Germanic or Teutonic tribes, to whom most
+of the civilized nations of Europe trace their origin.
+
+The first great event in Russian history is the nominal conversion of
+a powerful king to Christianity, in the tenth century, named Vladimir,
+whose reign was a mixture of cruelty, licentiousness, and heroism.
+Seeing the necessity of some generally recognized religion, he sent
+ten of his most distinguished men into all the various countries then
+known, to examine their religious systems. Being semi-barbarians, they
+were disposed to recommend that form which had the most imposing
+ceremonial, and appealed most forcibly to the senses. The
+commissioners came to Mecca, but soon left with contempt, since
+Mohammedanism then made too great demands upon the powers of
+self-control, and prohibited the use of many things to which the
+barbarians were attached. They were no better pleased with the
+Manichean philosophy, which then extensively prevailed in the East;
+for this involved the settlement of abstract ideas, for which
+barbarians had no relish. They disliked Roman Catholicism, on account
+of the arrogant claims of the pope. Judaism was spurned, because it
+had no country, and its professors were scattered over the face of the
+earth. But the lofty minarets of St. Sophia, and the extravagant
+magnificence of the Greek worship, filled the commissioners with
+admiration; and they easily induced Vladimir to adopt the forms of the
+Greek Church; which has ever since been the established religion of
+Russia. But Christianity, in its corrupted form, failed to destroy,
+and scarcely alleviated, the traits of barbarous life. Old
+superstitions and vices prevailed; nor were the Russian territories on
+an equality with the Gothic kingdoms of Europe, in manners, arts
+learning, laws, or piety.
+
+[Sidenote: The Tartar Conquest.]
+
+When Genghis Khan, with his Tartar hordes, overran the world Russia
+was subdued, and Tartar princes took possession of the throne of the
+ancient czars. But the Russian princes, in the thirteenth century,
+recovered their ancient power. Alexander Nevsky performed exploits of
+great brilliancy; gained important victories over Danes, Swedes,
+Lithuanians, and Teutonic knights; and greatly enlarged the boundaries
+of his kingdom. In the fourteenth century, Moscow became a powerful
+city, to which was transferred the seat of government, which before
+was Novgorod. Under the successor of Ivan Kalita, the manners, laws,
+and institutions of the Russians became fixed, and the absolute power
+of the czars was established. Under Ivan III., who ascended the
+Muscovite throne in 1462, the Tartar rule was exterminated, and the
+various provinces and principalities, of which Russia was composed,
+were brought under a central government. The Kremlin, with its mighty
+towers and imposing minarets, arose in all the grandeur of Eastern art
+and barbaric strength. The mines of the country were worked, the roads
+cleared of banditti, and a code of laws established. The veil which
+concealed Russia from the rest of Europe was rent. An army of three
+hundred thousand men was enlisted, Siberia was discovered, the
+printing press introduced, and civilization commenced. But the czar
+was, nevertheless, a brutal tyrant and an abandoned libertine, who
+massacred his son, executed his nobles, and destroyed his cities.
+
+His successors were disgraced by every crime which degrades humanity;
+and the whole population remained in rudeness and barbarism,
+superstition and ignorance. The clergy wielded enormous power; which,
+however, was rendered subservient to the interests of absolutism.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Peter the Great.]
+
+Such was Russia, when Peter, the son of Alexis Michaelovitz, ascended
+the throne, in 1682--a boy, ten years of age. He early exhibited great
+sagacity and talent, but was addicted to gross pleasures. These,
+strangely, did not enervate him, or prevent him from making
+considerable attainments. But he was most distinguished for a military
+spirit, which was treated with contempt by the Regent Sophia, daughter
+of Alexis by a first marriage. As soon, however, as her eyes were open
+to his varied studies and his ambitious spirit, she became jealous,
+and attempted to secure his assassination. In this she failed, and the
+youthful sovereign reigned supreme in Moscow, at the age of seventeen.
+
+No sooner did he assume the reins of empire, than his genius blazed
+forth with singular brilliancy, and the rapid development of his
+powers was a subject of universal wonder. Full of courage and energy,
+he found nothing too arduous for him to undertake; and he soon
+conceived the vast project of changing the whole system of his
+government, and reforming the manners of his subjects.
+
+He first directed his attention to the art of war, and resolved to
+increase the military strength of his empire. With the aid of Le Fort,
+a Swiss adventurer, and Gordon, a Scotch officer, he instituted,
+gradually, a standing army of twenty thousand men, officered, armed,
+and disciplined after the European model; cut off the long beards of
+the soldiers, took away their robes, and changed their Asiatic dress.
+
+He then conceived the idea of a navy, which may be traced to his love
+of sailing in a boat, which he had learned to navigate himself. He
+studied assiduously the art of ship-building, and soon laid the
+foundation of a navy.
+
+His enterprising and innovating spirit created, as it was to be
+expected, considerable disaffection among the partisans of the old
+_régime_--the old officers of the army, and the nobles, stripped of
+many of their privileges. A rebellion was the consequence; which,
+however, was soon suppressed, and the conspirators were executed with
+unsparing cruelty.
+
+He then came to the singular resolution of visiting foreign countries,
+in order to acquire useful information, both in respect to the arts of
+government and the arts of civilization. Many amusing incidents are
+recorded of him in his travels. He journeyed incognito; clambered up
+the sides of ships, ascended the rigging, and descended into the hold;
+he hired himself out as a workman in Holland, lived on the wretched
+stipend which he earned as a ship-carpenter, and mastered all the
+details of ship-building. From Holland he went to England, where he
+was received with great honor by William III.; studied the state of
+manufactures and trades, and sought to gain knowledge on all common
+subjects. From England he went to Austria, intending to go afterwards
+to Italy; but he was compelled to return home, on account of a
+rebellion of the old military guard, called the _Strelitz_, who were
+peculiarly disaffected. But he easily suppressed the discontents, and
+punished the old soldiers with unsparing rigor. He even executed
+thirty with his own hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Peter's Reforms.]
+
+He then turned himself, in good earnest, to the work of reform. His
+passions were military, and he longed to conquer kingdoms and cities.
+But he saw no probability of success, unless he could first civilize
+his subjects, and teach the soldiers the great improvements in the art
+of war. In order to conquer, he resolved first to reform his nation.
+His desires were selfish, but happened to be directed into channels
+which benefited his country. Like Napoleon, his ruling passion was
+that of the aggrandizement of himself and nation. But Providence
+designed that his passions should be made subservient to the welfare
+of his race. It is to his glory that he had enlargement of mind
+sufficient to perceive the true sources of national prosperity. To
+secure this, therefore, became the aim of his life. He became a
+reformer; but a reformer, like Hildebrand, of the despotic school.
+
+The first object of all despots is the improvement of the military
+force. To effect this, he abolished the old privileges of the
+soldiers, disbanded them, and drafted them into the new regiments,
+which he had organized on the European plan.
+
+He found more difficulty in changing the dress of the people, who,
+generally, wore the long Asiatic robe, and the Tartar beard; and such
+was the opposition made by the people, that he was obliged to
+compromise the matter, and compelled all who would wear beards and
+robes to pay a heavy tax, except priests and peasants: having granted
+the indulgence to priests on account of the ceremonial of their
+worship, and to peasants in order to render their costume ignominious.
+
+His next important measure was the toleration of all religions, and
+all sects, with the exception of the Jesuits, whom he hated and
+feared. He caused the Bible to be translated into the Sclavonic
+language; founded a school for the marine, and also institutions for
+the encouragement of literature and art. He abolished the old and
+odious laws of marriage, by which women had no liberty in the choice
+of husbands. He suppressed all useless monasteries; taxed the clergy
+as well as the laity; humiliated the patriarch, and assumed many of
+his powers. He improved the administration of justice, mitigated laws
+in relation to woman, and raised her social rank. He established
+post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous police, hospitals and
+almshouses. He humbled the nobility, and abolished many of their
+privileges; for which the people honored him, and looked upon him as
+their benefactor.
+
+Having organized his army, and effected social reforms, he turned his
+attention to war and national aggrandizement.
+
+[Sidenote: His War with Charles XII.]
+
+[Sidenote: Charles XII.]
+
+His first war was with Sweden, then the most powerful of the northern
+states, and ruled by Charles XII., who, at the age of eighteen, had
+just ascended the throne. The _cause_ of the war was the desire of
+aggrandizement on the part of the czar; the _pretence_ was, the
+restitution of some lands which Sweden had obtained from Denmark
+and Poland. Taking advantage of the defenceless state of
+Sweden,--attacked, at that time, by Denmark on the one side, and by
+Poland on the other,--Peter invaded the territories of Charles with an
+army of sixty thousand men, and laid siege to Narva. The Swedish
+forces were only twenty thousand; but they were veterans, and they
+were headed by a hero. Notwithstanding the great disproportion between
+the contending parties, the Russians were defeated, although attacked
+in their intrenchments, and all the artillery fell into the hands of
+the Swedes. The victory at Narva settled the fame of Charles, but
+intoxicated his mind, and led to a presumptuous self-confidence; while
+the defeat of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make
+still greater exertions--one of the numerous instances, so often seen
+in human life, where defeat is better than victory. But the czar was
+conscious of his strength, and also of his weakness. He knew he had
+unlimited resources, but that his troops were inexperienced; and he
+made up his mind for disasters at the beginning, in the hope of
+victory in the end. "I know very well," said he, "that the Swedes will
+have the advantage over us for a considerable time; but they will
+teach us, at length, to beat them." The Swede, on the other hand, was
+intoxicated with victory, and acquired that fatal presumption which
+finally proved disastrous to himself and to his country. He despised
+his adversary; while Peter, without overrating his victorious enemy,
+was led to put forth new energies, and develop the great resources of
+his nation. He was sure of final success; and he who can be sustained
+by the consciousness of ultimate triumph, can ever afford to wait. It
+is the spirit which sustains the martyr. It constitutes the
+distinguishing element of enthusiasm and exalted heroism.
+
+But Peter not only made new military preparations, but prosecuted his
+schemes of internal improvement, and projected, after his unfortunate
+defeat at Narva, the union, by a canal, of the Baltic and Caspian
+Seas. About this time, he introduced into Russia flocks of Saxony
+sheep, erected linen and paper manufactories, built hospitals, and
+invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, to settle in his kingdom.
+But Charles thought only of war and glory, and did not reconstruct or
+reproduce. He pursued his military career by invading Poland, then
+ruled by the Elector of Saxony; while Peter turned his attention to
+the organization of new armies, melting bells into cannon,
+constructing fleets, and attending to all the complicated cares of a
+mighty nation with the most minute assiduity. He drew plans of
+fortresses, projected military reforms, and inspired his soldiers with
+his own enthusiasm. And his energy and perseverance were soon
+rewarded. He captured Marianburgh, a strong city on the confines of
+Livonia and Ingria, and among the captives was a young peasant girl,
+who eventually became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels
+Peter was much indebted for his great success.
+
+She was the daughter of a poor woman of Livonia; lost her mother at
+the age of three years; and, at that early age, attracted the notice
+of the parish clerk, a Lutheran clergyman: was brought up with his own
+daughters, and married a young sergeant of the army, who was killed in
+the capture of the city. She interested the Russian general, by her
+intense grief and great beauty; was taken into his family, and, soon
+after, won the favor of Prince Menzikoff, the prime minister of the
+czar; became mistress of his palace; there beheld Peter himself,
+captivated him, and was married to him,--at first privately, and
+afterwards publicly. Her rise, from so obscure a position, in a
+distant country town, to be the wife of the absolute monarch of an
+empire of thirty-three millions of people, is the most extraordinary
+in the history of the world. When she enslaved the czar by the power
+of her charms, she was only seventeen years of age; two years after
+the foundations of St. Petersburg were laid.
+
+[Sidenote: Building of St. Petersburg.]
+
+The building of this great northern capital was as extraordinary as
+the other great acts of this monarch. Amid the marshes, at the mouth
+of the Neva, a rival city to the ancient metropolis of the empire
+arose in five months. But one hundred thousand people perished during
+the first year, in consequence of the severity of their labors, and
+the pestilential air of the place. The new city was an object of as
+great disgust to the nobles of Russia and the inhabitants of the older
+cities, as it was the delight and pride of the czar, who made it the
+capital of his vast dominions. And the city was scarcely built, before
+its great commercial advantages were appreciated; and vessels from all
+parts of the world, freighted with the various treasures of its
+different kingdoms and countries, appeared in the harbor of Cronstadt.
+
+Charles XII. looked with contempt on the Herculean labors of his rival
+to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked "that the czar might
+amuse himself as he saw fit in building a city, but that he should
+soon take it from him, and set fire to his wooden house;" a bombastic
+boast, which, like most boasting, came most signally to nought.
+
+[Sidenote: New War with Sweden.]
+
+Indeed, success now turned in favor of Peter, whose forces had been
+constantly increasing, while those of Charles had been decreasing.
+City after city fell into the hands of Peter, and whole provinces were
+conquered from Sweden. Soon all Ingria was added to the empire of the
+czar, the government of which was intrusted to Menzikoff, a man of
+extraordinary abilities raised from obscurity, as a seller of pies in
+the streets of Moscow to be a prince of the empire. His elevation was
+a great mortification to the old and proud nobility. But Peter not
+only endeavored to reward and appropriate merit, but to humble the old
+aristocracy, who were averse to his improvements. And Peter was as
+cold and haughty to them, as he was free and companionable with his
+meanest soldiers. All great despots are indifferent to grades of rank,
+when their own elevation is above envy or the reach of ambition. The
+reward of merit by the czar, if it alienated the affections of his
+nobles, increased the veneration and enthusiasm of the people, who
+are, after all, the great permanent foundation on which absolute power
+rests; illustrated by the empire of the popes, as well as the
+despotism of Napoleon.
+
+While Peter contended, with various success, with the armies of
+Sweden, he succeeded in embroiling Sweden in a war with Poland, and in
+diverting Charles from the invasion of Russia. Had Charles, at first,
+and perseveringly, concentrated all his strength in an invasion of
+Russia, he might have changed the politics of Europe. But he was
+induced to invade Poland, and soon drove the luxurious and cowardly
+monarch from his capital and throne, and then turned towards Russia,
+to play the part of Alexander. But he did not find a Darius in the
+czar, who was ready to meet him, at the head of immense armies.
+
+The Russian forces amounted to one hundred thousand men; the Swedish
+to eighty thousand, and they were veterans. Peter did not venture to
+risk the fate of his empire, by a pitched battle, with such an army of
+victorious troops. So he attempted a stratagem, and succeeded. He
+decoyed the Swedes into a barren and wasted territory; and Charles,
+instead of marching to Moscow, as he ought to have done, followed his
+expected prey where he could get no provisions for his men, or forage
+for his horses. Exhausted by fatigue and famine, his troops drooped in
+the pursuit, and even suffered themselves to be diverted into still
+more barren sections. Under these circumstances, they were defeated in
+a disastrous battle. Charles, struck with madness, refused to retreat.
+Disasters multiplied. The victorious Russians hung upon his rear. The
+Cossacks cut off his stragglers. The army of eighty thousand melted
+away to twenty-five thousand. Still the infatuated Swede dreamed of
+victory, and expected to see the troops of his enemy desert. The
+winter set in with its northern severity, and reduced still further
+his famished troops. He lost time by marches and counter-marches,
+without guides, and in the midst of a hostile population. At last he
+reached Pultowa, a village on the banks of the Vorskla. Peter hastened
+to meet him, with an army of sixty thousand, and one of the bloodiest
+battles in the history of war was fought. The Swedes performed
+miracles of valor. But valor could do nothing against overwhelming
+strength. A disastrous defeat was the result, and Charles, with a few
+regiments, escaped to Turkey.
+
+Had the battle of Pultowa been decided differently; had Charles
+conquered instead of Peter, or had Peter lost his life, the empire of
+Russia would probably have been replunged into its original barbarism,
+and the balance of power, in Europe, been changed.
+
+[Sidenote: War with the Turks.]
+
+But Providence, which ordained the civilization of Russia, also
+ordained that the triumphant czar should not be unduly aggrandized,
+and should himself learn lessons of humility. The Turks, in
+consequence of the intrigues of Charles, and their hereditary
+jealousy, made war upon Peter, and advanced against him with an army
+of two hundred and fifty thousand men. His own army was composed of
+only forty thousand. He was also indiscreet, and soon found himself in
+the condition of Charles at Pultowa. On the banks of the Pruth, in
+Moldavia, he was surrounded by the whole Turkish force, and famine or
+surrender seemed inevitable. It was in this desperate and deplorable
+condition that he was rescued by the Czarina Catharine, by whose
+address a treaty was made with his victorious enemy, and Peter was
+allowed to retire with his army. Charles XII. was indignant beyond
+measure with the Turkish general, for granting such easy conditions,
+when he had the czar in his power; and to his reproaches the vizier of
+the sultan replied, "I have a right to make peace or war; and our law
+commands us to grant peace to our enemies, when they implore our
+clemency." Charles replied with an insult; and, though a fugitive in
+the Turkish camp, he threw himself on a sofa, contemptuously cast his
+eye on all present, stretched out his leg, and entangled his spur in
+the vizier's robe; which insult the magnanimous Turk affected to
+consider an accident.
+
+After the defeat of Peter on the banks of the Pruth, he devoted
+himself with renewed energy to the improvement of his country. He
+embellished St. Petersburg, his new capital, with palaces, churches,
+and arsenals. He increased his army and navy, strengthened himself by
+new victories, and became gradually master of both sides of the Gulf
+of Finland, by which his vast empire was protected from invasion.
+
+[Sidenote: Peter Makes a Second Tour.]
+
+He now reached the exalted height to which he had long aspired. He
+assumed the title of _emperor_, and his title was universally
+acknowledged. He then meditated a second tour of Europe, with a view
+to study the political constitutions of the various states. Thirteen
+years had elapsed, since, as a young enthusiast, he had visited
+Amsterdam and London. He now travelled, a second time, with the
+additional glory of a great name, and in the full maturity of his
+mind. He visited Hamburg, Stockholm, Lubec, Amsterdam, and Paris. At
+this latter place he was much noticed. Wherever he went, his course
+was a triumphal procession. But he disdained flattery, and was wearied
+with pompous ceremonies. He could not be flattered out of his
+simplicity, or the zeal of acquiring useful knowledge. He visited all
+the works of art, and was particularly struck with the Gobelin
+tapestries and the tomb of Richelieu. "Great man," said he,
+apostrophizing his image, "I would give half of my kingdom to learn of
+thee how to govern the other half." His residence in Paris inspired
+all classes with profound respect; and from Paris he went to Berlin.
+There he found sympathy with Frederic William, whose tastes and
+character somewhat resembled his own; and from him he learned many
+useful notions in the art of government. But he was suddenly recalled
+from Berlin by the bad conduct of his son Alexis, who was the heir to
+his throne. He was tried, condemned, disgraced, humiliated, and
+disinherited. He probably would have been executed by his hard and
+rigorous father, had he not died in prison. He was hostile to his
+father's plans of reform, and indecently expressed a wish for his
+death. The conduct of Peter towards him is generally considered harsh
+and unfeeling; but it has many palliations, if the good of his
+subjects and the peace of the realm are more to be desired than the
+life of an ignominious prince.
+
+Peter prosecuted his wars and his reforms. The treaty of Neustadt
+secured to Russia, after twenty years of unbroken war, a vast increase
+of territory, and placed her at the head of the northern powers. The
+emperor also enriched his country by opening new branches of trade,
+constructing canals, rewarding industry, suppressing gambling and
+mendicity, introducing iron and steel manufacture, building cities,
+and establishing a vigorous police.
+
+[Sidenote: Elevation of Catharine.]
+
+After having settled the finances and trade of his empire, subdued his
+enemies at home and abroad, and compelled all the nobles and clergy to
+swear fealty to the person whom he should select as his successor, he
+appointed his wife, Catharine; and she was solemnly crowned empress in
+1724, he himself, at her inauguration, walking on foot, as captain of
+her guard. He could not have made a better choice, as she was, in all
+substantial respects, worthy of the exalted position to which she was
+raised.
+
+In about a year after, he died, leaving behind him his principles and
+a mighty name. Other kings have been greater generals; but few have
+derived from war greater success. Some have commanded larger armies;
+but he created those which he commanded. Many have destroyed; but he
+reconstructed. He was a despot, but ruled for the benefit of his
+country. He was disgraced by violent passions, his cruelty was
+sanguinary, and his tastes were brutal; but his passions did not
+destroy his judgment, nor his appetites make him luxurious. He was
+incessantly active and vigilant, his prejudices were few, and his
+views tolerant and enlightened. He was only cruel when his authority
+was impeached. His best portraiture is in his acts. He found a country
+semi-barbarous, convulsed by disorders, a prey to petty tyrannies,
+weak from disunion, and trembling before powerful neighbors. He left
+it a first-class power, freed in a measure from its barbarous customs,
+improved in social life, in arts, in science, and, perhaps, in morals.
+He left a large and disciplined army, a considerable navy, and
+numerous institutions for the civilization of the people. He left
+more--the moral effect of a great example, of a man in the possession
+of unbounded riches and power, making great personal sacrifices to
+improve himself in the art of governing for the welfare of the
+millions over whom he was called to rule. These virtues and these acts
+have justly won for him the title of Peter the _Great_--a title which
+the world has bestowed upon but few of the great heroes of ancient or
+modern times.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Early History of Sweden.]
+
+The reign of Charles XII. is intimately connected with that of Peter
+the Great; these monarchs being contemporaries and rivals, both
+reigning in northern countries of great extent and comparative
+barbarism. The reign of Peter was not so exclusively military as that
+of Charles, with whom war was a passion and a profession. The interest
+attached to Charles arises more from his eccentricities and brilliant
+military qualities, than from any extraordinary greatness of mind or
+heart. He was barbarous in his manners, and savage in his resentments;
+a stranger to the pleasures of society, obstinate, revengeful,
+unsympathetic, and indifferent to friendship and hatred. But he was
+brave, temperate, generous, intrepid in danger, and firm in
+misfortune.
+
+Before his singular career can be presented, attention must be
+directed to the country over which he reigned, and which will be
+noticed in connection with Denmark; these two countries forming a
+greater part of the ancient Scandinavia, from which our Teutonic
+ancestors migrated, the land of Odin, and Frea, and Thor, those
+half-fabulous deities, concerning whom there are still divided
+opinions; some supposing that they were heroes, and others,
+impersonations of virtues, or elements and wonders of nature.
+The mythology of Greece does not more fully abound with gods and
+goddesses, than that of the old Scandinavia with rude deities,--dwarfs,
+and elfs, and mountain spirits. It was in these northern regions that
+the Normans acquired their wild enthusiasm, their supernatural daring,
+and their magnificent superstitions. It was from these regions that
+the Saxons brought their love of liberty, their spirit of enterprise,
+and their restless passion for the sea. The ancient Scandinavians were
+heroic, adventurous, and chivalrous robbers, holding their women in
+great respect, and profoundly reverential in their notions of a
+supreme power. They were poor in silver, in gold, in the fruits of the
+earth, in luxuries, and in palaces, but rich in poetic sentiments and
+in religious ideas. Their chief vices were those of gluttony and
+intemperance, and their great pleasures were those of hunting and
+gambling.
+
+Fabulous as are most of their legends as to descent, still Scandinavia
+was probably peopled with hardy races before authentic history
+commences. Under different names, and at different times, they invaded
+the Roman empire. In the fifth century, they had settled in its
+desolated provinces--the Saxons in England, the Goths in Spain and
+Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Burgundians in France, and the
+Lombards in Italy.
+
+Among the most celebrated of these northern Teutonic nations were the
+pirates who invaded England and France, under the name of _Northmen_.
+They came from Denmark, and some of their chieftains won a great name
+in their generation, such as Harold, Canute, Sweyn, and Rollo.
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction of Christianity.]
+
+Christianity was probably planted in Sweden about the middle of the
+ninth century. St. Anscar, a Westphalian monk, was the first
+successful missionary, and he was made Archbishop of Hamburg, and
+primate of the north.
+
+The early history of the Swedes and Danes resembles that of England
+under the Saxon princes, and they were disgraced by the same great
+national vices. During the Middle Ages, no great character appeared
+worthy of especial notice. Some of the more powerful kings, such as
+Valdemar I. and II., and Canute VI., had quarrels with the Emperors of
+Germany, and invaded some provinces of their empire. Some of these
+princes were warriors, some cruel tyrants, none very powerful, and all
+characterized by the vices of their age--treachery, hypocrisy, murder,
+drunkenness, and brutal revenge.
+
+The most powerful of these kings was Christian I., who founded the
+dynasty of Oldenburgh, and who united under his sway the kingdoms of
+Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. He reigned from 1448 to 1481; and in his
+family the crown of Sweden remained until the revolution effected by
+Gustavus Vasa, in 1525, and by which revolution Sweden was made
+independent of Denmark.
+
+[Sidenote: Gustavus Vasa.]
+
+Gustavus Vasa was a nobleman descended from the ancient kings of
+Sweden, and who, from the oppression to which his country was
+subjected by Christian and the Archbishop of Upsal, was forced to seek
+refuge amid the forests of Dalecarlia. When Stockholm was pillaged and
+her noblest citizens massacred by the cruel tyrant of the country,
+Gustavus headed an insurrection, defeated the king's forces, and was
+made king himself by the Diet. He, perceiving that the Catholic clergy
+were opposed to the liberties and the great interests of his country,
+seized their fortresses and lands, became a convert to the doctrine of
+the reformers, and introduced Lutheranism into the kingdom, which has
+ever since been the established religion of Sweden. He was despotic in
+his government, but ruled for the good of his subjects, and was
+distinguished for many noble qualities.
+
+The celebrated Gustavus Adolphus was his descendant, and was more
+absolute and powerful than even Gustavus Vasa. But he is chiefly
+memorable as the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, and as the
+greatest general of his age. Under his sway, Sweden was the most
+powerful of the northern kingdoms.
+
+He was succeeded by his daughter Christina, a woman of most
+extraordinary qualities; a woman of genius, of taste, and of culture;
+a woman who, at twenty-seven, became wearied of the world, and of the
+enjoyment of unlimited power, and who changed her religion, retired
+from her country, and abdicated her throne, that she might,
+unmolested, enjoy the elegant pleasures of Rome, and be solaced by the
+literature, religion, and art of that splendid capital. It was in the
+society of men of genius that she spent most of her time, and was the
+life of the most intellectual circle which then existed in Europe.
+
+She was succeeded by her cousin, who was elected King of Sweden, by
+the title of _Charles Gustavus X._, and he was succeeded by Charles
+XI., the father of Charles XII.
+
+Charles XII. was fifteen years of age when he came to the throne, in
+the year 1697, and found his country strong in resources, and his army
+the best disciplined in Europe. His territories were one third larger
+than those of France when ruled by Louis XIV., though not so thickly
+populated.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Days of Charles XII.]
+
+The young monarch, at first, gave but few indications of the
+remarkable qualities which afterwards distinguished him. He was idle,
+dissipated, haughty, and luxurious. When he came to the council
+chamber, he was absent and indifferent, and generally sat with both
+legs thrown across the table.
+
+But his lethargy and indifference did not last long. Three great
+monarchs had conspired to ruin him, and dismember his kingdom. These
+were the Czar Peter, Frederic IV. of Denmark, and Frederic Augustus,
+King of Poland, and also Elector of Saxony; and their hostile armies
+were on the point of invading his country.
+
+The greatness of the danger brought to light his great qualities. He
+vigorously prepared for war. His whole character changed. Quintus
+Curtius became his text-book, and Alexander his model. He spent no
+time in sports or magnificence. He clothed himself like a common
+soldier, whose hardships he resolved henceforth to share. He forswore
+the society and the influence of woman. He relinquished wine and all
+the pleasures of the table. Love of glory became his passion, and
+continued through life; and this ever afterwards made him insensible
+to reproach, danger, toil, fear, hunger, and pain. Never was a more
+complete change effected in a man's moral character; and never was an
+improved moral character consecrated to a worse end. He was not
+devoted to the true interests of his country, but to a selfish, base,
+and vain passion for military fame.
+
+But his conduct, at first, called forth universal admiration. His
+glorious and successful defence against enemies apparently
+overwhelming gave him a great military reputation, and secured for him
+the sympathies of Christendom. Had he died when he had repelled the
+Russian, the Danish, and the Polish armies, he would have secured as
+honorable an immortality as that of Gustavus Adolphus. But he was not
+permitted to die prematurely, as was his great ancestor. He lived long
+enough to become intoxicated with success, to make great political
+blunders, and to suffer the most fatal and mortifying misfortunes.
+
+The commencement of his military career was beautifully heroic.
+"Gentlemen," said the young monarch of eighteen to his counsellors,
+when he meditated desperate resistance, "I am resolved never to begin
+an unjust war, and never to finish a just one but with the destruction
+of my enemies."
+
+[Sidenote: Charles's Heroism.]
+
+In six weeks he finished, after he had begun, the Danish war having
+completely humbled his enemy, and succored his brother-in-law, the
+Duke of Holstein.
+
+His conflict with Peter has been presented, when with twenty thousand
+men he attacked and defeated sixty thousand Russians in their
+intrenchments, took one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and killed
+eighteen thousand men. The victory of Narva astonished all Europe, and
+was the most brilliant which had then been gained in the annals of
+modern warfare.
+
+Charles was equally successful against Frederic Augustus. He routed
+his Saxon troops, and then resolved to dethrone him, as King of
+Poland. And he succeeded so far as to induce the Polish Diet to
+proclaim the throne vacant. Augustus was obliged to fly, and
+Stanislaus Leczinski was chosen king in his stead, at the nomination
+of the Swedish conqueror. The country was subjugated, and Frederic
+Augustus became a fugitive.
+
+But Charles was not satisfied with expelling him from Poland. He
+resolved to attack him also in Saxony itself. Saxony was then, next to
+Austria, the most powerful of the German states. Nevertheless, Saxony
+could not arrest the victorious career of Charles. The Saxons fled as
+he approached. He penetrated to the heart of the electorate, and the
+unfortunate Frederic Augustus was obliged to sue for peace, which was
+only granted on the most humiliating terms; which were, that the
+elector should acknowledge Stanislaus as king of Poland; that he
+should break all his treaties with Russia, and should deliver to the
+King of Sweden all the men who had deserted from his army. The humbled
+elector sought a personal interview with Charles, after he had signed
+the conditions of peace, with the hope of securing better terms. He
+found Charles in his jack boots, with a piece of black taffeta round
+his neck for a cravat, and clothed in a coarse blue coat with brass
+buttons. His conversation turned wholly on his jack boots; and this
+trifling subject was the only one on which he would deign to converse
+with one of the most accomplished monarchs of his age.
+
+Charles had now humbled and defeated all his enemies. He should now
+have returned to Sweden, and have cultivated the arts of peace. But
+peace and civilization were far from his thoughts. The subjugation of
+all the northern powers became the dream of his life. He invaded
+Russia, resolved on driving Peter from his throne.
+
+[Sidenote: His Misfortunes.]
+
+He was eminently successful in defensive war, and eminently
+unsuccessful in aggressive war. Providence benevolently but singularly
+comes to the aid of all his children in distress and despair. Men are
+gloriously strong in defending their rights; but weak, in all their
+strength, when they assail the rights of others. So signal is this
+fact, that it blazes upon all the pages of history, and is illustrated
+in common life as well as in the affairs of nations.
+
+When Charles turned as an assailant of the rights of his enemies, his
+unfortunate reverses commenced. At the head of forty-three thousand
+veterans, loaded with the spoils of Poland and Saxony, he commenced
+his march towards Russia. He had another army in Poland of twenty
+thousand, and another in Finland of fifteen thousand. With these he
+expected to dethrone the czar.
+
+His mistakes and infatuation have been noticed, and his final defeat
+at Pultowa, a village at the eastern extremity of the Ukraine. This
+battle was more decisive than that of Narva; for in the latter the
+career of Peter was only arrested, but in the former the strength of
+Charles was annihilated. And so would have been his hopes, had he been
+an ordinary man. But he was a madman, and still dreamed of victory,
+with only eighteen hundred men to follow his fortunes into Turkey,
+which country he succeeded in reaching.
+
+His conduct in Turkey was infamous and extraordinary. No reasonings
+can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. At first, he
+employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising schemes to embark
+the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier was flattered and
+assailed. He rejected every overture for his peaceable return. He
+lingered five years in endless intrigues and negotiations, in order to
+realize the great dream of his life--the dethronement of the czar. He
+lived recklessly on the bounty of the sultan, taking no hints that
+even imperial hospitality might be abused and exhausted. At last, his
+inflexible obstinacy and dangerous intrigues so disgusted his generous
+host, that he was urged to return, with the offer of a suitable
+escort, and a large sum of money. He accepted and spent the twelve
+hundred purses, and still refused to return. The displeasure of the
+Sultan Achmet was now fairly excited. It was resolved upon by the
+Porte that he should be removed by force, since he would not be
+persuaded. But Charles resisted the troops of the sultan who were
+ordered to remove him. With sixty servants he desperately defended
+himself against an army of janizaries, and killed twenty of them with
+his own hand; and it was not until completely overwhelmed and
+prostrated that he hurled his sword into the air. He was now a
+prisoner of war, and not a guest; but still he was treated with the
+courtesy and dignity due to a king, and conducted in a chariot covered
+with gold and scarlet to Adrianople. From thence he was removed to
+Demotica, where he renewed his intrigues, and zealously kept his bed,
+under pretence of sickness, for ten months.
+
+While he remained in captivity, Frederic Augustus recovered the crown
+of Poland, King Stanislaus was taken by the Turks, and Peter continued
+his conquest of Ingria, Livonia, and Finland, provinces belonging to
+Sweden. The King of Prussia also invaded Pomerania, and Frederic IV.
+of Denmark claimed Bremen, Holstein, and Scania. The Swedes were
+divested of all their conquests, and one hundred and fifty thousand of
+them became prisoners in foreign lands.
+
+Such were the reverses of a man who had resolved to play the part of
+Alexander, but who, so long as he contented himself with defending his
+country against superior forces, was successful, and won a fame so
+great, that his misfortunes could never reduce him to contempt.
+
+[Sidenote: Charles's Return to Sweden.]
+
+When all was lost, he signified to the Turkish vizier his desire to
+return to Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his master of
+so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his country impoverished,
+but not discouraged. The charm of his name was broken. His soldiers
+were as brave and devoted as ever, but his resources were exhausted.
+He succeeded, however, in raising thirty-five thousand men, in order
+to continue his desperate game of conquest, not of defence. Europe
+beheld the extraordinary spectacle of this infatuated hero passing, in
+the depth of a northern winter, over the frozen hills and ice-bound
+rocks of Norway, with his devoted army, in order to conquer that
+hyperborean region. So inured was he to cold and fatigue, that he
+slept in the open air on a bed of straw, covered only with his cloak,
+while his soldiers dropped down dead at their posts from cold. In the
+month of December, 1718, he commenced the siege of Fredericshall, a
+place of great strength and importance, but, having exposed himself
+unnecessarily, was killed by a ball from the fortress. Many, however,
+suppose that he was assassinated by his own officers who were wearied
+with endless war, from which they saw nothing but disaster to their
+exhausted country.
+
+[Sidenote: His Death.]
+
+His death was considered as a signal for the general cessation of
+arms; but Sweden never recovered from the mad enterprises of
+Charles XII. It has never since been a first class power. The national
+finances were disordered, the population decimated, and the provinces
+dismembered. Peter the Great gained what his rival lost. We cannot but
+compassionate a nation that has the misfortune to be ruled by such an
+absolute and infatuated monarch as was Charles XII. He did nothing for
+the civilization of his subjects, or to ameliorate the evils he
+caused. He was, like Alaric or Attila, a scourge of the Almighty, sent
+on earth for some mysterious purpose, to desolate and to destroy. But
+he died unlamented and unhonored. No great warrior in modern times has
+received so little sympathy from historians, since he was not exalted
+by any great moral qualities of affection or generosity, and
+unscrupulously sacrificed both friends and enemies to gratify a
+selfish and a depraved passion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Voltaire's History of Russia, a very attractive
+     book, on account of its lively style. Voltaire's Life of
+     Charles XII., also, is equally fascinating. There are
+     tolerable histories of both Russia and Sweden in Lardner's
+     Cabinet Cyclopedia; also in the Family Library. See, also, a
+     History of Russia and Sweden in the Universal History.
+     Russell's Modern Europe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of George I.]
+
+Queen Anne died in 1714, soon after the famous treaty of Utrecht was
+made, and by which the war of the Spanish Succession was closed. She
+was succeeded by George I., Elector of Hanover. He was grandson of
+Elizabeth, only daughter of James I., who had married Frederic, the
+King of Bohemia. He was fifty-four years of age when he ascended the
+English throne, and imperfectly understood the language of the nation
+whom he was called upon to govern.
+
+George I. was not a sovereign who materially affected the interests or
+destiny of England; nor was he one of those interesting characters
+that historians love to delineate. It is generally admitted that he
+was respectable, prudent, judicious, and moral; amiable in his temper,
+sincere in his intercourse, and simple in his habits,--qualities which
+command respect, but not those which dazzle the people. It is supposed
+that he tolerably understood the English Constitution, and was willing
+to be fettered by the restraints which the parliaments imposed. He
+supported the Whigs,--the dominant party of the time,--and sympathized
+with liberal principles, so far as a monarch can be supposed to
+advance the interests of the people, and the power of a class ever
+hostile to the prerogatives of royalty. He acquiesced in the rule of
+his ministers--just what was expected of him, and just what was wanted
+of him; and became--what every King of England, when popular, has
+since been--the gilded puppet of a powerful aristocracy. His social
+and constitutional influence was not, indeed, annihilated; he had the
+choice of ministers, and collected around his throne the great and
+proud, who looked to him as the fountain of all honor and dignity.
+But, still, from the accession of the house of Hanover the political
+history of England is a history of the acts of parliaments, and of
+those ministers who represented the dominant parties of the nation.
+Few nobles were as great as some under the Tudor and Stuart princes;
+but the power of the aristocracy, as a class, was increased. From the
+time of George I. to Queen Victoria, the ascendency of the parliaments
+has been most marked composed chiefly of nobles, great landed
+proprietors, and gigantic commercial monopolists. The people have not
+been, indeed, unheard or unrepresented; but, literally speaking, have
+had but a feeble influence, compared with the aristocracy. Parliaments
+and ministers, therefore, may be not unjustly said to be the
+representatives of the aristocracy--of the wise, the mighty, and the
+noble.
+
+When power passes from kings to nobles, then the acts of nobles
+constitute the genius of political history, as fully as the acts of
+kings constitute history when kings are absolute, and the acts of the
+people constitute history where the people are all-powerful.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Robert Walpole.]
+
+A notice, therefore, of that great minister who headed the Whig party
+of aristocrats, and who, as their organ, swayed the councils of
+England for nearly forty years, demands our attention. His political
+career commenced during the reign of Anne, and continued during the
+reign of George I., and part of the reign of George II. George I., as
+a man or as a king, dwindled into insignificance, when compared with
+his prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. And he is great, chiefly, as
+the representative of the Whigs; that is, of the dominant party of
+rich and great men who sat in parliament; a party of politicians who
+professed more liberal principles than the Tories, but who were
+equally aristocratic in the social sympathies, and powerful from
+aristocratic connections. What did the great Dukes of Devonshire or
+Bedford care for the poor people, who, politically, composed no part
+of the nation? But they were Whigs, and King George himself was a
+Whig.
+
+Sir Robert belonged to an ancient, wealthy, and honorable family; was
+born 1676, and received his first degree at King's College, Cambridge,
+in 1700. He entered parliament almost immediately after, became an
+active member, sat on several committees, and soon distinguished
+himself for his industry and ability. He was not eloquent, but
+acquired considerable skill as a debater. In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the
+prime minister of Anne, made him one of the council to Prince George
+of Denmark; in 1706, Marlborough selected him as secretary of war; in
+1709, he was made treasurer of the navy; and in 1710, he was the
+acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He lost office, however,
+when the Whigs lost power, in 1710; was subjected to cruel political
+persecution, and even impeached, and imprisoned in the Tower. This
+period is memorable for the intense bitterness and severe conflicts
+between the Whigs and Tories; not so much on account of difference of
+opinion on great political principles, as the struggle for the
+possession of place and power.
+
+On the accession of George I., Walpole became paymaster of the forces,
+one of the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. Townshend was made
+secretary of state. The other great official dignitaries were the
+Lords Cowper, Marlborough, Wharton, Sunderland, Devonshire, Oxford, and
+Somerset; but Townshend and Walpole were the most influential. They
+impeached their great political enemies, Ormond and Bolingbroke, the
+most distinguished leaders of the Tory party. Bolingbroke, in genius
+and learning, had no equal in parliament, and was a rival of Walpole
+at Eton.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pretender.]
+
+The first event of importance, under the new ministry, was the
+invasion of Great Britain by the Pretender--the Prince James Frederic
+Edward Stuart, only son of James II. His early days were spent at St.
+Germain's, the palace which the dethroned monarch enjoyed by the
+hospitality of Louis XIV. He was educated under influences entirely
+unfavorable to the recovery of his natural inheritance, and was a
+devotee to the pope and the interests of absolutism. But he had his
+adherents, who were called _Jacobites_, and who were chiefly to be
+found in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1705, an unsuccessful effort
+had been made to regain the throne of his father, but the disasters
+attending it prevented him from milking any renewed effort until the
+death of Anne.
+
+When she died, many discontented Tories fanned the spirit of
+rebellion; and Bishop Atterbury, a distinguished divine, advocated the
+claims of the Pretender. Scotland was ripe for revolt. Alarming riots
+took place in England. William III. was burned in effigy at
+Smithfield. The Oxford students pulled down a Presbyterian
+meeting-house, and the sprig of oak was publicly displayed on the 29th
+of May. The Earl of Mar hurried into Scotland to fan the spirit of
+insurrection; while the gifted, brilliant, and banished Bolingbroke
+joined the standard of the chevalier. The venerable and popular Duke
+of Ormond also assisted him with his counsels.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Scotland.]
+
+Advised by these great nobles, assisted by the King of France, and
+flattered by the Jacobite faction, the Pretender made preparations to
+recover his rights. His prospects were apparently better than were
+those of William, when he landed in England. The Earl of Mar was at
+the head of ten thousand men; but the chevalier was no general, and
+was unequal to his circumstances. When he landed in Scotland, he
+surrendered himself to melancholy and inaction. His sadness and
+pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band of followers. He retreated
+before inferior forces, and finally fled from the country which he had
+invaded. The French king was obliged to desert his cause, and the
+Pretender retreated to Italy, and died at the advanced age of
+seventy-nine, after witnessing the defeat of his son, Charles Edward,
+whose romantic career and misfortunes cannot now be mentioned. By the
+flight of the Pretender from Scotland, in 1715, the insurrection was
+easily suppressed, and the country was not molested by the intrigues
+of the Stuart princes for thirty years.
+
+The year which followed the invasion of Scotland was signalized by the
+passage of a great bill in parliament, which is one of the most
+important events in parliamentary history. In 1716, the famous
+Septennial Act, which prolonged parliament from three to seven years,
+was passed. So many evils, practically, resulted from frequent
+elections, that the Whigs resolved to make a change; and the change
+contributed greatly to the tranquillity of the country, and the
+establishment of the House of Brunswick. The duration of the English
+parliament has ever since, constitutionally, been extended to seven
+years, but the average duration of parliaments has been six years--the
+term of office of the senators of the United States.
+
+After the passage of the Septennial Act, the efforts of Walpole were
+directed to a reduction of the national debt. He was then secretary of
+the treasury. But before he could complete his financial reforms, he
+was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the
+influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of
+Sunderland, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was
+at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared to the Whigs by
+his steady attachment to their principles. He had expected, and
+probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the administration.
+When disappointed, he bent all his energies to undermine Townsend and
+Walpole, and succeeded for a while. But Walpole's opposition to the
+new administration was so powerful, that it did not last long.
+Sunderland had persuaded the king to renounce his constitutional
+prerogative of creating peers; and a bill, called the _Peerage Bill_,
+was proposed, which limited the House of Lords to its actual existing
+number, the tendency of which was to increase the power and rank of
+the existing peers, and to raise an eternal bar to the aspirations of
+all commoners to the peerage, and thus widen the gulf between the
+aristocracy and the people. Walpole presented these consequences so
+forcibly, and showed so clearly that the proposed bill would diminish
+the consequence of the landed gentry, and prove a grave to honorable
+merit, that the Commons were alarmed, and rejected the bill by a large
+and triumphant majority of two hundred and sixty-nine to one hundred
+and seventy-seven.
+
+The defeat of this bill, and the great financial embarrassments of the
+country, led to the restoration of Walpole to office. His genius was
+eminently financial, and his talents were precisely those which have
+ever since been required of a minister--those which characterized Sir
+Robert Peel and William Pitt. The great problem of any government is,
+how to raise money for its great necessities; and the more complicated
+the relations of society are, the more difficult becomes the problem.
+
+[Sidenote: The South Sea Bubble.]
+
+At that period, the English nation were intoxicated and led astray by
+one of those great commercial delusions which so often take place in
+all civilized countries. No mania ever was more marked, more
+universal, and more fatal than that of the South Sea Company. The
+bubble had turned the heads of politicians, merchants, and farmers;
+all classes, who had money to invest, took stock in the South Sea
+Company. The delusion, however, passed away; England was left on the
+brink of bankruptcy, and a master financier was demanded by the
+nation, to extricate it from the effects of folly and madness. All
+eyes looked to Sir Robert Walpole, and he did all that financial skill
+could do, to repair the evils which speculation and gambling had
+caused.
+
+The desire for sudden wealth is one of the most common passions of our
+nature, and has given rise to more delusions than religious
+fanaticism, or passion for military glory. The South Sea bubble was
+kindred to that of John Law, who was the author of the Mississippi
+Scheme, which nearly ruined France in the reign of Louis XV., and
+which was encouraged by the Duke of Orleans, as a means of paying off
+the national debt.
+
+[Sidenote: The South Sea Company.]
+
+The wars of England had created a national debt, under the
+administration of Godolphin and Marlborough; but which was not so
+large but that hopes were entertained of redeeming it. Walpole
+proposed to pay it off by a sinking fund; but this idea, not very
+popular, was abandoned. It was then the custom for government to
+borrow of corporations, rather than of bankers, because the science of
+brokerage was not then understood, and because no individuals were
+sufficiently rich to aid materially an embarrassed administration. As
+a remuneration, companies were indulged with certain commercial
+advantages. As these advantages enabled companies to become rich, the
+nation always found it easy to borrow. During the war of the Spanish
+Succession, the prime minister, Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, in
+order to raise money, projected the South Sea Company. This was in
+1710, and the public debt was ten million pounds sterling, thought at
+that time to be insupportable. The interest on that debt was six per
+cent. In order to liquidate the debt, Oxford made the duties on wines,
+tobacco, India goods, silks, and a few other articles, permanent. And,
+to allure the public creditor, great advantages were given to the new
+company, and money was borrowed of it at five per cent. This gain of
+one per cent., by money borrowed from the company, was to constitute a
+sinking fund to pay the debt.
+
+But the necessities of the nation increased so rapidly, that a leading
+politician of the day, Sir John Blount, proposed that the South Sea
+Company should become the sole national creditor, and should loan to
+the government new sums, at an interest of four per cent. New
+monopolies were to be given to the company; and it, on the other hand,
+offered to give a bonus of three million pounds to the government. The
+Bank of England, jealous of the proposal, offered five millions. The
+directors of the company then bid seven millions for a charter, nearly
+enough to pay off the whole redeemable debt of the nation; which,
+however, could not be redeemed, so long as there were, in addition,
+irredeemable annuities to the amount of eight hundred thousand pounds
+yearly. It became, therefore, an object of the government to get rid,
+in the first place, of these irredeemable annuities; and this could be
+effected, if the national creditor could be induced to accept of
+shares in the South Sea Company, instead of his irredeemable
+annuities, or, as they are now variously called, consols, stocks, and
+national funds. The capital was not desired; only the interest on
+capital. So many monopolies and advantages were granted to the
+company, that the stock rose, and the national creditor was willing to
+part with his annuities for stock in the company. The offer was,
+therefore, accepted, and the government got rid of irredeemable
+annuities, and obtained seven millions besides, but became debtor to
+the company. A company which could apparently afford to pay so large a
+bonus to government for its charter, and loan such large sums as the
+nation needed, in addition, at four per cent., was supposed to be
+making most enormous profits. Its stock rose rapidly in value. The
+national creditor hastened to get rid of irredeemable annuities--a
+national stock which paid five per cent.--in order to buy shares which
+might pay ten per cent.
+
+[Sidenote: Opposition of Walpole.]
+
+Walpole, then paymaster of the forces, opposed the scheme of Blount
+with all his might, showed that the acceptance of the company's
+proposal would countenance stockjobbing, would divert industry from
+its customary channels, and would hold out a dangerous lure to the
+unsuspecting to part with real for imaginary property. He showed the
+misery and confusion which existed in France from the adoption of
+similar measures, and proved that the whole success of the scheme must
+depend on the rise of the company's stock; that, if there were no
+rise, the company could not afford the bonus, and would fail, and the
+obligation of the nation remain as before. But his reasonings were of
+no avail. All classes were infatuated. All people speculated in the
+South Sea stock. And, for a while, all people rejoiced; for, as long
+as the stock continued to rise, all people were gainers.
+
+And the stock rose rapidly. It soon reached three hundred per cent.
+above the original par value, and this in consequence of the promise
+of great dividends. All hastened to buy such lucrative property. The
+public creditor willingly gave up three hundred pounds of irredeemable
+stock for one hundred pounds of the company's stock.
+
+[Sidenote: Mania for Speculation.]
+
+And this would have been well, had there been a moral certainty of the
+stockholder receiving a dividend of twenty per cent. But there was not
+this certainty, nor even a chance of it. Still, in consequence of the
+great dividends promised, even as high as fifty per cent., the stock
+gradually rose to one thousand per cent. Such was the general mania.
+And such was the extent of it, that thirty-seven millions of pounds
+sterling were subscribed on the company's books.
+
+And the rage for speculation extended to all other kinds of property;
+and all sorts of companies were formed, some of the shares of which
+were at a premium of two thousand per cent. There were companies
+formed for fisheries, companies for making salt, for making oil, for
+smelting metals, for improving the breed of horses, for the planting
+of madder, for building ships against pirates, for the importation of
+jackasses, for fattening hogs, for wheels of perpetual motion, for
+insuring masters against losses from servants. There was one company
+for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but no one knew for
+what. The subscriber, by paying two guineas as a deposit, was to have
+one hundred pounds per annum for every hundred subscribed. It was
+declared, that, in a month, the particulars were to be laid open, and
+the remainder of the subscription money was then to be paid.
+Notwithstanding this barefaced, swindling scheme, two thousand pounds
+were received one morning as a deposit. The next day, the proprietor
+was not to be found.
+
+Now, in order to stop these absurd speculations, and yet to monopolize
+all the gambling in the kingdom, the directors of the South Sea
+Company obtained an act from parliament, empowering them to prosecute
+all the various bubble companies that were projected. In a few days,
+all these bubbles burst. None were found to be buyers. Stock fell to
+nothing.
+
+[Sidenote: Bursting of the South Sea Bubble.]
+
+But the South Sea Company made a blunder. The moral effect of the
+bursting of so many bubbles was to open the eyes of the nation to the
+greatest bubble of all. The credit of the South Sea Company declined.
+Stocks fell from one thousand per cent to two hundred in a few days.
+All wanted to sell, nobody to buy. Bankers and merchants failed, and
+nobles and country gentlemen became impoverished.
+
+In this general distress, Walpole was summoned to power, in older to
+extricate the nation, on the eve of bankruptcy. He proposed a plan,
+which was adopted, and which saved the credit of the nation. He
+ingrafted nine millions of the South Sea stock into the Bank of
+England, and nine millions more into the East India Company; and
+government gave up the seven millions of bonus which the company had
+promised.
+
+By this assistance, the company was able to fulfil its engagements,
+although all who purchased stock when it had arisen beyond one hundred
+per cent. of its original value, lost money. It is strange that the
+stock, after all, remained at a premium of one hundred per cent.; of
+course, the original proprietors gained one hundred per cent., and
+those who paid one hundred per cent. premium lost nothing. But these
+constituted a small fraction of the people who had speculated, and who
+paid from one hundred to nine hundred per cent. premium. Government,
+too, gained by reducing interest on irredeemable bonds from five to
+four per cent., although it lost the promised bonus of seven millions.
+
+The South Sea bubble did not destroy the rage for speculation,
+although it taught many useful truths--that national prosperity is not
+advanced by stockjobbing; that financiers, however great their genius,
+generally overreach themselves; that great dividends are connected
+with great risk; that circumstances beyond human control will defeat
+the best-laid plan; that it is better to repose upon the operation of
+the ordinary laws of trade; and that nothing but strict integrity and
+industry will succeed in the end. From the time of Sir Robert Walpole,
+money has seldom been worth, in England, over five per cent., and
+larger dividends on vested property have generally been succeeded by
+heavy losses, however plausible the promises and clear the statements
+of stockjobbers and speculators.
+
+[Sidenote: Enlightened Policy of Walpole.]
+
+After the explosion of the South Sea Company, Walpole became possessed
+of almost unlimited power. And one of the first objects to which he
+directed attention, after settling the finances, was the removal of
+petty restrictions on commerce. He abolished the export duties on one
+hundred and six articles of British manufacture, and allowed
+thirty-eight articles of raw material to be imported duty free. This
+regulation was made to facilitate trade with the colonies, and prevent
+them from manufacturing; and this regulation accomplished the end
+desired. Both England and the colonies were enriched. It was doubtless
+the true policy of British statesmen then, as now, to advance the
+commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural interests of Great
+Britain, rather than meddle with foreign wars, or seek glory on the
+field of battle. The principles of Sir Robert Walpole were essentially
+pacific; and under his administration, England made a great advance in
+substantial prosperity. In this policy he surpassed all the statesmen
+who preceded or succeeded him, and this constituted his glory and
+originality.
+
+But liberal and enlightened as was the general course of Walpole, he
+still made blunders, and showed occasional illiberality. He caused a
+fine of one hundred thousand pounds to be inflicted on the Catholics,
+on the plea that they were a disaffected body. He persecuted Bishop
+Atterbury, and permitted Bolingbroke, with his restless spirit of
+intrigue, to return to his country, and to be reinstated in his
+property and titles. He flattered the Duchess of Kendall, the mistress
+of the king, and stooped to all the arts of corruption and bribery.
+There never was a period of greater political corruption than during
+the administration of this minister. Sycophancy, meanness, and
+hypocrisy were resorted to by the statesmen of the age, who generally
+sought their own interests rather than the welfare of the nation.
+There were, however, exceptions. Townsend, the great rival and
+coadjutor of Walpole, retired from office with an unsullied fame for
+integrity and disinterestedness; and Walpole, while he bribed others,
+did not enrich himself.
+
+King George I. died on the 11th of June, 1727, suddenly, by apoplexy,
+and was succeeded by his son George II., a man who resembled his
+father in disposition and character, and was superior to him in
+knowledge of the English constitution, though both were inclined to
+steer the British bark by the Hanoverian rudder. Like his father, he
+was reserved, phlegmatic, cautious, sincere, fond of business,
+economical, and attached to Whig principles. He was fortunate in his
+wife, Queen Caroline, one of the most excellent women of the age,
+learned, religious, charitable, and sensible; the patroness of divines
+and scholars; fond of discussion on metaphysical subjects, and a
+correspondent of the distinguished Leibnitz.
+
+The new king disliked Walpole, but could not do without him, and
+therefore continued him in office. Indeed, the king had the sense to
+perceive that England was to be governed only by the man in whom the
+nation had confidence.
+
+[Sidenote: East India Company.]
+
+In 1730, Walpole rechartered the East India Company, the most gigantic
+monopoly in the history of nations. As early as 1599, an association
+had been formed in England for trade to the East Indies. This
+association was made in consequence of the Dutch and Portuguese
+settlements and enterprises, which aroused the commercial jealousy of
+England. The capital was sixty-eight thousand pounds. In 1600, Queen
+Elizabeth gave the company a royal charter. By this charter, the
+company obtained the right of purchasing land, without limit, in
+India, and the monopoly of the trade for fifteen years. But the
+company contended with many obstacles. The first voyage was made by
+four ships and one pinnace, having on board twenty-eight thousand
+pounds in bullion, and seven thousand pounds in merchandise, such as
+tin, cutlery, and glass.
+
+During the civil wars, the company's affairs were embarrassed, owing
+to the unsettled state of England. On the accession of Charles II.,
+the company obtained a new charter, which not only confirmed the old
+privileges, but gave it the power of making peace and war with the
+native princes of India. The capital stock was increased to one
+million five hundred thousand pounds.
+
+Much opposition was made by Bolingbroke and the Tories to the
+recharter of this institution; but the ministry carried their point,
+and a new charter was granted on the condition of the company paying
+to government two hundred thousand pounds, and reducing the interest
+of the government debts one per cent. per annum. By this time, the
+company, although it had not greatly enlarged its jurisdiction in
+India, had accumulated great wealth. Its powers and possessions will
+be more fully treated when the victories of Clive shall be presented.
+
+About this time, the Duke of Newcastle came into the cabinet whose
+future administration will form the subject of a separate chapter.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Townsend.]
+
+In 1730 also occurred the disagreement between Walpole and Lord
+Townsend, which ended in the resignation of the latter, a man whose
+impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with so cautious and
+non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. He passed the evening
+of his days in rural pursuits and agricultural experiments, keeping
+open house, devoting himself to his family and friends, never
+hankering after the power he had lost, never even revisiting London,
+and finding his richest solace in literature and simple agricultural
+pleasures--the pattern of a lofty and cultivated nobleman.
+
+The resignation of Townsend enabled Walpole to take more part in
+foreign negotiations; and he exerted his talents, like Fleury in
+France, to preserve the peace of Europe. The peace policy of Walpole
+entitles him to the gratitude of his country. More than any other man
+of his age, he apprehended the true glory and interests of nations.
+Had Walpole paid as much attention to the intellectual improvement of
+his countrymen, as he did to the refinements of material life and to
+physical progress, he would have merited still higher praises. But he
+despised learning, and neglected literary men. And they turned against
+him and his administration, and, by their sarcasm and invective, did
+much to undermine his power. Pope, Swift, and Gay might have lent him
+powerful aid by their satirical pen; but he passed them by with
+contemptuous indifference, and they gave to Bolingbroke what they
+withheld from Walpole.
+
+Next to the pacific policy of the minister, the most noticeable
+peculiarity of his administration was his zeal to improve the
+finances. He opposed speculations, and sought a permanent revenue from
+fixed principles. He regarded the national debt as a great burden, and
+strove to abolish it; and, when that was found to be impracticable,
+sought to prevent its further accumulation. He was not, indeed, always
+true to his policy; but he pursued it on the whole, consistently. He
+favored the agricultural interests, and was inclined to raise the
+necessary revenue by a tax on articles used, rather than by direct
+taxation on property or income, or articles imported. Hence he is the
+father of the excise scheme--a scheme still adopted in England, but
+which would be intolerable in this country. In this scheme, his grand
+object was to ease the landed proprietor, and to prevent smuggling, by
+making smuggling no object. But the opposition to the Excise Bill was
+so great that Sir Robert abandoned it; and this relinquishment of his
+favorite scheme is one of the most striking peculiarities of his
+administration. He never pushed matters to extremity. He ever yielded
+to popular clamor. He perceived that an armed force would be necessary
+in order to collect the excise, and preferred to yield his cherished
+measures to run the danger of incurring greater evils than financial
+embarrassments. His spirit of conciliation, often exercised in the
+plenitude of power, prolonged his reign. This policy was the result of
+immense experience and practical knowledge of human nature, of which
+he was a great master.
+
+[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Walpole.]
+
+But Sir Robert was not allowed to pursue to the end his pacific, any
+more than his financial policy. The clamors of interested merchants,
+the violence of party spirit, and the dreams of heroic grandeur on the
+part of politicians, overcame the repugnance of the minister, and
+plunged England in a disastrous Spanish war; and a war soon succeeded
+by that of the Austrian Succession, in which Maria Theresa was the
+injured, and Frederic the Great the offending party. But this war,
+which was carried on chiefly during the subsequent administration,
+will be hereafter alluded to.
+
+Although Walpole was opposed by some of the ablest men in England--by
+Pulteney, Sir William Windham, and the Lords Chesterfield, Carteret,
+and Bolingbroke, his power was almost absolute from 1730 to 1740. His
+most powerful assistance was derived from Mr. Yorke, afterwards the
+Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, one of the greatest lawyers that England
+has produced.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of his Power.]
+
+In 1740, his power began to decline, and rapidly waned. He lost a
+powerful friend and protector by the death of Queen Caroline, whose
+intercessions with the king were ever listened to with respectful
+consideration. But he had almost insurmountable obstacles to contend
+with--the distrust of the king, the bitter hatred of the Prince of
+Wales, the violent opposition of the leading statesmen in parliament,
+and universal envy. Moreover, he had grown careless and secure. He
+fancied that no one could rule England but himself. But hatred,
+opposition, envy, and unsuccessful military operations, forced him
+from his place. No shipwrecked pilot ever clung to the rudder of a
+sinking ship with more desperate tenacity than did this once powerful
+minister to the helm of state. And he did not relinquish it until he
+was driven from it by the desertion of all his friends, and the
+general clamor of the people. The king, however, appreciated the value
+of his services, and created him Earl of Orford, a dignity which had
+been offered him before, but which, with self-controlling policy, he
+had unhesitatingly declined. Like Sir Robert Peel in later times, he
+did not wish to be buried in the House of Lords.
+
+His retirement (1742) amid the beeches and oaks of his country seat
+was irksome and insipid. He had no taste for history, or science, or
+elegant literature, or quiet pleasures. His tumultuous public life had
+engendered other tastes. "I wish," said he to a friend, "I took as
+much delight in reading as you do. It would alleviate my tedious
+hours." But the fallen minister, though uneasy and restless, was not
+bitter or severe. He retained his good humor to the last, and to the
+last discharged all the rites of an elegant hospitality. Said his
+enemy, Pope,--
+
+ "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
+  Of social pleasure--ill exchanged for power;
+  Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe,
+  Smile without art, and win without a bribe."
+
+He had the habit of "laughing the heart's laugh," which it is only in
+the power of noble natures to exercise. His manners were winning, his
+conversation frank, and his ordinary intercourse divested of vanity
+and pomp. He had many warm personal friends, and did not enrich
+himself, as Marlborough did, while he enriched those who served him.
+He kept a public table at Houghton, to which all gentlemen in the
+country had free access. He was fond of hunting and country sports,
+and had more taste for pictures than for books. He was not what would
+be called a man of genius or erudition, but had a sound judgment,
+great sagacity, wonderful self-command, and undoubted patriotism. As a
+wise and successful ruler, he will long be held in respect, though he
+will never secure veneration.
+
+It was during the latter years of the administration of Walpole that
+England was electrified by the preaching of Whitefield and Wesley, and
+the sect of the Methodists arose, which has exercised a powerful
+influence on the morals, religion, and social life of England.
+
+[Sidenote: John Wesley.]
+
+John Wesley, who may rank with Augustine, Pelagius, Calvin, Arminius,
+or Jansen, as the founder of a sect, was demanded by the age in which
+he lived. Never, since the Reformation, was the state of religion so
+cold in England. The Established Church had triumphed over all her
+enemies. Puritanism had ceased to become offensive, and had even
+become respectable. The age of fox-hunting parsons had commenced, and
+the clergy were the dependants of great families, easy in their
+manners, and fond of the pleasures of the table. They were not
+expected to be very great scholars, or very grave companions. If they
+read the service with propriety, did not scandalize their cause by
+gross indulgences, and did not meddle with the two exciting subjects
+of all ages,--politics and religion,--they were sure of peace and
+plenty. But their churches were comparatively deserted, and infidel
+opinions had been long undermining respect for the institutions and
+ministers of religion. Swearing and drunkenness were fashionable vices
+among the higher classes, while low pleasures and lamentable ignorance
+characterized the people. The dissenting sects were more religious,
+but were formal and cold. Their ministers preached, too often, a mere
+technical divinity, or a lax system of ethics. The Independents were
+inclined to a frigid Arminianism, and the Presbyterians were passing
+through the change from ultra Calvinism to Arianism and Socinianism.
+
+The reformation was not destined to come from Dissenters, but from the
+bosom of the Established Church, a reformation which bore the same
+relation to Protestantism as that effected by St. Francis bore to
+Roman Catholicism in the thirteenth century; a reformation among the
+poorer classes, who did not wish to be separated from the Church
+Establishment.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Life of Wesley.]
+
+John Wesley belonged to a good family, his father being a respectable
+clergyman in a market town. He was born in 1703, was educated at
+Oxford, and for the church. At the age of twenty, he received orders
+from the Bishop of Oxford, and was, shortly after, chosen fellow of
+Lincoln College, and then Greek lecturer.
+
+While at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, who was also a fellow and
+a fine scholar, excited the ridicule of the University for the
+strictness of their lives, and their methodical way of living, which
+caused their companions to give them the name of _Methodists_. Two
+other young men joined them--James Hervey, author of the Meditations,
+and George Whitefield. The fraternity at length numbered fifteen young
+men, the members of which met frequently for religious purposes,
+visited prisons and the sick, fasted zealously on Wednesdays and
+Fridays, and bound themselves by rules, which, in many respects,
+resembled those which Ignatius Loyola imposed on his followers. The
+Imitation of Christ, by A Kempis, and Taylor's Holy Living, were their
+grand text-books, both of which were studied for their devotional
+spirit. But the Holy Living was the favorite book of Wesley, who did
+not fully approve of the rigid asceticism of the venerable mystic of
+the Middle Ages. The writings of William Law, also, had great
+influence on the mind of Wesley; but his religious views were not
+matured until after his return from Georgia, where he had labored as a
+missionary, under the auspices of Oglethorpe. The Moravians, whom he
+met with both in America and Germany, completed the work which Taylor
+had begun; and from their beautiful establishments he also learned
+many principles of that wonderful system of government which he so
+successfully introduced among his followers.
+
+Wesley continued his labors with earnestness; but these were also
+attended with some extravagances, which Dr. Potter, the worthy Bishop
+of London, and other Churchmen, could not understand. And though he
+preached with great popular acceptance, and gained wonderful eclat,
+though he was much noticed in society and even dined with the king at
+Hampton Court, and with the Prince of Wales at St. James's, still the
+churches were gradually shut against him. When Whitefield returned
+from Georgia, having succeeded Wesley as a missionary in that colony,
+and finding so much opposition from the dignitaries of the Church,
+although neither he nor Wesley had seceded from the Church; and, above
+all, excited by the popular favor he received,--for the churches would
+not hold half who flocked to hear him preach,--he resolved to address
+the people in the open air. The excitement he produced was
+unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled as many as twenty
+thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, drawn forth from their
+subterranean working places. But his eloquence had equal fascination
+for the people of London and the vicinity. In Moorfields, on
+Kennington Common, and on Blackheath, he sometimes drew a crowd of
+forty thousand people, all of whom could hear his voice. He could draw
+tears from Hume, and money from Dr. Franklin. He could convulse a
+congregation with terror, and then inspire them with the brightest
+hopes. He was a greater artist than Bossuet or Bourdaloue. He never
+lost his self-possession, or hesitated for appropriate language. But
+his great power was in his thorough earnestness, and almost inspired
+enthusiasm. No one doubted his sincerity, and all were impressed with
+the spirituality and reality of the great truths which he presented.
+And wonderful results followed from his preaching, and from that of
+his brethren. A great religious revival spread over England,
+especially among the middle and lower classes, the effects of which
+last to this day.
+
+[Sidenote: Whitefield.]
+
+Whitefield was not so learned, or intellectual as Wesley. He was not
+so great a genius. But he had more eloquence, and more warmth of
+disposition. Wesley was a system maker, a metaphysician, a logician.
+He was also profoundly versed in the knowledge of human nature, and
+curiously adapted his system to the wants and circumstances of that
+class of people over whom he had the greatest power. Both Wesley and
+Whitefield were demanded by their times, and only such men as they
+were could have succeeded. They were reproached for their
+extravagances, and for a zeal which was confounded with fanaticism;
+but, had they been more proper, more prudent, more yielding to the
+prejudices of the great, they would not have effected so much good for
+their country. So with Luther. Had he possessed a severer taste, had
+he been more of a gentleman, or more of a philosopher, or even more
+humble, he would not so signally have succeeded. Germany, and the
+circumstances of the age, required a rough, practical, bold, impetuous
+reformer to lead a movement against dignitaries and venerable
+corruptions. England, in the eighteenth century, needed a man to
+arouse the common people to a sense of their spiritual condition; a
+man who would not be trammelled by his church; who would not be
+governed by the principles of expediency; who would trust in God, and
+labor under peculiar discouragement and self-denial.
+
+[Sidenote: Institution of Wesley.]
+
+Wesley was like Luther in another respect. He quarrelled with those
+who would not conform to all his views, whether they had been friends
+or foes. He had been attracted by the Moravians. Their simplicity,
+fervor, and sedateness had won his regard. But when the Moravians
+maintained that there was delusion in those ravings which Wesley
+considered as the work of grace, when they asserted that sin would
+remain with even regenerated man until death, and that it was in vain
+to expect the purification of the soul by works of self-denial, Wesley
+opposed them, and slandered them. He also entered the lists against
+his friend and fellow-laborer, Whitefield. The latter did not agree
+with him respecting perfection, nor election, nor predestination; and,
+when this disagreement had become fixed, an alienation took place,
+succeeded by actual bitterness and hostility. Wesley, however, in his
+latter days, manifested greater charity and liberality, and was a
+model of patience and gentleness. He became finally reconciled to
+Whitefield, and the union continued until the death of the latter, at
+Newburyport, in 1770.
+
+The greatness of Wesley consisted in devising that wonderful church
+polity which still governs the powerful and numerous sect which he
+founded. It is from the system of the Methodists, rather than from
+their theological opinions, that their society spread so rapidly over
+Great Britain and America, and which numbered at his death,
+seventy-one thousand persons in England, and forty-eight thousand in
+this country.
+
+And yet his institution was not wholly a matter of calculation, but
+was gradually developed as circumstances arose. When contributions
+were made towards building a meeting-house in Bristol, it was observed
+that most of the brethren were poor, and could afford but little. Then
+said one of the number, "Put eleven of the poorest with me, and if
+they give any thing, it is well. I will call on each of them weekly,
+and if they give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself."
+This suggested the idea of a system of supervision. In the course of
+the weekly calls, the persons who had undertaken for a class
+discovered some irregularities among those for whose contributions
+they were responsible, and reported them to Wesley. He saw, at once,
+the advantage to be derived from such an arrangement. It was what he
+had long desired. He called together the leaders, and desired that
+each should make a particular inquiry into the behavior of all under
+their respective supervision. They did so. The custom was embraced by
+the whole body, and became fundamental. But it was soon found to be
+inconvenient to visit each person separately in his own house weekly,
+and then it was determined that all the members of the class should
+assemble together weekly, when quarrels could be made up, and where
+they might be mutually profited by each other's prayers and
+exhortations. Thus the system of classes and class-leaders arose,
+which bears the same relation to the society at large that town
+meetings do to the state or general government in the American
+democracy--which, as it is known, constitute the genius of our
+political institutions.
+
+[Sidenote: Itinerancy.]
+
+Itinerancy also forms another great feature of Methodism; and this
+resulted from accident. But it is the prerogative and peculiarity of
+genius to take advantage of accidents and circumstances. It cannot
+create them. Wesley had no church; but, being an ordained clergyman of
+the Establishment, and a fellow of a college beside, he had the right
+to preach in any pulpit, and in any diocese. But the pulpits were
+closed against him, in consequence of his peculiarities; so he
+preached wherever he could collect a congregation. Itinerancy and
+popularity gave him notoriety, and flattered ambition, of which he was
+not wholly divested. He and his brethren wandered into every section
+of England, from the Northumbrian moorlands to the innermost depths of
+the Cornish mines, in the most tumultuous cities and in the most
+unfrequented hamlets.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Influence and Power of Wesley.]
+
+As he was the father of the sect, all appointments were made by him,
+and, as he deserved respect and influence, the same became unbounded.
+When power was vested to an unlimited extent in his hands, and when
+the society had become numerous and scattered over a great extent of
+territory, he divided England into circuits, and each circuit had a
+certain number of ministers appointed to it. But he held out no
+worldly rewards as lures. The conditions which he imposed were hard.
+The clergy were to labor with patience and assiduity on a mean
+pittance, with no hope of wealth or ease. Rewards were to be given
+them by no earthly judge. The only recompense for toil and hunger was
+that of the original apostles--the approval of their consciences and
+the favor of Heaven.
+
+To prevent the overbearing intolerance and despotism of the people,
+the chapels were not owned by the congregation nor even vested in
+trustees, but placed at the absolute disposal of Mr. Wesley and the
+conference.
+
+If the rule of Wesley was not in accordance with democratic
+principles, still its perpetuation in the most zealous of democratic
+communities, and its escape, thus far, from the ordinary fate of all
+human institutions,--that of corruption and decay,--shows its
+remarkable wisdom, and also the great virtue of those who have
+administered the affairs of the society. It effected, especially in
+England,--what the Established Church and the various form of
+Dissenters could not do,--the religious renovation of the lower
+classes; it met their wants; it stimulated their enthusiasm. And while
+Methodism promoted union and piety among the people, especially those
+who were ignorant and poor, it did not undermine their loyalty or
+attachment to the political institutions of the country. Other
+Dissenters were often hostile to the government, and have been
+impatient under the evils which have afflicted England; but the
+Methodists, taught subordination to superiors and rulers, and have
+ever been patient, peaceful, and quiet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Lord Mahon's History should be particularly
+     read; also Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole. Consult Smollett's and
+     Tindall's History of England, and Belsham's History of
+     George II. Smyth's Lectures are very valuable on this period
+     of English history. See, also, Bolingbroke's State of
+     Parties; Burke's Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs; Lord
+     Chesterfield's Characters; and Cobbett's Parliamentary
+     Debates. Reminiscences by Horace Walpole. For additional
+     information respecting the South Sea scheme, see Anderson's
+     and Macpherson's Histories of Commerce, and Smyth's
+     Lectures. The lives of the Pretenders have been well written
+     by Ray and Jesse. Tytler's History of Scotland should be
+     consulted; and Waverley may be read with profit. The rise of
+     the Methodists, the great event of the reign of George I.,
+     has been generally neglected. Lord Mahon has, however,
+     written a valuable chapter. See also Wesley's Letters and
+     Diary, and Lives, by Southey and Moore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Commercial Enterprise.]
+
+During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, the English colonies
+in America, and the East India Company's settlements began to attract
+the attention of ministers, and became of considerable political
+importance. It is, therefore, time to consider the history of
+colonization, both in the East and West, and not only by the English,
+but by the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French.
+
+The first settlements in the new world by Europeans, and their
+conquests in the unknown regions of the old, were made chiefly in view
+of commercial advantages. The love of money, that root of all evil,
+was overruled by Providence in the discovery of new worlds, and the
+diffusion of European civilization in countries inhabited by savages,
+or worn-out Oriental races. But the mere ignoble love of gain was not
+the only motive which incited the Europeans to navigate unknown oceans
+and colonize new continents. There was also another, and this was the
+spirit of enterprise, which magically aroused the European mind in the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Marco Polo, when he visited the
+East; the Portuguese, when they doubled the Cape of Good Hope;
+Columbus, when he discovered America; and Magellan, when he entered
+the South Sea, were moved by curiosity and love of science, more than
+by love of gold. But the vast wealth, which the newly-discovered
+countries revealed, stimulated, in the breasts of the excited
+Europeans, the powerful passions of ambition and avarice; and the
+needy and grasping governments of Spain, Portugal, Holland, France,
+and England patronized adventurers to the new El Dorado, and furnished
+them with ships and stores, in the hope of receiving a share of the
+profits of their expedition. And they were not disappointed. Although
+many disasters happened to the early navigators, still country after
+country was added to the possessions of European kings, and vast sums
+of gold and silver were melted into European coin. No conquests were
+ever more sudden, and brilliant than those of Cortez and Pizarro, nor
+did wealth ever before so suddenly enrich the civilized world. But
+sudden and unlawful gains produced their natural fruit. All the worst
+evils which flow from extravagance, extortion, and pride prevailed in
+the old world and the new; and those advantages and possessions, which
+had been gained by enterprise, were turned into a curse, for no wealth
+can balance the vices of avarice, injustice, and cruelty.
+
+[Sidenote: Spanish Conquests and Settlements.]
+
+The most important of all the early settlements of America were made
+by the Spaniards. Their conquests were the most brilliant, and proved
+the most worthless. The spirit which led to their conquests and
+colonization was essentially that of avarice and ambition. It must,
+however, be admitted that religious zeal, in some instances, was the
+animating principle of the adventurers and of those that patronized
+them.
+
+The first colony was established in Hispaniola, or, as it was
+afterwards called, St. Domingo, a short time after the discovery of
+America by Columbus. The mines of the island were, at that period,
+very productive, and the aggressive Spaniards soon compelled the
+unhappy natives to labor in them, under their governor, Juan Ponce de
+Leon. But Hispaniola was not sufficiently large or productive to
+satisfy the cupidity of the governor, and Porto Rico was conquered and
+enslaved. Cuba also, in a few years, was added to the dominions of
+Spain.
+
+At length, the Spaniards, who had explored the coasts of the Main
+land, prepared to invade and conquer the populous territories of
+Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The people whom he governed had attained
+a considerable degree of civilization, having a regular government, a
+system of laws, and an established priesthood. They were not ignorant
+of the means of recording great events, and possessed considerable
+skill in many useful and ornamental arts. They were rich in gold and
+silver, and their cities were ornamented with palaces and gardens. But
+their riches were irresistible objects of desire to the European
+adventurers, and, therefore, proved their misfortune. The story of
+their conquest by Fernando Cortez need not here be told; familiarized
+as are all readers and students with the exquisite and artistic
+narrative of the great American historian, whose work and whose fame
+can only perish with the language itself.
+
+About ten years after the conquest of Mexico, Pizarro landed in Peru,
+which country was soon added to the dominions of Philip II. And the
+government of that country was even more oppressive and unjust than
+that of Mexico. All Indians between the ages of fifteen and fifty were
+compelled to work in the mines; and so dreadful was the forced labor,
+that four out of five of those who worked in them were supposed to
+perish annually. There was no limit to Spanish rapacity and cruelty,
+and it was exercised over all the other countries which were
+subdued--Chili, Florida, and the West India Islands.
+
+Enormous and unparalleled quantities of the precious metals were sent
+to Spain from the countries of the new world. But, from the first
+discovery of Peru and Mexico, the mother country declined in wealth
+and political importance. With the increase of gold, the price of
+labor and of provision, and of all articles of manufacturing industry,
+also increased, and nearly in the same ratio. The Spaniards were
+insensible to this truth, and, instead of cultivating the soil or
+engaging in manufactures, were contented with the gold which came from
+the colonies. This, for a while, enriched them; but it was soon
+scattered over all Christendom, and was exchanged for the necessities
+of life. Industry and art declined, and those countries alone were the
+gainers which produced those articles which Spain was obliged to
+purchase.
+
+[Sidenote: Portuguese Discoveries.]
+
+Portugal soon rivalled Spain in the extent and richness of colonial
+possessions. Brazil was discovered in 1501, and, in about half a
+century after, was colonized. The native Brazilians, inferior in
+civilization to the Mexicans and Peruvians, were still less able than
+they to resist the arms of the Europeans. They were gradually subdued,
+and their beautiful and fertile country came into possession of the
+victors. But the Portuguese also extended their empire in the East, as
+well as in the West. After the discovery of a passage round the Cape
+of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama, the early navigators sought simply to
+be enriched by commerce with the Indies. They found powerful rivals in
+the Arabs, who had heretofore monopolized the trade. In order to
+secure their commerce, and also to protect themselves against their
+rivals and enemies, the Portuguese, under the guidance of Albuquerque,
+procured a grant of land in India, from one of the native princes.
+Soon after, Goa was reduced, and became the seat of government; and
+territorial acquisition commenced, which, having been continued nearly
+three centuries by the various European powers, is still progressive.
+In about sixty years, the Portuguese had established a great empire in
+the East, which included the coasts and islands of the Persian Gulf,
+the whole Malabar and Coromandel coasts, the city of Malacca, and
+numerous islands of the Indian Ocean. They had effected a settlement
+in China, obtained a free trade with the empire of Japan, and received
+tribute from the rich Islands of Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra.
+
+[Sidenote: Portuguese Settlements.]
+
+The same moral effects happened to Portugal, from the possession of
+the Indies, that the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro produced on
+Spain. Goa was the most depraved spot in the world: and the vices
+which wealth engendered, wherever the Europeans formed a settlement,
+can now scarcely be believed. When Portugal fell under the dominion of
+Philip II., the ruin of her settlements commenced. They were
+supplanted by the Dutch, who were more moral, more united and
+enterprising, though they provoked, by their arrogance and injustice,
+the hostility of the Eastern princes.
+
+The conquests and settlements of the Dutch rapidly succeeded those of
+the Portuguese. In 1595, Cornelius Houtman sailed, with a
+well-provided fleet, for the land of gems and spices. A company was
+soon incorporated, in Holland, for managing the Indian trade.
+Settlements were first made in the Moluccas Islands, which soon
+extended to the possession of the Island of Java, and to the complete
+monopoly of the spice trade. The Dutch then gained possession of the
+Island of Ceylon, which they retained until it was wrested from them
+by the English. But their empire was only maintained at a vast expense
+of blood and treasure; nor were they any exception to the other
+European colonists and adventurers, in the indulgence of all those
+vices which degrade our nature.
+
+Neither the French nor the English made any important conquests in the
+East, when compared with those of the Portuguese and Dutch. Nor did
+their acquisitions in America equal those of the Spaniards. But they
+were more important in their ultimate results.
+
+[Sidenote: Early English Enterprise.]
+
+English enterprise was manifested shortly after the first voyage of
+Columbus. Henry VII. was sufficiently enlightened, envious, and
+avaricious, to listen to the proposals of a Venetian, resident in
+Bristol, by the name of Cabot; and, in 1495, he commissioned him to
+sail under the banner of England, to take possession of any new
+countries he might discover. Accordingly, in about two years after,
+Cabot, with his second son, Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, in one of
+the king's ships, attended by four smaller vessels, equipped by the
+merchants of that enterprising city.
+
+Impressed with the idea of Columbus, and other early navigators, that
+the West India Islands were not far from the Indian continent, he
+concluded that, if he steered in a more northerly direction, he should
+reach India by a shorter course than that pursued by the great
+discoverer. Accordingly, sailing in that course, he discovered
+Newfoundland and Prince Edwards', and, soon after, the coast of North
+America, along which he sailed, from Labrador to Virginia. But,
+disappointed in not finding a westerly passage to India, he returned
+to England, without attempting, either by settlement or conquest, to
+gain a footing on the great continent which the English were the
+second to visit, of all the European nations.
+
+England was prevented, by various circumstances, from deriving
+immediate advantage from the discovery. The unsettled state of the
+country; the distractions arising from the civil wars, and afterwards
+from the Reformation; the poverty of the people, and the sordid nature
+of the king,--were unfavorable to settlements which promised no
+immediate advantage; and it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that
+any deliberate plans were made for the colonization of North America.
+The voyages of Frobisher and Drake had aroused a spirit of adventure,
+if they had not gratified the thirst for gold.
+
+Among those who felt an intense interest in the new world, was Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, a man of enlarged views and intrepid boldness. He
+secured from Elizabeth (1578) a liberal patent, and sailed, with a
+considerable body of adventurers, for the new world. But he took a too
+northerly direction, and his largest vessel was shipwrecked on the
+coast of Cape Breton. The enterprise from various causes, completely
+failed, and the intrepid navigator lost his life.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+The spirit of the times raised up, however, a greater genius, and a
+more accomplished adventurer, and no less a personage than Sir Walter
+Raleigh,--the favorite of the queen; one of the greatest scholars and
+the most elegant courtier of the age; a soldier, a philosopher, and a
+statesman. He obtained a patent, substantially the same as that which
+had been bestowed on Gilbert. In 1584, Raleigh despatched two small
+exploring vessels, under the command of Amidas and Barlow, which
+seasonably arrived off the coast of North Carolina. From the favorable
+report of the country and the people, a larger fleet, of seven ships,
+was despatched to America, commanded by Sir Richard Grenville. But he
+was diverted from his course by the prevailing passion for predatory
+enterprise, and hence only landed one hundred and eight men at
+Roanoke, (1585.) The government of this feeble band was intrusted to
+Captain Lane. But the passion for gold led to a misunderstanding with
+the natives. The colony became enfeebled and reduced, and the
+adventurers returned to England, (1586,) bringing with them some
+knowledge of the country, and also that singular weed, which rapidly
+enslaved the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and which soon became one
+of the great staple commodities in the trade of the civilized world.
+Modern science has proved it to be a poison, and modern philanthropy
+has lifted up its warning voice against the use of it. But when have
+men, in their degeneracy, been governed by their reason? What logic
+can break the power of habit, or counteract the seductive influences
+of those excitements which fill the mind with visionary hopes, and
+lull a tumultuous spirit into the repose of pleasant dreams and
+oblivious joys? Sir Walter Raleigh, to his shame or his misfortune,
+was among the first to patronize a custom which has proved more
+injurious to civilized nations than even the use of opium itself,
+because it is more universal and more insidious.
+
+But smoking was simply an amusement with him. He soon turned his
+thoughts to the reëstablishment of his colony. Even before the return
+of the company under Lane, Sir Richard Grenville had visited the
+Roanoke, with the necessary stores. But he arrived too late; the
+colony was abandoned.
+
+But nothing could abate the zeal of the most enterprising genius of
+the age. In 1587, he despatched three more ships, under the command of
+Captain White, who founded the city of Raleigh. But no better success
+attended the new band of colonists. White sailed for England, to
+secure new supplies; and, when he returned, he found no traces of the
+colony he had planted; and no subsequent ingenuity or labor has been
+able to discover the slightest vestige.
+
+The patience of Raleigh was not wasted; but new objects occupied his
+mind, and he parted with his patent, which made him the proprietary of
+a great part of the Southern States. Nor were there any new attempts
+at colonization until 1606, in the reign of James.
+
+[Sidenote: London Company Incorporated.]
+
+Through the influence of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a man of great wealth;
+Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England; Richard Hakluyt, the
+historian; Bartholomew Gosnold, the navigator, and John Smith, the
+enthusiastic adventurer,--King James I. granted a royal charter to two
+rival companies, for the colonization of America. The first was
+composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, in and about London,
+who had an exclusive right to occupy regions from thirty-four to
+thirty-eight degrees of north latitude. The other company, composed of
+gentlemen and merchants in the west of England, had assigned to them
+the territory between forty-one and forty-five degrees. But only the
+first company succeeded.
+
+The territory, appropriated to the London or southern colony,
+preserved the name which had been bestowed upon it during the reign of
+Elizabeth,--Virginia. The colonists were authorized to transport, free
+of the custom-house, for the term of seven years, what arms and
+provisions they required; and their children were permitted to enjoy
+the same privileges and liberties, in the American settlements, that
+Englishmen had at home. They had the right to search for mines, to
+coin money, and, for twenty-one years, to impose duties, on vessels
+trading to their harbors, for the benefit of the colony. But, after
+this period, the duty was to be taken for the king, who also preserved
+a control over both the councils established for the government of the
+colony,--the one in England itself, and the other in Virginia; a
+control inconsistent with those liberties which the colonists
+subsequently asserted and secured.
+
+[Sidenote: Hardships of the Virginia Colony.]
+
+The London Company promptly applied themselves to the settlement of
+their territories; and, on the 19th of December, 1606, a squadron of
+three small vessels set sail for the new world; and, on May 13, 1607,
+a company of one hundred and five men, without families, disembarked
+at Jamestown. This was the first permanent settlement in America by
+the English. But great misfortunes afflicted them. Before September,
+one half of the colonists had perished, and the other half were
+suffering from famine, dissension, and fear. The president, Wingfield,
+attempted to embezzle the public stores, and escape to the West
+Indies. He was supplanted in his command by Ratcliffe, a man without
+capacity. But a deliverer was raised up in the person of Captain John
+Smith, who extricated the suffering and discontented band from the
+evils which impended. He had been a traveller and a warrior; had
+visited France, Italy, and Egypt; fought in Holland and Hungary; was
+taken a prisoner of war in Wallachia, and sent as a slave to
+Constantinople. Removed to a fortress in the Crimea, and subjected to
+the hardest tasks, he yet contrived to escape, and, after many perils,
+reached his native country. But greater hardships and dangers awaited
+him in the new world, to which he was impelled by his adventurous
+curiosity. He was surprised and taken by a party of hostile Indians,
+when on a tour of exploration, and would have been murdered, had it
+not been for his remarkable presence of mind and singular sagacity,
+united with the intercession of the famous Pocahontas, daughter of a
+great Indian chief, from whom some of the best families in Virginia
+are descended. It would be pleasant to detail the romantic incidents
+of this brief captivity; but our limits forbid. Smith, when he
+returned to Jamestown, found his company reduced to forty men, and
+they were discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, they were a
+different class of men from those who colonized New England. They were
+gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, were
+greedy for gold, and had neither the fortitude nor the habits
+requisite for success. They were not accustomed to labor, at least
+with the axe and plough. Smith earnestly wrote to the council of the
+company in England, to send carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners,
+fishermen, and blacksmiths, instead of "vagabond gentlemen and
+goldsmiths." But he had to organize a colony with such materials as
+avarice or adventurous curiosity had sent to America. And, in spite of
+dissensions and natural indolence, he succeeded in placing it on a
+firm foundation; surveyed the Chesapeake Bay to the Susquehannah, and
+explored the inlets of the majestic Potomac. But he was not permitted
+to complete the work which he had so beneficently begun. His
+administration was unacceptable to the company in England, who cared
+very little for the welfare of the infant colony, and only sought a
+profitable investment of their capital. They were disappointed that
+mines of gold and silver had not been discovered, and that they
+themselves had not become enriched. Even the substantial welfare of
+the colony displeased them; for this diverted attention from the
+pursuit of mineral wealth.
+
+[Sidenote: New Charter of the London Company.]
+
+The original patentees, therefore, sought to strengthen themselves by
+new associates and a new charter. And a new charter was accordingly
+granted to twenty-one peers, ninety-eight knights, and a great number
+of doctors, esquires, gentlemen, and merchants. The bounds of the
+colony were enlarged, the council and offices in Virginia abolished,
+and the company in England empowered to nominate all officers in the
+colony. Lord Delaware was appointed governor and captain-general of
+the company, and a squadron of nine ships, with five hundred emigrants
+were sent to Virginia. But these emigrants consisted, for the most
+part, of profligate young men, whom their aristocratic friends sent
+away to screen themselves from shame; broken down gentlemen, too lazy
+to work; and infamous dependants on powerful families. They threw the
+whole colony into confusion, and provoked, by their aggression and
+folly, the animosities of the Indians, whom Smith had appeased. The
+settlement at Jamestown was abandoned to famine and confusion, and
+would have been deserted had it not been for the timely arrival of
+Lord Delaware, with ample supplies and new recruits. His
+administration was wise and efficient, and he succeeded in restoring
+order, if he did not secure the wealth which was anticipated.
+
+In 1612, the company obtained a third patent, by which all the islands
+within three hundred leagues of the Virginia shore were granted to the
+patentees, and by which a portion of the power heretofore vested in
+the council was transferred to the whole company. The political rights
+of the colonists remained the same but they acquired gradually peace
+and tranquillity. Tobacco was extensively cultivated, and proved a
+more fruitful source of wealth than mines of silver or gold.
+
+The jealousy of arbitrary power, and impatience of liberty among the
+new settlers, induced the Governor of Virginia, in 1619, to reinstate
+them in the full possession of the rights of Englishmen; and he
+accordingly convoked a Provincial Assembly, the first ever held in
+America, which consisted of the governor, the council, and a number of
+burgesses, elected by the eleven existing boroughs of the colony. The
+deliberation and laws of this infant legislature were transmitted to
+England for approval; and so wise and judicious were these, that the
+company, soon after, approved and ratified the platform of what
+gradually ripened into the American representative system.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Colonization.]
+
+The guarantee of political rights led to a rapid colonization. "Men
+were now willing to regard Virginia as their home. They fell to
+building houses and planting corn." Women were induced to leave the
+parent country to become the wives of adventurous planters; and,
+during the space of three years, thirty-five hundred persons, of both
+sexes, found their way to Virginia. In the year 1620, a Dutch ship,
+from the coast of Guinea, arrived in James River, and landed twenty
+negroes for sale; and, as they were found more capable of enduring
+fatigue, in a southern climate, than the Europeans, they were
+continually imported, until a large proportion of the inhabitants of
+Virginia was composed of slaves. Thus was introduced, at this early
+period, that lasting system of injustice and cruelty which has proved
+already an immeasurable misfortune to the country, as well as a
+disgrace to the institutions of republican liberty, but which is
+lamented, in many instances, by no class with more sincerity than by
+those who live by the produce of slave labor itself.
+
+The succeeding year, which witnessed the importation of negroes,
+beheld the cultivation of tobacco, which before the introduction of
+cotton, was the great staple of southern produce.
+
+[Sidenote: Indian Warfare.]
+
+In 1622, the long-suppressed enmity of the Indians broke out in a
+savage attempt to murder the whole colony. A plot had been formed by
+which all the English settlements were to be attacked on the same day,
+and at the same hour. The conspiracy was betrayed by a friendly
+Indian, but not in time to prevent a fearful massacre of three hundred
+and forty-seven persons, among whom were some of the wealthiest and
+most respectable inhabitants. Then followed all the evils of an Indian
+war, and the settlements were reduced from eighty to eight
+plantations; and it was not until after a protracted struggle that the
+colonists regained their prosperity.
+
+Scarcely had hostilities with the Indians commenced, before
+dissensions among the company in England led to a quarrel with the
+king, and a final abrogation of their charter. The company was too
+large and too democratic. The members were dissatisfied that so little
+gain had been derived from the colony; and moreover they made their
+courts or convocations, when they assembled to discuss colonial
+matters, the scene of angry political debate. There was a court party
+and a country party, each inflamed with violent political animosities.
+The country party was the stronger, and soon excited the jealousy of
+the arbitrary monarch, who looked upon their meetings "as but a
+seminary to a seditious parliament." A royal board of commissioners
+were appointed to examine the affairs of the company, who reported
+unfavorably; and the king therefore ordered the company to surrender
+its charter. The company refused to obey an arbitrary mandate; but
+upon its refusal, the king ordered a writ of _quo warranto_ to be
+issued, and the Court of the King's Bench decided, of course, in favor
+of the crown. The company was accordingly dissolved. But the
+dissolution, though arbitrary, operated beneficially on the colony. Of
+all cramping institutions, a sovereign company of merchants is the
+most so, since they seek simply commercial gain, without any reference
+to the political, moral, or social improvement of the people whom they
+seek to control.
+
+[Sidenote: Governor Harvey.]
+
+Before King James had completed his scheme for the government of the
+colony, he died; and Charles I. pursued the same arbitrary policy
+which his father contemplated. He instituted a government which
+combined the unlimited prerogative of an absolute prince with the
+narrow and selfish maxims of a mercantile corporation. He monopolized
+the profits of its trade, and empowered the new governor, whom he
+appointed, to exercise his authority with the most undisguised
+usurpation of those rights which the colonists had heretofore enjoyed.
+Harvey's disposition was congenial with the rapacious and cruel system
+which he pursued, and he acted more like the satrap of an Eastern
+prince than the representative of a constitutional monarch. The
+colonists remonstrated and complained; but their appeals to the mercy
+and justice of the king were disregarded, and Harvey continued his
+course of insolence and tyranny until that famous parliament was
+assembled which rebelled against the folly and government of Charles.
+In 1641, a new and upright governor, Sir William Berkeley, was sent to
+Virginia, and the old provincial liberties were restored. In the
+contest between the king and parliament Virginia espoused the royal
+cause. When the parliament had triumphed over the king, Virginia was
+made to feel the force of republican displeasure, and oppressive
+restrictions were placed upon the trade of the colony, which were the
+more provoking in view of the indulgence which the New England
+colonies received from the protector. A revolt ensued, and Sir William
+Berkeley was forced from his retirement, and made to assume the
+government of the rebellious province. Cromwell, fortunately for
+Virginia, but unfortunately for the world, died before the rebellion,
+could be suppressed; and when Charles II. was restored, Virginia
+joyfully returned to her allegiance. The supremacy of the Church of
+England was established by law, stipends were allowed to her
+ministers, and no clergymen were permitted to exercise their functions
+but such as held to the supremacy of the Church of England.
+
+[Sidenote: Arbitrary Policy of Charles II.]
+
+But Charles II. was as incapable as his father of pursuing a generous
+and just policy to the colonies; and parliament itself looked upon the
+colonies as a source of profit to the nation, rather than as a part of
+the nation. No sooner was Charles seated on the throne, than
+parliament imposed a duty of five per cent. on all merchandise
+exported from, or imported into, any of the dominions belonging to the
+crown; and the famous Navigation Act was passed, which ordained that
+no commodities should be imported into any of the British settlements
+but in vessels built in England or in her colonies; and that no sugar,
+tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo and some other articles produced in the
+colonies, should be shipped from them to any other country but
+England. As a compensation, the colonies were permitted the exclusive
+cultivation of tobacco. The parliament, soon after, in 1663, passed
+additional restrictions; and, advancing, step by step, gradually
+subjected the colonies to a most oppressive dependence on the mother
+country, and even went so far as to regulate the trade of the several
+colonies with each other. This system of monopoly and exclusion, of
+course, produced indignation and disgust, and sowed the seeds of
+ultimate rebellion. Indian hostilities were added to provincial
+discontent, and even the horrors of civil war disturbed the prosperity
+of the colony. An ambitious and unprincipled adventurer, by the name
+of Bacon, succeeded in fomenting dissension, and in successfully
+resisting the power of the governor. Providence arrested the career of
+the rebel in the moment of his triumph; and his sickness and death
+fortunately dissipated the tempest which threatened to be fatal to the
+peace and welfare of Virginia. Berkeley, on the suppression of the
+rebellion, punished the offenders with a severity which ill accorded
+with his lenient and pacific character. His course did not please the
+government in England, and he was superseded by Colonel Jeffries. But
+he died before his successor arrived. A succession of governors
+administered the colony as their disposition prompted, some of whom
+were wise and able, and others tyrannical and rapacious.
+
+The English revolution of 1688 produced also a change in the
+administration of the colony. Its dependence on the personal character
+of the sovereign was abolished, and its chartered liberties were
+protected. The king continued to appoint the royal governor, and the
+parliament continued to oppress the trade of the colonists; but they,
+on the whole, enjoyed the rights of freemen, and rapidly advanced in
+wealth and prosperity. On the accession of William and Mary, the
+colony contained fifty thousand inhabitants and forty-eight parishes;
+and, in 1676, the customs on tobacco alone were collected in England
+to the amount of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. The
+people generally belonged to the Episcopal Church, and the clergy each
+received, in every parish, a house and glebe, together with sixteen
+thousand pounds of tobacco. The people were characterized for
+hospitality and urbanity, but were reproached for the indolence which
+a residence in scattered villages, a hot climate, and negro slavery
+must almost inevitably lead to. Literature, that solace of the refined
+and luxurious in the European world, was but imperfectly cultivated;
+nor was religion, in its stern and lofty developments, the animating
+principle of life, as in the New England settlements. But the people
+of Virginia were richer, more cultivated, and more aristocratic than
+the Puritans, more refined in manners, and more pleasing as
+companions.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New England.]
+
+The settlements in New England were made by a very different class of
+men from those who colonized Virginia. They were not adventurers in
+quest of gain; they were not broken-down gentlemen of aristocratic
+connections; they were not the profligate and dissolute members of
+powerful families. They were Puritans, they belonged to the middle
+ranks of society; they were men of stern and lofty virtue, of
+invincible energy, and hard and iron wills; they detested both the
+civil and religious despotism of their times, and desired, above all
+worldly consideration, the liberty of worshipping God according to the
+dictates of their consciences. They were chiefly Independents and
+Calvinists, among whom religion was a life, and not a dogma. They
+sought savage wilds, not for gain, not for ease, not for
+aggrandizement, but for liberty of conscience; and, for the sake of
+that inestimable privilege, they were ready to forego all the comforts
+and elegances of civilized life, and cheerfully meet all the dangers
+and make all the sacrifices which a residence among savage Indians,
+and in a cold and inhospitable climate, necessarily incurred.
+
+The efforts at colonization attempted by the company in the west of
+England, to which allusion has been made, signally failed. God did not
+design that New England should be settled by a band of commercial
+adventurers. A colony was permanently planted at Plymouth, within the
+limits of the corporation, of forty persons, to whom James had granted
+enormous powers, and a belt of country from the fortieth to the
+forty-eighth degree of north latitude in width, and from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific in length.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival of the Mayflower.]
+
+On the 5th of August, 1620, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, freighted
+with the first Puritan colony, set sail from Southampton. It composed
+a band of religious and devoted men, with their wives and children,
+who had previously sought shelter in Holland for the enjoyment of
+their religious opinions. The smaller vessel, after a trial on the
+Atlantic, was found incompetent to the voyage, and was abandoned. The
+more timid were allowed to disembark at old Plymouth. One hundred and
+one resolute souls again set sail in the Mayflower, for the unknown
+wilderness, with all its countless dangers and miseries. No common
+worldly interest could have sustained their souls. The first
+adventurers embarked for Virginia, without women or children; but the
+Puritans made preparation for a permanent residence. Providence,
+against their design, guided their little vessel to the desolate
+shores of the most barren part of Massachusetts. On the 9th of
+November, it was safely moored in the harbor of Cape Cod. On the 11th,
+the colonists solemnly bound themselves into a body politic, and chose
+John Carver for their governor. On the 11th of December, (O. S.,)
+after protracted perils and sufferings, this little company landed on
+Plymouth Rock. Before the opening spring, more than half the colony
+had perished from privation, fatigue, and suffering, among whom was
+the governor himself. In the autumn, their numbers were recruited; but
+all the miseries of famine remained. They lived together as a
+community; but, for three or four months together, they had no corn
+whatever. In the spring of 1623, each family planted for itself, and
+land was assigned to each person in perpetual fee. The needy and
+defenceless colonists were fortunately preserved from the hostility of
+the natives, since a famine had swept away the more dangerous of their
+savage neighbors; nor did hostilities commence for several years. God
+protected the Pilgrims, in their weakness, from the murderous
+tomahawk, and from the perils of the wilderness. They suffered, but
+they existed. Their numbers slowly increased, but they were all
+Puritans,--were just the men to colonize the land, and lay the
+foundation of a great empire. From the beginning, a strict democracy
+existed, and all enjoyed ample exemption from the trammels of
+arbitrary power. No king took cognizance of their existence, or
+imposed upon them a despotic governor. They appointed their own
+rulers, and those rulers governed in the fear of God. Township
+independence existed from the first; and this is the nursery and the
+genius of American institutions. The Plymouth colony was a
+self-constituted democracy; but it was composed of Englishmen, who
+loved their native land, and, while they sought unrestrained freedom,
+did not disdain dependence on the mother country, and a proper
+connection with the English government. They could not obtain a royal
+charter from the king; but the Grand Council of Plymouth--a new
+company, to which James had given the privileges of the old
+one--granted all the privileges which the colonists desired. They were
+too insignificant to attract much attention from the government, or
+excite the jealousy of a great corporation.
+
+Unobtrusive and unfettered, the colony slowly spread. But wherever it
+spread, it took root. It was a tree which Providence planted for all
+generations. It was established upon a rock. It was a branch of the
+true church, which was destined to defy storms and changes, because
+its strength was in the Lord.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New Hampshire.]
+
+But all parts of New England were not, at first, settled by Puritan
+Pilgrims, or from motives of religion merely. The council of Plymouth
+issued grants of domains to various adventurers, who were animated by
+the spirit of gain. John Mason received a patent for what is now the
+state of New Hampshire. Portsmouth and Dover had an existence as early
+as 1623. Gorges obtained a grant of the whole district between the
+Piscataqua and the Kennebec. Saco, in 1636, contained one hundred and
+fifty people. But the settlements in New Hampshire and Maine, having
+disappointed the expectations of the patentees in regard to emolument
+and profit, were not very flourishing.
+
+In the mean time, a new company of Puritans was formed for the
+settlement of the country around Boston. The company obtained a royal
+charter, (1629,) which constituted them a body politic, by the name of
+the _Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay_. It conferred on
+the colonists the rights of English subjects, although it did not
+technically concede freedom of religious worship, or the privilege of
+self-government. The main body of the colonists settled in Salem. They
+were a band of devout and lofty characters; Calvinists in their
+religious creed, and republicans in their political opinions. Strict
+independency was the basis and the genius of their church. It was
+self-constituted, and all its officers were elected by the members.
+
+[Sidenote: Constitution of the Colony.]
+
+The charter of the company had been granted to a corporation
+consisting chiefly of merchants resident in London, and was more
+liberal than could have been expected from so bigoted and zealous a
+king as Charles I. If it did not directly concede the rights of
+conscience, it seemed to be silent respecting them; and the colonists
+were left to the unrestricted enjoyment of their religious and civil
+liberties. The intolerance and rigor of Archbishop Laud caused this
+new colony to be rapidly settled; and, as many distinguished men
+desired to emigrate, they sought and secured, from the company in
+England, a transfer of all the powers of government to the actual
+settlers in America. By this singular transaction, the municipal
+rights and privileges of the colonists were established on a firm
+foundation.
+
+In 1630, not far from fifteen hundred persons, with Winthrop as their
+leader and governor, emigrated to the new world, and settled first in
+Charlestown, and afterwards in Boston. In accordance with the charter
+which gave them such unexpected privileges, a General Court was
+assembled, to settle the government. But the privilege of the elective
+franchise was given only to the members of the church, and each church
+was formed after the model of the one in Salem. It cannot be said that
+a strict democracy was established, since church membership was the
+condition of the full enjoyment of political rights. But if the
+constitution was somewhat aristocratic and exclusive, aristocracy was
+not based on wealth or intellect. The Calvinists of Massachusetts
+recognized a government of the elect,--a sort of theocracy, in which
+only the religious, or those who professed to be so, and were admitted
+to be so, had a right to rule. This was the notion of Cromwell
+himself, the great idol and representative of the Independents, who
+fancied that the government of England should be intrusted only to
+those who were capable of saving England, and were worthy to rule
+England. As his party constituted, in his eyes, this elect body, and
+was, in reality, the best party,--composed of men who feared God, and
+were willing to be ruled by his laws,--therefore his party, as he
+supposed, had a right to overturn thrones, and establish a new
+theocracy on earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Puritans.]
+
+This notion was a delusion in England, and proved fatal to all those
+who were blinded by it. Not so in America. Amid the unbroken forests
+of New England, a colony of men was planted who generally recognized
+the principles of Cromwell; and one of the best governments the world
+has seen controlled the turbulent, rewarded the upright, and protected
+the rights and property of all classes with almost paternal fidelity
+and justice. The colony, however,--such is the weakness of man, such
+the degeneracy of his nature,--was doomed to dissension. Bigotry, from
+which no communities or individuals are fully free, drove some of the
+best men from the limits of the colony. Roger Williams, a minister in
+Salem, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his age,
+sought shelter from the persecution of his brethren amid the wilds on
+Narragansett Bay. In June, 1636, the lawgiver of Rhode Island, with
+five companions, embarked in an Indian canoe, and, sailing down the
+river, landed near a spring, on a sheltered spot, which he called
+_Providence_. He was gradually joined by others, who sympathized with
+his tolerant spirit and enlightened views, and the colony of Rhode
+Island became an asylum for the persecuted for many years. And there
+were many such. The Puritans were too earnest to live in harmony with
+those who differed from them on great religious questions; and a
+difference of views must have been expected among men so intellectual,
+so acute, and so fearless in speculation. How could dissenters from
+prevailing opinions fail to arise?--mystics, fanatics, and heretics?
+The idea of special divine illumination--ever the prevailing source of
+fanaticism, in all ages and countries--led astray some; and the desire
+for greater spiritual liberty animated others. Anne Hutchinson adopted
+substantially the doctrine of George Fox, that the spirit of God
+illuminates believers, independently of his written word; and she
+communicated her views to many others, who became, like her, arrogant
+and conceited, in spite of their many excellent qualities. Harry Vane,
+the governor, was among the number. But there was no reasoning with
+fanatics, who fancied themselves especially inspired; and, as they
+disturbed the peace of the colony, the leaders were expelled. Vane
+himself returned to England, to mingle in scenes more congenial with
+his excellent but excitable temper. In England, this illustrious
+friend of Milton greatly distinguished himself for his efforts in the
+cause of liberty, and ever remained its consistent advocate; opposing
+equally the tyranny of the king, and the encroachments of those who
+overturned his throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Pequod War.]
+
+Connecticut, though assigned to a company in England, was early
+colonized by a detachment of Pilgrims from Massachusetts. In 1635,
+settlements were made at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. The
+following year, the excellent and illustrious Hooker led a company of
+one hundred persons through the forests to the delightful banks of the
+Connecticut, whose rich alluvial soil promised an easier support than
+the hard and stony land in the vicinity of Boston. They were scarcely
+settled before the Pequod war commenced, which involved all the
+colonies in a desperate and bloody contest with the Indians. But the
+Pequods were no match for Europeans, especially without firearms; and,
+in 1637, the tribe was nearly annihilated. The energy and severity
+exercised by the colonists, fighting for their homes, struck awe in
+the minds of the savages; and it was long before they had the courage
+to rally a second time. The Puritans had the spirit of Cromwell, and
+never hesitated to act with intrepid boldness and courage, when the
+necessity was laid upon them. They were no advocates of half measures.
+Their subsequent security and growth are, in no slight degree, to be
+traced to these rigorous measures,--measures which, in these times,
+are sometimes denounced as too severe, but the wisdom of which can
+scarcely be questioned when the results are considered. All the great
+masters of war, and of war with barbarians, have pursued a policy of
+unmitigated severity; and when a temporizing or timid course has been
+adopted with men incapable of being governed by reason, and animated
+by savage passions, that course has failed.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of the New England Colonies.]
+
+After the various colonies were well established in New England, and
+more than twenty thousand had emigrated from the mother country, they
+were no longer regarded with benevolent interest by the king or his
+ministers. The Grand Council of Plymouth surrendered its charter to
+the king, and a writ of _quo warranto_ was issued against the
+Massachusetts colony. But the Puritans refused to surrender their
+charter, and prepared for resistance against the malignant scheme of
+Strafford and Laud. Before they could be carried into execution, the
+struggle between the king and the Long Parliament had commenced. The
+less resistance was forgotten in the greater. The colonies escaped the
+vengeance of a bigoted government. When the parliament triumphed, they
+were especially favored, and gradually acquired wealth and power. The
+different colonies formed a confederation to protect themselves
+against the Dutch and French on the one side, and the Indians on the
+other. And this happily continued for half a century, and was
+productive of very important results. But the several colonies
+continued to make laws for their own people, to repress anarchy, and
+favor the cause of religion and unity. They did not always exhibit a
+liberal and enlightened policy. They destroyed witches; persecuted the
+Baptists and Quakers, and excluded them from their settlements. But,
+with the exception of religious persecution, their legislation was
+wise, and their general conduct was virtuous. They encouraged schools,
+and founded the University of Cambridge. They preserved the various
+peculiarities of Puritanism in regard to amusements, to the observance
+of the Sabbath, and to antipathy to any thing which reminded them of
+Rome, or even of the Church of England. But Puritanism was not an
+odious crust, a form, a dogma. It was a life, a reality; and was not
+unfavorable to the development of the most beautiful virtues of
+charity and benevolence, in a certain sphere. It was not a mere
+traditional Puritanism, which clings with disgusting tenacity to a
+form, when the spirit of love has departed; but it was a harmonious
+development of living virtues, which sympathized with education, with
+freedom, and with progress; which united men together by the bond of
+Christian love, and incited them to deeds of active benevolence and
+intrepid moral heroism. Nor did the Puritan Pilgrims persecute those
+who did not harmonize with them in order to punish them, but simply to
+protect themselves, and to preserve in their midst, and in their
+original purity, those institutions and those rights, for the
+possession of which they left their beloved native land for a savage
+wilderness, with its countless perils and miseries. But their
+hardships and afflictions were not of long continuance. With energy,
+industry, frugality, and love, they soon obtained security, comfort,
+and health. And it is no vain and idle imagination which assigns to
+those years, which succeeded the successful planting of the colony,
+the period of the greatest happiness and virtue which New England has
+ever enjoyed.
+
+Equally fortunate with the Puritans were those interesting people who
+settled Pennsylvania. If the Quakers were persecuted in the mother
+country and in New England, they found a shelter on the banks of the
+Delaware. There they obtained and enjoyed that freedom of religious
+worship which had been denied to the great founder of the sect, and
+which had even been withheld from them by men who had struggled with
+them for the attainment of this exalted privilege.
+
+[Sidenote: William Penn.]
+
+In 1677, the Quakers obtained a charter which recognized the principle
+of democratic equality in the settlements in West Jersey; and in 1680,
+William Penn received from the king, who was indebted to his father, a
+grant of an extensive territory, which was called _Pennsylvania_, of
+which he was constituted absolute proprietary. He also received a
+liberal charter, and gave his people privileges and a code of laws
+which exceeded in liberality any that had as yet been bestowed on any
+community. In 1682 he landed at Newcastle, and, soon after, at his new
+city on the banks of the Delaware, under the shelter of a large,
+spreading elm, made his immortal treaty with the Indians. He
+proclaimed to the Indian, heretofore deemed a foe never to be
+appeased, the principles of love which animated Fox, and which "Mary
+Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk." "We meet," said the lawgiver, "on
+the broad pathway of good faith and good will. No advantage shall be
+taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not
+call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too
+severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship
+between me and you I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains
+might rust, or the felling tree might break. We are the same as if one
+man's body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and
+blood."
+
+Such were the sublime doctrines which the illustrious founder of
+Pennsylvania declared to the Indians, and which he made the basis of
+his government, and the rule of his intercourse with his own people
+and with savage tribes. These doctrines were already instilled into
+the minds of the settlers, and they also found a response in the souls
+of the Indians. The sons of the wilderness long cherished the
+recollection of the covenant, and never forgot its principles. While
+all the other settlements of the Europeans were suffering from the
+hostility of the red man, Pennsylvania alone enjoyed repose. "Not a
+drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian."
+
+William Penn, although the absolute proprietor of a tract of country
+which was nearly equal in extent to England, sought no revenue and no
+arbitrary power. He gave to the settlers the right to choose their own
+magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, and only reserved to
+himself the power to veto the bills of the council--the privilege
+which our democracies still allow to their governors.
+
+Such a colony as he instituted could not but prosper. Its rising
+glories were proclaimed in every country of Europe, and the needy and
+distressed of all countries sought this realized Utopia. In two years
+after Philadelphia was settled, it contained six hundred houses. Peace
+was uninterrupted, and the settlement spread more rapidly than in any
+other part of North America.
+
+New Jersey, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, were all
+colonized by the English, shortly after the settlement of Virginia and
+New England, either by emigration from England, or from the other
+colonies. But there was nothing in their early history sufficiently
+marked to warrant a more extended sketch. In general, the Southern
+States were colonized by men who had not the religious elevation of
+the Puritans, nor the living charity of the Quakers. But their
+characters improved by encountering the evils to which they were
+subjected, and they became gradually imbued with those principles
+which in after times secured independence and union.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New York.]
+
+The settlement of New York, however, merits a passing notice, since it
+was colonized by emigrants from Holland, which was by far the most
+flourishing commercial state of Europe in the seventeenth century. The
+Hudson River had been discovered (1609) by an Englishman, whose name
+it bears, but who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
+The right of possession of the country around it was therefore claimed
+by the United Provinces, and an association of Dutch merchants fitted
+out a ship to trade with the Indians. In 1614, a rude fort was erected
+on Manhattan Island, and, the next year, the settlement at Albany
+commenced, chiefly with a view of trading with the Indians. In 1623,
+New Amsterdam, now New York, was built for the purpose of
+colonization, and extensive territories were appropriated by the Dutch
+for the rising colony. This appropriation involved them in constant
+contention with the English, as well as with the Indians; nor was
+there the enjoyment of political privileges by the people, as in the
+New England colonies. The settlements resembled lordships in the
+Netherlands, and every one who planted a colony of fifty souls,
+possessed the absolute property of the lands he colonized, and became
+_Patroon_, or Lord of the Manor. Very little attention was given to
+education, and the colonists were not permitted to make cotton,
+woollen, or linen cloth, for fear of injury to the monopolists of the
+Dutch manufactures. The province had no popular freedom, and no public
+spirit. The poor were numerous, and the people were disinclined to
+make proper provision for their own protection.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of New Netherlands.]
+
+But the colony of the New Netherlands was not destined to remain under
+the government of the Dutch West India Company. It was conquered by
+the English in 1664, and the conquerors promised security to the
+customs, the religion, the institutions, and the possessions of the
+Dutch; and this promise was observed. In 1673, the colony was
+reconquered, but finally, in 1674, was ceded to the English, and the
+brother of Charles II. resumed his possession and government of New
+York, and delegated his power to Colonel Nichols, who ruled with
+wisdom and humanity. But the old Dutch Governor Stuyvesant remained in
+the city over which he had so honorably presided, and prolonged the
+empire of Dutch manners, if not of Dutch arms. The banks of the Hudson
+continued also to be peopled by the countrymen of the original
+colonists, who long preserved the language, customs, and religion of
+Holland. New York, nevertheless, was a royal province, and the
+administration was frequently intrusted to rapacious, unprincipled,
+and arbitrary governors.
+
+Thus were the various states which border on the Atlantic Ocean
+colonized, in which English laws, institutions, and language were
+destined to be perpetuated. In 1688, the various colonies, of which
+there were twelve, contained about two hundred thousand inhabitants;
+and all of these were Protestants; all cherished the principles of
+civil and religious liberty, and sought, by industry, frugality and
+patience, to secure independence and prosperity. From that period to
+this, no nation has grown more rapidly; no one has ever developed more
+surprising energies; no one has ever enjoyed greater social,
+political, and religious privileges.
+
+But the shores of North America were not colonized merely by the
+English. On the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi another body
+of colonists arrived, and introduced customs and institutions equally
+foreign to those of the English and Spaniards. The French settlements
+in Canada and Louisiana are now to be considered.
+
+[Sidenote: Discovery of the St. Lawrence.]
+
+Within seven years from the discovery of the continent, the fisheries
+of Newfoundland were known to French adventurers. The St. Lawrence was
+explored in 1506, and plans of colonization were formed in 1518. In
+1534, James Cartier, a native of St. Malo, sailed up the River St.
+Lawrence; but the severity of the climate in winter prevented an
+immediate settlement. It was not until 1603 that any permanent
+colonization was commenced. Quebec was then selected by Samuel
+Champlain, the father of the French settlements in Canada, as the site
+for a fort. In 1604, a charter was given, by Henry IV., to an eminent
+Calvinist, De Monts, which gave him the sovereignty of Acadia, a tract
+embraced between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north
+latitude. The Huguenot emigrants were to enjoy their religion, the
+monopoly of the fur trade, and the exclusive control of the soil. They
+arrived at Nova Scotia the same year, and settled in Port Royal.
+
+In 1608, Quebec was settled by Champlain, who aimed at the glory of
+founding a state; and in 1627 he succeeded in establishing the
+authority of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But
+Champlain was also a zealous Catholic, and esteemed the salvation of a
+soul more than the conquest of a kingdom. He therefore selected
+Franciscan monks to effect the conversion of the Indians. But they
+were soon supplanted by the Jesuits, who, patronized by the government
+in France, soon made the new world the scene of their strange
+activity.
+
+[Sidenote: Jesuit Missionaries.]
+
+At no period and in no country were Jesuit missionaries more untiring
+laborers than amid the forests of North America. With the crucifix in
+their hands, they wandered about with savage tribes, and by
+unparalleled labors of charity and benevolence, sought to convert them
+to the Christianity of Rome. As early as 1635, a college and a
+hospital were founded, by munificent patrons in France, for the
+benefit of all the tribes of red men from the waters of Lake Superior
+to the shores of the Kennebec. In 1641 Montreal, intended as a general
+rendezvous for converted Indians was occupied, and soon became the
+most important station in Canada, next to the fortress of Quebec.
+Before Eliot had preached to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid
+missionaries of the Jesuits had explored the shores of Lake Superior,
+had penetrated to the Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the
+Chippeways, the Hurons, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks. Soon after,
+they approached the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, explored the
+sources of the Mississippi, examined its various tributary streams,
+and floated down its mighty waters to its mouth. The missionaries
+claimed the territories on the Gulf of Mexico for the king of France,
+and in 1684, Louisiana was colonized by Frenchmen. The indefatigable
+La Salle, after having explored the Mississippi, from the Falls of St.
+Anthony to the sea, was assassinated by one of his envious followers,
+but not until he had earned the immortal fame of being the father of
+western colonization.
+
+Thus were the North American settlements effected. In 1688, England
+possessed those colonies which border on the Atlantic Ocean, from
+Maine to Georgia. The French possessed Nova Scotia, Canada, Louisiana,
+and claimed the countries bordering on the Mississippi and its
+branches, from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and also the
+territories around the great lakes.
+
+A mutual jealousy, as was to be expected, sprung up between France and
+England respecting their colonial possessions. Both kingdoms aimed at
+the sovereignty of North America. The French were entitled, perhaps,
+by right of discovery, to the greater extent of territory; but their
+colonies were very unequal to those of the English in respect to
+numbers, and still more so in moral elevation and intellectual
+culture.
+
+But Louis XIV., then in the height of his power, meditated the
+complete subjection of the English settlements. The French allied
+themselves with the Indians, and savage wars were the result. The
+Mohawks and other tribes, encouraged by the French, committed fearful
+massacres at Deerfield and Haverhill, and the English settlers were
+kept in a state of constant alarm and fear. By the treaty of Utrecht,
+in 1713, the colonists obtained peace and considerable accession of
+territory. In 1720, John Law proposed his celebrated financial scheme
+to the prince regent of France, and the Mississippi Company was
+chartered, and Louisiana colonized. Much profit was expected to be
+derived from this company. It will be seen, in another chapter, how
+miserably it failed. It was based on wrong foundations, and the
+project of deriving wealth from the colonies came to nought; nor did
+it result in a rapid colonization.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosperity of the English Colonies.]
+
+Meanwhile the English colonies advanced in wealth, numbers, and
+political importance, and attracted the notice of the English
+government. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1711, was solicited to tax the
+colonies; but he nobly rejected the proposal. He encouraged trade to
+the utmost latitude, and tribute was only levied by means of
+consumption of British manufactures. But restrictions were
+subsequently imposed on colonial enterprise, which led to collisions
+between the colonies and the mother country. The Southern colonies
+were more favored than the Northern, but all of them were regarded
+with the view of promoting the peculiar interests of Great Britain.
+Other subjects of dispute also arose; but, nevertheless, the colonies,
+especially those of New England, made rapid strides. There was a
+general diffusion of knowledge, the laws were well observed, and the
+ministers of religion were an honor to their sacred calling. The earth
+was subdued, and replenished with a hardy and religious set of men.
+Sentiments of patriotism and independence were ardently cherished. The
+people were trained to protect themselves; and, in their town
+meetings, learned to discuss political questions, and to understand
+political rights. Some ecclesiastical controversies disturbed the
+peace of parishes and communities, but did not retard the general
+prosperity. Some great lights also appeared. David Brainerd performed
+labors of disinterestedness and enlightened piety, which have never
+been surpassed, and never equalled, even in zeal and activity, except
+by those of the earlier Jesuits. Jonathan Edwards stamped his genius
+on the whole character of New England theology, and won the highest
+honor as a metaphysician, even from European admirers. His treatise on
+the Freedom of the Will has secured the praises of philosophers and
+divines of all sects and parties from Hume to Chalmers, and can "never
+be attentively perused without a sentiment of admiration at the
+strength and stretch of the human understanding." Benjamin Franklin
+also had arisen: he had not, at this early epoch, distinguished
+himself for philosophical discoveries; but he had attracted attention
+as the editor of a newspaper, in which he fearlessly defended freedom
+of speech and the great rights of the people. But greater than
+Franklin, greater than any hero which modern history has commemorated,
+was that young Virginia planter, who was then watching, with great
+solicitude, the interests and glory of his country, and preparing
+himself for the great conflicts which have given him immortality.
+
+The growth of the colonies, and their great importance in the eyes of
+the Europeans, had now provoked the jealousy of the two leading powers
+of Europe, and the colonial struggle between England and France began.
+
+[Sidenote: French Encroachments.]
+
+The French claimed the right of erecting a chain of fortresses along
+the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada with
+Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with the
+Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the American
+continent. But these designs were displeasing to the English
+colonists, who had already extended their settlements far into the
+interior. The English ministry was also indignant in view of these
+movements, by which the colonies were completely surrounded by
+military posts. England protested; but the French artfully protracted
+negotiations until the fortifications were completed.
+
+It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that George
+Washington, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by the colony of
+Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey through the trackless
+wilderness, attended but by one person, in no slight degree marked him
+out, and prepared him for his subsequently great career.
+
+While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the
+cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their
+encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless hastened
+the rupture between the two countries. Orders were sent to the
+colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in Nova Scotia,
+and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then commenced that
+great war, which resulted in the loss of the French possessions in
+America. But this war was also allied with the contests which grew out
+of the Austrian Succession, and therefore will be presented in a
+separate chapter on the Pelham administration, during which the Seven
+Years' War, in the latter years of the reign of George II., commenced.
+
+[Sidenote: European Settlements in the East.]
+
+But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed not
+merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those in the
+East Indies; and these must be alluded to in order to form a general
+idea of European colonization, and of the causes which led to the
+mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to the great wars
+which desolated the various European nations.
+
+From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to those,
+therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the globe. Even to
+those old countries had European armies penetrated; even there
+European cupidity and enterprise were exercised.
+
+As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely
+extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located the
+East India Company's servants. The first English settlement of
+importance was on the Island of Java; but, in 1658, a grant of land
+was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where was erected
+the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island of Bombay was
+ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles II., and appointed the
+capital of the British settlements in India. In 1698, the English had
+a settlement on the Hooghly, which afterwards became the metropolis of
+British power.
+
+[Sidenote: French Settlements in India.]
+
+But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also colonies in India
+for purposes of trade. Louis XIV. established a company, in imitation
+of the English, which sought a settlement on the Hooghly. The French
+company also had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about
+eighty miles south of Madras, called Pondicherry, and had colonized
+two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of
+France and the Isle of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were
+controlled by two presidencies, one on the Isle of France, and the
+other at Pondicherry.
+
+[Sidenote: La Bourdonnais and Dupleix.]
+
+When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, these two
+French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior genius,--La
+Bourdonnais and Dupleix,--both of them men of great experience in
+Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests of the company, so
+far as their own personal ambition would permit. When Commodore
+Burnet, with an English squadron, was sent into the Indian seas, La
+Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting out an expedition to oppose it, and
+even contemplated the capture of Madras. No decisive action was fought
+at sea; but the French governor succeeded in taking Madras. This
+success displeased the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to
+Dupleix, and complained of the aggression of his countrymen in
+attacking a place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame
+of La Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as
+being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling the
+conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own
+presidency.
+
+The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La Bourdonnais
+from following up the advantage of his victory, and he failed in his
+attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in consequence, returned to
+France, and died from the effects of an unjust imprisonment in the
+Bastile.
+
+Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the principal
+inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to
+escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a
+mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service,
+and soon found occasion to distinguish himself.
+
+But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of founding an
+Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the Carnatic. And
+India was in a state to favor his enterprises. The empire of the Great
+Mogul, whose capital was Delhi, was tottering from decay. It had been,
+in the sixteenth century, the most powerful empire in the world. The
+magnificence of his palaces astonished even Europeans accustomed to
+the splendor of Paris and Versailles. His viceroys ruled over
+provinces larger and richer than either France or England. And even
+the lieutenants of these viceroys frequently aspired to independence.
+
+The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated the
+French, and befriended the English. On the death of the Viceroy of the
+Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix conceived his
+gigantic scheme of conquest. To the throne of this viceroy there were
+several claimants, two of whom applied to the French for assistance.
+This was what the Frenchman desired, and he allied himself with the
+pretenders. With the assistance of the French, Mirzappa Juy obtained
+the viceroyalty. Dupleix was splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted
+with the command of seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a
+present of two hundred thousand pounds.
+
+The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession of the
+rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon invested by the
+French and Indian forces.
+
+To raise this siege, and turn the tide of French conquest, became the
+object of Clive, then twenty-five years of age. He represented to his
+superior the importance of this post, and also of striking a decisive
+blow. He suggested the plan of an attack on Arcot itself, the
+residence of the nabob. His project was approved, and he was placed at
+the head of a force of three hundred sepoys and two hundred
+Englishmen. The city was taken by surprise, and its capture induced
+the nabob to relinquish the siege of Trichinopoly in order to retake
+his capital. But Clive so intrenched his followers, that they
+successfully defended the place after exhibiting prodigies of valor.
+The fortune of war turned to the side of the gallant Englishman, and
+Dupleix, who was no general, retreated before the victors. Clive
+obtained the command of Fort St. David, an important fortress near
+Madras, and soon controlled the Carnatic.
+
+About this time, the settlements on the Hooghly were plundered by
+Suraj-w Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal. Bengal was the most fertile and
+populous province of the empire of the Great Mogul. It was watered by
+the Ganges, the sacred river of India, and its cities were
+surprisingly rich. Its capital was Moorshedabad, a city nearly as
+large as London; and here the young viceroy lived in luxury and
+effeminacy, and indulged in every species of cruelty and folly. He
+hated the English of Calcutta, and longed to plunder them. He
+accordingly seized the infant city, and shut up one hundred and forty
+of the colonists in a dungeon of the fort, a room twenty feet by
+fourteen, with only two small windows; and in a few hours, one hundred
+and seventeen of the English died. The horrors of that night have been
+splendidly painted by Macaulay in his essay on Clive, and the place of
+torment, called the _Black Hole of Calcutta_, is synonymous with
+suffering and misery. Clive resolved to avenge this insult to his
+countrymen. An expedition was fitted out at Madras to punish the
+inhuman nabob, consisting of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen
+hundred sepoys. It was a small force, but proved sufficient. Calcutta
+was recovered and the army of the nabob was routed. Clive intrigued
+with the enemies of the despot in his own city; and, by means of
+unparalleled treachery, dissimulation, art, and violence, Suraj-w
+Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier, one of the conspirators, was
+made nabob in his place. In return for the services of Clive, the new
+viceroy splendidly rewarded him. A hundred boats conveyed the
+treasures of Bengal down the river to Calcutta. Clive himself, who had
+walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with diamonds and
+rubies, condescended to receive a present of three hundred thousand
+pounds. His moderation has been commended by his biographers in not
+asking for a million.
+
+The elevation of Meer Jaffier was, of course, displeasing to the
+imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone him.
+The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the English, and,
+with the powerful assistance of the Europeans, the forces of the
+successor of the great Aurungzebe were signally routed. But the great
+sums he was obliged to bestow on his allies, and the encroaching
+spirit which they manifested, changed his friendship into enmity. He
+plotted with the Dutch and the French to overturn the power of the
+English. Clive divined his object, and Meer Jaffier was deposed in his
+turn. The Viceroy of Bengal was but the tool of his English
+protectors, and British power was firmly planted in the centre of
+India. Calcutta became the capital of a great empire, and the East
+India Company, a mere assemblage of merchants and stockjobbers, by
+their system of perfidy, craft and violence, became the rulers and
+disposers of provinces which Alexander had coveted in vain. The
+servants of this company made their fortunes, and untold wealth was
+transported to England. Clive obtained a fortune of forty thousand
+pounds a year, an Irish peerage, and a seat in the House of Commons.
+He became an object of popular idolatry, courted by ministers, and
+extolled by Pitt. He was several times appointed governor-general of
+the country he had conquered, and to him England is indebted for the
+foundation of her power in India. But his fame and fortune finally
+excited the jealousy of his countrymen, and he was made to bear the
+sins of the company which he had enriched. The malignity with which he
+was pursued, and the disease which he acquired in India, operated
+unfortunately on a temper naturally irritable; his reason became
+overpowered, and he died, in 1774, by his own hand.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of India.]
+
+The subsequent career of Hastings, and final conquest of India, form
+part of the political history of England itself, during those
+administrations which yet remain to be described. The colonization of
+America and the East Indies now became involved with the politics of
+rival statesmen; and its history can only be appreciated by
+considering those acts and principles which marked the career of the
+Newcastles and the Pitts. The administration of the Pelhams,
+therefore, next claims attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The best histories pertaining to the conquests
+     of the Spaniards are undoubtedly those of Mr. Prescott.
+     Irving's Columbus should also be consulted. For the early
+     history of the North American colonies, the attention of
+     students is directed to Grahame's and Bancroft's Histories
+     of the United States. In regard to India, see Elphinstone's,
+     Gleig's, Ormes's, and Mills's Histories of India; Malcolm's
+     Life of Clive; and Macaulay's Essay on Clive. For the
+     contemporaneous history of Great Britain, the best works are
+     those of Tyndal, Smollett, Lord Mahon, and Belsham;
+     Russell's Modern Europe; the Pictorial History of England;
+     and the continuation of Mackintosh, in Lardner's Cabinet
+     Cyclopedia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.
+
+
+The English nation acquiesced in the government of Sir Robert Walpole
+for nearly thirty years--the longest administration in the annals of
+the country. And he was equal to the task, ruling, on the whole,
+beneficently, promoting peace, regulating the finances, and
+encouraging those great branches of industry which lie at the
+foundation of English wealth and power. But the intrigues of rival
+politicians, and the natural desire of change, which all parties feel
+after a long repose, plunged the nation into war, and forced the able
+minister to retire. The opposition, headed by the Prince of Wales,
+supported by such able statesmen as Bolingbroke, Carteret,
+Chesterfield, Pulteney, Windham, and Pitt, and sustained by the
+writings of those great literary geniuses whom Walpole disdained and
+neglected, compelled George II., at last, to part with a man who had
+conquered his narrow prejudices.
+
+But the Tories did not come into power on the retirement of Walpole.
+His old confederates remained at the head of affairs, and Carteret,
+afterwards Lord Granville, the most brilliant man of his age, became
+the leading minister. But even he, so great in debate, and so
+distinguished for varied attainments, did not long retain his place.
+None of the abuses which existed under the former administration were
+removed; and moreover the war which the nation had clamored for, had
+proved disastrous. He also had to bear the consequences of Walpole's
+temporizing policy which could no longer be averted.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pelhams.]
+
+The new ministry was headed by Henry Pelham, as first lord of the
+treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, and by the Duke of
+Newcastle, as principal secretary of state. These two men formed,
+also, a coalition with the leading members of both houses of
+parliament, Tories as well as Whigs; and, for the first time since the
+accession of the Stuarts, there was no opposition. This great
+coalition was called the "Broad Bottom," and comprehended the Duke of
+Bedford, the Earls of Chesterfield and Harrington, Lords Lyttleton and
+Hardwicke, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr Doddington, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and Mr.
+Murray. The three latter statesmen were not then formidable.
+
+The Pelhams were descended from one of the oldest, proudest and
+richest families in England, and had an immense parliamentary
+influence from their aristocratic connections, their wealth, and their
+experience. They were not remarkable for genius so much as for
+sagacity, tact, and intrigue. They were extremely ambitious, and fond
+of place and power. They ruled England as the representatives of the
+aristocracy--the last administration which was able to defy the
+national will. After their fall, the people had a greater voice in the
+appointment of ministers. Pitt and Fox were commoners in a different
+sense from what Walpole was, and represented that class which has ever
+since ruled England,--not nobles, not the democracy, but a class
+between them, composed of the gentry, landed proprietors, lawyers,
+merchants, manufacturers, men of leisure, and their dependants.
+
+The administration of the Pelhams is chiefly memorable for the Scotch
+rebellion of 1745, and for the great European war which grew out of
+colonial and commercial ambition, and the encroachments of Frederic
+the Great.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart.]
+
+The Scotch rebellion was produced by the attempts of the young
+Pretender, Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, to regain the
+throne of his ancestors. His adventures have the interest of romance,
+and have generally excited popular sympathy. He was born at Rome in
+1720; served, at the age of fifteen, under the Duke of Berwick, in
+Spain, and, at the age of twenty, received overtures from some
+discontented people of Scotland to head an insurrection. There was, at
+this time, great public distress, and George II. was exceedingly
+unpopular. The Jacobites were powerful, and thousands wished for a
+change, including many persons of rank and influence.
+
+With only seven followers, in a small vessel, he landed on one of the
+Western Islands, 18th of July, 1745. Even had the promises which had
+been made to him by France, or by people in Scotland, been fulfilled,
+his enterprise would have been most hazardous. But, without money,
+men, or arms, his hopes were desperate. Still he cherished that
+presumptuous self-confidence which so often passes for bravery, and
+succeeded better than could have been anticipated. Several chieftains
+of the Highland clans joined his standard, and he had the faculty of
+gaining the hearts of his followers. At Borrodaile occurred his first
+interview with the chivalrous Donald Cameron of Lochiel, who was
+perfectly persuaded of the desperate character of his enterprise, but
+nevertheless aided it with generous self-devotion.
+
+The standard of Charles Edward was raised at Glenfinnan, on the 19th
+of August, and a little band of seven hundred adventurers and
+enthusiastic Highlanders resolved on the conquest of England! Never
+was devotion to an unfortunate cause more romantic and sincere. Never
+were energies more generously made, or more miserably directed. But
+the first gush of enthusiasm and bravery was attended with success,
+and the Pretender soon found himself at the head of fifteen hundred
+men, and on his way to Edinburgh, marching among people friendly to
+his cause, whom he endeared by every attention and gentlemanly
+artifice. The simple people of the north of Scotland were won by his
+smiles and courtesy, and were astonished at the exertions which the
+young prince made, and the fatigues he was able to endure.
+
+On the 15th of September, Charles had reached Linlithgow, only sixteen
+miles from Edinburgh, where he was magnificently entertained in the
+ancient and favorite palace of the kings of Scotland. Two days after,
+he made his triumphal entry into the capital of his ancestors, the
+place being unprepared for resistance. Colonel Gardiner, with his
+regiment of dragoons, was faithful to his trust, and the magistrates
+of Edinburgh did all in their power to prevent the surrender of the
+city. But the great body of the citizens preferred to trust to the
+clemency of Charles, than run the risk of defence.
+
+[Sidenote: Surrender of Edinburgh.]
+
+Thus, without military stores, or pecuniary resources, or powerful
+friends, simply by the power of persuasion, the Pretender, in the
+short space of two months from his landing in Scotland, quietly took
+possession of the most powerful city of the north. The Jacobites put
+no restraint to their idolatrous homage, and the ladies welcomed the
+young and handsome chevalier with extravagant adulation. Even the
+Whigs pitied him, and permitted him to enjoy his brief hour of
+victory.
+
+At Edinburgh, Charles received considerable reënforcement, and took
+from the city one thousand stand of arms. He gave his followers but
+little time for repose, and soon advanced against the royal army
+commanded by Sir John Cope. The two armies met at Preston Pans, and
+were of nearly equal force. The attack was made by the invader, and
+was impetuous and unlooked for. Nothing could stand before the
+enthusiasm and valor of the Highlanders, and in five minutes the rout
+commenced, and a great slaughter of the regular army occurred. Among
+those who fell was the distinguished Colonel Gardiner, an old veteran,
+who refused to fly.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Pretender.]
+
+Charles followed up his victory with moderation, and soon was master
+of all Scotland. He indulged his taste for festivities, at Holyrood,
+for a while, and neglected no means to conciliate the Scotch. He
+flattered their prejudices, gave balls and banquets, made love to
+their most beautiful women, and denied no one access to his presence.
+Poets sang his praises, and women extolled his heroism and beauty. The
+light, the gay, the romantic, and the adventurous were on his side;
+but the substantial and wealthy classes were against him, for they
+knew he must be conquered in the end.
+
+Still his success had been remarkable, and for it he was indebted to
+the Highlanders, who did not wish to make him king of England, but
+only king of Scotland. But Charles deceived them. He wanted the
+sceptre of George II.; and when he commenced his march into England,
+their spirits flagged, and his cause became hopeless. There was one
+class of men who were inflexibly hostile to him--the Presbyterian
+ministers. They looked upon him, from the first, with coldness and
+harshness, and distrusted both his religion and sincerity. On them all
+his arts, and flattery, and graces were lost; and they represented the
+substantial part of the Scottish nation. It is extremely doubtful
+whether Charles could ever have held Edinburgh, even if English armies
+had not been sent against him.
+
+But Charles had played a desperate game from the beginning, for the
+small chance of winning a splendid prize. He, therefore, after resting
+his troops, and collecting all the force he could, turned his face to
+England at the head of five thousand men, well armed and well clothed,
+but discontented and dispirited. They had never contemplated the
+invasion of England, but only the recovery of the ancient independence
+of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: The Retreat of the Pretender.]
+
+On the 8th of November, the Pretender set foot upon English soil, and
+entered Carlisle in triumph. But his forces, instead of increasing,
+diminished, and no popular enthusiasm supported the courage of his
+troops. But he advanced towards the south, and reached Derby
+unmolested on the 4th of December. There he learned that the royal
+army, headed by the Duke of Cumberland, with twelve thousand veterans,
+was advancing rapidly against him.
+
+His followers clamored to return, and refused to advance another step.
+They now fully perceived that success was not only hopeless, but that
+victory would be of no advantage to them; that they would be
+sacrificed by a man who only aimed at the conquest of England.
+
+Charles was well aware of the desperate nature of the contest, but had
+no desire to retreat. His situation was not worse than what it had
+been when he landed on the Hebrides. Having penetrated to within one
+hundred and twenty miles of London, against the expectations of every
+one, why should he not persevere? Some unlooked-for success, some
+lucky incidents, might restore him to the throne of his grandfather.
+Besides, a French army of ten thousand was about to land in England.
+The Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in the country, was ready to
+declare in his favor. London was in commotion. A chance remained.
+
+But his followers thought only of their homes, and Charles was obliged
+to yield to an irresistible necessity. Like Richard Coeur de Lion
+after the surrender of Acre, he was compelled to return, without
+realizing the fruit of bravery and success. Like the lion-hearted
+king, pensive and sad, sullen and miserable, he gave the order to
+retreat. His spirits, hitherto buoyant and gladsome, now fell, and
+despondency and despair succeeded vivacity and hope. He abandoned
+himself to grief and vexation, lingered behind his retreating army,
+and was reckless of his men and of their welfare. And well he may have
+been depressed. The motto of Hampden, "_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_,"
+had also governed him. But others would not be animated by it, and he
+was ruined.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Culloden.]
+
+But his miserable and dejected army succeeded in reaching their native
+soil, although pursued by the cavalry of two powerful armies, in the
+midst of a hostile population, and amid great sufferings from hunger
+and fatigue. On the 26th of December, he entered Glasgow, levied a
+contribution on the people, and prepared himself for his final battle.
+He retreated to the Highlands, and spent the winter in recruiting his
+troops, and in taking fortresses. On the 15th of April, 1746, he drew
+up his army on the moor of Culloden, near Inverness, with the
+desperate resolution of attacking, with vastly inferior forces, the
+Duke of Cumberland, intrenched nine miles distant. The design was
+foolish and unfortunate. It was early discovered; and the fresh troops
+of the royal duke attacked the dispirited, scattered, and wearied
+followers of Charles Edward before they could form themselves in
+battle array. They defended themselves with valor. But what is valor
+against overwhelming force? The army of Charles was totally routed,
+and his hopes were blasted forever.
+
+The most horrid barbarities and cruelties were inflicted by the
+victors. The wounded were left to die. The castles of rebel chieftains
+were razed to the ground. Herds and flocks were driven away, and the
+people left to perish with hunger. Some of the captives were sent to
+Barbadoes, others were imprisoned, and many were shot. A reward of
+thirty thousand pounds was placed on the head of the Pretender; but he
+nevertheless escaped. After wandering a while as a fugitive,
+disguised, wearied, and miserable, hunted from fortress to fortress,
+and from island to island, he succeeded, by means of the unparalleled
+loyalty and fidelity of his few Highland followers, in securing a
+vessel, and in escaping to France. His adventures among the Western
+Islands, especially those which happened while wandering, in the
+disguise of a female servant, with Flora Macdonald, are highly
+romantic and wonderful. Equally wonderful is the fact that, of the
+many to whom his secret was intrusted, not one was disposed to betray
+him, even in view of so splendid a bribe as thirty thousand pounds.
+But this fact, though surprising, is not inconceivable. Had Washington
+been unfortunate in his contest with the mother country, and had he
+wandered as a fugitive amid the mountains of Vermont, would not many
+Americans have shielded him, even in view of a reward of one hundred
+thousand pounds?
+
+[Sidenote: Latter Days of the Pretender.]
+
+The latter days of the Pretender were spent in Rome and Florence. He
+married a Polish princess, and assumed the title of _Duke of Albany_.
+He never relinquished the hope of securing the English crown, and
+always retained his politeness and grace of manner. But he became an
+object of pity, not merely from his poverty and misfortunes, but also
+from the vice of intemperance, which he acquired in Scotland. He died
+of apoplexy, in 1788, and left no legitimate issue. The last male heir
+of the house of Stuart was the Cardinal of York, who died in 1807, and
+who was buried in St. Peter's Cathedral; over whose mortal remains was
+erected a marble monument, by Canova, through the munificence of
+George IV., to whom the cardinal had left the crown jewels which
+James II. had carried with him to France. This monument bears the
+names of James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., kings of England;
+titles never admitted by the English. With the battle of Culloden
+expired the hopes of the Catholics and Jacobites to restore
+Catholicism and the Stuarts.
+
+The great European war, which was begun by Sir Robert Walpole, not
+long before his retirement, was another great event which happened
+during the administration of the Pelhams, and with which their
+administration was connected. The Spanish war was followed by the war
+of the Austrian Succession.
+
+[Sidenote: Maria Theresa.]
+
+Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, ascended the oldest and proudest
+throne of Europe,--that of Germany,--amid a host of claimants. The
+Elector of Bavaria laid claim to her hereditary dominions in Bohemia;
+the King of Sardinia made pretension to the duchy of Milan; while the
+Kings of Poland, Spain, France, and Prussia disputed with her her
+rights to the whole Austrian succession. Never were acts of gross
+injustice meditated with greater audacity. Just as the young and
+beautiful princess ascended the throne of Charlemagne, amid
+embarrassments and perplexities,--such as an exhausted treasury, a
+small army, a general scarcity, threatened hostilities with the Turks,
+and absolute war with France,--the new king of Prussia, Frederic,
+surnamed the Great, availing himself of her distresses, seized one of
+the finest provinces of her empire. The first notice which the queen
+had of the seizure of Silesia, was an insulting speech from the
+Prussian ambassador. "I come," said he, "with safety for the house of
+Austria on the one hand, and the imperial crown for your royal
+highness on the other. The troops of my master are at the service of
+the queen, and cannot fail of being acceptable, at a time when she is
+in want of both. And as the king, my master, from the situation of his
+dominions, will be exposed to great danger from this alliance with the
+Queen of Hungary, it is hoped that, as an indemnification, the queen
+will not offer him less than the whole duchy of Silesia."
+
+The queen, of course, was indignant in view of this cool piece of
+villany, and prepared to resist. War with all the continental powers
+was the result. France joined the coalition to deprive the queen of
+her empire. Two French armies invaded Germany. The Elector of Bavaria
+marched, with a hostile army, to within eight miles of Vienna. The
+King of Prussia made himself master of Silesia. Abandoned by all her
+allies,--without an army, or ministers, or money,--the queen fled to
+Hungary, her hereditary dominions, and threw herself on the generosity
+of her subjects. She invoked the states of the Diet, and, clad in deep
+mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and a cimeter at
+her side, she traversed the hall in which her nobles were assembled,
+and addressed them, in the immortal language of Rome, respecting her
+wrongs and her distresses. Her faithful subjects responded to her
+call; and youth, beauty, and rank, in distress, obtained their natural
+triumph. "A thousand swords leaped from their scabbards," and the old
+hall rung with the cry, "We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa."
+Tears started from the eyes of the queen, whom misfortunes and insult
+could not bend, and called forth, even more than her words, the
+enthusiasm of her subjects.
+
+It was in defence of this injured and noble queen that the English
+parliament voted supplies and raised armies. This was the war which
+characterized the Pelham administration, and to which Walpole was
+opposed. But it will be further presented, when allusion is made to
+Frederic the Great.
+
+France no sooner formed an alliance with Prussia, against Austria,
+than the "balance of power" seemed to be disturbed. To restore this
+balance, and preserve Austria, was the aim of England. To the desire
+to preserve this power may be traced most of the wars of the
+eighteenth century. The idea of a balance of power was the leading
+principle which animated all the diplomatic transactions of Europe for
+more than a century.
+
+By the treaty of Breslau, (1742,) Maria Theresa yielded up to Frederic
+the province of Silesia, and Europe might have remained at peace. But
+as England and France were both involved in the contest, their old
+spirit of rivalry returned; and, from auxiliaries, they became
+principals in the war, and soon renewed it. The theatre of strife was
+changed from Germany to Holland, and the arms of France were
+triumphant. The Duke of Cumberland was routed by Marshal Saxe at the
+great battle of Fontenoy; and this battle restored peace, for a while,
+to Germany. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, husband of Maria Theresa, was
+elected Emperor of Germany, and assumed the title of Francis I.
+
+But it was easier to restore tranquillity to Germany, than peace
+between England and France; both powers panting for military glory,
+and burning with mutual jealousy. The peace of Aix la Chapelle, in
+1748, was a truce rather than a treaty; and France and England soon
+found occasion to plunge into new hostilities.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Louisburg.]
+
+During the war of the Austrian Succession, hostilities had not been
+confined to the continent of Europe. As colonial jealousy was one of
+the animating principles of two of the leading powers in the contest,
+the warfare extended to the colonies themselves. A body of French,
+from Cape Breton, surprised the little English garrison of Canseau,
+destroyed the fort and fishery, and removed eighty men, as prisoners
+of war, to Louisburg--the strongest fortress, next to Quebec, in
+French America. These men were afterwards sent to Boston, on parole,
+and, while there, communicated to Governor Shirley the state of the
+fortress in which they had been confined. Shirley resolved to capture
+it, and the legislature of Massachusetts voted supplies for the
+expedition. All the New England colonies sent volunteers; and the
+united forces, of about four thousand men were put under the command
+of William Pepperell, a merchant at Kittery Point, near Portsmouth.
+The principal part of the forces was composed of fishermen; but they
+were Yankees. Amid the fogs of April, this little army, rich in
+expedients, set sail to take a fortress which five hundred men could
+defend against five thousand. But they were successful, aided by an
+English fleet; and, after a siege of three months, Louisburg
+surrendered, (1745)--justly deemed the greatest achievement of the
+whole war.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Colonial Contest.]
+
+But the French did not relinquish their hopes of gaining an ascendency
+on the American continent, and prosecuted their labors of erecting on
+the Ohio their chain of fortifications, to connect Canada with
+Louisiana. The erection of these forts was no small cause of the
+breaking out of fresh hostilities. When the contest was renewed
+between Maria Theresa and Frederic the Great, and the famous Seven
+Years' War began, the English resolved to conquer all the French
+possessions in America.
+
+Without waiting, however, for directions from England, Governor
+Dinwiddie, of Virginia, raised a regiment of troops, of which George
+Washington was made lieutenant-colonel, and with which he marched
+across the wilderness to attack Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, at the
+junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers.
+
+That unsuccessful expedition was the commencement of the great
+colonial contest in which Canada was conquered. Early in 1755, General
+Braddock was sent to America to commence offensive operations. The
+colonies coöperated, and three expeditions were planned; one to attack
+Fort Du Quesne, a second to attack Fort Niagara, and a third to attack
+Crown Point. The first was to be composed of British troops, under
+Braddock, the second of American, under Governor Shirley, and the
+third of militia of the northern colonies.
+
+The expedition against Fort Du Quesne was a memorable failure.
+Braddock was a brave man, but unfitted for his work, Hyde Park having
+hitherto been the only field of his military operations. Moreover,
+with that presumption and audacity which then characterized his
+countrymen, he affected sovereign contempt for his American
+associates, and would listen to no advice. Unacquainted with Indian
+warfare, and ignorant of the country, he yet pressed towards the
+interior, until, within ten miles of Fort Du Quesne, he was surprised
+by a body of French and Indians, and taken in an ambuscade. Instant
+retreat might still have saved him; but he was too proud not to fight
+according to rule; and he fell mortally wounded. Washington was the
+only mounted officer that escaped being killed or wounded. By his
+prudent and skilful management, he saved half of his men, who formed
+after the battle, and effected a retreat.
+
+The other two expeditions also failed, chiefly through want of union
+between the provincial governor and the provincial assemblies, and
+also from the moral effects of the defeat of Braddock. Moreover, the
+colonies perfectly understood that they were fighting, not for
+liberty, but for the glory and ambition of the mother country, and
+therefore did not exhibit the ardor they evinced in the revolutionary
+struggle.
+
+But the failure of these expeditions contributed to make the ministry
+of the Duke of Newcastle unpopular. Other mistakes were also made in
+the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean
+excited popular clamor. The repeated disappointments and miscarriages,
+the delay of armaments, the neglect of opportunities, the absurd
+disposition of fleets, were numbered among the misfortunes which
+resulted from a weak and incapable ministry. Stronger men were
+demanded by the indignant voice of the nation, and the Duke of
+Newcastle, first lord of the treasury, since the death of his brother,
+was obliged to call Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge--the two most popular
+commoners of England--into the cabinet. But the new administration did
+not work harmoniously. It was an emblem of that image which
+Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a vision, with a head of gold, and legs of
+iron, and feet of clay. Pitt and Legge were obliged by their colleague
+to resign. But their removal incensed the whole nation, and so great
+was the clamor, that the king was compelled to reinstate the popular
+idols--the only men capable of managing affairs at that crisis. Pitt
+became secretary of state, and Legge chancellor of the exchequer. The
+Duke of Newcastle, after being at the head of administration ten
+years, was, reluctantly, compelled to resign. The Duke of Devonshire
+became nominally the premier, but Pitt was the ruling spirit in the
+cabinet.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Duke of Newcastle.]
+
+The character of the Duke of Newcastle is thus sketched by Horace
+Walpole; "He had no pride, but infinite self-love. Jealousy was the
+great source of all his faults. There was no expense to which he was
+addicted but generosity. His houses, gardens, table, and equipage,
+swallowed immense sums, and the sums he owed were only exceeded by
+those he wasted. He loved business immoderately, but was always doing
+it; he never did it. His speeches were copious in words, but empty and
+unmeaning, his professions extravagant, and his curiosity insatiable.
+He was a secretary of state without intelligence, a duke without
+money, a man of infinite intrigue without secrecy, and a minister
+hated by all parties, without being turned out by either." "All able
+men," adds Macaulay, "ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child
+who never knew his own mind an hour together; and yet he overreached
+them all."
+
+[Sidenote: Unpopularity of the Pelhams.]
+
+The Pelham administration cannot, on the whole, be called fortunate,
+nor, on the other hand, a disgraceful one. The Pelhams "showed
+themselves," says Smyth, "friendly to the principles of mild
+government." With all their faults, they were tolerant, peaceful,
+prudent; they had the merit of respecting public opinion; and though
+they were not fitted to advance the prosperity of their country by any
+exertions of political genius, they were not blind to such
+opportunities as fairly presented themselves. But they were not fitted
+for the stormy times in which they lived, and quietly yielded to the
+genius of a man whom they did not like, and whom the king absolutely
+hated. George II., against his will, was obliged to intrust the helm
+of state to the only man in the nation capable of holding it.
+
+The administration of William Pitt is emphatically the history of the
+civilized world, during a period of almost universal war. It was for
+his talents as a war minister that he was placed at the head of the
+government, and his policy, like that of his greater son, in a still
+more stormy epoch, was essentially warlike. In the eyes of his
+contemporaries, his administration was brilliant and successful, and
+he undoubtedly raised England to a high pitch of military glory; but
+glory, alas! most dearly purchased, since it led to the imposition of
+taxes beyond a parallel, and the vast increase of the national debt.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of William Pitt.]
+
+He was born in 1708, of good family, his grandfather having been
+governor of Madras, and the purchaser of the celebrated diamond which
+bears his name, and which was sold to the regent of France for one
+hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. William Pitt was sent to
+Oxford at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-seven, became a member
+of parliament. From the first, he was heard with attention, and, when
+years and experience had given him wisdom and power, his eloquence was
+overwhelming. No one ever equalled him in brilliant invective and
+scorching sarcasm. He had not the skill of Fox in debate, nor was he a
+great reasoner, like Murray; he did not talk philosophy, like Burke,
+nor was he master of details, like his son; but he had an air of
+sincerity, a vehemence of feeling, an intense enthusiasm, and a moral
+elevation of sentiment, which bore every thing away before him.
+
+When Walpole was driven from power, Pitt exerted his eloquence in
+behalf of the Pelham government. Being personally obnoxious to the
+king, he obtained no office. But he was not a man to be amused by
+promises long, and, as he would not render his indispensable services
+without a reward, he was made paymaster of the forces--a lucrative
+office, but one which did not give him a seat in the cabinet. This
+office he retained for eight years, which were years of peace. But
+when the horizon was overclouded by the death of Henry Pelham, in
+1754, and difficulties arose between France and England respecting
+North America and the East Indies; when disasters in war tarnished the
+glory of the British arms, and the Duke of Newcastle showed his
+incapacity to meet the national crisis, Pitt commenced a furious
+opposition. Of course he was dismissed from office. But the Duke of
+Newcastle could not do without him, and the king was obliged to call
+him into the cabinet as secretary of state, in 1756. But the
+administration did not work. The king opposed the views of Pitt, and
+he was compelled to resign. Then followed disasters and mistakes. The
+resignation of the Duke of Newcastle became an imperative necessity.
+Despondency and gloom hung over the nation, and he was left without
+efficient aid in the House of Commons. Nothing was left to the king
+but to call in the aid of the man he hated; and Pitt, as well as
+Legge, were again reinstated, the Duke of Devonshire remaining
+nominally at the head of the administration.
+
+But this administration only lasted five months, during which Admiral
+Byng was executed, and the Seven Years' War, of which Frederic of
+Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, Pitt and his
+colleague were again dismissed. But never was popular resentment more
+fierce and terrible. Again was the king obliged to bend to the "great
+commoner." An arrangement was made, and a coalition formed. Pitt
+became secretary of state, and virtual premier, but the Duke of
+Newcastle came in as first lord of the treasury. But Pitt selected the
+cabinet. His brother-in-law, Lord Temple, was made keeper of the privy
+seal, and Lord Grenville was made treasurer of the navy; Fox became
+paymaster of the forces; the Duke of Bedford received the lord
+lieutenancy of Ireland; Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his age
+became lord chancellor; Legge, the ablest financier, was made
+chancellor of the exchequer. Murray, a little while before, had been
+elevated to the bench, as Lord Mansfield. There was scarcely an
+eminent man in the House of Commons who was not made a member of the
+administration. All the talent of the nation was laid at the feet of
+Pitt, and he had the supreme direction of the army and of foreign
+affairs.
+
+Then truly commenced the brilliant career of Pitt. He immediately
+prosecuted hostilities with great boldness, and on a gigantic scale.
+Immense armies were raised and sent to all parts of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Brilliant Military Successes.]
+
+But nothing raised the reputation of Pitt so highly as military
+operations in America. He planned, immediately on his assumption of
+supreme power as virtual dictator of England, three great
+expeditions--one against Louisburg, a second against Ticonderoga, and
+a third against Fort Du Quesne. Two of these were attended with
+triumphant success, (1758.)
+
+Louisburg, which had been surrendered to France by the treaty of Aix
+la Chapelle, was reduced by General Amherst, though only with a force
+of fourteen thousand men.
+
+General Forbes marched, with eight thousand men, against Fort Du
+Quesne; but it was abandoned by the enemy before he reached it.
+
+Ticonderoga was not, however, taken, although the expedition was
+conducted by General Abercrombie, with a force of sixteen thousand
+men.
+
+Thus nearly the largest military force ever known at one time in
+America was employed nearly a century ago, by William Pitt, composed
+of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were regular
+troops.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Successes in America.]
+
+The campaign of 1759 was attended with greater results than even that
+of the preceding year. General Amherst succeeded Abercrombie, and the
+plan for the reduction of Canada was intrusted to him for execution.
+Three great expeditions were projected: one was to be commanded by
+General Wolfe, who had distinguished himself at the siege of
+Louisburg, and who had orders from the war secretary to ascend the St.
+Lawrence, escorted by the fleet, and lay siege to Quebec. The second
+army, of twelve thousand men, under General Amherst, was ordered to
+reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross Lake Champlain, and proceed
+along the River Richelieu to the banks of the St. Lawrence, join
+General Wolfe, and assist in the reduction of Quebec. The third army
+was sent to Fort Niagara, the most important post in French America,
+since it commanded the lakes, and overawed the whole country of the
+Six Nations. After the reduction of this fort, the army was ordered
+down the St. Lawrence to besiege Montreal.
+
+That this project was magnificent, and showed the comprehensive
+military genius of Pitt, cannot be doubted. But that it was easy of
+execution may well be questioned, when it is remembered that the
+navigation of the St. Lawrence was difficult and dangerous; that the
+fortifications and strength of Quebec were unrivalled in the new
+world; that the French troops between Montreal and Quebec numbered
+nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, too, by so great a
+general as Montcalm. Still all of these expeditions were successful.
+Quebec and Niagara were taken, and Crown Point and Ticonderoga were
+abandoned.
+
+The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of Quebec,
+which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever performed,
+and which raised the English general to the very summit of military
+fame. He was disappointed in the expected coöperation of General
+Amherst, and he had to take one of the strongest fortresses in the
+world, defended by troops superior in number to his own. He succeeded
+in climbing the almost perpendicular rock on which the fortress was
+built, and in overcoming a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack,
+but lived long enough to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing
+could exceed the tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the
+fall of Quebec was received; nothing could surpass the interest with
+which the distant expedition was viewed; and the depression of the
+French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English. Wolfe gained an
+immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey.
+But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial advantages which resulted
+from the conquest of Canada, which soon followed the reduction of
+Quebec. He became the nation's idol, and was left to prosecute the
+various wars in which England was engaged, in his own way.
+
+[Sidenote: Victories of Clive in India.]
+
+While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were wresting
+from the French nearly all their possessions in America, Clive was
+adding a new empire to the vast dominions of Great Britain. India was
+conquered, and the British power firmly planted in the East. Moreover,
+the English allies on the continent--the Prussians--obtained great
+victories, which will be alluded to in the chapter on Frederic the
+Great. On all sides the English were triumphant, and were intoxicated
+with joy. The stocks rose, and the bells rang almost an incessant peal
+for victories.
+
+In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George II. died. He was
+a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, whose
+interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate, "He had
+neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive nor the
+qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been a bad son, and
+he made a worse father. Not one magnanimous action is recorded of him,
+but many meannesses. But his judgment was sound, his habits
+economical, and his spirit bold. These qualities prevented him from
+being despised, if they did not make him honored."
+
+His grandson, George III., entered upon his long reign, October, 1760,
+in the twenty-third year of his age, and was universally admitted to
+be the most powerful monarch in Christendom--or, rather, the monarch
+of the most powerful kingdom. He, or, rather, his ministers, resolved
+to prosecute the war with vigor, and parliament voted liberal
+supplies. The object of Pitt was the humiliation of both France and
+Austria, and also the protection of Prussia, struggling against almost
+overwhelming forces. He secured his object by administering to the
+nation those draughts of flattery and military glory which intoxicated
+the people.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Pitt.]
+
+However sincere the motives and brilliant the genius of the minister,
+it was impossible that a practical nation should not awake from the
+delusion, which he so powerfully contributed to produce. People at
+last inquired "why England was to become a party in a dispute between
+two German powers, and why were the best English regiments fighting on
+the Maine?" What was it to the busy shopkeeper of London that the
+Tower guns were discharged, and the streets illuminated, if he were to
+be additionally taxed? Statesmen began to calculate the enormous sums
+which had been wasted in an expensive war, where nothing had been
+gained but glory. Besides, jealousies and enmities sprung up against
+Pitt. Some were offended by his haughtiness, and others were estranged
+by his withering invective. And his enemies were numerous and
+powerful. Even the cabinet ministers, who were his friends, turned
+against him. He wished to declare war against Spain, while the nation
+was bleeding at every pore. But the cabinet could not be persuaded of
+the necessity of the war, and Pitt, of course, resigned. But it was
+inevitable, and took place under his successor. Pitt left the helm of
+state with honor. He received a pension of three thousand pounds a
+year, and his wife was made a baroness.
+
+The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first Tory
+minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His watchword
+was _prerogative_. The sovereign should no longer be a gilded puppet,
+but a real king--an impossible thing in England. But his schemes
+pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. Johnson; while his
+administration was assailed with a host of libels from Wilkes,
+Churchill, and other kindred firebrands.
+
+His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs railed at
+it then, and rail at it now; and Macaulay falls in with the
+lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should have
+been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England? The peace of
+Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the Island of St. John,
+and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisiana which lies east of the
+Mississippi, except New Orleans, should be ceded to Great Britain, and
+that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Spain
+should relinquish her claim to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland,
+should permit the English to cut mahogany on the shores of Honduras
+Bay, and cede Florida and Minorca to Great Britain. In return for
+these things, the French were permitted to fish on the Banks of
+Newfoundland, and the Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle,
+and St. Lucia were restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace of Paris.]
+
+The peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch; and we hence turn
+to survey the condition of France since the death of Louis XIV., and
+also other continental powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham
+     Administration. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's
+     Essay on Chatham. Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's
+     Lectures on Modern History. Jesse's Memoirs of the
+     Pretenders. Graham's History of the United States, an
+     exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord
+     Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the
+     standard histories of England, at this period; also, the
+     continuation of Mackintosh, and the Pictorial History, are
+     valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Ray's History of
+     the Rebellion, Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George II., Lord
+     Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+LOUIS XV.
+
+
+The reign of Louis XV. was one of the longest on record extending from
+1715 to 1774--the greater part of the eighteenth century. But he was a
+child, only five years of age, on the death of his great grandfather,
+Louis XIV.; and, even after he came to his majority, he was ruled by
+his ministers and his mistresses. He was not, like Louis XIV., the
+life and the centre of all great movements in his country. He was an
+automaton, a pageant; not because the constitution imposed checks on
+his power, but because he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore,
+performing no great part in history, is only to be alluded to, and
+attention should be mainly directed to his ministers.
+
+[Sidenote: Regency of the Duke of Orleans.]
+
+During the minority of the king, the reins of government were held by
+the Duke of Orleans, as regent, and who, in case of the king's death,
+would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis XIV. The
+administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly contemporaneous with
+that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most pressing subject which demanded
+the attention of the regent, was that of the finances. The late king
+had left a debt of one thousand millions of livres--an enormous sum in
+that age. To get rid of this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a
+bankruptcy. "This," said he, "would fall chiefly on the commercial and
+moneyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied; and would,
+moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning to
+the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illustrates
+the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, at that
+time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk of incurring
+the popular odium which such a measure would have produced, and he
+proposed calling together the States General. The regent duke,
+however, would not hear of that measure, and yet did not feel inclined
+to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. He therefore compromised the
+matter, and resolved to rob the national creditor. He established a
+commission to verify the bills of the public creditors, and, if their
+accounts did not prove satisfactory, to cancel them entirely. Three
+hundred and fifty millions of livres--equal, probably, to three
+hundred millions of dollars in this age--were thus swept away. But it
+was resolved not only to refuse to pay just debts, but to make people
+repay the gains which they had made. Those who had loaned money to the
+state, or had farmed the revenues, were flung into prison, and
+threatened with confiscation of their goods, and even death,--treated
+as Jews were treated in the Dark Ages,--unless they redeemed
+themselves by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men suffer such a
+penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To this injustice
+and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to this, the coin
+was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two millions of livres
+were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these gains were not enough
+to satisfy a profligate government. There still continued a constant
+pressure. The national debt had increased even to fifteen hundred
+millions of livres, or almost seventy millions sterling--equivalent to
+what would now be equal to at least one thousand millions of dollars.
+
+[Sidenote: John Law.]
+
+To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the
+celebrated John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had
+established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a wonderful
+political economist.
+
+Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of the
+country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the precious
+metals.
+
+The regent, moreover, having great faith in Law's abilities, and in
+his wealth, converted his private bank into a royal one--made it, in
+short, the Bank of France. This bank was then allied with the two
+great commercial companies of the time--the East India and the
+Mississippi. Great privileges were bestowed on each. The latter had
+the exclusive monopoly of the trade with Louisiana, and all the
+countries on the Mississippi River, and also of the fur trade in
+Canada. Louisiana was then supposed to be rich in gold mines, and
+great delusions arose from the popular notion.
+
+[Sidenote: Mississippi Company.]
+
+The capital of this gigantic corporation was fixed at one hundred
+millions and Law, who was made director-general, aimed to make the
+notes of the company preferable to specie, which, however could
+lawfully be demanded for the notes. So it was settled that the shares
+of the company could only be purchased by the paper of the bank. As
+extravagant hopes of gain were cherished respecting the company, its
+shares were in great demand. And, as only Law's bank bills could
+purchase the shares, the gold and silver of the realm flowed into
+Law's bank. Law and the regent had, therefore, the fabrication of both
+shares and bank bills to an indefinite amount.
+
+The national creditor was also paid in the notes of the bank, and, as
+unbounded confidence existed, both in the genius of Law and in the
+profits of the Mississippi Company,--as the shares were constantly in
+demand, and were rising in value,--the creditor was satisfied. In a
+short time, one half of the national debt was transferred. Government
+owed the bank, and not the individuals and corporations from whom
+loans had been originally obtained. These individuals, instead of
+government scrip, had shares in the Mississippi Company.
+
+And all would have been well, had the company's shares been valuable,
+or had they retained their credit, or even had but a small part of the
+national debt been transferred. But the people did not know the real
+issues of the bank, and so long as new shares could be created and
+sold to pay the interest, the company's credit was good. For a while
+the delusion lasted. Law was regarded as a great national benefactor.
+His house was thronged with dukes and princes. He became
+controller-general of the finances--virtually prime minister. His fame
+extended far and wide. Honors were showered upon him from every
+quarter. He was elected a member of the French Academy. His schemes
+seemed to rain upon Paris a golden shower. He had freed the state from
+embarrassments, and he had, apparently, made every body rich, and no
+one poor. He was a deity, as beneficent as he was powerful. He became
+himself the richest man in Europe. Every body was intoxicated. The
+golden age had come. Paris was crowded with strangers from all parts
+of the world. Five hundred thousand strangers expended their fortunes,
+in hope of making greater ones. Twelve hundred new coaches were set up
+in the city. Lodgings could scarcely be had for money. The highest
+price was paid for provisions. Widow ladies, clergymen, and noblemen
+deserted London to speculate in stocks at Paris. Nothing was seen but
+new equipages, new houses, new apparel, new furniture. Nothing was
+felt but universal exhilaration. Every man seemed to have made his
+fortune. The stocks rose every day. The higher they rose, the more new
+stock was created. At last, the shares of the company rose from one
+hundred to twelve hundred per cent., and three hundred millions were
+created, which were nominally worth, in 1719, three thousand six
+hundred millions of livres--one hundred and eighty times the amount of
+all the gold and silver in Europe at that time.
+
+[Sidenote: Popular Delusion.]
+
+In this public delusion, the directors were wise enough to convert
+_their_ shares into silver and gold. A great part of the current coin
+in the kingdom was locked up in the houses or banks of a few
+stockjobbers and speculators.
+
+But the scarcity of gold and silver was felt, people's eyes were
+opened, and the bubble burst, but not until half of the national debt
+had been paid off by this swindling transaction.
+
+The nation was furious. A panic spread among all classes; the bank had
+no money with which to redeem its notes; the shares fell almost to
+nothing; and universal bankruptcy took place. Those who, a few days
+before, fancied themselves rich, now found themselves poor. Property
+of all kinds fell to less than its original value. Houses, horses,
+carriages, upholstery, every thing, declined in price. All were
+sellers, and few were purchasers.
+
+But popular execration and vengeance pursued the financier who had
+deceived the nation. He was forced to fly from Paris. His whole
+property was confiscated, and he was reduced to indigence and
+contempt. When his scheme was first suggested to the regent, he was
+worth three millions of livres. He had better remained a private
+banker.
+
+The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the nation
+against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was execrated, for his
+agency in the business had all the appearance of a fraud. But he was
+probably deluded with others, and hoped to free the country from its
+burdens. The great blunder was in the over-issue of notes when there
+was no money to redeem them.
+
+Nor could any management have prevented the catastrophe.
+
+[Sidenote: Fatal Effects of the Delusion.]
+
+It was not possible that the shares of the company should advance so
+greatly, and the public not perceive that they had advanced beyond
+their value; it was not possible, that, while paper money so vastly
+increased in quantity, the numerical prices of all other things should
+not increase also, and that foreigners who sold their manufactures to
+the French should not turn their paper into gold, and carry it out of
+the kingdom; it was not possible that the disappearance of the coin
+should not create alarm, notwithstanding the edicts of the regent, and
+the reasonings of Law; it was not possible that annuitants should not
+discover that their old incomes were now insufficient and less
+valuable, as the medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it
+was not possible that the small part of society which may be called
+the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden
+fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt
+of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which,
+after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the
+good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on
+these and other accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last
+preferred to paper notes, of whatever description or promise. These
+were inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of Law,
+and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change in public
+opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, secondly, the
+over-issue of money.
+
+By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, or
+greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight hundred
+millions of debts. The sufferings of the people, with such a
+government, did not, however, create great solicitude; the same old
+course of folly and extravagance was pursued by the court.
+
+Nor was there a change for the better when Louis XV. attained his
+majority. His vices and follies exceeded all that had ever been
+displayed before. The support of his mistresses alone was enough to
+embarrass the nation. Their waste and extravagance almost exceeded
+belief. Who has not heard of the disgraceful and disgusting iniquities
+of Pompadour and Du Barry?
+
+The regency of the Duke of Orleans occupied the first eight years of
+the reign of Louis XV. The prime minister of the regent was Dubois, at
+first his tutor, and afterwards Archbishop of Cambray. He was rewarded
+with a cardinal's hat for the service he rendered to the Jesuits in
+their quarrel with the Jansenists, but was a man of unprincipled
+character; a fit minister to a prince who pretended to be too
+intellectual to worship God, and who copied Henry IV. only in his
+licentiousness.
+
+The first minister of Louis XV., after he assumed himself the reins of
+government, was the Duke of Bourbon, lineal heir of the house of
+Condé, and first prince of the blood. But he was a man of no
+character, and his short administration was signalized by no important
+event.
+
+[Sidenote: Administration of Cardinal Fleury.]
+
+Cardinal Fleury succeeded the Duke of Bourbon as prime minister. He
+had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all the intrigues
+of the court; a man of great timidity, but also a man of great
+probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was intrusted with
+power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and his
+administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He projected,
+however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improvements in laws
+or finance. But he ruled despotically, and with good intentions, from
+1726 to 1743.
+
+The most considerable subject of interest connected with his peaceful
+administration, was the quarrel between the Jesuits and the
+Jansenists. Fleury took the side of the former, although he was never
+an active partisan; and he was induced to support the Jesuits for the
+sake of securing the cardinal's hat--the highest honor, next to that
+of the tiara, which could be conferred on an ecclesiastic. The Jesuits
+upheld the crumbling power of the popes, and the popes rewarded the
+advocates of that body of men, who were their ablest supporters.
+
+The Jansenist controversy is too important to be passed over with a
+mere allusion. It was the great event in the history of Catholic
+Europe during the seventeenth century. It involved principles of great
+theological, and even political interest.
+
+[Sidenote: Cornelius Jansen.]
+
+The Jansenist controversy grew out of the long-disputed questions
+pertaining to grace and free will--questions which were agitated with
+great spirit and acrimony in the seventeenth century as they had
+previously been centuries before by Augustine and Pelagius. The
+Jesuits had never agreed with the great oracle of the Western church
+in his views on certain points, and it was their aim to show the
+absolute freedom of the human will--that it had a self-determining
+power, a perfect liberty to act or not to act. Molina, a Spanish
+Jesuit, had been a great defender of this ancient Pelagianism, and his
+views were opposed by the Dominicans, and the controversy was carried
+into all the universities of Europe. The Council of Trent was too wise
+to meddle with this difficult question; but angry theologians would
+not let it rest, and it was discussed with peculiar fervor in the
+Catholic University of Louvaine. Among the doctors who there
+distinguished themselves in reviving the great contest of the fifth
+and sixth centuries, were Cornelius Jansen of Holland, and Jean de
+Verger of Gascony. Both these doctors hated the Jesuits, and lamented
+the dangerous doctrines which they defended, and advocated the views
+of Augustine and the Calvinists. Jansen became professor of divinity
+in the university, and then Bishop of Ypres. After an uninterrupted
+study of twenty years, he produced his celebrated book called
+_Augustinus_, in which he set forth the servitude of the will, and the
+necessity of divine grace to break the bondage, which, however, he
+maintained, like Calvin, is imparted only to a few, and in pursuance
+of a decree existing in the divine mind before the creation of our
+species. But Jansen died before the book was finished, and two years
+elapsed before it was published, but, when published, it was the
+signal for a contest which distracted Europe for seventy years.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Cyran--Arnauld--Le Maitre.]
+
+While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and friend,
+De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot of the monastery
+of St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the centre of that gay city,
+a learned and ascetic hermitage. This was during the reign of
+Louis XIII. His reputation, as a scholar and a saint, attracted the
+attention of Richelieu, and his services were solicited by that able
+minister. But neither rewards, nor flatteries, nor applause had power
+over the mind of St. Cyran, as he was now called. The cardinal hated
+and feared a man whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means
+to quarrel with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes.
+But there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to
+his studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an
+asceticism which even his church did not require, and devoting all his
+thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin and Augustine,
+he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an inward change,
+that he made grace precede repentance. A man so serene in trial, so
+humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in ordinary life, and yet
+so distinguished for talents and erudition, could not help exciting
+admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld
+D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le
+Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique
+Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most
+distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble
+by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess
+of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that time
+was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of a Capuchin friar
+had turned her thoughts to the future world, and she closed the gates
+of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chevreuse, against all
+strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic duties which her church
+and age accounted most meritorious. She soon after made the
+acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued her mind with the principles
+of the Augustinian theology. When imprisoned at Vincennes, he was
+still the spiritual father of Port Royal. Amid this famous retreat
+were collected the greatest scholars and the greatest saints of the
+seventeenth century--Antoine Le Maitre, De Lericourt, Le Maitre de
+Saci, Antoine Arnauld, and Pascal himself. Le Maitre de Saci gave to
+the world the best translation of the Bible in French; Arnauld wrote
+one hundred volumes of controversy, and, among them, a noted satire on
+the Jesuits, which did them infinite harm; while Pascal, besides his
+wonderful mathematical attainments, and his various meditative works,
+is immortalized for his Provincial Letters, written in the purest
+French, and with matchless power and beauty. This work, directed
+against the Jesuits, is an inimitable model of elegant irony, and the
+most effective sarcasm probably ever elaborated by man. In the vale of
+Port Royal also dwelt Tillemont, the great ecclesiastical historian;
+Fontaine and Racine, who were controlled by the spirit of Arnauld, as
+well as the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Liancourt. There resided,
+under the name of _Le Merrier_, and in the humble occupation of a
+gardener, one of the proudest nobles of the French court; and there,
+too, dwelt the celebrated Duchess of Longueville, sister of the Prince
+of Condé, the life of the Fronde, the idol of the Parisian mob, and the
+once gay patroness of the proudest festivities.
+
+[Sidenote: The Labors of the Port Royalists.]
+
+But it is the labors of these saints, scholars, and nobles to repress
+the dangerous influence of the Jesuits for which they were most
+distinguished. The Jansenists of Port Royal did not deny the authority
+of the pope, nor the great institutions of the papacy. They sought
+chiefly, in their controversy with the Jesuits, to enforce the
+doctrines of Augustine respecting justification. But their efforts
+were not agreeable to the popes, nor to the doctors of the Sorbonne,
+who had no sympathy with their religious life, and detested their bold
+spirit of inquiry. The doctors of the Sorbonne, accordingly, extracted
+from the book of Jansen five propositions which they deemed heretical,
+and urged the pope to condemn them. The Port Royalists admitted that
+these five propositions were indefensible if they were declared
+heretical by the sovereign pontiff, but denied that they were actually
+to be found in the book of Jansen. They did not quarrel with the pope
+on grounds of faith. They recognized his infallibility in matters of
+religion, but not in matters of fact. The pope, not wishing to push
+things to extremity, which never was the policy of Rome, pretended to
+be satisfied. But the Jesuits would not let him rest, and insisted on
+the condemnation of the Jansenist opinions. The case was brought
+before a great council of French bishops and doctors, and Arnauld, the
+great champion of the Jansenists, was voted guilty of heresy for
+denying that the five propositions which the pope condemned were
+actually in the book of Jansen. The pope, moreover, was induced to
+issue a formula of an oath, to which all who wished to enjoy any
+office in the church were obliged to subscribe, and which affirmed
+that the five condemned propositions were actually to be found in
+Jansen's book. This act of the pope was justly regarded by the
+Jansenists as intolerably despotic, and many of the most respectable
+of the French clergy sided with them in opinion. All France now became
+interested in the controversy, and it soon led to great commotions.
+The Jansenists then contended that the pope might err in questions of
+fact, and that, therefore, they were not under an obligation to
+subscribe to the required oath. The Jesuits, on the other hand,
+maintained the pope's infallibility in matters of fact, as well as in
+doctrine; and, as they had the most powerful adherents, the Jansenists
+were bitterly persecuted. But, as twenty-two bishops were found to
+take their side, the matter was hushed up for a while. For ten years
+more, the Port Royalists had peace and protection, chiefly through the
+great influence of the Duchess of Longueville; but, on her death,
+persecution returned. Arnauld was obliged to fly to the Netherlands,
+and the beautiful abbey of Port Royal was despoiled of its lands and
+privileges. Louis XIV. had ever hated its inmates, being ruled by
+Madame de Maintenon, who, in turn, was a tool of the Jesuits.
+
+But the demolition of the abbey, the spoliation of its lands, and the
+dispersion of those who sought its retreat, did not stop the
+controversy. Pascal continued it, and wrote his Provincial Letters,
+which had a wonderful effect in making the Jesuits both ridiculous and
+hateful. That book was the severest blow this body of ambitious and
+artful casuists ever received.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of Jansenism.]
+
+Nor was the Jansenist controversy merely a discussion of grace and
+free will. The principles of Jansenism, when carried out, tended to
+secure independence to the national church, and to free the
+consciences of men from the horrible power of their spiritual
+confessors. Jansenism was a timid protest against spiritual tyranny, a
+mild kind of Puritanism, which found sympathy with many people in
+France. The Parliament of Paris caught the spirit of freedom, and
+protected the Jansenists and those who sympathized with them. It so
+happened that a certain bishop published a charge to his clergy which
+was strongly imbued with the independent doctrines of the Jansenists.
+He was tried and condemned by a provincial council, and banished by
+the government. The Parliament of Paris, as the guardian of the law,
+took up the quarrel, and Cardinal Fleury was obliged to resort to a
+_Bed of Justice_ in order to secure the registry of a decree. A Bed of
+Justice was the personal appearance of the sovereign in the supreme
+judicial tribunal of the nation, and his command to the members of it
+to obey his injunctions was the last resort of absolute power. The
+parliament, of course, obeyed, but protested the next day, and drew up
+resolutions which declared the temporal power to be independent of the
+spiritual. It then proceeded to Meudon, one of the royal palaces, to
+lay its remonstrance before the king; and Louis XV., indignant and
+astonished, refused to see the members. The original controversy was
+forgotten, and the cause of the parliament, which was the cause of
+liberty, became the cause of the nation. The resistance of the
+parliament was technically unsuccessful, yet, nevertheless, sowed the
+seeds of popular discontent, and contributed to that great
+insurrection which finally overturned the throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Functions of the Parliament.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Bull Unigenitus.]
+
+It may be asked how the Parliament of Paris became a judicial
+tribunal, rather than a legislative assembly, as in England. When the
+Justinian code was introduced into French jurisprudence, in the latter
+part of the Middle Ages, the old feudal and clerical judges--the
+barons and bishops--were incapable of expounding it, and a new class
+of men arose--the lawyers, whose exclusive business it was to study
+the laws. Being best acquainted with them, they entered upon the
+functions of judges, and the secular and clerical lords yielded to
+their opinions. The great barons, however, still continued to sit in
+the judicial tribunals, although ignorant of the new jurisprudence;
+and their decisions were directed by the opinions of the lawyers who
+had obtained a seat in their body, as is the case at present in the
+English House of Lords when it sits as a judicial body. The necessity
+of providing some permanent repository for the royal edicts, induced
+the kings of France to enroll them in the journals of the courts of
+parliament, being the highest judicial tribunal; and the members of
+these courts gradually availed themselves of this custom to dispute
+the legality of any edict which had not been thus registered. As the
+influence of the States General declined, the power of the parliament
+increased. The encroachments of the papacy first engaged its
+attention, and then the management of the finances by the ministers of
+Francis I. called forth remonstrances. During the war of the Fronde,
+the parliament absolutely refused to register the royal decrees. But
+Louis XIV. was sufficiently powerful to suppress the spirit of
+independence, and accordingly entered the court, during the first
+years of his reign, with a whip in his hand, and compelled it to
+register his edicts. Nor did any murmur afterwards escape the body,
+until, at the close of his reign the members opposed the bull
+_Unigenitus_--that which condemned the Jansenists--as an infringement
+of the liberties of the Gallican Church. And no sooner had the great
+monarch died, than, contrary to his will, they vested the regency in
+the hands of the Duke of Orleans. Then freedom of expostulation
+respecting the ruinous schemes of Law induced him to banish them, and
+they only obtained their recall by degrading concessions. Their next
+opposition was during the administration of Fleury. The minister of
+finance made an attempt to inquire into the wealth of the clergy,
+which raised the jealousy of the order; and the clergy, in order to
+divert the attention of the court, revived the opposition of the
+parliament to the bull _Unigenitus_. It was resolved by the clergy to
+demand confessional notes from dying persons, and that these notes
+should be signed by priests adhering to the bull, before extreme
+unction should be given. The Archbishop of Paris, at the head of the
+French clergy, was opposed by the parliament, and this high judicial
+court imprisoned such of the clergy as refused to administer the
+sacraments. The king, under the guidance of Fleury, forbade the
+parliament to take cognizance of ecclesiastical proceedings, and to
+suspend its prosecutions. Instead of acquiescing, the parliament
+presented new remonstrances, and the members refused to attend to any
+other functions, and resolved that they could not obey this injunction
+without violating their consciences. They cited the Bishop of Orleans
+before their tribunal, and ordered all his writings, which denied the
+jurisdiction of the court, to be publicly burnt by the executioner. By
+aid of the military, the parliament enforced the administration of the
+sacraments, and became so interested in the controversy as to neglect
+other official duties. The king, indignant, again banished the
+members, with the exception of four, whom he imprisoned. And, in order
+not to impede the administration of justice, the king established
+another tribunal for the prosecution of civil suits. But the lawyers,
+sympathizing with the parliament, refused to plead before the new
+court. This resolute conduct, and other evils happening at the time,
+induced the king to yield, in order to conciliate the people, and the
+parliament was recalled. This was a popular triumph, and the
+archbishop was banished in his turn. Shortly after, Cardinal Fleury
+died, and a new policy was adopted. The quarrel of the parliament and
+the clergy was forgotten in a still greater quarrel between the king
+and the Jesuits.
+
+The policy of Fleury, like that of Walpole, was pacific; and yet, like
+him, he was forced into a war against his own convictions. And success
+attended the arms of France, in the colonial struggle with England,
+until Pitt took the helm of state.
+
+Until the death of Fleury, in 1743, who administered affairs with
+wisdom, moderation, and incorruptible integrity, he was beloved, if he
+was not venerated. But after this event, a great change took place in
+his character and measures, and the reign of mistresses commenced, and
+to an extent unparalleled in the history of Europe. Louis XIV.
+bestowed the revenue of the state on unworthy favorites, yet never
+allowed them to govern the nation; but Louis XV. intrusted the most
+important state matters to their direction, and the profoundest state
+secrets to their keeping.
+
+[Sidenote: Madame de Pompadour.]
+
+Among these mistresses, Madame de Pompadour was the most noted; a
+woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambition was her
+master-passion, and her _boudoir_ was the council chamber of the royal
+ministers. Most of the great men of France paid court to her, and to
+neglect her was social ruin. Even Voltaire praised her beauty, and
+Montesquieu flattered her intellect. And her extravagance was equal to
+her audacity. She insisted on drawing bills on the treasury without
+specifying the service. The comptroller-general was in despair, and
+the state was involved in inextricable embarrassments.
+
+It was through her influence that the Duke de Choiseul was made the
+successor of Fleury. He was not deficient in talent, but his
+administration proved unfortunate. Under his rule, Louis lost the
+Canadas, and France plunged into a contest with Frederic the Great.
+The Seven Years' War, which occurred during his administration, had
+made the age an epoch; but as this is to be considered in the chapter
+on Frederic III., no notice of it will be taken in this connection.
+
+The most memorable event which arose out of the policy and conduct of
+Choiseul was the fall of the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: The Jesuits.]
+
+Their arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull
+_Unigenitus_, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists; and
+the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side.
+
+But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress of
+Louis XV. They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, the
+Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful of
+popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no man, and
+no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity with impunity; and
+destruction often comes from a source the least suspected, and
+apparently the least to be feared. Who could have supposed that the
+ruin of this powerful body, which had reigned so proudly in
+Christendom for a century; which had imposed its Briareus's arms on
+the necks of princes; which had its confessors in the courts of the
+most absolute monarchs; which, with its hundred eyes, had penetrated
+the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe; and which had succeeded in
+suppressing in so many places every insurrection of human
+intelligence, in spite of the fears of kings, the jealousy of the
+other monastic orders, and the inveterate animosity of philosophers
+and statesmen,--would receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman,
+who scandalized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated
+prince? But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because
+they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And she
+incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts to power,
+to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their ruin.
+
+[Sidenote: Exposure of the Jesuits.]
+
+In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible than in
+Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But the prime minister
+of Joseph I., the Marquis of Pombal, a man of great energy, had been
+insulted by a lady of the highest rank, and he swore revenge. An
+opportunity was soon afforded. The king happened to be fired at and
+wounded in his palace by some unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the
+objects of the minister's vengeance--the Marchioness of Tavora, her
+husband, her family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance
+followed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons
+whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were expelled in the most
+summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul and Madame
+Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and watched their
+opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the failure of La
+Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It must be borne in
+mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commercial enterprises, while
+they were officiating as missionaries. La Valette aimed to monopolize,
+for his order, the trade with the West Indies, which commercial
+ambition excited the jealousy of mercantile classes in France, and
+they threw difficulties in his way. And it so happened that some of
+his most valuable ships were taken and plundered by the English
+cruisers, which calamity, happening at a time of embarrassment, caused
+his bills to be protested, and his bankers to stop payment. They,
+indignant, accused the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud,
+and demanded repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they
+would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the brink
+of destruction? _"Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat."_ The
+Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their
+order, which course would have been in accordance with their general
+policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of Paris, and the
+whole nation was interested in its result. It was decided by this
+supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were responsible for the
+debts of La Valette. But the commercial injury was weak in comparison
+with the moral. In the course of legal proceedings, the books and rule
+of the Jesuits were demanded--that mysterious rule which had never
+been exposed to the public eye, and which had been so carefully
+guarded. When this rule was produced, all minor questions vanished;
+mistresses, bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars,--all became
+insignificant, compared with those questions which affected the
+position and welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and
+"Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on
+every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages and
+conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. Nothing
+was talked about but "probability," "surrender of conscience," and
+"mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous of the absorbing
+interest with which every thing pertaining to the _régime_ of the
+Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of the Jansenists, who
+had exposed it. "What," said Voltaire, "will it profit us to be
+delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given up to the wolves?" But
+the philosopher had been among the first to raise the cry of alarm
+against the Jesuits, and it was no easy thing to allay the storm.
+
+[Sidenote: Their Expulsion from France.]
+
+The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently
+powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been their best
+friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He had been
+taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. He stood in
+fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so powerful and
+unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the prosecution would have
+been insurmountable, had it not been for the capriciousness of his
+temper, which more than balanced his superstitious fears. His minister
+and his mistress circumvented him. They represented that, as the
+parliament and the nation were both aroused against the Jesuits, his
+resistance would necessarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded
+so much as civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful
+necessity of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of
+his best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers.
+But he yielded with a moderation which did him honor. He would not
+consent to the expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been made to
+secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be written to
+Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. Choiseul
+himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the Jesuits would not
+hear of any retrenchment of their power or privileges. "Let us remain
+as we are, or let us exist no longer," was their reply. The
+parliament, the people, the minister, and the mistress renewed their
+clamors. The parliament decreed that the constitution of the society
+was an encroachment on the royal authority, and the king was obliged
+to yield. The members of the society were forbidden to wear the habit
+of the society, or to enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their
+colleges were closed, their order was dissolved, and they were
+expelled from the kingdom with rigor and severity, in spite of the
+wishes of the king and many entreaties and tears from the zealous
+advocates of Catholicism, and even of religious education.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression in Spain.]
+
+But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to be
+persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having secured their
+expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and Pombal turned their
+attention to Spain, and so successfully intrigued, so artfully wrought
+on the jealousy and fears of Charles III., that this weak prince
+followed the example of Joseph I. and Louis XV. But the king and his
+minister D'Aranda, however, prosecuted their investigations with the
+utmost secrecy--did not even tell their allies of their movements. Of
+course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when
+his measures were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing
+the suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree
+came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. "On the same day,
+2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in
+America, and in all the islands belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the
+alcaldes of the towns opened their despatches from Madrid, by which
+they were ordered, on pain of the severest penalties, immediately to
+enter the establishments of the Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel
+them from their convents, and transport them, within twenty-four
+hours, to such places as were designated. Nor were the Jesuits
+permitted to carry away their money or their papers. Only a purse, a
+breviary, and some apparel were given them."
+
+The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so
+sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express
+prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any
+allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to
+maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or
+remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is
+religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to
+injustice and cruelty.
+
+The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate craft.
+Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution.
+There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as
+martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of
+the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country
+they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery
+and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six
+months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable
+refuge on the Island of Corsica.
+
+[Sidenote: Pope Clement XIV.]
+
+Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A
+successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent
+on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope
+should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal was
+found,--Ganganelli,--who promised the ambassadors that, if elected
+pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to
+secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put
+forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would _protect
+them_. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the
+Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most
+unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force
+of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his
+father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired
+to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was,
+to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so
+long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was
+made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful
+struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and
+throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal
+infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with
+awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the
+allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the
+Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had
+ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of
+danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a
+cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,--any thing,--rather
+than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was
+obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to
+fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation,
+of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated,
+he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of
+his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest.
+It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was
+compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits
+forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he
+prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened
+assassination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his
+church, if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened
+secession from Rome, deposition--ten thousand calamities. His agony
+became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He decided to
+suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges were
+closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given to
+their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without
+organization, wealth, or power.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Ganganelli.]
+
+Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising
+from table, felt an internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually
+he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his
+moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was
+doomed--that he was poisoned--that he must die. The fear of hell was
+now added to his other torments. "_Compulsus, feci, compulsus,
+feci!_"--"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and
+died--died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander VI.
+knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their
+wealth. Pope Clement XIV. inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound
+upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the
+penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not
+perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on
+earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the
+restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored;
+and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every
+corner of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Louis XV.]
+
+The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and
+protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire.
+A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers
+had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter
+mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men
+who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the
+institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He
+perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with
+absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great,
+unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism.
+The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched
+Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of
+Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any
+thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the
+Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the noble of
+France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming
+torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose
+awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV.
+He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a
+Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time."
+Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken with the
+small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was
+deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains
+were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.
+
+Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary to
+glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the
+various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven
+Years' War--the great war of the eighteenth century, before the
+breaking out of the French Revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For a general view of the reign of Louis XV.,
+     see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The
+     scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and
+     Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the
+     king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in
+     the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist
+     Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's
+     History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and
+     Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port
+     Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably
+     treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the
+     lives of Fleury and Choiseul. For the manners of the court
+     of Louis XV., the numerous memoirs and letters, which were
+     written during the period, must be consulted; the most
+     amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, are
+     too infamous to be named.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+FREDERIC THE GREAT.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Frederic William.]
+
+Frederic II. of Prussia has won a name which will be immortal on
+Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular character extorts
+our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion, admiration for his
+great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and disgust for his
+cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. He had no faith
+in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to mechanical
+agencies--to the power of armies--to the principle of fear. He was not
+indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war
+was alike his absorbing passion and his highest glory. Peter the Great
+was half a barbarian, and Charles XII. half a madman; but Frederic was
+neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV.
+plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William III.
+fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but
+Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, and the restless
+ambition of plundering what was not his own.
+
+He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712--ten years after
+Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of his grandfather,
+Frederic I. The fortunes of his family were made by his
+great-grandfather, called the _Great Elector_, of the house of
+Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he
+turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and
+universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited
+by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled more his whimsical and
+tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a
+cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his
+ambassador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he
+gave a bounty of thirteen hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join
+his famous body-guard, a regiment of men who were each over six feet
+high. He would kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking
+on the soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him Latin.
+But, abating his coarseness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he was a
+Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the institutions
+of religion, denounced all amusements as sinful, and read a sermon
+aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived his
+inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sympathy between
+father and son, and the father even hated the heir of his house and
+throne. The young prince was kept on bread and water; his most
+moderate wishes were disregarded; he was surrounded with spies; he was
+cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and abused as a monster and a heathen.
+The cruel treatment which the prince received induced him to fly; his
+flight was discovered; he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to
+death as a deserter and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by
+the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow
+reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to
+retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with
+books, billiards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with
+Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Frederic the Great.]
+
+In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic II. mounted an absolute
+throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly disciplined
+army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and dreams of glory
+filled his ambitious soul.
+
+Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggrandizement
+became the animating principle of his life.
+
+His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest
+provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen
+of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of Germany, whose
+succession was guaranteed by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction--a law
+which the Emperor Charles passed respecting his daughter's claim, and
+which claim was recognized by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by
+all the leading powers of Europe. Without a declaration of war,
+without complaints, without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from
+the mere lust of dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the
+depth of winter, when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons
+were defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of
+Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to his
+capital.
+
+Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole civilized
+world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and assist the unfortunate
+queen, whose empire was threatened with complete dismemberment.
+Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was made. But, in two years,
+the war again broke out. To recover Silesia and to humble Frederic was
+the aim of Maria Theresa. She succeeded in securing the coöperation of
+Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony. No one doubted of the ruin of the
+house of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand men were arrayed to crush
+an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled king, who had trampled on all
+the laws of nations and all the principles of justice.
+
+[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War.]
+
+The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces constitutes the
+celebrated _Seven Years' War_--the most gigantic war which Europe had
+seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. This contest
+began during the latter years of George II., and was connected with
+the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, during which Wolfe was
+killed and the Canadas were gained. This war called out all the
+energies of the elder Pitt, and placed Great Britain on the exalted
+height which it has since retained.
+
+Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his
+dangers; and his successful resistance to the armies which his own
+offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his claims to
+the epithet of _Great_. Although he provoked the war, his successful
+defence of his country placed him on the very highest pinnacle of
+military fame. He would gladly have been relieved from the contest,
+but it was inevitable; and when the tempest burst upon his head, he
+showed all the qualities of exalted heroism.
+
+Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But he himself
+had some great advantages. He was absolute master of his army, of his
+treasury, and of his territories. The lives and property of his
+subjects were at his disposal; his subjects were brave and loyal; he
+was popular with the people, and was sustained by the enthusiasm of
+the nation; his army was well disciplined; he had no sea-coast to
+defend, and he could concentrate all his forces upon any point he
+pleased, in a short time.
+
+His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded Saxony,
+at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize the state
+papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the confederation.
+These were found and published, which showed that now, at least, he
+acted on the defensive.
+
+The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle was won by
+the Prussians. By the victory of Lowositz, Frederic was in a better
+condition to contend with Austria. By this he got possession of
+Saxony.
+
+The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. Five
+hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred thousand. Near
+Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost twelve thousand men. He
+then invested Prague. General Daun, with a superior army, advanced to
+its relief. Another bloody battle was fought, and lost by the Prussian
+king. This seemed to be a fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of
+the war, he had received a check. The soldiers' confidence was
+weakened. Malevolent sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague
+was raised, and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same
+time, invaded Germany; and Frederic heard also of the death of his
+mother--the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he became
+haggard and miserable.
+
+The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and secure
+that conquest--no very easy task. His dominions were now assailed by a
+French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His capital was in the hands of
+the Croatians, and he was opposed by superior Austrian forces. No
+wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and saw only the ruin of
+his house. On one thing, however, he was resolved--never to be taken
+alive. So he provided himself with poison, which he ever carried about
+his person.
+
+The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfortune and
+trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences in perplexity,
+difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but success is obtained
+only through struggle. Frederic's career is a splendid example of that
+heroism which rises above danger, and extricates a man from
+difficulties when his cause is desperate.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Rossbach.]
+
+The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two armies
+met at Rossbach. The number of the French was double that of the
+Prussians; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and were
+commanded by an abler general. The French, however felt secure of
+victory; but they were defeated: seven thousand men were taken
+prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, parrots, hair powder,
+and pomatum. The victory of Rossbach won for Frederic a great name,
+and diffused universal joy among the English and Prussians.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Leuthen.]
+
+After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had
+again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this province
+that he provoked the hostilities of Europe; and pride, as well as
+interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince
+Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, which
+numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array against him an
+army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the disparity of forces,
+and his desperate condition, he resolved to attack the enemy. His
+generals remonstrated; but the hero gave full permission to all to
+retire, if they pleased. None were found to shun the danger. Frederic,
+like Napoleon, had the talent of exciting the enthusiasm of his
+troops. He both encouraged and threatened them. He declared that any
+cavalry regiment which did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on
+the foe, should after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a
+garrison regiment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of
+December, the day of the ever-memorable battle of Leuthen, he selected
+an officer with fifty men as his body-guard. "I shall," said he,
+"expose myself much to-day; you are not to leave me for an instant: if
+I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon and tell
+the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and must be won."
+And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian general abandoned a
+strong position, because he deemed it beneath his dignity to contend
+with an inferior force in a fortified camp. His imprudence lost him
+the battle. According to Napoleon, it was a masterpiece on the part of
+the victor, and placed him in the first rank of generals. Twenty
+thousand Austrians were either killed or taken. Breslau opened its
+gates to the Prussians, and Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame
+filled the world. Pictures of him were hung in almost every house. The
+enthusiasm of Germany was not surpassed by that of England. London was
+illuminated; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian
+king to leave their country and join his army; an annual subsidy of
+seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government. The battle of
+Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals; out the battle of
+Rossbach, over the French, was attended by greater moral results. It
+showed, for the first time for several centuries, that the Germans
+were really a great people, and were a match for the French, hitherto
+deemed invincible.
+
+Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new campaign,
+which was soon signalized by a great victory over the Russians, at
+Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the battles of Rossbach
+and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand men defeated an army of
+fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thousand Russians lay dead on the
+field. This victory placed Frederic at the zenith of military fame. In
+less than a year, he had defeated three great armies; in less than a
+year, and when nearly driven to despair,--when his cause seemed
+hopeless, and his enemies were rejoicing in their strength,--he
+successively triumphed over the French, the Austrians, and the
+Russians; the three most powerful nations on the continent of Europe.
+And his moderation after victory was as marked as his self-reliance
+after defeat. At this period, he stood out, to the wondering and
+admiring eyes of the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern
+times. But, after this, his career was more checkered, and he was
+still in danger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall of Dresden.]
+
+The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving the
+Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing Dresden. No capital in Europe
+has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished city. It has
+been often besieged and taken, but the victors have always spared its
+famous picture gallery--the finest collection of the works of the old
+masters, probably, in existence.
+
+But Frederic was now assailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict XIV. He
+sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and a dove of
+pearls,--"the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter,"--to Marshal
+Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the conqueror at Kolin
+and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the papal gifts, and had been
+only bestowed, in the course of six centuries, on Godfrey of Bouillon,
+by Urban II., when he took Jerusalem; on Alva, after his massacres in
+Holland; and on Sobieski, after his deliverance of Vienna, when
+besieged by the Turks. It had never been conferred, except for the
+defence of the "Holy Catholic Church." But this greatest of papal
+gifts made no impression on the age which read Montesquieu and
+Voltaire. A flood of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and
+the world laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been
+thunderbolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent III.
+
+[Sidenote: Reverses of Frederic.]
+
+The fourth year of the war proved disastrous to Frederic. He did not
+lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. The
+forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Austrians invaded
+Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians gained a victory over
+the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed eighteen thousand men. The
+Russians did not improve this great victory over Frederic, which
+nearly drove him to despair. But he rallied, and was again defeated in
+three disastrous battles. In his distress, he fed his troops on
+potatoes and rye bread, took from the peasant his last horse, debased
+his coin, and left his civil functionaries unpaid.
+
+The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prussians.
+Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies had two hundred
+thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged to maintain the
+defensive. But still disasters thickened. General Loudon obtained a
+great victory over his general, Fouqué, in Silesia. Instead of being
+discouraged by this new defeat, he formed the extraordinary resolution
+of wresting Dresden from the hands of the Austrians. But he pretended
+to retreat from Saxony, and advance to Silesia. General Daun was
+deceived, and decoyed from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as
+Frederic had retired a considerable distance from Dresden, he
+returned, and bombarded it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and
+was forced to retreat to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to
+gain a victory over the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the
+Russians. At Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand
+of the enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed
+the campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as
+at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now ulcerated
+with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his enemies, who were
+resolved to crush him. He should, however, have remembered that he had
+provoked their implacable resentment, by the commission of a great
+crime.
+
+Although Frederic, by rare heroism, had maintained his ground, still
+his resources were now nearly exhausted, and he began to look around,
+in vain, for a new supply of men, horses, and provisions. The circle
+which his enemies had drawn around him was obviously becoming smaller.
+In a little while, to all appearance, he would be crushed by
+overwhelming forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Continued Disasters.]
+
+Under these circumstances, the campaign in 1761 was opened; but no
+event of importance occurred until nearly the close of the year. On
+the whole, it was disastrous to Prussia. Half of Silesia was taken by
+the Austrians, and the Russian generals were successful in Pomerania.
+And a still greater misfortune happened to Frederic in consequence of
+the resignation of Pitt, who had ever been his firmest ally, and had
+granted him large subsidies, when he was most in need of them. On the
+retirement of the English minister, these subsidies were withdrawn,
+and the party which had thwarted William III., which had persecuted
+Marlborough, and had given up the Catalans, came into power--the
+Tories. "It was indifferent to them whether the house of Hohenstaufen
+or Hohenzollern should be dominant in Germany." But Pitt and the Whigs
+argued that no sacrifice would be too great to preserve the balance of
+power. The defection of England, however, filled the mind of Frederic
+with implacable hatred, and he never could bear to hear even the name
+of England mentioned. The defection of this great ally made his
+affairs desperate; and no one, taking a dispassionate view of the
+contending parties, could doubt but that the ruin of the Prussian king
+was inevitable. Maria Theresa was so confident of success, that she
+disbanded twenty thousand of her troops.
+
+But Providence had ordered otherwise. A great and unexpected change
+came over the fortunes of Frederic. His heroism was now to be
+rewarded--not the vulgar heroism which makes a sudden effort, and
+gains a single battle, but that well-sustained heroism which strives
+in the midst of defeat, and continues to hope when even noble hearts
+are sinking in despair. On the 5th of January, 1762, Elizabeth, the
+empress of Russia, died; and her successor, Peter III., who was an
+admirer of Frederic, and even a personal friend, returned the Prussian
+prisoners, withdrew his troops from the Prussian territories, dressed
+himself in a Prussian uniform, and wore the black eagle of Prussia on
+his breast. He even sent fifteen thousand troops to reënforce the army
+of Frederic.
+
+England and France had long been wearied of this war, and formed a
+separate treaty for themselves. Prussia and Austria were therefore
+left to combat each other. If Austria, assisted by France and Russia,
+could not regain Silesia and ruin Prussia, it certainly was not strong
+enough to conquer Frederic single-handed. The proud Maria Theresa was
+compelled to make peace with that heroic but unprincipled robber, who
+had seized one of the finest provinces of the Austrian empire. In
+February, the treaty of Hubertsburg was signed, by which Frederic
+retained his spoil. He, in comparison with the other belligerent
+parties was the gainer. But no acquisition of territory could
+compensate for those seven years of toil, expense, and death. After
+six years, he entered his capital in triumph; but he beheld every
+where the melancholy marks of devastation and suffering. The fields
+were untilled, houses had been sacked, population had declined, and
+famine and disease had spread a funereal shade over the dwellings of
+the poor. He had escaped death, but one sixth of the whole male
+population of Prussia had been killed, and untold millions of property
+had been destroyed. In some districts, no laborers but women were seen
+in the fields, and fifteen thousand houses had been burnt in his own
+capital.
+
+[Sidenote: Exhaustion of Prussia by the War.]
+
+It is very remarkable that no national debt was incurred by the king
+of Prussia, in spite of all his necessities. He always, in the worst
+of times, had a year's revenue in advance; and, at the close of the
+war, to show the world that he was not then impoverished, he built a
+splendid palace at Potsdam, which nearly equalled the magnificence of
+Versailles.
+
+But he also did all in his power to alleviate the distress which his
+wars had caused. Silesia received three millions of thalers, and
+Pomerania two millions. Fourteen thousand houses were rebuilt;
+treasury notes, which had depreciated, were redeemed; officers who had
+distinguished themselves were rewarded; and the widows and children of
+those who had fallen were pensioned.
+
+The possession of Silesia did not, indeed, compensate for the Seven
+Years' War; but the struggles which the brave Prussians made for their
+national independence, when assailed on all sides by powerful enemies,
+were not made in vain. Had they not been made, worse evils would have
+happened. Prussia would not have held her place in the scale of
+nations, and the people would have fallen in self-respect. It was
+wrong in Frederic to seize the possession of another. In so doing, he
+was in no respect better than a robber: and he paid a penalty for his
+crime. But he also fought in self-defence. This defence was honorable
+and glorious, and this entitles him to the name of _Great_.
+
+After the peace of Hubertsburg, in 1763, Prussia, for a time, enjoyed
+repose, and the king devoted himself to the improvement of his
+country. But the army received his greatest consideration, and a peace
+establishment of one hundred and sixty thousand men was maintained; an
+immense force for so small a kingdom, but deemed necessary in such
+unsettled times. Frederic amused himself in building palaces, in
+writing books, and corresponding with literary friends. But schemes of
+ambition were, after all, paramount in his mind.
+
+The Seven Years' War had scarcely closed before the partition of
+Poland was effected, the greatest political crime of that age, for
+which the king of Prussia was chiefly responsible.
+
+The Bavarian war was the next great political event of importance
+which occurred during the reign of Frederic. The emperor of Germany
+formed a project for the dismemberment of the electorate of Bavaria.
+The liberties of the Germanic body were in danger, and Frederic came
+to the rescue. On this occasion, he was the opposer of lawless
+ambition. In 1778, he took the field with a powerful army; but no
+action ensued. The Austrian court found it expedient to abandon the
+design, and the peace of Teschen prevented another fearful contest.
+The two last public acts of Frederic were the establishment, in 1785,
+of the Germanic Union for preserving the constitution of the empire,
+and a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1786, with the United States of
+America, which was a model of liberal policy respecting the rights of
+independent nations, both in peace and war.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Frederic.]
+
+He died on the 17th of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year of his
+age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the whole, he was one of
+the most remarkable men of his age, and had a great influence on the
+condition of his country.
+
+His distinguishing peculiarity was his admiration of, and devotion to,
+the military profession, which he unduly exalted. An ensign in his
+army ranked higher than a counsellor of legation or a professor of
+philosophy. His ordinary mode of life was simple and unostentatious,
+and his favorite residence was the palace of Sans Souci, at Potsdam.
+He was very fond of music, and of the society of literary men; but he
+mortified them by his patronizing arrogance, and worried them by his
+practical jokes. His favorite literary companions were infidel
+philosophers, and Voltaire received from him marks of the highest
+distinction. But the king of letters could not live with the despot
+who solicited his society, and an implacable hatred succeeded
+familiarity and friendship. The king had considerable literary
+reputation, and was the author of several works. He was much admired
+by his soldiers, and permitted in them uncommon familiarity. He was
+ever free from repulsive formality and bolstered dignity. He was
+industrious, frugal, and vigilant. Nothing escaped his eye, and he
+attended to the details of his administration. He was probably the
+most indefatigable sovereign that ever existed, but displayed more
+personal ability than enlarged wisdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Frederic.]
+
+But able and successful as he was as a ruler, he was one of those men
+for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. He was
+cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the blood of his
+subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those who had sacrificed
+every thing for his sake. He ruled by fear rather than by love. He
+introduced into every department the precision of a rigid military
+discipline, and had no faith in any power but that of mechanical
+agencies. He quarrelled with his best friends, and seemed to enjoy the
+miseries he inflicted. He was contemptuous of woman, and disdainful of
+Christianity. His egotism was not redeemed by politeness or
+affability, and he made no efforts to disguise his unmitigated
+selfishness and heartless injustice. He had no loftiness of character,
+and no appreciation of elevation of sentiment in others. He worshipped
+only himself and rewarded those only who advanced his ambitious
+designs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The Posthumous Works of Frederic II. Gillies's
+     View of the Reign of Frederic II. Thiebault's Mémoires de
+     Frédéric le Grand. Voltaire's Idée du Roi de Prusse. Life of
+     Baron Trenck. Macaulay's Essay on the Life and Times of
+     Frederic the Great. Coxe's House of Austria. Tower's,
+     Johnson's, and Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II.
+
+
+Contemporaneous with Frederic the Great were Maria Theresa and
+Catharine II.--two sovereigns who claim an especial notice, as
+representing two mighty empires. The part which Maria Theresa took in
+the Seven Years' War has been often alluded to and it is not necessary
+to recapitulate the causes or events of that war. She and
+Catharine II. were also implicated with Frederic in the partition of
+Poland. The misfortunes of that unhappy country will be separately
+considered. In alluding to Maria Theresa, we cannot but review the
+history of that great empire over which she ruled, the most powerful
+of the German states. The power of Austria, at different times since
+the death of the Emperor Charles V., threatened the liberties of
+Europe; and, to prevent her ascendency, the kings of France, England,
+and Prussia have expended the treasure and wasted the blood of their
+subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: The Germanic Constitution.]
+
+By the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, at the close of the Thirty Years'
+War, the constitution of Germany was established upon a firm basis.
+The religious differences between the Catholics and the Protestants
+were settled, and religious toleration secured in all the states of
+the empire. It was settled that no decree of the Diet was to pass
+without a majority of suffrages, and that the Imperial Chamber and the
+Aulic Council should be composed of a due proportion of Catholics and
+Protestants. The former was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I.,
+in 1495, at the Diet of Worms, and was a judicial tribunal, and the
+highest court of appeal. It consisted of seventeen judges nominated by
+the emperor, and took cognizance of Austrian affairs chiefly. The
+Aulic Council was also judicial, and was composed of eighteen persons
+and attended chiefly to business connected with the empire. The
+members of these two great judicial tribunals were Catholics; and
+there were also frequent disputes between them as to their respective
+jurisdictions. It was ordained by the treaty of Westphalia that a
+perfect equality should be observed in the appointment of the members
+of these two important courts; but, in fact, twenty-four Protestants
+and twenty-six Catholics were appointed to the Imperial Chamber. The
+various states had the right of presenting members, according to
+political importance. The Aulic Council was composed of six
+Protestants and twelve Catholics, and was a tribunal to settle
+difficulties between the various states of which Germany was composed.
+
+These states were nearly independent of each other, but united under
+one common head. Each state had its own peculiar government, which was
+generally monarchical, and regulated its own coinage, police, and
+administration of justice. Each kingdom, electorate, principality, and
+imperial city, which were included in the states of Germany, had the
+right to make war, form alliances, conclude peace, and send
+ambassadors to foreign courts.
+
+The Diet of the empire consisted of representatives of each of the
+states, appointed by the princes themselves, and took cognizance of
+matters of common interest, such as regulations respecting commerce,
+the license of books, and the military force which each state was
+required to furnish.
+
+The emperor had power, in some respects, over all these states; but it
+was chiefly confined to his hereditary dominions. He could not
+exercise any despotic control over the various princes of the empire;
+but, as hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Moravia, Bohemia,
+Hungary, and the Tyrol, he was the most powerful prince in Europe
+until the aggrandisement of Louis XIV.
+
+Ferdinand III. was emperor of Germany at the peace of Westphalia; but
+he did not long survive it. He died in 1657, and his son Leopold
+succeeded him as sovereign of all the Austrian dominions. He had not
+completed his eighteenth year, but nevertheless was, five months
+after, elected Emperor of Germany by the Electoral Diet.
+
+Great events occurred during the reign of Leopold I.--the Turkish war,
+the invasion of the Netherlands by Louis XIV., the heroic struggles of
+the Prince of Orange, the French invasion of the Palatinate, the
+accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain, the discontents
+of Hungary, and the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. Most of these
+have been already alluded to, especially in the chapter on Louis XIV.,
+and, therefore, will not be further discussed.
+
+[Sidenote: The Hungarian War.]
+
+The most important event connected with Austrian affairs, as distinct
+from those of France, England, and Holland, was the Hungarian war.
+Hungary was not a province of Austria, but was a distinct state. In
+1526, the crowns of the two kingdoms were united, like those of
+England and Hanover under George I. But the Hungarians were always
+impatient of the rule of the Emperor of Germany, and, in the space of
+a century, arose five times in defence of their liberties.
+
+In 1667, one of these insurrections took place, occasioned by the
+aggressive policy and government of Leopold. The Hungarians conspired
+to secure their liberties, but in vain. So soon as the emperor was
+aware of the conspiracy of his Hungarian subjects, he adopted vigorous
+measures, quartered thirty thousand additional troops in Hungary,
+loaded the people with taxes, occupied the principal fortresses,
+banished the chiefs, and changed the constitution of the country. He
+also attempted to suppress Protestantism, and committed all the
+excesses of a military despotism. These accumulated oppressions drove
+a brave but turbulent people to despair, and both Catholics and
+Protestants united for their common safety. The insurgents were
+assisted by the Prince of Transylvania, and were supplied with money
+and provisions by the French. They also found a noble defender in
+Emeric Tekeli, a young Hungarian noble, who hated Austria as intensely
+as Hannibal hated Rome, and who, at the head of twenty thousand men,
+defended his country against the emperor. Moreover, he successfully
+intrigued with the Turks, who invaded Hungary with two hundred
+thousand men, and advanced to lay siege to Vienna. This immense army
+was defeated by John Sobieski, to whom Leopold appealed in his
+necessities, and the Turks were driven out of Hungary. Tekeli was
+gradually insulated from those who had formed the great support of his
+cause, and, in consequence of jealousies which Leopold had fomented
+between him and the Turks, was arrested and sent in chains to
+Constantinople. New victories followed the imperial army, and Leopold
+succeeded in making the crown of Hungary, hitherto elective,
+hereditary in his family. He instituted in the conquered country a
+horrible inquisitorial tribunal, and perpetrated cruelties which
+scarcely find a parallel in the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla. His
+son Joseph, at the age of ten, was crowned king of Hungary with great
+magnificence, and with the usual solemnities.
+
+When the Hungarian difficulties were settled, Leopold had more leisure
+to prosecute his war with the Turks, in which he gained signal
+successes. The Ottoman Porte was humbled and crippled, and a great
+source of discontent to the Christian powers of Europe was removed. By
+the peace of Carlovitz, (1697,) Leopold secured Hungary and Sclavonia,
+which had been so long occupied by the Turks, and consolidated his
+empire by the acquisition of Transylvania.
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor Joseph.]
+
+Leopold I. lived only to witness the splendid victories of Marlborough
+and Eugene, by which the power of his great rival, Louis, was
+effectually reduced. He died in 1705, having reigned forty-six years;
+the longest reign in the Austrian annals, except that of Frederic III.
+
+He was a man of great private virtues; pure in his morals, faithful to
+his wife, a good father, and a kind master. He was minute in his
+devotions, unbounded in his charities, and cultivated in his taste.
+But he was reserved, cold, and phlegmatic. His jealousy of Sobieski
+was unworthy of his station, and his severities in Hungary made him
+the object of execration. He was narrow, bigoted, and selfish. But he
+lived in an age of great activity, and his reign forms an era in the
+military and civil institutions of his country. The artillery had been
+gradually lightened, and received most of the improvements which at
+present are continued. Bayonets had been added to muskets, and the use
+of pikes abandoned. Armies were increased from twenty or thirty
+thousand men to one hundred thousand, more systematically formed. A
+police was established in the cities, and these were lighted and
+paved. Jurisprudence was improved, and numerous grievances were
+redressed.
+
+Leopold was succeeded by his eldest son, Joseph, who had an energetic
+and aspiring mind. His reign is memorable for the continuation of the
+great War of the Spanish Succession, signalized by the victories of
+Marlborough and Eugene, the humiliation of the French, and the career
+of Charles XII. of Sweden. He also restored Bohemia to its electoral
+rights, rewarded the elector palatine with the honors and territories
+wrested from his family by the Thirty Years' War, and confirmed the
+house of Hanover in the possession of the ninth electorate. He had
+nearly restored tranquillity to his country, when he died (1711) of
+the small-pox--a victim to the ignorance of his physicians. He was a
+lover and patron of the arts, and spoke several languages with
+elegance and fluency. But he had the usual faults of absolute princes;
+was prodigal in his expenditures, irascible in his temper, fond of
+pageants and pleasure, and enslaved by women.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Maria Theresa.]
+
+He was succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, under the title
+of Charles VI. Soon after his accession, the tranquillity of Europe
+was established by the peace of Utrecht, and Austria once more became
+the preponderating power in Europe. But Charles VI. was not capable of
+appreciating the greatness of his position, or the true sources of
+national power. He, however, devoted himself zealously to the affairs
+of his empire, and effected some useful reforms. As he had no male
+issue, he had drawn up a solemn law, called the _Pragmatic Sanction_,
+according to which he transferred to his daughter, Maria Theresa, his
+vast hereditary possessions. He found great difficulty in securing the
+assent of the European powers to this law; but, after a while, he
+effected his object. On his death, (1740,) Maria Theresa succeeded to
+all the dominions of the house of Austria.
+
+No princess ever ascended a throne under circumstances of greater
+peril, or in a situation which demanded greater energy and fortitude.
+Her army had dwindled to thirty thousand; her treasury contained only
+one hundred thousand florins; a general scarcity of provisions
+distressed the people, and the vintage was cut off by the frost.
+
+Under all these embarrassing circumstances, the Elector of Bavaria
+laid claim to her territory, and Frederic II. marched into Silesia. It
+has been already stated that England sympathized with her troubles,
+and lent a generous aid. Her appeal to her Hungarian subjects, and the
+enthusiasm they manifested in her cause, have also been described. The
+boldness of Frederic and the distress of Maria Theresa drew upon them
+the eyes of all Europe. Hostilities were prosecuted four years, which
+resulted in the acquisition of Silesia by the King of Prussia. The
+peace of Dresden (1745) gave a respite to Germany, and Frederic and
+Maria Theresa prepared for new conflicts.
+
+The Seven Years' War has been briefly described, in connection with
+the reign of Frederic, and need not be further discussed. The war was
+only closed by the exhaustion of all the parties engaged in it.
+
+In 1736, Maria Theresa was married to Francis Stephen, Grand Duke of
+Tuscany, and he was elected (1745) Emperor of Germany, under the title
+of _Francis I._ He died soon after the peace of Hubertsburg was
+signed, and his son Joseph succeeded to the throne of the empire, and
+was co-regent, as his father had been, with Maria Theresa. But the
+empress queen continued to be the real, as she was the legitimate,
+sovereign of Austria, and took an active part in all the affairs of
+Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Maria Theresa Institutes Reforms.]
+
+When the tranquillity of her kingdom was restored, she founded various
+colleges, reformed the public schools, promoted agriculture and
+instituted many beneficial regulations for the prosperity of her
+subjects. She reformed the church, diminished the number of
+superfluous clergy, suppressed the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and
+formed a system of military economy which surpassed the boasted
+arrangements of Frederic II. "She combined private economy with public
+liberality, dignity with condescension, elevation of soul with
+humility of spirit, and the virtues of domestic life with the splendid
+qualities which grace a throne." Her death, in 1780, was felt as a
+general loss to the people, who adored her; and her reign is
+considered as one of the most illustrious in Austrian annals.
+
+Her reign was, however, sullied by the partition of Poland, in which
+she was concerned with Frederic the Great and Catharine II. Before
+this is treated, we will consider the reign of the Russian empress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reign of Catharine II., like that of Maria Theresa, is interlinked
+with that of Frederic. But some remarks concerning her predecessors,
+after the death of Peter the Great, are first necessary.
+
+[Sidenote: Successors of Peter the Great.]
+
+Catharine, the wife of Peter, was crowned empress before his death.
+The first years of her reign were agreeable to the people, because she
+diminished the taxes, and introduced a mild policy in the government
+of her subjects. She intrusted to Prince Menzikoff an important share
+in the government of the realm.
+
+But Catharine, who, during the reign of Peter I., had displayed so
+much enterprise and intrepidity, very soon disdained business, and
+abandoned herself to luxury and pleasure. She died in 1727, and
+Peter II. ascended her throne, chiefly in consequence of the intrigues
+of Menzikoff, who, like Richelieu, wished to make the emperor his
+puppet.
+
+Peter II. was only thirteen years of age when he became emperor. He
+was the son of Alexis, and, consequently, grandson of Peter I. His
+youth did not permit him to assume the reins of government, and every
+thing was committed to the care of Menzikoff, who reigned, for a time,
+with absolute power. But he, at last, incurred the displeasure of his
+youthful master, and was exiled to Siberia. But Peter II. did not long
+survive the disgrace of his minister. He died of the small-pox, in
+1730.
+
+He was succeeded by Anne, Duchess of Holstein, and eldest daughter of
+Catharine I. But she lived but a few months after her accession to the
+throne, and the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her.
+
+The Empress Elizabeth resembled her mother, the beautiful Catharine,
+but was voluptuous and weak. She abandoned herself to puerile
+amusements and degrading follies. And she was as superstitious as she
+was debauched. She would continue whole hours on her knees before an
+image, to which she spoke, and which she ever consulted; and then
+would turn from bigotry to infamous sensuality. She hated
+Frederic II., and assisted Maria Theresa in her struggles. Russia
+gained no advantage from the Seven Years' War, except that of
+accustoming the Russians to the tactics of modern warfare. She died in
+1762, and was succeeded by the Grand Duke Peter Fedorowitz, son of the
+Duke of Holstein and Anne, daughter of Peter I. He assumed the title
+of Peter III.
+
+[Sidenote: Murder of Peter III.]
+
+Peter III. was a weak prince, but disposed to be beneficent. One of
+his first acts was to recall the numerous exiles whom the jealousy of
+Elizabeth had consigned to the deserts of Siberia. Among them was
+Biren, the haughty lover and barbarous minister of the Empress Anne
+and Marshal Munich, a veteran of eighty-two years of age. Peter also
+abolished the Inquisition, established by Alexis Michaelowitz, and
+promoted commerce, the arts, and sciences. He attempted to imitate the
+king of Prussia, for whom he had an extravagant admiration. He set at
+liberty the Prussian prisoners, and made peace with Frederic II. He
+had a great respect for Germany, but despised the country over which
+he was called to reign. But his partiality for the Germans, and his
+numerous reforms, alienated the affections of his subjects, and he was
+not sufficiently able to curb the spirit of discontent. He imitated
+his immediate predecessors in the vices of drunkenness and sensuality,
+and was guilty of great imprudences. He reigned but a few months,
+being dethroned and murdered. His wife, the Empress Catharine, was the
+chief of the conspirators; and she was urged to the bloody act by her
+own desperate circumstances. She was obnoxious to her husband, who
+probably would have destroyed her, had his life been prolonged. She,
+in view of his hostility, and prompted by an infernal ambition, sought
+to dethrone her husband. She was assisted by some of the most powerful
+nobles, and gained over most of the regiments of the imperial guard.
+The Archbishop of Novgorod and the clergy were friendly to her,
+because they detested the reforms which Peter had attempted to make.
+Catharine became mistress of St. Petersburg, and caused herself to be
+crowned Empress of Russia, in one of the principal churches. Peter had
+timely notice of the revolt, but not the energy to suppress it. He
+listened to the entreaties of women, rather than to the counsels of
+those veteran generals who still supported his throne. He was timid,
+irresolute, and vacillating. He was doomed. He was a weak and
+infatuated prince, and nothing could save him. He surrendered himself
+into the hands of Catharine, abdicated his empire, and, shortly after,
+died of poison. His wife seated herself, without further opposition,
+on his throne; and the principal nobles of the empire, the army, and
+the clergy, took the oath of allegiance, and the monarchs of Europe
+acknowledged her as the absolute sovereign of Russia. In 1763, she was
+firmly established in the power which had been before wielded by
+Catharine I. She had dethroned an imbecile prince, whom she abhorred;
+but the revolution was accomplished without bloodshed, and resulted in
+the prosperity of Russia.
+
+Catharine was a woman of great moral defects; but she had many
+excellences to counterbalance them; and her rule was, on the whole,
+able and beneficent. She was no sooner established in the power which
+she had usurped, than she directed attention to the affairs of her
+empire, and sought to remedy the great evils which existed. She
+devoted herself to business, advanced commerce and the arts, regulated
+the finances, improved the jurisprudence of the realm, patronized all
+works of internal improvement, rewarded eminent merit, encouraged
+education, and exercised a liberal and enlightened policy in her
+intercourse with foreign powers. After engaging in business with her
+ministers, she would converse with scholars and philosophers. With
+some she studied politics, and with others literature. She tolerated
+all religions, abolished odious courts, and enacted mild laws. She
+held out great inducements for foreigners to settle in Russia, and
+founded colleges and hospitals in all parts of her empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Assassination of Ivan.]
+
+Beneficent as her reforms were, she nevertheless committed some great
+political crimes. One of these was the assassination of the dethroned
+Ivan, the great-grandson of the Czar Ivan Alexejewitsch, who was
+brother of Peter the Great. On the death of the Empress Anne, in 1731,
+he had been proclaimed emperor: but when Elizabeth was placed upon the
+throne, the infant was confined in the fortress of Schlussenburg. Here
+he was so closely guarded and confined, that he was never allowed
+access to the open air or the light of day. On the accession of
+Catharine, he was twenty-three years of age, and was extremely
+ignorant and weak. But a conspiracy was formed to liberate him, and
+place him on the throne. The attempt proved abortive, and the prince
+perished by the sword of his jailers, who were splendidly rewarded for
+their infamous services.
+
+Her scheme of foreign aggrandizement, and especially her interference
+in the affairs of Poland, caused the Ottoman Porte to declare war
+against her, which war proved disastrous to Turkey, and contributed to
+aggrandize the empire of Russia. The Turks lost several battles on the
+Pruth, Dniester, and Danube; the provinces of Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+and Bessarabia submitted to the Russian arms; while a great naval
+victory, in the Mediterranean, was gained by Alexis Orloff, whose
+share in the late revolution had raised him from the rank of a simple
+soldier to that of a general of the empire, and a favorite of the
+empress. The naval defeat of the Turks at Tschesmé, by Orloff and
+Elphinstone, was one of the most signal of that age, and greatly
+weakened the power of Turkey. The war was not terminated until 1774,
+when the Turks were compelled to make peace, by the conditions of
+which, Russia obtained a large accession of territory, a great sum of
+money, the free navigation of the Black Sea, and a passage through the
+Dardanelles.
+
+In 1772 occurred the partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia, and
+Russia. Catharine and Frederic II. were the chief authors of this
+great political crime, which will be treated in the notice on Poland.
+
+The reign of Catharine was not signalized by any other great political
+events which affected materially the interests of Europe, except the
+continuation of the war with the Turks, which broke out again in 1778,
+and which was concluded in 1792, by the treaty of Jassy. In this war,
+Prince Potemkin, the favorite and prime minister of Catharine, greatly
+distinguished himself; also General Suwarrow, afterwards noted for his
+Polish campaigns. In this war Russia lost two hundred thousand men,
+and the Turks three hundred and thirty thousand, besides expending two
+hundred and fifty millions of piasters. The most important political
+consequence was the aggrandizement of Russia, whose dominion was
+established on the Black Sea.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Catharine.]
+
+Catharine, having acquired, either by arms or intrigues, almost half
+of Poland, the Crimea, and a part of the frontiers of Turkey, then
+turned her arms against Persia. But she died before she could realize
+her dreams of conquest. At her death, she was the most powerful
+sovereign that ever reigned in Russia. She was succeeded by her son,
+Paul I., (1796,) and her remains were deposited by the side of her
+murdered husband, while his chief murderers, Alexis Orloff and Prince
+Baratinski, were ordered to stand at her funeral, on each side of his
+coffin as chief mourners.
+
+Catharine, though a woman of great energy and talent, was ruled by
+favorites; the most distinguished of whom were Gregory Orloff and
+Prince Potemkin. The former was a man of brutal manners and surprising
+audacity; the latter was more civilized, but was a man disgraced, like
+Orloff, by every vice. His memory, however, is still cherished in
+Russia on account of his military successes. He received more honors
+and rewards from his sovereign than is recorded of any favorite and
+minister of modern times. His power was equal to what Richelieu
+enjoyed, and his fortune was nearly as great as Mazarin's. He was
+knight of the principal orders of Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Russia,
+field-marshal, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, high admiral
+of the fleets, great hetman of the Cossacks, and chamberlain of the
+empress. He received from her a fortune of fifty millions of roubles;
+equal to nearly twenty-five millions of dollars. The Orloffs received
+also about seventeen millions in lands, and palaces, and money, with
+forty-five thousand peasants.
+
+[Sidenote: Her Character.]
+
+Catharine had two passions which never left her but with her last
+breath--the love of the other sex, which degenerated into the most
+unbounded licentiousness, and the love of glory, which sunk into
+vanity. She expended ninety millions of roubles on her favorites, the
+number of which is almost incredible; and she was induced to engage in
+wars, which increased the burdens of her subjects.
+
+With the exception of these two passions, her character is interesting
+and commanding. Her reign was splendid, and her court magnificent. Her
+institutions and monuments were to Russia what the magnificence of
+Louis XIV. was to France. She was active and regular in her habits;
+was never hurried away by anger, and was never a prey to dejection;
+caprice and ill humor were never perceived in her conduct; she was
+humorous, gay, and affable; she appreciated literature, and encouraged
+good institutions; and, with all her faults, obtained the love and
+reverence of her subjects. She had not the virtues of Maria Theresa,
+but had, perhaps, greater energy of character. Her foulest act was her
+part in the dismemberment of Poland, which now claims a notice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For the reign of Maria Theresa, see Archdeacon
+     Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Austria, which is the most
+     interesting and complete. See also Putter's Constitution of
+     the Germanic Empire; Kolhrausch's History of Germany;
+     Heeren's Modern History; Smyth's Lectures; also a history of
+     Germany, in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopædia. For a life of
+     Catharine, see Castina's Life, translated by Hunter; Tooke's
+     Life of Catharine II.; Ségur's Vie de Catharine II.; Coxe's
+     Travels; Heeren's and Russell's Modern History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+CALAMITIES OF POLAND.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Calamities of Poland.]
+
+No kingdom in Europe has been subjected to so many misfortunes and
+changes, considering its former greatness, as the Polish monarchy.
+Most of the European states have retained their ancient limits, for
+several centuries, without material changes, but Poland has been
+conquered, dismembered, and plundered. Its ancient constitution has
+been completely subverted, and its extensive provinces are now annexed
+to the territories of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The greatness of
+the national calamities has excited the sympathy of Christian nations,
+and its unfortunate fate is generally lamented.
+
+In the sixteenth century, Poland was a greater state than Russia, and
+was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms of Europe. The Poles,
+as a nation, are not, however, of very ancient date. Prior to the
+ninth century, they were split up into numerous tribes, independent of
+each other, and governed by their respective chieftains. Christianity
+was introduced in the tenth century, and the earliest records of the
+people were preserved by the monks. We know but little, with
+certainty, until the time of Piast, who united the various states, and
+whose descendants reigned until 1386, when the dynasty of the
+Jagellons commenced, and continued till 1572. Under the princes of
+this line, the government was arbitrary and oppressive. War was the
+great business and amusement of the princes, and success in it brought
+the highest honors. The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and
+capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their
+reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and
+violence--the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some
+of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great
+majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the
+Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and
+the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy gloom hanging
+over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in reference to kings.
+And yet their reigns, though stained by revolting crimes, generally
+were to be preferred to the anarchy of an interregnum, or the
+overgrown power of nobles.
+
+The brightest period in the history of Poland was during the reigns of
+the Jagellon princes, especially when Casimir I. held the sceptre of
+empire. During his reign, Lithuania, which then comprised Hungary,
+Bohemia, and Silesia, was added to his kingdom. The university of
+Cracow was founded, and Poland was the great resort of the Jews, to
+whom were committed the trade and commerce of the land. But the rigors
+of the feudal system, and the vast preponderance of the aristocracy,
+proved unfortunate for the prosperity of the kingdom. What in England
+was the foundation of constitutional liberty, proved in Poland to be
+subversive of all order and good government. In England, the
+representative of the nation was made an instrument in the hands of
+the king of humbling the great nobility. Absolutism was established
+upon the ruins of feudalism. But, in Poland, the Diet of the nation
+controlled the king, and, as the representatives of the nobility
+alone, perpetuated the worst evils of the feudal system.
+
+[Sidenote: The Crown of Poland Made Elective.]
+
+When Sigismund II., the last male heir of the house of Jagellon, died,
+in 1572, the nobles were sufficiently powerful to make the crown
+elective. From this period we date the decline of Poland. The
+Reformation, so beneficent in its effects, did not spread to this
+Sclavonic country; and the barbarism of the Middle Ages received no
+check. On the death of Sigismund, the nobles would not permit the new
+sovereign to be elected by the Diet, but only by the whole body of the
+nobility. The plain of Praga was the place selected for the election;
+and, at the time appointed, such a vast number of nobles arrived, that
+the plain, of twelve miles in circumference, was scarcely large enough
+to contain them and their retinues. There never was such a sight seen
+since the crusaders were marshalled on the field of Chalcedon, for all
+the nobles were gorgeously apparelled, and decked with ermine, gold,
+and jewels. The Polish horseman frequently invests half his fortune in
+his horse and dress. In the centre of the field was the tent of the
+late king, capable of accommodating eight thousand men. The candidates
+for the crown were Ernest Archduke of Austria; the Czar of Russia; a
+Swedish prince, and Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, and brother of
+Charles IX., king of France.
+
+[Sidenote: Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou.]
+
+The first candidate was rejected because the house of Austria was
+odious to the Polish nobles; the second, on account of his arrogance;
+and the third, because he was not powerful enough to bring advantage
+to the republic. The choice fell on the Duke of Anjou; and he, for the
+title of a king, agreed to the ignominious conditions which the Poles
+proposed, viz., that he should not attempt to influence the election
+of his successors, or assume the title of heir of the monarchy, or
+declare war without the consent of the Diet, or impose taxes of any
+description, or have power to appoint his ambassadors, or any
+foreigner to a benefice in the church; that he should convoke the Diet
+every two years; and that he should not marry without its permission.
+He also was required to furnish four thousand French troops, in case
+of war; to apply annually, for the sole benefit of the Polish state, a
+considerable part of his hereditary revenues; to pay the debts of the
+crown; and to educate, at his own expense, at Paris or Cracow, one
+hundred Polish nobles. He had scarcely been crowned when his brother
+died, and he was called to the throne of France. But he found it
+difficult to escape from his kingdom, the government of which he found
+to be burdensome and vexatious. No criminal ever longed to escape from
+a prison, more than this prince to break the fetters which bound him
+to his imperious subjects. He resolved to run away; concealed his
+intentions with great address; gave a great ball at his palace; and in
+the midst of the festivities, set out with full speed towards Silesia.
+He was pursued, but reached the territories of the emperor of Germany
+before he was overtaken. He reached Paris in safety, and was soon
+after crowned as king of France.
+
+[Sidenote: Sobieski Assists the Emperor Leopold.]
+
+He was succeeded by Stephen, Duke of Transylvania; and he, again, by
+Sigismund, Prince of Sweden. The two sons of Sigismund, successively,
+were elected kings of Poland, the last of whom, John II., was
+embroiled in constant war. It was during his disastrous reign that
+John Sobieski, with ten thousand Poles, defeated eighty thousand
+Cossacks, the hereditary enemies of Poland. On the death of Michael,
+who had succeeded John II., Sobieski was elected king, and he assumed
+the title of _John III._ He was a native noble, and was chosen for his
+military talents and successes. Indeed, Poland needed a strong arm to
+defend her. Her decline had already commenced, and Sobieski himself
+could not avert the ruin which impended. For some time, Poland enjoyed
+cessation from war, and the energies of the monarch were directed to
+repair the evils which had disgraced his country. But before he could
+prosecute successfully any useful reforms, the war between the Turks
+and the eastern powers of Europe broke out, and Vienna was besieged by
+an overwhelming army of two hundred thousand Mohammedans. The city was
+bravely defended, but its capture seemed inevitable. The emperor of
+Germany, Leopold, in his despair, implored the aid of Sobieski. He was
+invested with the command of the allied armies of Austrians,
+Bavarians, Saxons, and Poles, amounting to seventy thousand men. With
+this force he advanced to relieve Vienna. He did not hesitate to
+attack the vast forces encamped beneath the walls of the Austrian
+capital, and obtained one of the most signal victories in the history
+of war. Immense treasures fell into his hands, and Vienna and
+Christendom were saved.
+
+But the mean-spirited emperor treated his deliverer with arrogance and
+chilling coldness. No gratitude was exhibited or felt. But the pope
+sent him the rarest of his gifts--"the dove of pearls." Sobieski, in
+spite of the ingratitude of Leopold, pursued his victories over the
+Turks; and, like Charles Martel, ten centuries before, freed Europe
+from the danger of a Mohammedan yoke. But he saved a serpent, when
+about to be crushed, which turned and stung him for his kindness. The
+dismemberment of his country soon followed the deliverance of Vienna.
+
+He was succeeded, in 1696, by Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony,
+whose reign was a constant succession of disasters. During his reign,
+Poland was invaded and conquered by Charles XII. of Sweden. He was
+succeeded by his son, Frederic Augustus II., the most beautiful,
+extravagant, luxurious, and licentious monarch of his age. But he was
+a man of elegant tastes, and he filled Dresden with pictures and works
+of art, which are still the admiration of travellers. His reign, as
+king of Poland, was exceedingly disastrous. Muscovite and Prussian
+armies traversed the plains of Poland at pleasure, and extorted
+whatever they pleased. Faction was opposed by faction in the field and
+in the Diet. The national assembly was dissolved by the _veto_, the
+laws were disregarded, and brute force prevailed on every side. The
+miserable peasants in vain besought the protection of their brutal yet
+powerless lords. Bands of robbers infested the roads, and hunger
+invaded the cottages. The country rapidly declined in wealth,
+population, and public spirit.
+
+Under the reign of Stanislaus II., who succeeded Frederic
+Augustus II., in 1764, the ambassadors of Prussia, Austria, and
+Russia, informed the miserable king that, in order to prevent further
+bloodshed, and restore peace to Poland, the three powers had
+determined to insist upon their claims to some of the provinces of the
+kingdom. This barefaced and iniquitous scheme for the dismemberment of
+Poland originated with Frederic the Great. So soon as the close of the
+Seven Years' War allowed him repose, he turned his eyes to Poland,
+with a view of seizing one of her richest provinces. Territories
+inhabited by four million eight hundred thousand people, were divided
+between Frederic, Maria Theresa, and Catharine II. There were no
+scruples of conscience in the breast of Frederic, or of Catharine, a
+woman of masculine energy, but disgraceful morals. The conscience of
+Maria Theresa, however, long resisted. "The fear of hell," said she,
+"restrains me from seizing another's possessions;" but sophistry was
+brought to bear upon her mind, and the lust of dominion asserted its
+powerful sway. This crime was regarded with detestation by the other
+powers of Europe; but they were too much occupied with their own
+troubles to interfere, except by expostulation. England was disturbed
+by difficulties in the colonies, and France was distracted by
+revolutionary tumults.
+
+[Sidenote: The Liberum Veto.]
+
+Stanislaus, robbed of one third of his dominions, now directed his
+attention to those reforms which had been so long imperatively needed.
+He intrusted to the celebrated Zamoyski the task of revising the
+constitution. The patriotic chancellor recommended the abolition of
+the "liberum veto," a fatal privilege, by which any one of the armed
+equestrians, who assembled on the plain of Praga to elect a king, or
+deliberate on state affairs, had power to nullify the most important
+acts, and even to dissolve the assembly. A single word, pronounced in
+the vehemence of domestic strife, or by the influence of external
+corruption, could plunge the nation into a lethargic sleep. And
+faction went so far as often to lead to the dissolution of the
+assembly. The treasury, the army, the civil authority then fell into a
+state of anarchy. Zamoyski also recommended the emancipation of serfs,
+the encouragement of commerce, the elevation of the trading classes,
+and the abolition of the fatal custom of electing a king. But the
+Polish nobles, infatuated and doomed, opposed these wholesome reforms.
+They even had the madness to invoke the aid of the Empress Catharine
+to protect them in their ancient privileges. She sent an army into
+Poland, and great disturbances resulted.
+
+[Sidenote: The Fall of Poland.]
+
+Too late, at last, the nobles perceived their folly, and adopted some
+of the proposed reforms. But these reforms gave a new pretence to the
+allied powers for a second dismemberment. An army of one hundred
+thousand men invaded Poland, to effect a new partition. The unhappy
+country, without fortified towns or mountains, abandoned by all the
+world, distracted by divisions, and destitute of fortresses and
+military stores, was crushed by the power of gigantic enemies. There
+were patriotism and bravery left, but no union or organized strength.
+The patriots made a desperate struggle under Kosciusko, a Lithuanian
+noble, but were forced to yield to inevitable necessity. Warsaw for a
+time held out against fifty thousand men; but the Polish hero was
+defeated in a decisive engagement, and unfortunately taken prisoner.
+His countrymen still rallied, and another bloody battle was fought at
+Praga, opposite Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula, and ten
+thousand were slain; Praga was reduced to a heap of ruins; and twelve
+thousand citizens were slaughtered in cold blood. Warsaw soon after
+surrendered, Stanislaus was sent as a captive to Russia, and the final
+partition of the kingdom was made.
+
+"Sarmatia fell," but not "unwept," or "without a crime." "She fell,"
+says Alison, "a victim of her own dissensions, of the chimera of
+equality falsely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy unceasingly
+maintained. The eldest born of the European family was the first to
+perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union;
+because she united the turbulence of democratic to the exclusion of
+aristocratic societies; because she had the vacillation of a republic
+without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without its
+stability. The Poles obstinately refused to march with other nations
+in the only road to civilization; they had valor, but it could not
+enforce obedience to the laws; it could not preserve domestic
+tranquillity; it could not restrain the violence of petty feuds and
+intestine commotions; it could not preserve the proud nobles from
+unbounded dissipation and corruption; it could not prevent foreign
+powers from interfering in the affairs of the kingdom; it could not
+dissolve the union of these powers with discontented parties at home;
+it could not inspire the slowly-moving machine of government with
+vigor, when the humblest partisan, corrupted with foreign money, could
+arrest it with a word; it could not avert the entrance of foreign
+armies to support the factious and rebellious; it could not uphold, in
+a divided country, the national independence against the combined
+effects of foreign and domestic treason; finally, it could not effect
+impossibilities, nor turn aside the destroying sword which had so long
+impended over it."
+
+But this great crime was attended with retribution. Prussia, in her
+efforts to destroy Poland, paralyzed her armies on the Rhine. Suwarrow
+entered Warsaw when its spires were reddened by the fires of Praga;
+but the sack of the fallen capital was forgotten in the conflagration
+of Moscow. The remains of the soldiers of Kosciusko sought a refuge in
+republican France, and served with distinction, in the armies of
+Napoleon, against the powers that had dismembered their country.
+
+The ruin of Poland, as an independent state, was not fully
+accomplished until the year 1832, when it was incorporated into the
+great empire of Russia. But the history of the late revolution, with
+all its melancholy results, cannot be well presented in this
+connection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Fletcher's History of Poland. Rulhière's
+     Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne. Coyer's Vie de Sobieski.
+     Parthenay's History of Augustus II. Hordynski's History of
+     the late Polish Revolution. Also see Lives of Frederic II.,
+     Maria Theresa, and Catharine II.; contemporaneous histories
+     of Prussia, Russia, and Austria; Alison's History of Europe;
+     Smyth's Lectures; Russell's Modern Europe; Heeren's Modern
+     History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Saracenic Empire.]
+
+While the great monarchies of Western Europe were struggling for
+preëminence, and were developing resources greater than had ever
+before been exhibited since the fall of the Roman empire, that great
+power which had alarmed and astonished Christendom in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, began to show the signs of weakness and
+decay. Nothing, in the history of society, is more marvellous than the
+rise of Mohammedan kingdoms. The victories of the Saracens and Turks
+were rapid and complete; and in the tenth century, they were the most
+successful warriors on the globe, and threatened to subvert the world.
+They had planted the standard of the Prophet on the walls of Eastern
+capitals, and had extended their conquests to India on the east, and
+to Spain on the west. Powerful Mohammedan states had arisen in Asia,
+Africa, and Europe, and the Crusaders alone arrested the progress of
+these triumphant armies. The enthusiasm which the doctrines of
+Mohammed had kindled, cannot easily be explained; but it was fresh,
+impetuous, and self-sacrificing. Successive armies of Mohammedan
+invaders overwhelmed the ancient realms of civilization, and reduced
+the people whom they conquered and converted to a despotic yoke. But
+success enervated the victorious conquerors of the East, the empire of
+the Caliphs was broken up, and great changes took place even in those
+lands where the doctrines of the Koran prevailed. Mohammed perpetuated
+a religion, but not an empire. Different Saracenic chieftains revolted
+from the "Father of the Faithful," and established separate kingdoms,
+or viceroyalties, nearly independent of the acknowledged successors of
+Mohammed. The Saracenic empire was early dismembered, and the sultans
+of Egypt, Spain, and Syria contested for preëminence.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Turks.]
+
+But a new power arose on the ruins of the Saracen empire, and became
+the enthusiastic defenders of the religion of Islam. The Turks were an
+obscure tribe of barbarians when Bagdad was the seat of a powerful
+monarchy. Their origin has been traced to the wilds of Scythia; but
+they early deserted their native forests in search of more fruitful
+regions. When Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman pirates, a
+swarm of these Scythian shepherds settled in Armenia, probably in the
+ninth century, and, by their valor and simplicity, soon became a
+powerful tribe. Not long after they were settled in their new abode,
+the Sultan of Persia invoked their aid to assist him in his wars
+against the Caliph of Bagdad, his great rival. The Turks complied with
+his request, and their arms were successful. The sultan then refused
+to part with such useful auxiliaries, and moreover, fearing their
+strength, designed to employ them in his wars against the Hindoos, and
+to shut them up in the centre of his dominions. The Turkmans rebelled,
+withdrew into a mountainous part of the country, became robbers, and
+devastated the adjacent countries. The band of robbers gradually
+swelled into a powerful army, gained a great victory over the troops
+of the Sultan Mohammed, and placed their chieftain upon the Persian
+throne, (1038.) According to Gibbon, the new monarch was chosen by
+lot, and Seljuk had the fortune to win the prize of conquest, and
+became the founder of the dynasty of the Shepherd kings. During the
+reign of his grandson Togrul, the ancient Persian princes were
+expelled, and the Turks embraced the religion of the conquered. In
+1055, the Turkish sultan delivered the Caliph of Bagdad from the arms
+of the Caliph of Egypt, who disputed with him the title of _Commander
+of the Faithful_. For this service he was magnificently rewarded by
+the grateful successor of the Prophet, who, at that time, banqueted in
+his palace at Bagdad--a venerable phantom of power. The victorious
+sultan was publicly commissioned as lieutenant of the caliph, and he
+was virtually seated on the throne of the Abbassides. Shortly after,
+the Turkish conqueror invaded the falling empire of the Greeks, and
+its Asiatic provinces were irretrievably lost. In the latter part of
+the eleventh century, the Turkish power was established in Asia Minor,
+and Jerusalem itself had fallen into the hands of the sultan. He
+exacted two pieces of gold from the Christian pilgrim, and treated
+him, moreover, with greater cruelty than the Saracens had ever
+exercised. The extortion and oppression of the Turkish masters of the
+Sacred City led to the Crusades and the final possession of Western
+Asia by the followers of the Prophet. The Turkish power constantly
+increased with the decline of the Saracenic and Greek empires, but the
+Seljukian dynasty, like that of Abbassides at Bagdad, at last run out,
+and Othman, a soldier of fortune, became sultan of the Turks. He is
+regarded as the founder of the Ottoman empire, and under his reign,
+from 1299 to 1326, the Moslems made rapid strides in the progress of
+aggrandizement.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Conquerors.]
+
+Orkham, his son, instituted the force of the Janizaries, completed the
+conquest of Bithynia, and laid the foundation of Turkish power in
+Europe. Under his successor, Amurath I., Adrianople became the capital
+of the Ottoman empire, and the rival of Constantinople. Bajazet
+succeeded Amurath, and his conquests extended from the Euphrates to
+the Danube. In 1396, he defeated, at Nicopolis, a confederate army of
+one hundred thousand Christians; and, in the intoxication of victory,
+declared that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the
+altar of St. Peter, at Rome. Had it not been for the victories of
+Tamerlane, Constantinople, which contained within its walls the feeble
+fragments of a great empire, would also have fallen into his hands. He
+was unsuccessful in his war with the great conqueror of Asia, and was
+defeated at the battle of Angora, (1402,) and taken captive, and
+carried to Samarcand, by Tamerlane, in an iron cage.
+
+The great Bajazet died in captivity, and Mohammed I. succeeded to his
+throne. He restored, on a firmer basis, the fabric of the Ottoman
+monarchy, and devoted himself to the arts of peace. His successor,
+Amurath II., continued hostilities with the Greeks, and laid siege to
+Constantinople. But this magnificent city, the last monument of Roman
+greatness, resisted the Turkish arms only for a while. In 1453, it
+fell before an irresistible force of three hundred thousand men,
+supported by a fleet of three hundred sail. The Emperor Constantine
+succeeded in maintaining a siege of fifty-three days; and the religion
+and empire of the Christians were trodden to the dust by the Moslem
+conquerors. The city was sacked, the people were enslaved, and the
+Church of St. Sophia was despoiled of the oblations of ages, and
+converted into a Mohammedan mosque. One hundred and twenty thousand
+manuscripts perished in the sack of Constantinople, and the palaces
+and treasure of the Greeks were transferred to semi-barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress of the Turks.]
+
+From that time, the Byzantine capital became the seat of the Ottoman
+empire; and, for more than two centuries, Turkish armies excited the
+fears and disturbed the peace of the world. They gradually subdued and
+annexed Macedonia, the Peloponnesus, Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia,
+Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, India, Tunis, Algiers, Media,
+Mesopotamia, and a part of Hungary, to the dominions of the sultan. In
+the sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire was the most powerful in the
+world. Nor should we be surprised, in view of the great success of the
+Turks, when we remember their singular bravery, their absorbing
+ambition, their almost incredible obedience to the commands of the
+sultan, and the unity which pervaded the national councils. They also
+fought to extend their religion, to which they were blind devotees.
+After the capture of Constantinople, a succession of great princes sat
+on the most absolute throne known in modern times; men disgraced by
+many crimes, but still singularly adapted to extend their dominion.
+
+The progress of the Turks justly alarmed the Emperor Charles V., and
+he exerted all his energies to unite the German princes against them,
+but unsuccessfully. The Sultan Solyman, called the _Magnificent_,
+maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+ravaged Hungary, wrested Rhodes from the Knights of St. John,
+conquered the whole of Arabia, and attacked the Portuguese dominion in
+India. He raised the Turkish empire to the highest pitch of its
+greatness, and died while besieging Sigeth, as he was completing the
+conquest of Hungary. His empire was one vast camp, and his decrees
+were dated from the imperial stirrup. The iron sceptre which he and
+his successors wielded was imbrued in blood; and discipline alone was
+the politics of his soldiers, and rapine their resources.
+
+Selim II. succeeded Solyman, and set the ruinous example of not going
+himself to the wars, and of carrying them on by his lieutenants. His
+son, Murad III., penetrated into Russia and Poland, and made war on
+the Emperor of Germany. Mohammed III., who died in 1604, murdered all
+his brothers, nineteen in number, and executed his own son. It was
+usual, when an emperor mounted the throne, for him to put to death his
+brothers and nephews. Indeed, the characters of the sultans were
+marked by unusual ferocity and jealousy, and they were unscrupulous in
+the means they took to advance their power. The world has never seen
+more suspicious tyrants; and it ever must excite our wonder that they
+were so unhesitatingly obeyed. But they were, however, sometimes
+dethroned by the Janizaries, who constituted a sort of imperial guard.
+Osman II., fearing their power, and disgusted with their degeneracy,
+resolved to destroy them, as dangerous to the state. But his design
+was discovered, and he himself lost his life, (1622.) Several monsters
+of tyranny and iniquity succeeded him, whose reigns were disgraced by
+every excess of debauchery and cruelty. Their subjects, however, had
+not, as yet, lost vigor, temperance, and ambition, and still continued
+to furnish troops unexampled for discipline and bravery, and bent on
+conquest and dominion.
+
+The Turkish power received no great checks until the reign of
+Mohammed IV., during which Sobieski defeated an immense army, which
+had laid siege to Vienna. By the peace of Carlovitz, in 1699,
+Transylvania was ceded to the Emperor of Germany, and a barrier was
+raised against Mohammedan invasion.
+
+The Russians, from the time of Peter the Great, looked with great
+jealousy on the power of the sultan, and several wars were the result.
+No Russian sovereign desired the humiliation of the Porte more than
+Catharine II. A bloody contest ensued, signalized by the victories of
+Galitzin, Suwarrow, Romanzoff, and Orloff, by which Turkey became a
+second class power, no longer feared by the European states.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of Turkish Power.]
+
+From the peace of Carlovitz, the decline of the Ottoman empire has
+been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to
+all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile
+to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been
+bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental
+dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and
+customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia several
+centuries ago.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Institutions.]
+
+One of the peculiarities of the Turkish government, in the most
+flourishing period of its history, was the institution of the
+Janizaries--a guard of soldiers, to whom was intrusted the
+guardianship of the sultan, and the protection of his capital. When
+warlike and able princes were seated on the throne, this institution
+proved a great support to the government; but when the reins were held
+by effeminate princes, the Janizaries, like the Prætorian Guards of
+Rome, acquired an undue ascendency, and even deposed the monarchs whom
+they were bound to obey. They were insolent, extortionate, and
+extravagant, and became a great burden to the state. At first they
+were brave and resolute; but they gradually lost their skill and their
+courage, were uniformly beaten in the later wars with the Russians,
+and retained nothing of the soldier but the name. Mahmoud II., in our
+own time, succeeded in dissolving this dangerous body, and in
+introducing European tactics into his army.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Character.]
+
+The Turkish institutions have reference chiefly to the military
+character of the nation. All Mussulmans, in the eye of the law, are
+soldiers, to whom the extension of the empire and the propagation of
+their faith were the avowed objects of warfare. They may be regarded,
+wherever they have conquered, as military colonists, exercising great
+tyranny, and treating all vanquished subjects with contempt. The
+government has ever been a pure despotism, and both the executive and
+legislative authorities have been vested in the sultan. He is the sole
+fountain of honor; for, in Turkey, birth confers no privilege. His
+actions are regarded as prescribed by an inevitable fate, and his
+subjects suffer with resignation. The evils of despotism are
+aggravated by the ignorance and effeminacy of those to whom power is
+intrusted, although the grand vizier, who is the prime minister of the
+empire, is generally a man of great experience and talent. All the
+laws of the country are founded upon the precepts of the Koran, the
+example of Mohammed, the precepts of the four first caliphs, and the
+decision of learned doctors upon disputed cases. Justice is
+administered promptly, but without much regard to equity or mercy; and
+the course of the grand vizier is generally marked with blood. The
+character of the people partakes of the nature of their government,
+religion, and climate. They are arrogant, ignorant, and austere;
+passing from devotion to obscenity; fastidiously abstemious in some
+things, and grossly sensual in others. They have cherished the virtues
+of hospitality, and are fond of conversation but their domestic life
+is spent in voluptuous idleness, and is dull and insipid compared with
+that of Europeans. But the Turks have degenerated. In the fifteenth
+and sixteenth centuries, they were simple, brave, and religious. They
+founded an immense empire on the ruins of Asiatic monarchies, and
+filled the world with the terror of their arms. For two hundred years
+their power has been retrograding, and there is much reason now to
+believe that a total eclipse of their glory is soon to take place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--See Knolle's History of Turkey. Eton's Survey
+     of the Turkish Empire. Upham's History of the Ottoman
+     Empire. Encyclopædia Britannica. Heeren's Modern History.
+     Madden's Travels in Turkey. Russell's Modern Europe. Life of
+     Catharine II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+REIGN OF GEORGE III. TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+
+
+Great subjects were discussed in England, and great events happened in
+America, during the latter years of the reigns of Frederic II.,
+Catharine II., and Maria Theresa. These now demand attention.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Successes in America.]
+
+George III. ascended the throne of Great Britain at a period of
+unparalleled prosperity, when the English arms were victorious in all
+parts of the world, and when commerce and the arts had greatly
+enriched his country and strengthened its political importance. By the
+peace of Paris, (1763,) the dominions of George III. were enlarged,
+and the country over which he reigned was the most powerful in Europe.
+
+Mr. George Grenville succeeded the Earl of Bute as the prime minister
+of the king, and he was chiefly assisted by the Earls of Egremont and
+Halifax. His administration was signalized by the prosecution of
+Wilkes, and by schemes for the taxation of the American colonies.
+
+Mr. Wilkes was a member of parliament, but a man of ruined fortunes
+and profligate morals. As his circumstances were desperate, he applied
+to the ministry for some post of emolument; but his application was
+rejected. Failure enraged him, and he swore revenge, and resolved to
+libel the ministers, under the pretext of exercising the liberty of
+the press. He was editor of the North Briton, a periodical publication
+of some talent, but more bitterness. In the forty-fifth number, he
+assailed the king, charging him with a direct falsehood. The charge
+should have been dismissed with contempt; for it was against the
+dignity of the government to refute an infamous slander. But, in an
+evil hour, it was thought expedient to vindicate the honor of the
+sovereign; and a warrant was therefore issued against the editor,
+publisher, and printer of the publication. The officers of the law
+entered Wilkes's house late one evening, seized his papers, and
+committed him to the Tower. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus, in
+consequence of which he was brought up to Westminster Hall. Being a
+member of parliament, and a man of considerable abilities and
+influence, his case attracted attention. The judges decided that his
+arrest was illegal, since a member of parliament could not be
+imprisoned except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. He had
+not committed any of these crimes, for a libel had only a _tendency_
+to disturb the peace. Still, had he been a private person, his
+imprisonment would have been legal; but being unconstitutional, he was
+discharged. Lord Chief Justice Pratt gained great popularity by his
+charge in favor of the liberation of Wilkes, and ever nobly defended
+constitutional liberty. He is better known as Lord Camden, the able
+lord chancellor and statesman during a succeeding administration, and
+one of the greatest lawyers England has produced, ranking with Lord
+Hardwicke, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Eldon.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of Wilkes.]
+
+After the discharge of Wilkes, the attorney-general was then ordered
+to commence a state prosecution, and he was arraigned at the bar of
+the House of Commons. It was voted, by a great majority, that the
+forty-fifth number of the North Briton was a scandalous and seditious
+libel, and tending to excite traitorous insurrections. It was further
+voted that the paper should be burned by the common hangman. Wilkes
+then complained to the House of a breach of privilege, which
+complaint, being regular, was considered. But the Commons decided that
+the privilege of parliament does not extend to a libel, which
+resolution was against the decision of the Court of Common Pleas, and
+the precedents upon record in their own journals. However scandalous
+and vulgar the vituperation of Wilkes, and especially disgraceful in a
+member of parliament, still his prosecution was an attack on the
+constitution. Wilkes was arrested on what is called a _general
+warrant_, which, if often resorted to, would be fatal to the liberties
+of the people. Many, who strongly disliked the libeller, still
+defended him in this instance, among whom were Pitt, Beckford, Legge,
+Yorke, and Sir George Saville. But party spirit and detestation of
+Wilkes triumphed over the constitution, and the liberties of members
+of parliament were abridged even by themselves. But Wilkes was not
+discouraged, and immediately brought an action, in Westminster Hall,
+against the Earl of Halifax, the secretary of state, for seizing his
+papers, and, after a hearing of fifteen hours, before Lord Chief
+Justice Pratt and a special jury, obtained a verdict in his favor of
+one thousand pounds damages and costs.
+
+While the Commons were prosecuting Wilkes for a libel, the Lords also
+continued the prosecution. Wilkes, in conjunction with Potter, a
+dissipated son of Archbishop Potter, during some of their bacchanalian
+revels, had written a blasphemous and obscene poem, after the model of
+Pope's Essay on Man, called _An Essay on Woman_. The satire was not
+published, but a few copies of it were printed privately for the
+authors. Lord Sandwich had contrived to secure a copy of it, and read
+it before the House; and the Lords, indignant and disgusted, voted an
+address to the king to institute a prosecution against the author. The
+Lords, by so doing, departed from the dignity of their order, and
+their ordinary functions, and their persecution served to strengthen,
+instead of weaken, the cause of Wilkes.
+
+[Sidenote: Churchill.]
+
+Associated with him, in his writings and his revels, was the poet
+Churchill, a clergyman of the Establishment, but as open a contemner
+of decency as Wilkes himself. For some years, his poetry had proved as
+bad as his sermons, his time being spent in low dissipation. An
+ill-natured criticism on his writings called forth his energies, and
+he started, all at once, a giant in numbers, with all the fire of
+Dryden and all the harmony of Pope. Imagination, wit, strength, and
+sense, were crowded into his compositions; but he was careless of both
+matter and manner, and wrote just what came in his way. "This
+bacchanalian priest," says Horace Walpole, "now mouthing patriotism,
+and now venting libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better
+than the worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the
+weight of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots, and
+set himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the state and
+punish its oppressors. And true it is, the storm that saved us was
+raised in taverns and night-cellars; so much more effectual were the
+orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the dagger of Cato and Brutus.
+Earl Temple joined them in mischief and dissipation, and whispered
+where they might find torches, though he took care never to be seen to
+light one himself. This triumvirate has even made me reflect that
+nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in them. The virtuous
+are too scrupulous to go the lengths which are necessary to rouse the
+people against their tyrants."
+
+[Sidenote: Grafton's Administration.]
+
+The ferment created by the prosecution of Wilkes led to the
+resignation of Mr. Grenville, in 1765, and the Marquis of Rockingham
+succeeded him as head of the administration. He continued, however,
+the prosecution. He retained his place but a few months, and was
+succeeded by the Duke of Grafton, the object of such virulent
+invective in the Letters of Junius, a work without elevation of
+sentiment, without any appeal to generous principle, without
+recognition of the eternal laws of justice, and without truthfulness,
+and yet a work which produced a great sensation, and is to this day
+regarded as a masterpiece of savage and unscrupulous sarcasm. The Duke
+of Grafton had the same views as his predecessor respecting Wilkes,
+who had the audacity, notwithstanding the sentence of outlawry which
+had been passed against him, to return from Paris, to which he had,
+for a time, retired, and to appear publicly at Guildhall, and offer
+himself as a candidate for the city of London. He was contemptuously
+rejected, but succeeded in being elected as member for Middlesex
+county.
+
+Mr. Wilkes, however, recognizing the outlawry that had been passed
+against him, surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the Court of
+the King's Bench, which was then presided over by Lord Mansfield. This
+great lawyer and jurist confirmed the verdicts against him, and
+sentenced him to pay a fine of one thousand pounds, to suffer two
+years' imprisonment, and to find security for good behavior for seven
+years. This sentence was odious and severe, and the more unjustifiable
+in view of the arbitrary and unprecedented alteration of the records
+on the very night preceding the trial.
+
+[Sidenote: Popularity of Wilkes.]
+
+The multitude, enraged, rescued their idol from the officers of the
+law, as they were conducting him to prison, and carried him with
+triumph through the city; but, through his entreaties, they were
+prevailed upon to abstain from further acts of outrage. Mr. Wilkes
+again surrendered himself, and was confined in prison. When the
+Commons met, Wilkes was again expelled, in order to satisfy the
+vengeance of the court. But the electors of Middlesex again returned
+him to parliament, and the Commons voted that, being once expelled, he
+was incapable of sitting, even if elected, in the same parliament. The
+electors of Middlesex, equally determined with the Commons, chose him,
+for a third time, their representative; and the election, for the
+third time, was declared void by the commons. In order to terminate
+the contest, Colonel Lutterell, a member of the House, vacated his
+seat, and offered himself a candidate for Middlesex. He received two
+hundred and ninety-six votes, and Wilkes twelve hundred and
+forty-three, but Lutterell was declared duly elected by the Commons,
+and took his seat for Middlesex.
+
+This decision threw the whole nation into a ferment, and was plainly
+an outrage on the freedom of elections; and it was so considered by
+some of the most eminent men in England, even by those who despised
+the character of Wilkes. Lord Chatham, from his seat, declared "that
+the laws were despised, trampled upon, destroyed; those laws which had
+been made by the stern virtues of our ancestors, those iron barons of
+old, to whose spirit in the hour of contest, and to whose fortitude in
+the triumph of victory, the silken barons of this day owe all their
+honors and security."
+
+Mr. Wilkes subsequently triumphed; the Commons grew weary of a contest
+which brought no advantage and much ignominy, and the prosecution was
+dropped; but not until the subject of it had been made Lord Mayor of
+London. From 1768 to 1772, he was the sole unrivalled political idol
+of the people, who lavished on him all in their power to bestow. They
+subscribed twenty thousand pounds for the payment of his debts,
+besides gifts of plate, wine, and household goods. Every wall bore his
+name and every window his picture. In china, bronze, or marble, he
+stood upon the chimney-pieces of half the houses in London, and he
+swung from the sign-board of every village, and every great road in
+the environs of the metropolis. In 1770 he was discharged from his
+imprisonment, in 1771 was permitted to take his seat, and elected
+mayor. From 1776, his popularity declined, and he became involved in
+pecuniary difficulties. He, however, emerged from them, and enjoyed a
+quiet office until his death (1797.) He was a patriot from accident,
+and not from principle, and corrupt in his morals; but he was a
+gentleman of elegant manners and cultivated taste. He was the most
+popular political character ever known in England; and his name, at
+one time, was sufficient to blow up the flames of sedition, and excite
+the lower orders to acts of violence bordering on madness.
+
+[Sidenote: Taxation of the Colonies.]
+
+During his prosecution, important events occurred, of greater moment
+to the world. The disputes about the taxation of America led to the
+establishment of a new republic, whose extent and grandeur have never
+been equalled, and whose future greatness cannot well be exaggerated.
+
+These disputes commenced during the administration of George
+Grenville. The proposal to tax the American colonies had been before
+proposed to Sir Robert Walpole, but this prudent and sagacious
+minister dared not run the risk. Mr. Grenville was not, however,
+daunted by the difficulties and dangers which the more able Walpole
+regarded. In order to lighten the burden which resulted from the
+ruinous wars of Pitt, the minister proposed to raise a revenue from
+the colonies. The project pleased the house, and the Stamp Duties were
+imposed. It is true that the tax was a light one, and was so regarded
+by Mr. Grenville; but he intended it as a precedent; he was resolved
+to raise a revenue from the colonies sufficiently great to lighten the
+public burden. He regarded the colonists as subjects of the King of
+Great Britain, in every sense of the word; and, since they received
+protection from the government, they were bound to contribute to its
+support.
+
+[Sidenote: Indignation of the Colonies.]
+
+But the colonists, now scattered along the coast from Maine to
+Georgia, took other views. They maintained that, though subject in
+some degree to English legislation, they could not be taxed, any more
+than other subjects of Great Britain, without their consent. They were
+willing to be ruled in accordance with those royal charters which had,
+at different times, been given them. They were even willing to assist
+the mother country, which they loved and revered, and with which were
+connected their brightest and most cherished associations, in
+expelling its enemies from adjoining territories, and to fight battles
+in its defence. They were willing to receive the literature, the
+religion, the fashions, and the opinions of their brethren in England.
+But they looked upon the soil which they cultivated in the wilderness
+with so many difficulties, hardships, and dangers, as their own, and
+believed that they were bound to raise taxes only to defend the soil,
+and promote good government, religion, and morality in their midst.
+But they could not understand why they were bound to pay taxes to
+support English wars on the continent of Europe. It was for their
+children, and for the sacred privilege of religious liberty, that they
+had originally left the mother country. It was only for themselves and
+their children that they felt bound to labor. They sought no political
+influence in England. They did not wish to control elections, or
+regulate the finances, or interfere with the projects of military
+aggrandizement. They were not represented in the English parliament,
+and they composed, politically speaking, no part of the English
+nation. Great, therefore, was their indignation, when they learned
+that the English government was interfering with their chartered
+rights, and designed to raise a revenue from them to lighten taxes at
+home, merely to support the government in foolish wars. If they could
+be taxed, without their consent, in any thing, they could be taxed
+without limit; and they would be in danger of becoming mere slaves of
+the mother country, and be bound to labor for English aggrandizement.
+On one point they insisted with peculiar earnestness--that taxation,
+in a free country, without a representation of interests in
+parliament, was an outrage. It was on account of this arbitrary
+taxation that Charles I. lost his crown, and the second revolution was
+effected, which placed the house of Hanover on the throne. The
+colonies felt that, if the subjects of the king at home were justified
+in resisting unlawful taxes, they surely, on another continent, and
+without a representation, had a right to do so also; that, if they
+were to be taxed without their consent, they would be in a worse
+condition than even the people of Ireland; would be in the condition
+of a conquered people, without the protection which even a conquered
+country enjoyed. Hence they remonstrated, and prepared themselves for
+resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: The Stamp Act.]
+
+The English government was so blinded as not to perceive or feel the
+force of the reasoning of the colonists, and obstinately resolved to
+resort to measures which, with a free and spirited people, must
+necessarily lead to violence and strife. The House of Commons would
+not even hear the reports of the colonial agents, but proceeded, with
+strange infatuation and obstinate bigotry, to impose the Stamp Act,
+(1765.) There were some, however, who perceived its folly and
+injustice. General Conway protested against the assumed right of the
+government, and Colonel Barré, a speaker of great eminence, exclaimed,
+in reply to the speech of Charles Townshend, who styled the colonies
+"children planted by our care, and nourished by our indulgence,"--"They
+planted by your care!--No! your oppressions planted them in America;
+they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated wilderness, exposed
+to all the hardships to which human nature is liable! They nourished
+by your indulgence!--No! they grew by your neglect; your _care_ of
+them was displayed in sending persons to govern them who were the
+deputies of deputies of ministers--men whose behavior, on many
+occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil
+within them; men who have been promoted to the highest seats of
+justice in a foreign country, in order to escape being brought to the
+bar of a court of justice in their own." Mr. Pitt opposed the fatal
+policy of Grenville with singular eloquence; by arguments which went
+beyond acts of parliament; by an appeal to the natural reason; and by
+recognition of the great, inalienable principles of liberty. He
+maintained that the House had _no right_ to lay an internal tax upon
+America, _that country not being represented_. Burke, too, then a new
+speaker, raised his voice against the folly and injustice of taxing
+the colonies; but it was in vain. The commons were bent on imposing
+the Stamp Act.
+
+But the passage of this act created great disturbances in America, and
+was every where regarded as the beginning of great calamities.
+Throughout the colonies there was a general combination to resist the
+stamp duty; and it was resolved to purchase no English manufactures,
+and to prevent the adoption of stamped paper.
+
+Such violent and unexpected opposition embarrassed the English
+ministry; which, in addition to the difficulties attending the
+prosecution of Wilkes, led to the retirement of Grenville, who was
+succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham. During his short
+administration, the Stamp Act was repealed, although the Commons still
+insisted on their right to tax America. The joy which this repeal
+created in the colonies was unbounded; and the speech of Pitt, who
+proposed the repeal, and defended it with unprecedented eloquence, was
+every where read with enthusiasm, and served to strengthen the
+conviction, among the leading men in the colonies, that their cause
+was right. Lord Rockingham did not long remain at the head of the
+government, and was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton; although Mr.
+Pitt, recently created Earl of Chatham, was virtually the prime
+minister. Lord Rockingham retired from office with a high character
+for pure and disinterested patriotism, and without securing place,
+pension, or reversion, to himself or to any of his adherents.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Chatham.]
+
+The elevation of Lord Chatham to the peerage destroyed his popularity
+and weakened his power. No man ever made a greater mistake than he did
+in consenting to an apparent elevation. He had long been known and
+designated as the _Great Commoner_. The people were proud of him and,
+as a commoner, he could have ruled the nation, in spite of all
+opposition. No other man could have averted the national calamities.
+But, as a peer, he no longer belonged to the people, and the people
+lost confidence in him, and abandoned him. What he gained in dignity
+he lost in power and popularity. The people now compared him with Lord
+Bath, and he became the object of universal calumny.
+
+And Chatham felt the change which had taken place in the nation. He
+had ever loved and courted popularity, and that was the source of his
+power. He now lost his spirits, and interested himself but little in
+public affairs. He relapsed into a state of indolence and apathy. He
+remained only the shadow of a mighty name; and, sequestered in the
+groves of his family residence, ceased to be mentioned by the public.
+He became melancholy, nervous, and unfit for business. Nor could he be
+induced to attend a cabinet council, even on the most pressing
+occasions. He pretended to be ill, and would not hold conference with
+his colleagues. Nor did he have the influence with the king which he
+had a right to expect. Being no longer beloved by the people, he was
+no longer feared by the king. He was like Samson when deprived of his
+locks--without strength; for his strength lay in the confidence and
+affections of the nation. He opposed his colleagues in their
+resolution to impose new taxes on America, but his counsels were
+disregarded.
+
+These taxes were in the shape of duties on glass, paper, lead, and
+painters' colors, from which no considerable revenue could be gained,
+and much discontent would inevitably result. When the news of this new
+taxation reached the colonies, it destroyed all the cheerfulness which
+the repeal of the Stamp Act had caused. Sullenness and gloom returned.
+Trust in parliament was diminished. New combinations of opposition
+were organized, and the newspapers teemed with invective.
+
+In the midst of these disturbances, Lord Chatham resigned the Privy
+Seal, the office he had selected, and retired from the administration,
+(1768.)
+
+[Sidenote: Administration of Lord North.]
+
+In 1770, the Duke of Grafton also resigned his office as first lord of
+the treasury, chiefly in consequence of the increasing difficulties
+with America; and Lord North, who had been two years chancellor of the
+exchequer, took his place. He was an amiable and accomplished
+nobleman, and had many personal friends, and few personal enemies; but
+he was unfit to manage the helm of state in the approaching storm.
+
+It was his misfortune to be minister in the most unsettled and
+revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of the
+age, but the character and circumstances of the American colonies.
+George III., with singular obstinacy and blindness, sustained the
+minister against all opposition; and under his administration the
+American war was carried on, which ended so disastrously to the mother
+country.
+
+As this great and eventful war will be the subject of the next
+chapter, the remaining events of interest, connected with the domestic
+history of England, will be first presented.
+
+The most important of these were the discontents of the Irish.
+
+As early as 1762, associations of the peasantry were formed with a
+view to political reforms and changes, and these popular
+demonstrations of the discontented have ever since marked the history
+of the Irish nation--ever poor, ever oppressed, ever on the eve of
+rebellion.
+
+[Sidenote: Functions of the Parliament.]
+
+The first circumstance, however, after the accession of George III.,
+which claims particular notice, was the passing of the Octennial Bill,
+in 1788. The Irish parliament, unlike the English, continued in
+existence during the life of the sovereign. In 1761, an attempt had
+been made by the patriotic party to limit its duration, and to place
+it upon the same footing as the parliament of England; but this did
+not succeed. Lord Townshend, at this period, was lord lieutenant, and
+it was the great object of his government to break the power of the
+Irish aristocracy, and to take out of their hands the distribution of
+pensions and places, which hitherto had, from motives of policy, been
+allowed them. He succeeded in his object, though by unjustifiable
+means, and the British government became the source of all honor and
+emolument. During his administration, some disturbances broke out in
+Ulster, in consequence of the system which then prevailed of letting
+land on fines. As a great majority of the peasantry and small farmers
+were unable to pay these fines, and were consequently deprived of
+their farms, they became desperate, and committed violent outrages on
+those who had taken their lands. Government was obliged to resort to
+military force, and many distressed people were driven to America for
+subsistence. To Ireland there appeared no chance of breaking the
+thraldom which England in other respects also exercised, when the
+American war broke out. This immediately changed the language and
+current of the British government in reference to Ireland; proposals
+were made favorable to Irish commerce; and some penal statutes against
+Catholics were annulled. Still the patriots of Ireland aimed at much
+greater privileges than had as yet been granted, and the means to
+secure these were apparent. England had drawn from Ireland nearly all
+the regular forces, in order to send them to America, and the
+sea-coast of Ireland was exposed to invasion. In consequence of the
+defenceless state of the country, the inhabitants of the town of
+Belfast, in 1779, entered into armed associations to defend themselves
+in case of necessity. This gave rise to a system of volunteers, which
+soon was extended over the island. The Irish now began to feel their
+strength; and even Lord North admitted, in the House of Commons, the
+necessity of granting to them still greater privileges, and carried a
+bill through parliament, which removed some grievous commercial
+restrictions. But the Irish looked to greater objects, and especially
+since Lord North, in order to carry his bill, represented it as a boon
+resumable at pleasure, rather than as a right to which the Irish were
+properly entitled. This bill, therefore, instead of quieting the
+patriots, led to a desire for an independent parliament of their own.
+A union was formed of volunteers to secure this end, not composed of
+the ignorant peasantry, but of all classes, at the head of which was
+the Duke of Leinster himself. In 1781, this association of volunteers
+had a force of fifty thousand disciplined men; and it moreover formed
+committees of correspondence, which naturally alarmed the British
+government.
+
+These and other disturbances, added to the disasters in America,
+induced the House of Commons to pass censure on Lord North and his
+colleague, as incapable of managing the helm of state. The king,
+therefore, was compelled to dismiss his ministers, whose
+administration had proved the most disastrous in British annals. Lord
+North, however, had uncommon difficulties to contend with, and might
+have governed the nation with honor in ordinary times. He resigned in
+1782, four years after the death of Chatham, and the Marquis of
+Buckingham, a second time, was placed at the head of the government.
+Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke also obtained places, and the Whigs were once
+more triumphant.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Discontents.]
+
+The attention of the new ministry was imperatively demanded by the
+discontents in Ireland, and important concessions were made. Mr.
+Grattan moved an address to the king, which was unanimously carried in
+both Houses, in which it was declared that "the crown of Ireland was
+inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain; but that the
+kingdom of Ireland was a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her
+own, the sole legislature thereof; that in this right they conceived
+the very essence of their liberty to exist; that in behalf of all the
+people of Ireland, they claimed this as their birthright, and could
+not relinquish it but with their lives; that they had a high
+veneration for the British character; and that, in sharing the freedom
+of England, it was their determination to share also her fate, and to
+stand and fall with the British nation." The new lord lieutenant, the
+Duke of Portland, assured the Irish parliament that the British
+legislature had resolved to remove the cause of discontent, and a law
+was actually passed which placed the Irish parliament on the same
+footing as that of England. Acts were also passed for the right of
+habeas corpus, and for the independence of the judges.
+
+The volunteers, having accomplished the objects which they originally
+contemplated, did not, however, disband, but now directed their
+efforts to a reform in parliament. But the House of Commons rejected
+the proposition offered by Mr. Flood, and the convention, appointed by
+the volunteers, indefinitely adjourned without persevering, as it
+should have done. The volunteer system soon after declined.
+
+The cause of parliamentary reform, though no longer supported by the
+volunteers in their associate character, was not deserted by the
+people, or by their advocates in parliament. Among these advocates was
+William Pitt himself. But in 1783, he became prime minister, and
+changed his opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Protestant Association.]
+
+But before the administration of Pitt can be presented, an event in
+the domestic history of England must be alluded to, which took place
+during the administration of Lord North. This was the Protestant
+Association, headed by Lord George Gordon, and the riots to which it
+led.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord George Gordon's Riots.]
+
+In 1780, parliament had passed an act relieving Roman Catholics from
+some of the heavy penalties inflicted on them in the preceding
+century. It relieved bishops, priests, and schoolmasters from
+prosecution and imprisonment, gave security to the rights of
+inheritance, and permission to purchase lands on fee simple. This act
+of toleration was generally opposed in England; but the fanatical
+spirit of Presbyterianism in Scotland was excited in view of this
+reasonable indulgence, to a large body of men, of the rights of
+conscience and civil liberty. On the bare rumor of the intended
+indulgence, great tumults took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow; the
+Roman Catholic chapel was destroyed, and the houses of the principal
+Catholics were attacked and plundered. Nor did the magistracy check or
+punish these disorders with any spirit, but secretly favored the
+rioters. Encouraged by the indifference of the magistrates, the
+fanatics formed themselves into a society called the _Protestant
+Association_, to oppose any remission of the present unjust laws; and
+of this association Lord George Gordon was chosen president. He was
+the son of the Duke of Gordon, belonging to one of the most ancient of
+the Scottish nobility, but a man in the highest degree wild and
+fanatical. He was also a member of parliament, and opposed the views
+of the most enlightened statesmen of his time, and with an
+extravagance which led to the belief that he was insane. He
+calumniated the king, defied the parliament, and boasted of the number
+of his adherents. He pretended that he had, in Scotland, one hundred
+and sixty thousand men at his command, who would cut off the king's
+head, if he did not keep his coronation oath. The enthusiasm of the
+Scotch soon spread to the English; and, throughout the country,
+associations were affiliated with the parent societies in London and
+Edinburgh, of both of which Lord Gordon was president. At Coachmakers'
+Hall he assembled his adherents; and, in an incendiary harangue,
+inflamed the minds of an immense audience in regard to the Church of
+Rome, with the usual invectives respecting its idolatry and
+corruption. He urged them to violent courses, as the only way to stop
+the torrent of Catholicism which was desolating the land. Soon after,
+this association assembled at St. George's Fields, to the astonishing
+number of fifty thousand people, marshalled in separate bands, with
+blue cockades; and this immense rabble proceeded through the city of
+London to the House of Parliament, preceded by a man carrying a
+petition signed by twelve hundred thousand names. The rabble took
+possession of the lobby of the house, making the old palace ring with
+their passionate cries of "No popery! no popery!" This mob was
+harangued by Lord Gordon himself, in the lobby of the house, while the
+matter was discussed among the members. The military were drawn out,
+and the mob was dispersed for a time, but soon assembled again, and
+became still more alarming. Houses were plundered, churches were
+entered, and the city set on fire in thirty-six different places. The
+people were obliged to chalk on their houses "No popery," and pay
+contributions to prevent their being sacked. The prisons were emptied
+of both felons and debtors. Lord Mansfield's splendid residence was
+destroyed, together with his pictures, furniture, and invaluable law
+library. Martial law was finally proclaimed--the last resort in cases
+of rebellion, and never resorted to but in extreme cases; and the
+military did what magistrates could not do--restored order and law.
+Had not the city been decreed to be in a state of rebellion, the
+rioters would have taken the bank, which they had already attacked.
+Five hundred persons were killed in the riot, and Lord George Gordon
+was committed to the Tower. He, however, escaped conviction, through
+the extraordinary talents of his counsel, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Kenyon;
+but one hundred others were capitally convicted. This disgraceful riot
+opened the eyes of the people to the horrors of popular insurrection,
+and perhaps prevented a revolution in England, when other questions,
+of more practical importance, agitated the nation.
+
+But no reform of importance took place until the administration of
+William Pitt. Mr. Burke attempted to secure some economical
+retrenchments, which were strongly opposed. But what was a
+retrenchment of two hundred thousand pounds a year, when compared with
+the vast expenditures of the British armies in America and in India?
+But though the reforms which Burke projected were not radical or
+important, they contributed to raise his popularity with the people,
+who were more annoyed by the useless offices connected with the king's
+household, than by the expenditure of millions in war. At first, his
+scheme received considerable attention, and the members listened to
+his propositions so long as they were abstract and general. But when
+he proceeded to specific reforms, they no longer regarded his voice,
+and he was obliged to abandon his task as hopeless. William Pitt made
+his first speech in the debate which Burke had excited, and argued in
+favor of retrenchment with the eloquence of his father, but with more
+method and clearness. The bill was lost, but Burke finally succeeded
+in carrying his measures; and the offices of the master of the
+harriers, the master of the staghounds, the clerk of the green cloth,
+and some other unimportant sinecures, were abolished.
+
+[Sidenote: Parliamentary Reforms.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reform Questions.]
+
+The first attempt at that great representative reform which afterwards
+convulsed the nation, was made by William Pitt. He brought forward two
+resolutions, to prevent bribery at elections, and secure a more
+equitable representation. But he did not succeed; and Pitt himself,
+when his cause was advocated by men of a different spirit,--men
+inflamed by revolutionary principles,--changed his course, and opposed
+parliamentary reform with more ardor than he had at first advocated
+it. But parliamentary reform did not become an object of absorbing
+interest until the times of Henry Brougham and Lord John Russell.
+
+No other great events were sufficiently prominent to be here alluded
+to, until the ministry of William Pitt. The American Revolution first
+demands attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Belsham's History of the Reign of George III.
+     Walpole's Memoir of the same reign. Holt's Private and
+     Domestic Life of George III. Lord Brougham's Statesmen of
+     the Reign of George III. Smyth's Lectures. Thackeray's Life
+     of the Earl of Chatham. Correspondence of the Earl of
+     Chatham. Annual Register, from 1765 to 1775. Debret's
+     Parliamentary Debates. Stephens' Life of Horne Tooke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Macaulay's Essay
+     on Chatham. Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The American Revolution.]
+
+The American Revolution, if contemplated in view of its ultimate as
+well as immediate consequences, is doubtless the greatest event of
+modern times. Its importance was not fully appreciated when it took
+place, but still excited a great interest throughout the civilized
+world. It was the main subject which engrossed the attention and
+called out the energies of British statesmen, during the
+administration of Lord North. In America, of course, all other
+subjects were trivial in comparison with it. The contest is memorable
+for the struggles of heroes, for the development of unknown energies,
+for the establishment of a new western empire, for the triumph of the
+cause of liberty, and for the moral effects which resulted, even in
+other countries, from the examples of patriots who preferred the glory
+and honor of their country to their own aggrandizement.
+
+The causes of the struggle have been already alluded to in the
+selfishness and folly of British statesmen, who sought to relieve the
+burdens of the English people by taxing the colonies. The colonies
+were doubtless regarded by the British parliament without proper
+affection or consideration; somewhat in the light of a conquered
+nation, from which England might derive mercantile advantage. The
+colonies were not ruled in a spirit of conciliation, nor were the
+American people fully appreciated. Some, perhaps, like Chatham and
+Burke, may have known the virtues and the power of the colonial
+population, and may have had some glimpse of the glory and greatness
+to which America was destined. But they composed but a small minority
+of the nation, and their advice and remonstrances were generally
+disregarded.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the Revolution.]
+
+Serious disturbances did not take place until Lord North commenced his
+unfortunate administration, (1770.) Although the colonies were then
+resolved not to submit to unlawful taxation, and to an oppressive
+government, independence was not contemplated. Conciliatory measures,
+if they had been at that time adopted, probably would have deferred
+the Revolution. But the contest must have occurred, at a later date;
+for nothing, in the ordinary course of events, could have prevented
+the ultimate independence of the colonies. Their rapid growth, the
+extent of the country in which settlements were made, its distance
+from England, the spirit of liberty which animated the people, their
+general impatience under foreign restraint, and the splendid prospects
+of future greatness which were open to their eyes, must have led to a
+rupture with the mother country at no distant time.
+
+The colonies, at the commencement of their difficulties, may have
+exaggerated their means of resistance, but not their future greatness.
+All of them, from New Hampshire to Georgia, were animated by a spirit
+of liberty which no misfortunes could crush. A large majority of the
+people were willing to incur the dangers incident to revolution, not
+for themselves merely, but for the sake of their posterity, and for
+the sacred cause of liberty. They felt that their cause was just, and
+that Providence would protect and aid them in their defence.
+
+A minute detail of the events of the American Revolution, of course,
+cannot be expected in a history like this. Only the more prominent
+events can be alluded to. The student is supposed to be familiar with
+the details of the conflict, which are to be read in the works of
+numerous American authors.
+
+Lord North, at the commencement of his administration, repealed the
+obnoxious duties which had been imposed in 1767, but still retained
+the duty on tea, with a view chiefly to assert the supremacy of Great
+Britain, and her right to tax the colonies. This course of the
+minister cannot be regarded in any other light than that of the
+blindest infatuation.
+
+The imposition of the port duties, by Grenville, had fomented
+innumerable disturbances, and had led to universal discussion as to
+the nature and extent of parliamentary power. A distinction, at first,
+had been admitted between internal and external taxes; but it was soon
+asserted that Great Britain had no right to tax the colonies, either
+internally or externally. It was stated that the colonies had received
+charters, under the great seal, which had given them all the rights
+and privileges of Englishmen at home and therefore that they could not
+be taxed, except by their own consent; that this consent had never
+been asked or granted; that they were unrepresented in the imperial
+parliament; and that the taxes which had been imposed by their own
+respective legislatures were, in many instances, greater than what
+were paid by the people of England--taxes too, incurred, to a great
+degree, to preserve the jurisdiction of Great Britain on the American
+continent. The colonies were every where exceedingly indignant with
+the course the mother country had pursued with reference to them.
+Patrick Henry, a Virginian, supported the cause of liberty with
+unrivalled eloquence and power, as did John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
+James Otis, and other patriots in Massachusetts. Riots took place in
+Boston, Newport, and New York, and assemblies of citizens in various
+parts expressed an indignant and revolutionary spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: Riots and Disturbances.]
+
+The residence of the military at Boston was, moreover, the occasion of
+perpetual tumult. The people abused the soldiers, vilified them in
+newspapers, and insulted them in the street. Mutual animosity was the
+result. Rancor and insults produced riot, and the troops fired upon
+the people. So great was the disturbances, that the governor was
+reluctantly obliged to remove the military from the town. The General
+Court was then removed to Cambridge, but refused to enter upon
+business unless it were convened in Boston. Fresh disturbances
+followed. The governor quarrelled with the legislature, and a complete
+anarchy began to prevail. The public mind was inflamed by effigies,
+paintings, and incendiary articles in the newspapers. The parliament
+was represented as corrupt, the ministry as venal, the king as a
+tyrant, and England itself as a rotten, old, aristocratic structure,
+crumbling to pieces. The tide was so overwhelming in favor of
+resistance, that even moderate men were borne along in the current;
+and those who kept aloof from the excitement were stigmatized as timid
+and selfish, and the enemies of their country. The courts of justice
+were virtually silenced, since juries disregarded the charges of the
+judges. Libels were unnoticed, and the rioters were unpunished.
+Smuggling was carried on to a great extent, and revenue officers were
+insulted in the discharge of their duties. Obnoxious persons were
+tarred and feathered, and exposed to public derision and scorn. In
+Providence, they burnt the revenue cutter, and committees were formed
+in the principal towns who fanned the flame of sedition. The committee
+in Boston, in 1773, framed a celebrated document, called the _Bill of
+Rights_, in which the authority of parliament to legislate for the
+colonies, in any respect, was denied, and in which the salaries
+decreed by the crown to the governor and judges were considered as a
+systematic attempt to enslave the land.
+
+The public discontents were further inflamed by the information which
+Dr. Franklin, then in London, afforded the colonies, and the advice he
+gave them to persevere, assuring them that, if they were firm, they
+had nothing to apprehend. Moreover, he got into his possession a copy
+of the letters of Governor Hutchinson to the ministry, which he
+transmitted to the colonies, and which by them were made public. These
+letters were considered by the legislature of Massachusetts as unjust
+and libellous, and his recall was demanded. Resolutions, of an
+offensive character to the English, were every where passed, and all
+things indicated an approaching storm. The crisis was at hand. The
+outrage, in Boston harbor, of throwing overboard three hundred and
+forty-two chests of tea, which the East India Company had sent to
+America, consummated the difficulties, and induced the government to
+resort to more coercive measures.
+
+[Sidenote: Duty on Tea.]
+
+It was in the power of Lord North to terminate the difficulties with
+the colonies when the East India Company urged him to repeal the duty
+of threepence per pound on tea, and offered to pay sixpence per pound
+in lieu of it, as export duty, if permitted to import it into the
+colonies duty free. The company was induced to make this proposition
+in view of the great accumulation of tea in England; but the
+government, more solicitous about the right than the revenue, would
+not consent. The colonists were equally determined to resist taxation,
+not on account of immediate burdens, but upon principle, and therefore
+resolved to prevent the landing of the tea. A multitude rushed to the
+wharf, and twenty persons, disguised as Indians, went on board the
+ships laden with it, staved the chests, and threw their contents into
+the sea. In New York and Philadelphia, as no persons could be found
+who would venture to receive the tea sent to those ports, the ships
+laden with it returned to England.
+
+[Sidenote: Port of Boston Closed.]
+
+The ministers of the crown were especially indignant with the province
+of Massachusetts, which had always been foremost in resistance, and
+the scene of the greatest disorders, and therefore resolved to block
+up the port of Boston. Accordingly, in 1774 they introduced a bill to
+discontinue the lading and shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise
+at Boston, and to remove the custom-house to Salem. The bill received
+the general approbation of the House, and passed by a great majority.
+
+No measure could possibly have been more impolitic. A large force
+should have been immediately sent to the colonies, to coerce them,
+before they had time to organize sufficient force to resist the mother
+country, or conciliatory measures should have been adopted. But the
+House was angry and infatuated, and the voice of wisdom was
+disregarded.
+
+Soon after, Lord North introduced another bill for the better
+government of the provinces, which went to subvert the charter of the
+colony, and to violate all the principles of liberty and justice. By
+this bill, the nomination of counsellors, judges, sheriffs, and
+magistrates of all kinds, was vested in the crown; and these were also
+removable at pleasure. The ministers, in advocating the bill, urged
+the ground of necessity, the universal spirit of disaffection, which
+bordered on actual rebellion. The bill was carried, by a majority of
+two hundred and thirty-nine against sixty-four voices, May 2, 1774.
+
+The next step of the minister was to bring in a bill which provided
+that, in case any person was indicted in Massachusetts for a capital
+offence, and that, if it should appear that a fair trial could not be
+had in the province, the prisoner might be sent to any other colony,
+or even to Great Britain itself, to be tried. This was insult added to
+injury, and met with vigorous resistance even in parliament itself.
+But it nevertheless passed through both Houses.
+
+When intelligence arrived concerning it, and of the other bills, a
+fire was kindled in the colonies not easily to be extinguished. There
+was scarcely a place which did not convene its assembly. Popular
+orators, in the public halls and in the churches, every where inflamed
+the people by incendiary discourses; organizations were made to
+abstain from all commerce with the mother country; and measures were
+adopted to assemble a General Congress, to take into consideration the
+state of the country. People began to talk of defending their rights
+by the sword. Every where was heard the sound of the drum and the
+fife. All were fired by the spirit of liberty. Associations were
+formed for the purchase of arms and ammunition. Addresses were printed
+and circulated calling on the people to arm themselves, and resist
+unlawful encroachment. All proceedings in the courts of justice were
+suspended. Jurors refused to take their oaths; the reign of law
+ceased, and that of violence commenced. Governor Gage, who had
+succeeded Hutchinson, fortified Boston Neck, and cut off the
+communication of the town with the country.
+
+[Sidenote: Meeting of Congress.]
+
+In the mean time, the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, in
+which all the colonies were represented but Georgia. Congress passed
+resolutions approving the course of Massachusetts, and also a bill
+called a _Declaration of Rights_. It sent an address to the king,
+framed with great ability, in which it discussed the rights of the
+colonies, complained of the mismanagement of ministers, and besought a
+redress of the public evils.
+
+[Sidenote: Speech of Burke.]
+
+But this congress was considered by the government of Great Britain as
+an illegal body, and its petition was disregarded. But the ministers
+no longer regarded the difficulties as trifling, and sought to remedy
+them, though not in the right way. The more profound of the English
+statesmen fully perceived the danger and importance of the crisis, and
+many of them took the side of liberty. Dean Tucker, who foresaw a long
+war, with all its expenses, urged, in a masterly treatise, the
+necessity of giving the Americans, at once, the liberty they sought.
+Others, who overrated the importance of the colonies in a mercantile
+view, wished to retain them, but to adopt conciliatory measures. Lord
+Chatham put forth all the eloquence of which he was such a master, to
+arouse the ministers. He besought them to withdraw the troops from
+Boston. He showed the folly of metaphysical refinements about the
+right of taxation when a continent was in arms. He spoke of the means
+of enforcing thraldom as inefficient and ridiculous. Lord Camden
+sustained Chatham in the House of Lords, and declared, not as a
+philosopher, but as a constitutional lawyer, that England had no right
+to tax America. Mr. Burke moved a conciliatory measure in the House of
+Commons, fraught with wisdom and knowledge. "My hold of the colonies,"
+said this great oracle of moral wisdom, "is the close affection which
+grows from the common names, from the kindred blood, from similar
+privileges, and from equal protection. These are the ties which,
+though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies
+always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your
+government; they will cling and grapple with you, and no power under
+heaven will be able to tear them from their allegiance. But let it
+once be understood that your government may be one thing, and their
+privileges another, then the cement is gone, and every thing hastens
+to dissolution. It is the love of the people, it is their attachment
+to your government from the sense in the deep stake they have in such
+glorious institutions, which gives you your army and navy, and infuses
+into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be but
+a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber." But this
+elevated and sublime wisdom was regarded as a philosophical
+abstraction, as a vain and impractical view of political affairs, well
+enough for a writer on the "sublime and beautiful," but absurd in a
+British statesman. Colonel Barré and Fox supported Burke; but their
+eloquence had not much effect on the Commons, and the ministry was
+supported in their measures. The colonies were declared to be in a
+state of rebellion, and measures were adopted to crush them.
+
+To declare the colonies in a state of rebellion was, in fact, to
+declare war. And this was perfectly understood by the popular leaders
+who fanned the spirit of resistance. All ideas of reconciliation now
+became chimerical. Necessity stimulated the timid, and vengeance
+excited the bold. It was felt that the people were now to choose
+between liberty and slavery, and slavery was, of course, regarded as
+worse than death. "We must look back," said the popular orators, "no
+more! We must conquer or die! We are placed between altars smoking
+with the most grateful incense of glory and gratitude on the one part,
+and blocks and dungeons on the other. Let each, then, rise and gird
+himself for the conflict. The dearest interests of the world command
+it; our most holy religion requires it. Let us banish fear, and
+remember that fortune smiles only on the brave."
+
+Such was the general state of feeling; and there only needed a spark
+to kindle a conflagration. That spark was kindled at Lexington.
+General Gage, the governor, having learned that military stores and
+arms were deposited at Concord, resolved to seize them. His design was
+suspected, and the people prepared to resist his orders. The alarm
+bells were rung, and the cannons were fired. The provincial militia
+assembled, and the English retreated to Lexington. That village
+witnessed the commencement of a long and sanguinary war. The tide of
+revolution could no longer be repressed. The colonies were now
+resolved to achieve their independence.
+
+The Continental Congress met on the 10th of May, 1775, shortly after
+the first blood had been shed at Lexington, and immediately proceeded
+to raise an army, establish a paper currency, and to dissolve the
+compact between Great Britain and the Massachusetts colony. John
+Hancock was chosen president of the assembly, and George Washington
+commander-in-chief of the continental army. He accepted the
+appointment with a modesty only equalled by his merit, and soon after
+departed for the seat of war. For his associates, Congress appointed
+Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam as
+major-generals, and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster,
+William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and
+Nathanael Greene as brigadiers. Horatio Gates received the appointment
+of adjutant-general, with the rank of brigadier.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Bunker Hill.]
+
+On the 17th of June was fought the battle of Bunker Hill, which proved
+the bravery of the Americans, and which was followed by great moral
+results. But the Americans unfortunately lost, in this battle, Dr.
+Warren, who had espoused the cause of revolution with the same spirit
+that Hampden did in England, and whom he resembled in genius,
+patriotism, and character. He had been chosen major-general four days
+before his death, but fought at Bunker Hill as a simple volunteer. On
+the 2d of July, Washington took command of the army, and established
+his head-quarters at Cambridge. The American army amounted to
+seventeen thousand men, of whom twenty-five hundred were unfit for
+duty. They were assembled on the spur of the occasion, and had but few
+tents and stores, no clothing, no military chest and no general
+organization. They were collected from the various provinces and were
+governed by their own militia laws. Of this material he constructed
+the first continental army, and under innumerable vexations and
+difficulties. No man was ever placed in a more embarrassing situation.
+His troops were raw and undisciplined; and the members of the
+Continental Congress, from whom he received his commission, were not
+united among themselves. He had all the responsibility of the war, and
+yet had not sufficient means to prosecute it with the vigor which the
+colonies probably anticipated. His success, in the end, _was_ glorious
+and unequivocal; but none other than he could have secured it, and not
+he, even, unless he had been sustained by a loftiness of character
+almost preternatural.
+
+The English forces, at this time, were centred in Boston under the
+command of General Gage, and were greatly inferior in point of numbers
+to the American troops who surrounded them. But the troops of Gage
+were regulars and veterans, and were among the best in the English
+army. He was recalled in order to give information to the government
+in reference to the battle of Bunker Hill, and was succeeded in
+October by General Howe.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Montgomery.]
+
+The first campaign of the war was signalized by the invasion of Canada
+by the American troops, with the hope of wresting that province from
+the English, which was not only disaffected, but which was defended by
+an inconsiderable force. General Montgomery, with an army of three
+thousand, advanced to Montreal, which surrendered. The fortresses of
+Crown Point and Ticonderoga had already been taken by Colonel Ethan
+Allen. But the person who most distinguished himself in this
+unfortunate expedition was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who, with a
+detachment of one thousand men, penetrated through the forests,
+swamps, and mountains of Maine, beyond the sources of the Kennebec
+and, in six weeks from his departure at Boston, arrived on the plains
+of Canada, opposite Quebec. He there effected a junction with the
+troops of Montgomery, and made an assault on the strongest fortress in
+America, defended by sixteen hundred men. The attack was unsuccessful,
+and Montgomery was killed. Arnold did not retire from the province,
+but remained encamped upon the Heights of Abraham. This enterprise,
+though a failure, was not without great moral results, since it showed
+to the English government the singular bravery and intrepidity of the
+nation it had undertaken to coerce.
+
+The ministry then resolved upon vigorous measures, and, finding a
+difficulty in raising men, applied to the Landgrave of Hesse for
+seventeen thousand mercenaries. These, added to twenty-five thousand
+men enlisted in England, and the troops already sent to America,
+constituted a force of fifty-five thousand men--deemed amply
+sufficient to reduce the rebellious colonies. But these were not sent
+to America until the next year.
+
+In the mean time, General Howe was encamped in Boston with a force,
+including seamen, of eleven thousand men, and General Washington, with
+an army of twenty-eight thousand, including militia, was determined to
+attack him. In February, 1776, he took possession of Dorchester
+Heights, which command the harbor. General Howe found it expedient to
+evacuate Boston, and sailed for Halifax with his army, and Washington
+repaired to Philadelphia to deliberate with Congress.
+
+But Howe retired from Boston only to occupy New York; and when his
+arrangements were completed, he landed at Staten Island, waiting for
+the arrival of his brother, Lord Howe, with the expected
+reinforcements. By the middle of August they had all arrived, and his
+united forces amounted to twenty-four thousand men. Washington's army,
+though it nominally numbered twenty thousand five hundred, still was
+composed of only about eleven thousand effective men, and these
+imperfectly provided with arms and ammunition. Nevertheless,
+Washington gave battle to the English; but the result was disastrous
+to the Americans, owing to the disproportion of the forces engaged.
+General Howe took possession of Long Island, the Americans evacuated
+New York, and, shortly after, the city fell into the hands of the
+English. Washington, with his diminished army, posted himself at
+Haerlem Heights.
+
+[Sidenote: Declaration of American Independence.]
+
+But before the victory of Howe on Long Island was obtained, Congress
+had declared the Independence of the American States, (4th July,
+1776.) This Declaration of Independence took the English nation by
+surprise, and firmly united it against the colonies. It was received
+by the Americans, in every section of the country, with unbounded
+enthusiasm. Reconciliation was now impossible, and both countries were
+arrayed against each other in fierce antagonism.
+
+The remainder of the campaign of 1776 was occupied by the belligerents
+in skirmishing, engagements, marchings and countermarchings, in the
+states of New York and New Jersey. The latter state was overrun by the
+English army, and success, on either side, was indecisive. Forts
+Washington and Lee were captured. General Lee was taken prisoner. The
+capture of Lee, however, was not so great a calamity as it, at first,
+seemed; for, though a man of genius and military experience, his
+ambition, vanity, and love of glory would probably have led to an
+opposition to his superior officer, and to Congress itself. To
+compensate for the disasters in New Jersey, Washington, invested with
+new and extraordinary power by Congress, gained the battles of
+Princeton and Trenton, which were not only brilliant victories, but
+were attended by great moral effects, and showed the difficulty of
+subduing a people determined to be free. "Every one applauded the
+firmness, the prudence, and the bravery of Washington. All declared
+him to be the savior of his country; all proclaimed him equal to the
+most renowned commanders of antiquity, and especially distinguished
+him by the name of the _American Fabius_."
+
+The greatness of Washington was seen, not so much by his victories at
+Princeton and Trenton, or by his masterly retreat before superior
+forces, as by his admirable prudence and patience during the
+succeeding winter. He had, for several months, a force which scarcely
+exceeded fifteen hundred men, and these suffered all manner of
+hardships and privations. After the first gush of enthusiasm had
+passed, it was found exceedingly difficult to enlist men, and still
+more difficult to pay those who had enlisted. Congress, composed of
+great men, and of undoubted patriotism, on the whole, harmonized with
+the commander-in-chief, whom, for six months, it invested with almost
+dictatorial power; still there were some of its members who did not
+fully appreciate the character or condition of Washington, and threw
+great difficulties in his way.
+
+[Sidenote: Commissioners Sent to France.]
+
+Congress about this time sent commissioners to France to solicit money
+and arms. These commissioners were Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and
+Arthur Lee. They were not immediately successful; for the French king,
+doubtful of the result of the struggle, did not wish to incur
+prematurely the hostility of Great Britain; but they induced many to
+join the American cause, and among others, the young Marquis de La
+Fayette, who arrived in America in the spring of 1777, and proved a
+most efficient general, and secured the confidence and love of the
+nation he assisted.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Burgoyne.]
+
+The campaign of 1777 was marked by the evacuation of the Jerseys by
+the English, by the battles of Bennington and Brandywine, by the
+capture of Philadelphia, and the surrender of Burgoyne. Success, on
+the whole, was in favor of the Americans. They suffered a check at
+Brandywine, and lost the most considerable city in the Union at that
+time. But these disasters were more than compensated by the victory at
+Bennington and the capture of Burgoyne.
+
+[Sidenote: Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture.]
+
+This indeed was the great event of the campaign. Burgoyne was a member
+of parliament, and superseded General Carleton in the command of the
+northern army--an injudicious appointment, but made by the minister in
+order to carry his measures more easily through the House of Commons.
+The troops under his command amounted to over seven thousand veterans,
+besides a corps of artillery. He set out from St. John's, the 16th of
+June, and advanced to Ticonderoga, which he invested. The American
+forces, under General Schuyler, destined to oppose this royal army,
+and to defend Ticonderoga, were altogether insufficient, being not
+over five thousand men. The fortress was therefore abandoned, and the
+British general advanced to the Hudson, hoping to open a communication
+between it and Lake Champlain, and thus completely surround New
+England, and isolate it from the rest of the country. But the delays
+attending the march of the English army through the forests enabled
+the Americans to rally. The defeat of Colonel Baum at Bennington, by
+Colonel Stark, added to the embarrassments of Burgoyne, who now was
+straitened for provisions; nevertheless, he continued his march,
+hoping to reach Albany unmolested. But the Americans, commanded by
+General Gates, who had superseded Schuyler, were strongly intrenched
+at the principal passes on his route, and had fortified the high
+grounds. The army of Burgoyne was moreover attacked by the Americans
+at Stillwater, and he was forced to retreat to Saratoga. His army was
+now reduced to five thousand men; he had only three days' provisions;
+all the passes were filled by the enemy, and he was completely
+surrounded by fifteen thousand men. Under these circumstances, he was
+forced to surrender. His troops laid down their arms, but were allowed
+to embark at Boston for Europe. The Americans, by this victory,
+acquired forty-two pieces of brass artillery, four thousand six
+hundred muskets, and an immense quantity of military stores. This
+surrender of Burgoyne was the greatest disaster which the British
+troops had thus far experienced, and raised the spirits of the
+Americans to the highest pitch. Indeed, this surrender decided the
+fate of the war, for it proved the impossibility of conquering the
+Americans. It showed that they fought under infinitely greater
+advantages, since it was in their power always to decline a battle,
+and to choose their ground. It showed that the country presented
+difficulties which were insurmountable. It mattered but little that
+cities were taken, when the great body of the people resided in the
+country, and were willing to make sacrifices, and were commanded by
+such generals as Washington, Gates, Greene, Putnam, and Lee. The
+English ministry ought to have seen the nature of the contest; but a
+strange infatuation blinded the nation. There were some, however, whom
+no national pride could blind. Lord Chatham was one of these men. "No
+man," said this veteran statesman, "thinks more highly of the virtues
+and valor of British troops than I do. I know that they can achieve
+any thing except impossibilities. But the conquest of America is an
+impossibility."
+
+There was one nation in Europe who viewed the contest with different
+eyes. This nation was France, then on the eve of revolution itself,
+and burning with enthusiastic love of the principles on which American
+independence was declared. The French government may not have admired
+the American cause, but it hated England so intensely, that it was
+resolved to acknowledge the independence of America, and aid the
+country with its forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival of La Fayette.]
+
+In the early part of the war, the American Congress had sent
+commissioners to France, in order to obtain assistance. In consequence
+of their representations, La Fayette, then a young man of nineteen
+years of age, freighted a ship at his own expense, and joined the
+American standard. Congress, in consideration of his illustrious rank
+and singular enthusiasm, gave him a commission of major-general. And
+gloriously did he fulfil the great expectations which were formed of
+him; richly did he deserve the gratitude and praise of all the friends
+of liberty.
+
+La Fayette embarked in the American cause as a volunteer. The court of
+France, in the early period of the contest, did not think it expedient
+openly to countenance the revolution. But, after the surrender of
+Burgoyne, and it was evident that the United States would succeed in
+securing their independence, then it was acknowledged, and substantial
+aid was rendered.
+
+The winter which succeeded the surrender of Burgoyne is memorable for
+the sufferings of the American army encamped at Valley Forge, about
+twenty miles from Philadelphia. The army was miserably supplied with
+provisions and clothing, and strong discontent appeared in various
+quarters. Out of eleven thousand eight hundred men, nearly three
+thousand were barefooted and otherwise naked. But the sufferings
+of the army were not the only causes of solicitude to the
+commander-in-chief, on whom chiefly rested the responsibility of the
+war. The officers were discontented, and were not prepared, any more
+than the privates, to make permanent sacrifices. They were obliged to
+break in upon their private property, and were without any prospect of
+future relief. Washington was willing to make any sacrifices himself,
+and refused any payment for his own expenses; but, while he exhibited
+the rarest magnanimity, he did not expect it from others, and urged
+Congress to provide for the future pay of the officers, when the war
+should close. He looked upon human nature as it was, not as he wished
+it to be, and recognized the principles of self-interest as well as
+those of patriotism. It was his firm conviction that a long and
+lasting war could not, even in those times, be sustained by the
+principle of patriotism alone, but required, in addition, the prospect
+of interest, or some reward. The members of Congress did not all agree
+with him in his views, and expected that officers would make greater
+sacrifices than private citizens, but, after a while, the plan of
+half-pay for life, as Washington proposed, was adopted by a small
+majority, though afterwards changed to half-pay for seven years. There
+was also a prejudice in many minds against a standing army, besides
+the jealousies and antipathies which existed between different
+sections of the Union. But Washington, with his rare practical good
+sense, combated these, as well as the fears of the timid and the
+schemes of the selfish. The history of the Revolution impresses us
+with the greatness and bravery of the American nation; and every
+American should feel proud of his ancestors for the efforts they made,
+under so many discouragements, to secure their liberties; but it would
+be a mistake to suppose that nothing but exalted heroism was
+exhibited. Human nature showed its degeneracy in the camp and on the
+field of battle, among heroes and among patriots. The perfection of
+character, so far as man is ever perfect, was exhibited indeed, by
+Washington, but by Washington alone.
+
+The army remained at Valley Forge till June, 1778. In the mean time,
+Lord North made another ineffectual effort to procure reconciliation.
+But he was too late. His offers might have been accepted at the
+commencement of the contest; but nothing short of complete
+independence would now satisfy the Americans, and this North was not
+willing to concede. Accordingly, new measures of coercion were
+resorted to by the minister, although the British forces in America
+were upwards of thirty-three thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: Evacuation of Philadelphia.]
+
+On the 18th of June, Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Sir William
+Howe in command of the British forces, evacuated Philadelphia, the
+possession of which had proved of no service to the English, except as
+winter quarters for the troops. It was his object to proceed to New
+York, for which place he marched with his army, having sent his heavy
+baggage by water. The Americans, with superior forces, hung upon his
+rear, and sought an engagement. An indecisive one occurred at
+Monmouth, during which General Lee disregarded the orders of his
+superior in command, and was suspended for twelve months. There never
+was perfect harmony between Washington and Lee; and the aid of the
+latter, though a brave and experienced officer, was easily dispensed
+with.
+
+No action of importance occurred during this campaign, and it was
+chiefly signalized by the arrival of the Count d'Estaing, with twelve
+ships of the line and four frigates, to assist the Americans. But, in
+consequence of disagreements and mistakes, this large armament failed
+to engage the English naval forces.
+
+The campaign of 1779 was not more decisive than that of the preceding
+year. Military operations were chiefly confined to the southern
+sections of the country, in which the English generally gained the
+advantage, having superior forces. They overran the country, inflamed
+the hostility of the Indians, and destroyed considerable property. But
+they gained no important victory, and it was obvious to all parties
+that conquest was impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: The Treason of Arnold.]
+
+The campaign of 1780 is memorable for the desertion of General Arnold.
+Though not attended by important political results, it produced an
+intense excitement. He was intrusted with the care of the fortress of
+West Point, which commanded the Hudson River; but, dissatisfied,
+extravagant, and unprincipled, he thought to mend his broken fortunes
+by surrendering it to the British, who occupied New York. His treason
+was discovered when his schemes were on the point of being
+accomplished; but he contrived to escape, and was made a
+brigadier-general in the service of the enemy. Public execration
+loaded his name with ignominy, and posterity has not reversed the
+verdict of his indignant countrymen. His disgrace and ruin were
+primarily caused by his extravagance and his mortified pride.
+Washington fully understood his want of moral principle, but continued
+to intrust him with power, in view of the great services he had
+rendered his country, and his unquestioned bravery and military
+talents. After his defection, the American commander-in-chief was
+never known to intrust an important office to a man in whose virtue he
+had not implicit faith. The fate of Major André, who negotiated the
+treason with Arnold, and who was taken as a spy, was much lamented by
+the English Neither his family, nor rank, nor accomplishments, nor
+virtues nor the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, could save him from
+military execution, according to the established laws of war.
+Washington has been blamed for not exercising more forbearance in the
+case of so illustrious a prisoner; but the American general never
+departed from the rigid justice which he deemed it his duty to pursue.
+
+During this year, the American currency had singularly depreciated, so
+that forty dollars were worth only one in specie--a fact which shows
+the embarrassments of the country, and the difficulty of supporting
+the army. But the prospects of ultimate success enabled Congress, at
+length, to negotiate loans, and the army was kept together.
+
+[Sidenote: Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.]
+
+The great event in the campaign of 1781 was the surrender of Lord
+Cornwallis, at Yorktown, which decided the fate of the war. Lord
+Cornwallis, who was an able commander, had been successful at the
+south, although vigorously and skilfully opposed by General La
+Fayette. But he had at last to contend with the main body of the
+American army, and French forces in addition, so that the combined
+armies amounted to over twelve thousand men. He was compelled to
+surrender to superior forces; and seven thousand prisoners, with all
+their baggage and stores, fell into the hands of the victors, 19th of
+October, 1781. This great event diffused universal joy throughout
+America, and a corresponding depression among the English people.
+
+After this capitulation, the conviction was general that the war would
+soon be terminated. General La Fayette obtained leave to return to
+France, and the recruiting service languished. The war nevertheless,
+was continued until 1783; without, however, being signalized by any
+great events. On the 30th of November, 1782, preliminary articles of
+peace were signed at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the
+independence of the United States, and by which the whole country
+south of the lakes and east of the Mississippi was ceded to them, and
+the right of fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland.
+
+On the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated New York;
+and, shortly after, the American army was disbanded. The 4th of
+December, Washington made his farewell address to his officers; and,
+on the 23d of December, he resigned his commission into the hands of
+the body from which he received it, and retired to private life;
+having discharged the great trust reposed in him in a manner which
+secured the gratitude of his country and which will probably win the
+plaudits of all future generations.
+
+The results of the Revolutionary War can only be described by
+enumerating the progressive steps of American aggrandizement from that
+time to this, and by speculating on the future destinies of the
+Anglo-Saxon race on the American continent. The success which attended
+this long war is in part to be traced to the talents and matchless
+wisdom and integrity of the commander-in-chief; to the intrepid
+courage and virtues of the armies he directed; to the self-confidence
+and inexperience of the English generals; to the difficulties
+necessarily attending the conquest of forests, and swamps, and
+scattered towns; to the assistance of the French nation; and, above
+all, to the superintending providence of God, who designed to rescue
+the sons of the Pilgrims from foreign oppression, and, in spite of
+their many faults, to make them a great and glorious nation, in which
+religious and civil liberty should be perpetuated, and all men left
+free to pursue their own means of happiness, and develop the
+inexhaustible resources of a great and boundless empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Lord North.]
+
+The English nation acquiesced in an event which all felt to be
+inevitable; but Lord North was compelled to resign, and a change of
+measures was pursued. It is now time to contemplate English affairs,
+until the French Revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The books written on the American Revolution
+     are very numerous, an index to which may be seen in Botta's
+     History, as well as in the writings of those who have
+     treated of this great event. Sparks's Life and
+     Correspondence of Washington is doubtless the most valuable
+     work which has yet appeared since Marshall wrote the Life of
+     Washington. Guizot's Essay on Washington is exceedingly
+     able; nor do I know any author who has so profoundly
+     analyzed the character and greatness of the American hero.
+     Botta's History of the Revolution is a popular but
+     superficial and overlauded book. Mr. Hale's History of the
+     United States is admirably adapted to the purpose for which
+     it is designed, and is the best compendium of American
+     history. Stedman is the standard authority in England.
+     Belsham, in his History of George III., has written candidly
+     and with spirit. Smyth, in his lectures on Modern History,
+     has discussed the Revolution with great ability. See also
+     the works of Ramsay, Winterbotham, Allen, and Gordon. The
+     lives of the prominent American generals, statesmen, and
+     orators, should also be read in connection; especially of
+     Lee, Greene, Franklin, Adams, and Henry, which are best
+     described in Sparks's American Biography.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+
+
+[Sidenote: William Pitt.]
+
+We come now to consider the most eventful administration, in many
+important respects, in British annals. The greatness of military
+operations, the magnitude of reforms, and the great number of
+illustrious statesmen and men of genius, make the period, when Pitt
+managed the helm of state, full of interest and grandeur.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Life of Pitt.]
+
+William Pitt, second son of the first Earl of Chatham, entered public
+life at a very early age, and was prime minister of George III. at a
+period of life when most men are just completing a professional
+education. He was a person of extraordinary precocity. He entered
+Cambridge University at the age of fourteen, and at that period was a
+finished Greek and Latin scholar. He spent no idle hours, and evinced
+but little pleasure in the sports common to boys of his age. He was as
+successful in mastering mathematics as the languages, and was an
+admirer of the profoundest treatises of intellectual philosophy. He
+excelled in every branch of knowledge to which he directed his
+attention. In 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he became a resident in
+Lincoln's Inn, entered parliament the succeeding spring, and
+immediately assumed an active part. His first speech astonished all
+who heard him, notwithstanding that great expectations were formed
+concerning his power. He was made chancellor of the exchequer at the
+age of twenty-three, and at a time when it required a finance minister
+of the greatest experience. Nor would the Commons have acquiesced in
+his appointment to so important a post, in so critical a state of the
+nation, had not great confidence existed as to his abilities. From his
+first appearance, Pitt took a commanding position as a parliamentary
+orator; nor, as such, has he ever, on the whole, been surpassed. His
+peculiar talents fitted him for the highest post in the gift of his
+sovereign, and the circumstances of the times, in addition, were such
+as were calculated to develop all the energies and talents he
+possessed. He was not the most commanding intellect of his age, but he
+was, unquestionably, the greatest orator that England has produced,
+and exercised, to the close of his career, in spite of the opposition
+of such men as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, an overwhelming parliamentary
+influence. He was a prodigy; as great in debate, and in executive
+power, as Napoleon was in the field, Bacon in philosophy, or
+Shakspeare in poetry. It is difficult for us to conceive how a young
+man, just emerging from college halls, should be able to answer the
+difficult questions of veteran statesmen who had been all their lives
+opposing the principles he advanced, and to assume at once the powers
+with which his father was intrusted only at a mature period of life.
+Pitt was almost beyond envy, and the proud nobles and princely
+capitalists of the richest, proudest, and most conservative country in
+the world, surrendered to him the guardianship of their liberties with
+no more fear or distrust than the hereditary bondmen of Turkey or
+Russia would have shown in hailing the accession of a new emperor. He
+was born to command, one of nature's despots, and he assumed the reins
+of government with a perfect consciousness of his abilities to rule.
+
+He was only twenty-four years of age when he began to reign; for, as
+prime minister of George III., he was, during his continuance in
+office, the absolute ruler of the British empire. He had, virtually,
+the nomination of his colleagues, and, through them, the direction of
+all executive affairs. He was controlled by the legislature only, and
+parliament was subservient to his will. What a proud position for a
+young man to occupy! A commoner, with a limited fortune, to give laws
+to a vast empire, and to have a proud nobility obedient to his will;
+and all this by the force of talents alone--talents which extorted
+admiration and respect. He selected Lord Thurlow as chancellor, Lord
+Gower as president of the council, the Duke of Richmond as lord privy
+seal, Lords Carmarthen and Sydney as secretaries of state, and Lord
+Howe as first lord of the admiralty. These were his chief associates
+in resisting a powerful opposition, and in regulating the affairs of a
+vast empire--the concerns of India, the national debt, the necessary
+taxation, domestic tranquillity, and intercourse with foreign powers.
+But he deserved the confidence of his sovereign and of the nation, and
+they sustained him in his extraordinary embarrassments and
+difficulties.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Pitt.]
+
+The policy of the administration is not here to be discussed; but it
+was the one pursued, in the main, by his father, and one which
+gratified the national pride. The time has not yet come for us to
+decide, with certainty, on the wisdom of his course. He was the
+advocate of measures which had for their object national
+aggrandizement. He was the strenuous defender of war, and he would
+oppose Napoleon and all the world to secure preëminence to Great
+Britain. He believed that glory was better than money; he thought that
+an overwhelming debt was a less evil than national disgrace; he
+exaggerated the resources and strength of his country, and believed
+that it was destined to give laws to the world; he underrated the
+abilities of other nations to make great advances in mechanical skill
+and manufacturing enterprise; he supposed that English manufactures
+would be purchased forever by the rest of the world, and therefore
+that England, in spite of the debt, would make all nations contribute
+to her glory and wealth. It was to him a matter of indifference how
+heavily the people were taxed to pay the interest on a fictitious
+debt, provided that, by their commerce and manufactures, they could
+find abundant means to pay this interest. And so long as England could
+find a market for her wares, the nation would not suffer from
+taxation. His error was in supposing that England, forever, would
+manufacture for the world; that English skill was superior to the
+skill of all other nations; that there was a superiority in the very
+nature of an Englishman which would enable him, in any country, or
+under any circumstances, to overcome all competitors and rivals. Such
+views were grateful to his nation; and he, by continually flattering
+the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and patriotism,
+induced it to follow courses which may one day result in overwhelming
+calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a nation as it is to an
+individual, and constitutes that pride which precedes destruction. But
+the mere debt of England, being owed to herself, and not to another
+nation, is not so alarming as it is sometimes supposed. The worst
+consequence, in a commercial point of view, is national bankruptcy;
+but if England becomes bankrupt, her factories, her palaces, her
+warehouses, and her ships remain. These are not destroyed. Substantial
+wealth does not fly from the island, but merely passes from the hands
+of capitalists to the people. The policy of Pitt has merely enriched
+the few at the expense of the many--has confirmed the power of the
+aristocracy. When manufacturers can no longer compete with those of
+other countries, upon such unequal terms as are rendered necessary in
+consequence of unparalleled taxation to support the public creditors,
+then the public creditors must suffer rather than the manufacturer
+himself. The manufacturer must live. This class composes a great part
+of the nation. The people must be fed, and they will be fed; and they
+can be fed as cheaply as in any country, were it not for taxes. The
+policy of Pitt, during the period of commercial prosperity, tended,
+indeed, to strengthen the power of the aristocracy--that class to
+which he belonged, and to which the House of Commons, who sustained
+him, belonged. But it was suicidal, as is the policy of all selfish
+men; and ultimately must tend to revolutionary measures, even though
+those measures may not be carried by massacres and blazing thrones.
+
+But we must hasten to consider the leading events which characterized
+the administration of William Pitt. These were the troubles in
+Ireland, parliamentary reforms, the aggrandizement of the East India
+Company, the trial of Hastings, debates on the slave trade, and the
+war with France in consequence of the French Revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties with Ireland.]
+
+[Sidenote: The United Irishmen.]
+
+The difficulties with Ireland did not become alarming until the French
+Revolution had created a spirit of discontent and agitation in all
+parts of Great Britain. Soon after his accession to power, Mr. Flood,
+a distinguished member of the Irish House of Commons, brought in a
+bill of parliamentary reform, which, after a long debate, was
+negatived. Though his measure was defeated in the House, its advocates
+out of doors were not cast down, but took measures to form a national
+congress, for the amelioration of the evils which existed. A large
+delegation of the people actually met at Dublin, and petitioned
+parliament for the redress of grievances. Mr. Pitt considered the
+matter with proper attention, and labored to free the commerce of
+Ireland from the restraints under which it labored. But, in so doing,
+he excited the jealousy of British merchants and manufacturers, and
+they induced him to remodel his propositions for the relief of
+Ireland, which were then adopted. Tranquillity was restored until the
+year 1791, when there appeared at Belfast the plan of an association,
+under the name of the _United Irishmen_, whose object was a radical
+reform of all the evils which had existed in Ireland since its
+connection with England. This association soon extended throughout the
+island, and numbered an immense body of both Protestants and Catholics
+who were disaffected with the government. In consequence of the
+disaffections, especially among the Catholics, the English ministry
+made many concessions, and the legislature allowed Catholics to
+practice law, to intermarry with Protestants, and to obtain an
+unrestrained education. But parliament also took measures to prevent
+the assembling of any convention of the people, and augmented the
+militia in case of disturbance. But disturbances took place, and the
+United Irishmen began to contemplate an entire separation from
+England, and other treasonable designs. In consequence of these
+commotions, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and a military
+government was enforced with all its rigor. The United Irish pretended
+to submit, but laid still deeper schemes, and extended their
+affiliations. In May, 1797, the number of men enrolled by the union in
+Ulster alone was one hundred thousand, and their organization was
+perfect. The French government was aware of the union, which gradually
+numbered five hundred thousand men, and promised it assistance. The
+Irish, however, relied chiefly upon themselves, and prepared to resist
+the English government, which was resolved on pursuing the most
+vigorous measures. A large military force was sent to Ireland, and
+several ringleaders of the contemplated insurrection were arrested.
+
+But the timely discovery of the conspiracy prevented one of the most
+bloody contests which ever happened in Ireland. Nevertheless, the
+insurrection broke out in some places, and in the county of Wexford
+was really formidable. The rebels numbered twenty thousand men. They
+got possession of Wexford, and committed great barbarities; but they
+were finally subdued by Lord Cornwallis. Had the French coöperated, as
+they had promised, with a force of fifteen thousand, it is not
+improbable that Ireland would have been wrested from England. But the
+French had as much as they could do, at this time, to take care of
+themselves; and Ireland was again subjected to greater oppressions
+than before.
+
+The Irish parliament had hitherto been a mere body of perpetual
+dictators. By the Octennial Bill, this oligarchy was disbanded, and
+the House of Commons wore something of the appearance of a
+constitutional assembly, and there were found in it some men of
+integrity and sagacity. Ireland also had her advocates in the British
+senate; but whenever the people or the parliament gained a victory
+over the viceroy, some accident or blunder deprived the nation of
+reaping the fruits. The Commons became again corrupted, and the
+independence which Ireland obtained ceased to have a value. The
+corrupted Commons basely surrendered all that had been obtained. In
+vain the eloquence of Curran and Grattan. The Irish nation, without
+public virtue, a prey to faction, and a scene of corruption, became at
+last powerless and politically helpless. The rebellion of 1798 was a
+mere peasants' war, without intelligence to guide, or experience to
+counsel. It therefore miserably failed, but did not fail until fifty
+thousand rebels and twenty thousand royalists had perished.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of England and Ireland.]
+
+In June, 1800, the union of Ireland and England was effected, on the
+same basis as that between England and Scotland in the time of Anne.
+It was warmly opposed by some of the more patriotic of the Irish
+statesmen, and only carried by corruption and bribery. By this union,
+foreign legislation took the place of the guidance of those best
+qualified to know the national grievances; the Irish members became,
+in the British senate, merely the tools of the administration.
+Absenteeism was nearly doubled, and the national importance nearly
+annihilated in a political point of view. But, on the other hand, an
+oligarchal tyranny was broken, and the bond of union which bound the
+countries was strengthened, and the nation subsided into a greater
+state of tranquillity. Twenty-eight peers and one hundred commoners
+were admitted into the English parliament.
+
+Notwithstanding the suppression of the rebellion of 1798, only five
+years elapsed before another one was contemplated--the result of
+republican principles, and of national grievances. The leaders were
+Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell. But their treasonable designs were
+miserably supported by their countrymen, and they were able to make
+but a feeble effort, which immediately failed. These men were
+arrested, tried, and executed. The speech of Emmet, before his
+execution, has been much admired for its spirit of patriotism and
+pensive eloquence. His grand mistake consisted in overrating the
+strength of democratic influences, and in supposing that, by violent
+measures, he could overturn a strong military government. The Irish
+were not prepared for freedom, still less republican freedom. There
+was not sufficient concert, or patriotism, or intelligence, to secure
+popular liberty, and the antipathy between the Catholic and Protestant
+population was too deeply seated and too malignant to hope,
+reasonably, for a lasting union.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Ireland.]
+
+All the measures which have been adopted for the independence and
+elevation of Ireland have failed, and the country is still in as
+lamentable a state as ever. It presents a grand enigma and mystery to
+the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in devising
+means for the tranquillity and improvement of that unhappy and
+unfortunate country. The more privileges the people gain, and the
+greater assistance they receive, the more unreasonable appear to be
+their demands, and the more extravagant their expectations. Still,
+there are great and shameful evils, which ought to be remedied. There
+are nearly five millions of acres of waste land in the country,
+capable of the highest cultivation. The soil is inexhaustibly rich,
+the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for
+agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain
+oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the
+earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real
+union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different
+classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and
+Catholic population. The northern and Protestant part of the island is
+the most flourishing; but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is
+the most miserable country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst
+governed, and the most afflicted, in Christendom; and no human
+sagacity or wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the
+innumerable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the
+degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have been
+variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the tyranny
+of the government, to the system by which the lands are leased and
+cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish character. These,
+united, may have produced the effects which all philanthropists
+deplore; but no one cause, in particular, can account for so fine a
+nation sinking into such poverty and wretchedness, especially when it
+is considered that the same idle and miserable peasantry, when
+transplanted to America, exhibit very different dispositions and
+tastes, and develop traits of character which command respect and
+secure prosperity.
+
+[Sidenote: Parliamentary Reform.]
+
+The first plan for parliamentary reform was brought forward by Pitt in
+1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of a large number
+of the House representing no important interests, and dependent on the
+minister. But his motion was successfully opposed. In May, 1783, he
+brought in another bill to add one hundred members to the House of
+Commons, and to abolish a proportionate number of the small and
+obnoxious boroughs. This plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived
+by a great majority. In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a
+reform of parliament, and again failed; and with this last attempt
+ended all his efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the
+impracticability of the measure, that he even uniformly opposed the
+object when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions
+when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject with
+other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it could be
+obtained without mischief; but when it became a democratic measure, he
+opposed it with all his might. Indeed, he avowed that he preferred to
+have parliament remain as it was, forever, rather than risk any
+prospects of reform when the country was so deeply agitated by
+revolutionary discussions. Mr. Pitt perfectly understood that those
+persons who were most eager for parliamentary reform, desired the
+overthrow of the existing institutions of the land, or, at least, such
+as were inconsistent with the hereditary succession to the throne,
+hereditary titles, and the whole system of entailed estates. Mr. Pitt,
+as he grew older, more powerful, and more experienced, became more
+aristocratic and conservative; feared to touch any of the old supports
+of the constitution for fear of producing a revolution--an evil which,
+of all evils, he most abhorred. Mr. Burke, though opposed to the
+minister, here defended him, and made an eloquent speech against
+revolutionary measures. Nor can we wonder at the change of opinion,
+which Mr. Pitt and others admitted, when it is considered that the
+advocates of parliamentary reform also were associated with men of
+infidel and dangerous principles. Thomas Paine was one of the apostles
+of liberty in that age, and his writings had a very great and very
+pernicious influence on the people at large. It is very singular, but
+nevertheless true, that some of the most useful reforms have been
+projected by men of infidel principles, and infidelity and
+revolutionary excess have generally been closely connected.
+
+But the reform question did not deeply agitate the people of England
+until a much later period. One of the most exciting events, in the
+domestic history of England during the administration of Pitt, was the
+trial of Hastings and the difficulties which grew out of the
+aggrandizement of the East India Company.
+
+[Sidenote: Warren Hastings.]
+
+In the chapter on colonization, allusion was made to Indian affairs
+until the close of the administration of Lord Clive. Warren Hastings
+continued the encroachments and conquests which Clive had so
+successfully begun. He went to India in 1750, at the age of seventeen,
+as a clerk in the service of the company. It was then merely a
+commercial corporation. His talents and sagacity insured his
+prosperity. He gradually was promoted, and, in 1772, was appointed
+head of the government in Bengal. But the governor was not then, as he
+now is, nearly absolute, and he had only one vote in the council which
+represented the company at Calcutta. He was therefore frequently
+overruled, and his power was crippled. But he contrived to make
+important changes, and abolished the office of the minister to whom
+was delegated the collection of the revenue and the general regulation
+of internal affairs--an office which had been always held by a native.
+Hastings transferred the internal administration to the servants of
+the company, and in various other ways improved the finances of the
+company, the members of which were indifferent, comparatively, to the
+condition of the people of India, provided that they themselves were
+enriched. To enrich the company and extend its possessions, even at
+the expense of justice and humanity, became the object of the
+governor-general. He succeeded; but success brought upon him the
+imprecations of the natives and the indignant rebukes of his own
+countrymen. In less than two years after he had assumed the
+government, he added four hundred thousand pounds to the annual income
+of the company, besides nearly a million in ready money. But the
+administration of Hastings cannot be detailed. We can only notice that
+part of it which led to his trial in England.
+
+[Sidenote: War with Hyder Ali.]
+
+The great event which marked his government was the war with Hyder
+Ali, the Mohammedan sovereign of Mysore. The province of Bengal and
+the Carnatic had been, for some time, under the protection of the
+English. Adjoining the Carnatic, in the centre of the peninsula, were
+the dominions of Hyder Ali. Had Hastings been governor of Madras, he
+would have conciliated him, or vigorously encountered him as an enemy.
+But the authorities at Madras had done neither. They provoked him to
+hostilities, and, with an army of ninety thousand men, he invaded the
+Carnatic. British India was on the verge of ruin. Hyder Ali was every
+where triumphant, and only a few fortified places remained to the
+English.
+
+Hastings, when he heard of the calamity, instantly adopted the most
+vigorous measures. He settled his difficulties with the Mahrattas; he
+suspended the incapable governor of Fort George, and sent Sir Eyre
+Coote to oppose the great Mohammedan prince who threatened to subvert
+the English power in India.
+
+But Hastings had not the money which was necessary to carry on an
+expensive war with the most formidable enemy the English ever
+encountered in the East. He therefore resolved to plunder the richest
+and most sacred city of India--Benares. It was the seat of Indian
+learning and devotion, and contained five hundred thousand people. Its
+temple, as seen from the Ganges, was the most imposing in the Eastern
+world, while its bazaars were filled with the most valuable and rare
+of Indian commodities; with the muslins of Bengal, the shawls of
+Cashmere, the sabres of Oude, and the silks of its own looms.
+
+This rich capital was governed by a prince nominally subject to the
+Great Mogul, but who was dependent on the Nabob of Oude, a large
+province north of the Ganges, near the Himmaleh Mountains. Benares and
+its territories, being oppressed by the Nabob of Oude, sought the
+protection of the British. Their protection was, of course, readily
+extended; but it was fatal to the independence of Benares. The
+alliance with the English was like the protection Rome extended to
+Greece when threatened by Asia, and which ended in the subjection of
+both Greece and Asia. The Rajah of Benares became the vassal of the
+company, and therefore was obliged to furnish money for the protection
+he enjoyed.
+
+But the tribute which the Rajah of Benares paid did not satisfy
+Hastings. He exacted still greater sums, which led to an insurrection
+and ultimate conquest. The fair domains of Cheyte Sing, the lord of
+Benares, were added to the dominions of the company together with an
+increased revenue of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The treasure
+of the rajah amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and
+this was divided as prize money among the English.
+
+[Sidenote: Robbery of the Princesses of Oude.]
+
+The rapacious governor-general did not obtain the treasure which he
+expected to find at Benares, and then resolved to rob the Princesses
+of Oude, who had been left with immense treasures on the death of
+Suraj-w Dowlah, the nabob vizier of the Grand Mogul. The only pretext
+which Hastings could find was, that the insurrection at Benares had
+produced disturbances at Oude, and which disturbances were imputed to
+the princesses. Great barbarities were inflicted in order to secure
+these treasures; but the robbers were successful, and immense sums
+flowed into the treasury of the company. By these iniquities, the
+governor found means to conduct the war in the Carnatic successfully,
+and a treaty was concluded with Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, by which
+the company reigned without a rival on the great Indian peninsula.
+
+When peace was restored to India, and the company's servants had
+accumulated immense fortunes, Hastings returned to England. But the
+iniquities he had practised excited great indignation among those
+statesmen who regarded justice and humanity as better supports to a
+government than violence and rapine.
+
+Foremost among these patriots was Edmund Burke. He had long been a
+member of the select committee to investigate Indian affairs, and he
+had bestowed great attention to them, and fully understood the course
+which Hastings had pursued.
+
+Through his influence, an inquiry into the conduct of the late
+governor-general was instituted, and he was accordingly impeached at
+the bar of the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt permitted matters to take
+their natural course; but the king, the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, the
+ministers generally, and the directors of the East India Company
+espoused his cause. They regarded him as a very great man, whose rule
+had been glorious to the nation, in spite of the mistakes and
+cruelties which marked his government. He had added an empire to the
+British crown, educed order out of anarchy, and organized a system of
+administration which, in its essential features, has remained to this
+time. He enriched the company, while he did not enrich himself; for he
+easily might have accumulated a fortune of three millions of pounds.
+And he moreover contrived, in spite of his extortions and conquests,
+to secure the respect of the native population, whose national and
+religious prejudices he endeavored not to shock. "These things
+inspired good will. At the same time, his constant success, and the
+manner in which he extricated himself from every difficulty, made him
+an object of superstitious admiration; and the more than regal
+splendor which he sometimes displayed, dazzled a people who have much
+in common with children. Even now, after the lapse of more than fifty
+years, the natives of India still talk of him as the greatest of the
+English, and nurses sing children to sleep with a gingling ballad
+about the fleet horses and richly-caparisoned elephants of Sahib
+Warren Hostein."
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of Hastings.]
+
+But neither the admiration of the people of the East for the splendid
+abilities of Hastings, nor the gratitude of a company of merchants,
+nor the powerful friends he had in the English parliament, could
+screen him from the malignant hatred of Francis, or the purer
+indignation of Burke. The zeal which the latter evinced in his
+prosecution has never been equalled, and all his energies, for years,
+were devoted to the exposure of a person whom he regarded as "a
+delinquent of the first magnitude." "He had just as lively an idea of
+the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of
+the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd." Burke was
+assisted in his vehement prosecution by Charles James Fox, the
+greatest debater ever known in the House of Commons, but a man vastly
+inferior to himself in moral elevation, in general knowledge, in power
+of fancy, and in profound wisdom.
+
+The trial was at Westminster Hall, the hall which had witnessed the
+inauguration of thirty kings, and the trials of accused nobles since
+the time of William Rufus. And he was a culprit not unworthy of that
+great tribunal before which he was summoned--"a tribunal which had
+pronounced sentence on Strafford, and pardon on Somers"--the tribunal
+before which royalty itself had been called to account. Hastings had
+ruled, with absolute sway, a country which was more populous and more
+extensive than any of the kingdoms of Europe, and had gained a fame
+which was bounded only by the unknown countries of the globe. He was
+defended by three men who subsequently became the three highest judges
+of the land, and he was encouraged by the appearance and sympathetic
+smiles of the highest nobles of the realm.
+
+[Sidenote: Edmund Burke.]
+
+But greater than all were the mighty statesmen who conducted the
+prosecution. First among them in character and genius was Edmund
+Burke, who, from the time that he first spoke in the House of Commons,
+in 1766, had been a prominent member, and had, at length, secured
+greater fame than any of his contemporaries, Pitt alone excepted, not
+merely as an orator, but as an enlightened statesman, a philosopher,
+and a philanthropist. He excelled all the great men with whom he was
+associated, in the variety of his powers; he was a poet even while a
+boy; a penetrating philosopher, critic, and historian before the age
+of thirty; a statesman of unrivalled moral wisdom; an orator whose
+speeches have been read with increasing admiration in every succeeding
+age; a judge of the fine arts to whose opinions Reynolds submitted;
+and a writer on various subjects, in which he displayed not only vast
+knowledge, but which he treated in a style of matchless beauty and
+force. All the great men of his age--Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith,
+Garrick, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, North, Thurlow, Parr--scholars,
+critics, divines, and statesmen--bore testimony to his commanding
+genius and his singular moral worth, to his hatred of vice, and his
+passionate love of virtue. But these great and varied excellences,
+which secured him the veneration of the finest minds in Europe, were
+not fully appreciated by his own nation, which was astonished rather
+than governed by his prophetic wisdom. But Burke was remarkable, not
+merely for his knowledge, eloquence, and genius but also for an
+unblemished private life, for the habitual exercise of all those
+virtues, and the free expression of all those noble sentiments which
+only have marked exalted Christian characters. In his political
+principles, he was a conservative, and preferred to base his views on
+history and experience, rather than to try experiments, especially
+when these were advocated by men whose moral character or infidel
+sentiments excited his distrust or aversion. He did not shut his eyes
+to abuse, but aimed to mend deliberately and cautiously. His
+admonition to his country respecting America corresponded with his
+general sentiments. "Talk not of your abstract rights of government; I
+hate the very sound of them; follow experience and common sense." He
+believed that love was better than force, and that the strength of any
+government consisted in the affections of the people. And these he
+ever strove to retain, and for these he was willing to relinquish
+momentary gain and selfish aggrandizement. He advocated concession to
+the Irish legislature; justice and security to the people of India;
+liberty of conscience to Dissenters; relief to small debtors; the
+suppression of general warrants; the extension of the power of juries;
+freedom of the press; retrenchment in the public expenditures; the
+removal of commercial restrictions; and the abolition of the slave
+trade. He had a great contempt for "mechanical politicians," and
+"pedler principles." And he lived long enough to see the fulfilment of
+his political prophecies, and the horrors of that dreadful revolution
+which he had predicted and disliked, not because the principles which
+the French apostles of liberty advocated, were not abstractedly true,
+but because they were connected with excesses, and an infidel
+recklessness in the violation of established social rights, which
+alarmed and disgusted him. He died in 1797, in the sixty-eighth year
+of his age, beloved and honored by the good and great in all Christian
+countries.
+
+[Sidenote: Charles James Fox.]
+
+Next to Burke, among the prosecutors of Hastings, for greatness and
+popularity, was Charles James Fox; inferior to Burke in knowledge,
+imagination, and moral power, but superior in all the arts of debate,
+the most logical and accomplished forensic orator which that age of
+orators produced. His father, Lord Holland, had been the rival of the
+great Chatham, and he himself was opposed, nearly the whole of his
+public life, to the younger Pitt. His political principles were like
+those of Burke until the French Revolution, whose principles he at
+first admired. He was emphatically the man of the people, easy of
+access, social in his habits, free in his intercourse, without reserve
+or haughtiness, generous, magnanimous, and conciliatory. He was
+unsurpassed for logical acuteness, and for bursts of overpowering
+passion. He reached high political station, although his habits were
+such as destroyed, in many respects, the respect of those great men
+with whom he was associated.
+
+[Sidenote: Richard Brinsley Sheridan.]
+
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan, another of the public accusers of Hastings,
+was a different man from either Burke or Fox. He was born in Ireland,
+but was educated at Harrow, and first distinguished himself by writing
+plays. In 1776, on the retirement of Garrick, he became manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre; and shortly after appeared the School for Scandal,
+which placed him on the summit of dramatic fame. In 1780, he entered
+parliament, and, when Hastings was impeached, was in the height of his
+reputation, both as a writer and orator. His power consisted in
+brilliant declamation and sparkling wit, and his speech in relation to
+the Princesses of Oude produced an impression almost without a
+parallel in ancient or modern times. Mr. Burke's admiration was
+sincere and unbounded, but Fox thought it too florid and rhetorical.
+His fame now rests on his dramas. But his life was the shipwreck of
+genius, in consequence of his extravagance, his recklessness in
+incurring debts, and his dissipated habits, which disorganized his
+moral character and undermined the friendships which his brilliant
+talents at first secured to him.
+
+But in spite of the indignation which these illustrious orators
+excited against Hastings, he was nevertheless acquitted, after a trial
+which lasted eight years, in consequence of the change of public
+opinion; and, above all, in view of the great services which he had
+really rendered to his country. The expenses of the trial nearly
+ruined him; but the East India Company granted him an annual income of
+four thousand pounds, which he spent in ornamenting and enriching
+Daylesford, the seat which had once belonged to his family, and which
+he purchased after his return from India.
+
+[Sidenote: Bill for the Regulation of India.]
+
+Although Warren Hastings was eventually acquitted by the House of
+Lords, still his long and protracted trial brought to light many evils
+connected with the government of India; and, in 1784, acts were passed
+which gave the nation a more direct control over the East India
+Company--the most gigantic monopoly the world has ever seen. That a
+company of merchants in Leadenhall Street should exercise an unlimited
+power over an empire larger than the whole of Europe with the
+exception of Russia, and sacrifice the interests of humanity to base
+pecuniary considerations, at length aroused the English nation.
+Accordingly, Mr. Pitt brought in a bill, which passed both Houses,
+which provided that the affairs of the company should be partly
+managed by a Board of Control, partly by the Court of Directors, and
+partly by a general meeting of the stockholders of the company. The
+Board of Control was intrusted to five privy counsellors, one of whom
+was secretary of state. It was afterwards composed of a president,
+such members of the privy council as the king should select, and a
+secretary. This board superintends and regulates all civil, military,
+and revenue officers, and political negotiations, and all general
+despatches. The Board of Directors, composed of twenty-four men, six
+of whom are annually elected, has the nomination of the
+governor-general, and the appointment of all civil and military
+officers. These two boards operate as a check against each other.
+
+The first governor-general, by the new constitution, was Lord
+Cornwallis, a nobleman of great military experience and elevated moral
+worth; a man who was intrusted with great power, even after his
+misfortunes in America, and a man who richly deserved the confidence
+reposed in him. Still, he was seldom fortunate. He made blunders in
+India as well as in America. He did not fully understand the
+institutions of India, or the genius of the people. He was soon called
+to embark in the contests which divided the different native princes,
+and with the usual result. The simple principle of English territorial
+acquisition is, in defending the cause of the feebler party. The
+stronger party was then conquered, and became a province of the East
+India Company, while the weaker remained under English protection,
+until, by oppression, injustice, and rapacity on the part of the
+protectors, it was driven to rebellion, and then subdued.
+
+When Lord Cornwallis was sent to India, in 1786, the East India
+Company had obtained possession of Bengal, a part of Bahar, the
+Benares district of Allahabad, part of Orissa, the Circars, Bombay,
+and the Jaghire of the Carnatic--a district of one hundred miles along
+the coast. The other great Indian powers, unconquered by the English,
+were the Mahrattas, who occupied the centre of India, from Delhi to
+the Krishna, and from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea; also,
+Golconda, the western parts of the Carnatic, Mysore, Oude, and the
+country of the Sikhs. Of the potentates who ruled over these extensive
+provinces, the Sultan of Mysore, Tippoo Saib, was the most powerful,
+although the Mahrattas country was the largest.
+
+[Sidenote: War with Tippoo Saib.]
+
+The hostility of Tippoo, who inherited his father's prejudices against
+the English, excited the suspicions of Lord Cornwallis, and a
+desperate war was the result, in which the sultan showed the most
+daring courage. In 1792, the English general invested the formidable
+fortress of Seringapatam, with sixteen thousand Europeans and thirty
+thousand sepoys, and with the usual success. Tippoo, after the loss of
+this strong fort, and of twenty-three thousand of his troops, made
+peace with Lord Cornwallis, by the payment of four millions of pounds,
+and the surrender of half his dominions. Lord Cornwallis, after the
+close of this war, returned home, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore;
+and he by Marquis Wellesley, (1798,) under whose administration the
+war with Tippoo was renewed, in consequence of the intrigues of the
+sultan with the French at Pondicherry, to regain his dominions. The
+Sultan of Mysore, was again defeated, and slain; the dynasty of Hyder
+Ali ceased to reign, and the East India Company took possession of the
+whole southern peninsula. A subsequent war with the Mahratta powers
+completely established the British supremacy in India. Delhi, the
+capital of the Great Mogul, fell into the hands of the English, and
+the emperor himself became a stipendiary of a company of merchants.
+The conquest of the country of the Mahrattas was indeed successful,
+but was attended by vast expenses, which entailed a debt on the
+company of about nineteen millions of pounds. The brilliant successes
+of Wellesley, however, were not appreciated by the Board of Directors,
+who wanted dividends rather than glory, and he was recalled.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of India.]
+
+There were no new conquests until 1817, under the government of the
+Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He made war on the
+Pindarries, who were bands of freebooters in Central India. They were
+assisted by several native powers, which induced the governor-general
+to demand considerable cessions of territory. In 1819, the British
+effected a settlement at Singapore by which a lucrative commerce was
+secured to Great Britain.
+
+Lord Hastings was succeeded by the Earl of Amherst, under whose
+administration the Burmese war commenced, and by which large
+territories, between Bengal and China, were added to the British
+empire, (1826.)
+
+On the overthrow of the Mogul empire, the kingdom of the Sikhs, in the
+northern part of India, and that of the Affghans, lying west of the
+Indus, arose in importance--kingdoms formerly subject to Persia. The
+former, with all its dependent provinces, has recently been conquered,
+and annexed to the overgrown dominions of the Company.
+
+In 1833, the charter of the East India Company expired, and a total
+change of system was the result. The company was deprived of its
+exclusive right of trade, the commerce with India and China was freely
+opened to all the world, and the possessions and rights of the company
+were ceded to the nation for an annual annuity of six hundred and
+thirty thousand pounds. The political government of India, however,
+was continued to the company until 1853.
+
+[Sidenote: Consequences of the Conquest.]
+
+Thus has England come in possession of one of the oldest and most
+powerful of the Oriental empires, containing a population of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, speaking various languages, and
+wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious institutions.
+The conquest of India is complete, and there is not a valuable office
+in the whole country which is not held by an Englishman. The native
+and hereditary princes of provinces, separately larger and more
+populous than Great Britain itself, are divested of all but the shadow
+of power, and receive stipends from the East India Company. The
+Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of
+Tanjore and Benares, and the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other
+princes, receive, indeed, an annual support of over a million
+sterling; but their power has passed away. An empire two thousand
+miles from east to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and
+containing more square miles than a territory larger than all the
+States between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, has fallen into
+the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a considerable part
+of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies, under the
+protection of the British government; but the moment that these
+dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be
+withdrawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is
+beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better
+observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty; but no
+compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for
+interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has been
+robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only held in
+bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must be felt as
+burdensome and expensive when the plundered country shall no longer
+satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. But that day may be
+remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital
+of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than
+Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of
+Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army
+amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are
+taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen
+millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies
+of India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever
+full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice and
+oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation among
+the governed. It is too much to suppose that one hundred and eighty
+millions of the human race can be permanently governed by a power on
+the opposite side of the globe, and where there never can exist any
+union or sympathy between the nation that rules and the nations that
+are ruled, in any religious, social, or political institution; and
+when all that is dear to the heart of man, and all that is consecrated
+by the traditions of ages, are made to subserve the interests of a
+mercantile state.
+
+But it is time to hasten to the consideration of the remaining
+subjects connected with the administration of William Pitt.
+
+The agitations of moral reformers are among the most prominent and
+interesting. The efforts of benevolent statesmen and philanthropists
+to abolish the slave trade produced a great excitement throughout
+Christendom, and were followed by great results.
+
+In 1787, William Wilberforce, who represented the great county of
+York, brought forward, in the House of Commons, a motion for the
+abolition of the slave trade. The first public movements to put a stop
+to this infamous traffic were made by the Quakers in the Southern
+States of America, who presented petitions for that purpose to their
+respective legislatures. Their brethren in England followed their
+example, and presented similar petitions to the House of Commons. A
+society was formed, and a considerable sum was raised to collect
+information relative to the traffic, and to support the expense of
+application to parliament. A great resistance was expected and made,
+chiefly by merchants and planters. Mr. Wilberforce interested himself
+greatly in this investigation, and in May brought the matter before
+parliament, and supported his motion with overwhelming arguments and
+eloquence. Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Whitbread
+supported Mr. Wilberforce. Mr. Pitt defended the cause of abolition
+with great eloquence and power; but the House was not then in favor of
+immediate abolition, nor was it carried until Mr. Fox and his friends
+came into power.
+
+[Sidenote: War with France.]
+
+The war with France, in consequence of the progress of the revolution,
+is too great a subject to be treated except in a chapter by itself.
+Mr. Pitt abstained from all warlike demonstrations until the internal
+tranquillity of England itself was affected by the propagation of
+revolutionary principles. But when, added to these, it was feared that
+the French were resolved to extend their empire, and overturn the
+balance of power, and encroach on the liberties of England, then Pitt,
+sustained by an overwhelming majority in parliament, declared war upon
+France, (1793.) The advocates of the French Revolution, however, take
+different views, and attribute the rise and career of Napoleon to the
+jealousy and encroachments of England herself, as well as of Austria
+and Prussia. Whether the general European war might not have been
+averted, is a point which merits inquiry, and on which British
+statesmen are not yet agreed. But the connection of England with this
+great war will be presented in the following chapter.
+
+Mr. Pitt continued to manage the helm of state until 1806; but all his
+energies were directed to the prosecution of the war, and no other
+events of importance took place during his administration.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Pitt.]
+
+His genius most signally was displayed in his financial skill in
+extricating his nation from the great embarrassments which resulted
+from the American war, and in providing the means to prosecute still
+more expensive campaigns against Napoleon and his generals. He also
+had unrivalled talent in managing the House of Commons against one of
+the most powerful oppositions ever known, and in a period of great
+public excitements. He was always ready in debate, and always retained
+the confidence of the nation. He is probably the greatest of the
+English statesmen, so far as talents are concerned, and so far as he
+represented the ideas and sentiments of his age. But it is a question
+which will long perplex philosophers whether he was the wisest of that
+great constellation of geniuses who enlightened his brilliant age. To
+him may be ascribed the great increase of the national debt. If taxes
+are the greatest calamity which can afflict a nation, then Pitt has
+entailed a burden of misery which will call forth eternal curses on
+his name, in spite of all the brilliancy of his splendid
+administration. But if the glory and welfare of nations consist in
+other things--in independence, patriotism, and rational liberty; if it
+was desirable, above all material considerations, to check the current
+of revolutionary excess, and oppose the career of a man who aimed to
+bring all the kings and nations of Europe under the yoke of an
+absolute military despotism, and rear a universal empire on the ruins
+of ancient monarchies and states,--then Pitt and his government should
+be contemplated in a different light.
+
+That mighty contest which developed the energies of this great
+statesman, as well as the genius of a still more remarkable man,
+therefore claims our attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Tomline's Life of Pitt. Belsham's History of
+     George III. Prior's and Bissett's Lives of Burke. Moore's
+     Life of Sheridan. Walpole's Life of Fox. Life of
+     Wilberforce, by his sons. Annual Register, from 1783 to
+     1806. Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. Elphinstone's and
+     Martin's Histories of India. Mill's British India. Russell's
+     Modern Europe. Correspondence of Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Boswell's Life of
+     Johnson. Burke's Works. Schlosser's Modern History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+
+
+If the American war was the greatest event in modern times, in view of
+ultimate results, the French Revolution may be considered the most
+exciting and interesting to the eye of contemporaries. The wars which
+grew out of the Revolution in France were conducted on a scale of much
+greater magnitude, and embroiled all the nations of Europe. A greater
+expenditure of energies took place than from any contest in the annals
+of civilized nations. Nor has any contest ever before developed so
+great military genius. Napoleon stands at the head of his profession,
+by general consent; and it is probable that his fame will increase,
+rather than diminish, with advancing generations.
+
+It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the great and varied
+events connected with the French Revolution, or even allude to all the
+prominent ones. The causes of this great movement are even more
+interesting than the developments.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the French Revolution.]
+
+The question is often asked, could Louis XVI. have prevented the
+catastrophe which overturned his throne? He might, perhaps, have
+delayed it; but it was an inevitable event, and would have happened,
+sooner or later. There were evils in the government of France, and in
+the condition of the people, so overwhelming and melancholy, that they
+would have produced an outbreak. Had Richelieu never been minister;
+had the Fronde never taken place; had Louis XIV. and XV. never
+reigned; had there been no such women as disgraced the court of France
+in the eighteenth century; had there been no tyrannical kings, no
+oppressive nobles, no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no
+luxurious courts, no infidel writings, and no discontented
+people,--then Louis XVI. might have reigned at Versailles, as
+Louis XV. had done before him. But the accumulated grievances of two
+centuries called imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a
+revolution could have removed them.
+
+Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of
+necessity, produced the most violent revolutionary storm in the annals
+of the world? The causes of the French revolution may be generalized
+under five heads: First, the influence of the writings of infidel
+philosophers; second, the diffusion of the ideas of popular rights;
+third, the burdens of the people, which made these abstract ideas of
+right a mockery; fourth, the absurd infatuation of the court and
+nobles; fifth, the derangement of the finances, which clogged the
+wheels of government, and led to the assembling of the States General.
+There were also other causes: but the above mentioned are the most
+prominent.
+
+[Sidenote: Helvetius--Voltaire.]
+
+Of those philosophers whose writings contributed to produce this
+revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable influence. These
+were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot.
+
+Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, and published, in 1758, a
+book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac and of other
+philosophers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes called, the
+sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of undisguised
+selfishness. He maintained that man owed his superiority over the
+lower animals to the superior organization of the body. Proceeding
+from this point, he asserted, further, that every faculty and emotion
+are derived from sensation; that all minds are originally equal; that
+pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the only ground of
+morality. The materialism of Helvetius was the mere revival of pagan
+Epicurianism; but it was popular, and his work, called _De l'Esprit_,
+made a great sensation. It was congenial with the taste of a court and
+a generation that tolerated Madame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of
+Paris condemned it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature,
+inasmuch as it confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and
+destroyed the distinctions between virtue and vice.
+
+His fame was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who
+exercised a greater influence on his age than any other man. He is the
+great apostle of French infidelity, and the great oracle of the
+superficial thinkers of his nation and age. He was born in 1694, and
+early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Versailles, and a
+companion of Frederic the Great--as great an egotist as he, though his
+egotism was displayed in a different way. He was an aristocrat, made
+for courts, and not for the people, with whom he had no sympathy,
+although the tendency of his writings was democratic. In all his
+satirical sallies, he professed to respect authority. But he was never
+in earnest, was sceptical, insincere, and superficial. It would not be
+rendering him justice to deny that he had great genius. But his genius
+was to please, to amuse a vain-glorious people, to turn every thing
+into ridicule, to pull down, and substitute nothing instead. He was a
+modern Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed reverence for God
+and truth. He despised and defied the future, and the future has
+rendered a verdict which can never be reversed--that he was vain,
+selfish, shallow, and cold, without faith in any spiritual influence
+to change the world. But he had a keen perception of what was false,
+with all his superficial criticism, a perception of what is now called
+_humbug_; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense, he had a
+love of truth, but not of truth in its highest development, not of the
+positive, the affirmative, the real. Negation and denial suited him
+better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence he was a
+"representative man," was an exponent of his age, and led the age. He
+hated the Jesuits, but chiefly because they advocated a blind
+authority; and he strove to crush Christianity, because its professors
+so often were a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs
+and victims. Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system
+of philosophy, but strove to make all systems absurd. He set the ball
+of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track: pushed
+out, not his principles, for he had none, but his spirit, into the
+extreme of mockery and negation. And such a course unsettled the
+popular faith, both in religion and laws, and made men indifferent to
+the future, and to their moral obligations.
+
+[Sidenote: Rousseau.]
+
+Quite a different man was Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or a
+leveller, or a satirist, or an atheist. He resembled Voltaire only in
+one respect--in egotism. He was not so learned as Voltaire, did not
+write so much, was not so highly honored or esteemed. But he had more
+genius, and exercised a greater influence on posterity. His influence
+was more subtle and more dangerous, for he led astray people of
+generous impulses and enthusiastic dispositions, with but little
+intelligence or experience. He abounded in extravagant admiration of
+unsophisticated nature, professed to love the simple and earnest,
+affected extraordinary friendship and sympathy, and was most
+enthusiastic in his rhapsodies of sentimental love. Voltaire had no
+cant, but Rousseau was full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton,
+but Rousseau of Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who as a judge,
+was too conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently
+unscrupulous to destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be
+detected in the ravings of the ultra Transcendentalists, in the
+extravagance of Fourierism, in the mock philanthropy of such apostles
+of light as Eugene Sue and Louis Blanc. The whole mental and physical
+constitution of Rousseau was diseased, and his actions were strangely
+inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of friendship, and
+it proved the token of treachery; he expatiated on simplicity and
+earnestness in most bewitching language, but was a hypocrite, seducer,
+and liar. He was always breathing the raptures of affection, yet never
+succeeded in keeping a friend; he was always denouncing the
+selfishness and vanity of the world, and yet was miserable without its
+rewards and praises; no man was more dependent on society, yet no man
+ever professed to hold it in deeper contempt; no man ever had a
+prouder spirit, yet no man ever affected a more abject humility. He
+dilated, with apparent rapture, on disinterested love, and yet left
+his own children to cold neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and
+the susceptible by pouring out streams of passion in eloquent and
+exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own soul and
+revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about philanthropy
+and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a charity. No man was ever
+more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in absurdity. He spent his life
+in gilding what is corrupt, and glossing over what is impure. The
+great moral effect of his writings was to make men commit crimes under
+the name of patriotism, and permit them to indulge in selfish passion
+under the name of love.
+
+[Sidenote: Diderot.]
+
+But more powerful than either of these false prophets and guides, in
+immediate influence, was Diderot; and with him the whole school of
+bold and avowed infidels, who united open atheism with a fierce
+democracy. The Encyclopedists professed to know every thing, to
+explain every thing, and to teach every thing, they discovered that
+there was no God, and taught that truth was a delusion, and virtue but
+a name. They were learned in mathematical, statistical, and physical
+science, but threw contempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons
+of experience, and the eternal truths of divine revelation. They
+advocated changes, experiments, fomentations, and impracticable
+reforms. They preached a gospel of social rights, inflamed the people
+with disgust of their condition, and with the belief that wisdom and
+virtue resided, in the greatest perfection, with congregated masses.
+
+[Sidenote: General Influence of the Philosophers.]
+
+They incessantly boasted of the greatness of philosophy, and the
+obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that successive
+developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to
+itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. What
+they could not explain by their logical formularies, they utterly
+discarded. They denied the reality of a God in heaven, and talked
+about the divinity of man on earth, especially when associated masses
+of the ignorant and brutal asserted what they conceived to be their
+rights. They made truth to reside, in its greatest lustre, with
+passionate majorities; and virtue, in its purest radiance, with felons
+and vagabonds, if affiliated into a great association. They flattered
+the people that they were wiser and better than any classes above
+them, that rulers were tyrants, the clergy were hypocrites, the
+oracles of former days mere fools and liars. To sum up, in few words,
+the French Encyclopedists, "they made Nature, in her outward
+manifestations, to be the foundation of all great researches, man to
+be but a mass of organization, mind the development of our sensations,
+morality to consist in self-interest, and God to be but the diseased
+fiction of an unenlightened age. The whole intellect, being
+concentrated on the outward and material, gave rise, perhaps, to some
+improvements in physical science; but religion was disowned, morality
+degraded, and man made to be but the feeble link in the great chain of
+events by which Nature is inevitably accomplishing her blind designs."
+From such influences, what could we expect but infidelity, madness,
+anarchy, and crimes?
+
+The second cause of the French revolution was the diffusion of the
+ideas of democratic liberty. Rousseau was a republican in his
+politics, as he was a sentimentalist in religion. Thomas Paine's Age
+of Reason had a great influence on the French mind, as it also had on
+the English and American. Moreover, the apostles of liberty in France
+were much excited in view of the success of the American Revolution,
+and fancied that the words "popular liberty," "sovereignty of the
+people," the "rights of man," "liberty and equality," meant the same
+in America as they did when pronounced by a Parisian mob. The French
+people were unduly flattered, and made to believe, by the demagogues,
+that they were philosophers, and that they were as fit for liberty as
+the American nation itself. Moreover, it must be confessed that the
+people had really made considerable advances, and discovered that
+there was no right or justice in the oppressions under which they
+groaned. The exhortations of popular leaders and the example of
+American patriots prepared the people to make a desperate effort to
+shake off their fetters. What were rights, in the abstract, if they
+were to be ground down to the dust? What a mockery was the watchword
+of liberty and equality, if they were obliged to submit to a despotism
+which they knew to be, in the highest degree, oppressive and
+tyrannical?
+
+[Sidenote: Sufferings of the People.]
+
+Hence the real and physical evils which the people of France endured,
+had no small effect in producing the revolution. Abstract ideas
+prepared the way, and sustained the souls of the oppressed; but the
+absolute burdens which they bore aroused them to resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: Degradation of the People.]
+
+These evils were so great, that general discontent prevailed among the
+middle and lower classes through the kingdom. The agricultural
+population was fettered by game laws and odious privileges to the
+aristocracy. "Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars
+and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through spacious
+districts, in order that the nobles might hunt as in a savage
+wilderness." Numerous edicts prohibited weeding, lest young partridges
+should be disturbed, and mowing of hay even, lest their eggs should be
+destroyed. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were carried
+before courts where every species of oppression and fraud prevailed.
+Fines were imposed at every change of property and at every sale. The
+people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to
+press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven. In
+consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were very
+poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress ragged and
+miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the enormous
+taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or even the pockets
+of the great proprietors. Officers were indefinitely multiplied. The
+governing classes looked upon the people only to be robbed. Their cry
+was unheard in the courts of justice, while the tear of sorrow was
+unnoticed amid the pageantry of the great, whose extravagance,
+insolence, and pride were only surpassed by the misery and degradation
+of those unfortunate beings on whose toils they lived. Justice was
+bought and sold like any other commodity, and the decisions of judges
+were influenced by the magnitude of the bribes which were offered
+them. Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed additional burdens, and
+swarmed wherever there was plunder to be obtained. The people were so
+extravagantly taxed that it was no object to be frugal or industrious.
+Every thing beyond the merest necessaries of life was seized by
+various tax-gatherers. In England, severe as is taxation, three
+fourths of the produce of the land go to the farmer, while in France
+only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. Two thirds of his earnings
+went to the king. Nor was there any appeal from this excessive
+taxation, which ground down the middle and lower classes, while the
+clergy and the nobles were entirely exempted themselves. Nor did the
+rich proprietor live upon his estates. He was a non-resident, and
+squandered in the cities the money which was extorted from his
+dependents. He took no interest in the condition of the peasantry,
+with whom he was not united by any common ties. Added to this
+oppression, the landlord was cruel, haughty, and selfish; and he
+irritated by his insolence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All
+situations in the army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench,
+and in diplomacy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom
+there were one hundred and fifty thousand people--a class insolent,
+haughty, effeminate, untaxed; who disdained useful employments, who
+sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those by whose
+toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and pleasure, as
+ignoble minions, who were unworthy of a better destiny, and unfit to
+enjoy those rights which God designed should be possessed by the whole
+human race.
+
+The privileges and pursuits of the aristocratic class, from the king
+to a lieutenant in his army, were another cause of revolution.
+Louis XV. squandered twenty million pounds sterling in pleasures too
+ignominious to be even named in the public accounts, and enjoyed
+almost absolute power. He could send any one in his dominions to rot
+in an ignominious prison, without a hearing or a trial. The odious
+_lettre de cachet_ could consign the most powerful noble to a dungeon,
+and all were sent to prison who were offensive to government. The
+king's mistresses sometimes had the power of sending their enemies to
+prison without consulting the king. The lives and property of the
+people were at his absolute disposal, and he did not scruple to
+exercise his power with thoughtless, and sometimes inhuman cruelty.
+
+[Sidenote: Derangement of Finances.]
+
+But these evils would have ended only in disaffection, and hatred, and
+unsuccessful resistance, had not the royal finances been deranged. So
+long as the king and his ministers could obtain money, there was no
+immediate danger of revolution. So long as he could pay the army, it
+would, if decently treated, support an absolute throne.
+
+But the king at last found it difficult to raise a sufficient revenue
+for his pleasures and his wars. The annual deficit was one hundred and
+ninety million of francs a year. The greater the deficit, the greater
+was the taxation, which, of course, increased the popular discontent.
+
+Such was the state of things when Louis XVI. ascended the throne of
+Hugh Capet, (1774,) in his twentieth year, having married, four years
+before, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of
+Austria. He was grandson of Louis XV., who bequeathed to him a debt of
+four thousand millions of livres.
+
+The new king was amiable and moral, and would have ruled France in
+peaceful times, but was unequal to a revolutionary crisis. "Of all the
+monarchs," says Alison, "of the Capetian line, he was the least able
+to stem, and yet the least likely to provoke, a revolution. The people
+were tired of the arbitrary powers of their monarch, and he was
+disposed to abandon them; they were provoked at the expensive
+corruptions of the court, and he was both innocent in his manners, and
+unexpensive in his habits; they demanded reformation in the
+administration of affairs, and he placed his chief glory in yielding
+to the public voice. His reign, from his accession to the throne to
+the meeting of the States General, was nothing but a series of
+ameliorations, without calming the public effervescence. He had the
+misfortune to wish sincerely for the public good, without possessing
+the firmness necessary to secure it; and with truth it may be said
+that reforms were more fatal to him than the continuance of abuses
+would have been to another sovereign."
+
+[Sidenote: Maurepas--Turgot--Malesherbes.]
+
+He made choice of Maurepas as his prime minister, an old courtier
+without talent, and who was far from comprehending the spirit of the
+nation or the genius of the times. He accustomed the king to half
+measures, and pursued a temporizing policy, ill adapted to
+revolutionary times. The discontents of the people induced the king to
+dismiss him, and Turgot, for whom the people clamored, became prime
+minister. He was an honest man, and contemplated important reforms,
+even to the abolition of feudal privileges and the odious _lettres de
+cachet_, which were of course opposed by the old nobility, and were
+not particularly agreeable to the sovereign himself.
+
+Malesherbes, a lawyer who adopted the views of Turgot, succeeded him,
+and, had he been permitted, would have restored the rights of the
+people, and suppressed the _lettres de cachet_, reënacted the Edict of
+Nantes, and secured the liberty of the press. But he was not equal to
+the crisis, with all his integrity and just views, and Necker became
+financial minister.
+
+[Sidenote: Necker--Calonne.]
+
+He was a native of Geneva, a successful banker, and a man who had won
+the confidence of the nation. He found means to restore the finances,
+and to defray the expenses of the American war. But he was equally
+opposed by the nobles, who wanted no radical reform, and he was not a
+man of sufficient talent to stem the current of revolution. Financial
+skill was certainly desirable, but no financiering could save the
+French nation on the eve of bankruptcy with such vast expenditures as
+then were deemed necessary. The nobles indeed admitted the extent of
+the evils which existed, and descanted, on their hunting parties, in a
+strain of mock philanthropy, but would submit to no sacrifices
+themselves, and Necker was compelled to resign.
+
+M. de Calonne took his place; a man of ready invention, unscrupulous,
+witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of promises, he
+succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a plan
+directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged the
+extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off pressing
+debts by contracting new ones. He pleased all classes by his
+captivating manners, brilliant conversation, and elegant dress. The
+king, furnished with what money he wanted, forgot the burdens of the
+people, and the minister went on recklessly contracting new loans, and
+studiously concealing from the public the extent of the annual
+deficit.
+
+But such a policy could not long be adopted successfully, and the
+people were overwhelmed with amazement when it finally appeared that,
+since the retirement of Necker in 1781, Calonne had added sixteen
+hundred and forty-six millions of francs to the public debt. National
+bankruptcy stared every body in the face. It was necessary that an
+extraordinary movement should be made; and Calonne recommended the
+assembling of the Notables, a body composed chiefly of the nobility,
+clergy, and magistracy, with the hope that these aristocrats would
+consent to their own taxation.
+
+He was miserably mistaken. The Notables met, (1787,) the first time
+since the reign of Henry IV., and demanded the dismissal of the
+minister, who was succeeded by Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse.
+
+He was a weak man, and owed his elevation to his influence with women.
+He won the queen by his pleasing conversation, but had no solid
+acquirements. Occupying one of the highest positions in his church, he
+yet threw himself into the arms of atheistical philosophers. A man so
+inconsistent and so light was not fit for his place.
+
+However, the Notables agreed to what they had refused to Calonne. They
+consented to a land tax, to the stamp duty, to provincial assemblies,
+and to the suppression of the gratuitous service of vassals. These
+were popular measures, but were insufficient. Brienne was under the
+necessity of proposing the imposition of new taxes. But the Parliament
+of Paris refused to register the edict. A struggle between the king
+and the parliament resulted; and the king, in order to secure the
+registration of new taxes, resorted to the _bed of justice_--the last
+stretch of his royal power.
+
+[Sidenote: States General.]
+
+During one of the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses and
+prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the
+word _états_, (statements,) exclaimed, "It is not statements but
+States General that we want."
+
+From that moment, nothing was thought of or talked about but the
+assembling of the States General; to which the minister, from his
+increasing embarrassments, consented. Moreover, the court hoped, in
+view of the continued opposition of the parliament, that the Tiers
+État would defend the throne against the legal aristocracy.
+
+All classes formed great and extravagant expectations from the
+assembling of the States General, and all were doomed to
+disappointment, but none more than those who had most vehemently and
+enthusiastically called for its convocation.
+
+The Archbishop of Toulouse soon after retired, unable to stem the
+revolutionary current. But he contrived to make his own fortune, by
+securing benefices to the amount of eight hundred thousand francs, the
+archbishopric of Sens, and a cardinal's hat. At his recommendation
+Necker was recalled.
+
+On Necker's return, he found only two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs in the royal treasury; but the funds immediately rose, thirty
+per cent., and he was able to secure the loans necessary to carry on
+the government, rich capitalists fearing that absolute ruin would
+result unless they came to his assistance.
+
+Then followed discussions in reference to the Tiers État, as to what
+the third estate really represented, and as to the number of deputies
+who should be called to the assembly of the States General. "The Tiers
+État," said the Abbé Sièyes, in an able pamphlet, "is the French
+nation, _minus_ the noblesse and the clergy."
+
+It was at last decided that the assembly should be at least one
+thousand, and that the number of deputies should equal the
+representatives of the nobles and clergy. The elections, were
+carelessly conducted, and all persons, decently dressed, were allowed
+to vote. Upwards of three millions of electors determined the choice
+of deputies. Necker conceded too much, and opened the flood-gates of
+revolution. He had no conception of the storm, which was to overwhelm
+the throne.
+
+On the 4th of May, 1789, that famous Assembly, which it was hoped
+would restore prosperity to France, met with great pomp in the
+cathedral church of Notre Dame, and the Bishop of Nancy delivered the
+sermon, and, the next day, the assembly was opened in the hall
+prepared for the occasion. The king was seated on a magnificent
+throne, the nobles and the clergy on both sides of the hall, and the
+third estate at the farther end. Louis XVI. pronounced a speech full
+of disinterested sentiments, and Necker read a report in reference to
+the state of the finances.
+
+[Sidenote: The Tiers État.]
+
+The next day, the deputies of the Tiers État were directed to the
+place allotted to them, which was the common hall. The nobles and
+clergy repaired to a separate hall. It was their intention, especially
+in view of the great number of the deputies, to deliberate in distinct
+halls. But the deputies insisted upon the three orders deliberating
+together in the same room. Angry discussions and conferences took
+place. But there was not sufficient union between the nobles and the
+clergy, or sufficient energy on the part of the court. There happened
+also to be some bold and revolutionary spirits among the deputies, and
+they finally resolved, by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one to
+ninety, to assume the title of _National Assembly_, and invited the
+members of the other chamber to join them. They erected themselves
+into a sovereign power, like the Long Parliament of Charles I.,
+disregarding both the throne and the nobility.
+
+Some of the most resolute of the nobles urged the king to adopt
+vigorous measures against the usurpation of the third estate; but he
+was timid and irresolute.
+
+The man who had, at that time, the greatest influence in the National
+Assembly was Mirabeau, a man of noble birth, but who had warmly
+espoused the popular side. He was disagreeable in his features,
+licentious in his habits, and a bankrupt in reputation, but a man of
+commanding air, of great abilities, and unrivalled eloquence. His
+picture has been best painted by Carlyle, both in his essays and his
+history of the revolution.
+
+The National Assembly contained many great men, who would never have
+been heard of in quiet times; some of great virtues and abilities, and
+others of the most violent revolutionary principles. There were also
+some of the nobility, who joined them, not anticipating the evils
+which were to come. Among them were the Dukes of Orleans,
+Rochefoucault, and Liancourt, Count Lally Tollendal, the two brothers
+Lameth, Clermont Tonnerre, and the Marquis de La Fayette, all of whom
+were guillotined or exiled during the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Commotions.]
+
+The discussions in the Assembly did not equal the tumults of the
+people. All classes were intoxicated with excitement, and believed
+that a new era was to take place on earth; that all the evils which
+afflicted society were to be removed, and a state of unbounded
+liberty, plenty, and prosperity, was about to take place.
+
+In the midst of the popular ferments, the regiment of guards,
+comprising three thousand six hundred men, revolted: immense bodies of
+workmen assembled together, and gave vent to the most inflammatory
+language; the Hotel of the Invalids was captured; fifty thousand pikes
+were forged and distributed among the people; the Bastile was stormed;
+and military massacres commenced. Soon after, the tricolored cockade
+was adopted, the French guards were suppressed by the Assembly, the
+king and his family were brought to Paris by a mob, and the Club of
+the Jacobins was established. Before the year 1789 was ended, the
+National Assembly was the supreme power in France, and the king had
+become a shadow and a mockery; or, rather, it should be said that
+there was no authority in France but what emanated from the people,
+and no power remained to suppress popular excesses and insurrections.
+The Assembly published proclamations against acts of violence; but it
+was committed in a contest with the crown and aristocracy, and
+espoused the popular side. A famine, added to other horrors, set in at
+Paris; and the farmers, fearing that their grain would be seized, no
+longer brought it to market. Manufactures of all kinds were suspended,
+and the public property was confiscated to supply the immediate wants
+of a starving and infuriated people. A state was rapidly hastening to
+universal violence, crime, misery, and despair.
+
+[Sidenote: Rule of the People.]
+
+The year 1790 opened gloomily, and no one could tell when the
+agitating spirit would cease, or how far it would be carried, for the
+mob of Paris was rapidly engrossing the power of the state. One of the
+first measures of the Assembly was to divest the provinces of France
+of their ancient privileges, since they were jealous of the
+sovereignty exercised by the Assembly, and to divide the kingdom into
+eighty-four new departments, nearly equal in extent and population. A
+criminal tribunal was established for each department and a civil
+court for each of the districts into which the department was divided.
+The various officers and magistrates were elected by the people, and
+the qualification for voting was a contribution to the amount of three
+days' labor. By this great stop, the whole civil force in the kingdom
+was placed at the disposal of the lower classes. They had the
+nomination of the municipality, and the control of the military, and
+the appointment of judges, deputies, and officers of the National
+Guard. Forty-eight thousand communes, or municipalities, exercised all
+the rights of sovereignty, and hardly any appointment was left to the
+crown. A complete democratic constitution was made, which subverted
+the ancient divisions of the kingdom, and all those prejudices and
+interests which had been nursed for centuries. The great extension of
+the electoral franchise introduced into the Assembly a class of men
+who were prepared to make the most impracticable changes, and commit
+the most violent excesses.
+
+The next great object of the Assembly was the regulation of the
+finances. Further taxation was impossible, and the public necessities
+were great. The revenue had almost failed, and the national debt had
+alarmingly increased,--twelve hundred millions in less than three
+years. The capitalists would advance nothing, and voluntary
+contributions had produced but a momentary relief. Under these
+circumstances, the spoliation of the church was resolved, and
+Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was the first to propose the confiscation
+of the property of his order. The temptation was irresistible to an
+infidel and revolutionary assembly; for the church owned nearly one
+half of the whole landed property of the kingdom. Several thousand
+millions of francs were confiscated, and the revenues of the clergy
+reduced to one fifth of their former amount.
+
+This violent measure led to another. There was no money to pay for the
+great estates which the Assembly wished to sell. The municipalities of
+the large cities became the purchasers, and gave promissory notes to
+the public creditors until payment should be made; supposing that
+individuals would buy in small portions. Sales not being effected by
+the municipalities, as was expected and payment becoming due, recourse
+was had to government bills. Thus arose the system of _Assignats_,
+which were issued to a great amount on the security of the church
+lands, and which resulted in a paper circulation, and the
+establishment of a vast body of small landholders, whose property
+sprung out of the revolution, and whose interests were identified with
+it. The relief, however great, was momentary. New issues were made at
+every crisis, until the over issue alarmed the reflecting portion of
+the community, and assignats depreciated to a mere nominal value. At
+the close of the year, the credit of the nation was destroyed, and the
+precious metals were withdrawn, in a great measure, from circulation.
+
+Soon after, the assembly abolished all titles of nobility, changed the
+whole judicial system, declared its right to make peace and war, and
+established the National Guard, by which three hundred thousand men
+were enrolled in support of revolutionary measures.
+
+[Sidenote: National Federation.]
+
+On the 14th of July, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastile,
+was the celebrated National Federation, when four hundred thousand
+persons repaired to the Champ de Mars, to witness the king, his
+ministers, the assembly, and the public functionaries, take the oath
+to the new constitution; the greatest mockery of the whole revolution,
+although a scene of unparalleled splendor.
+
+Towards the close of the year, an extensive emigration of the nobles
+took place; a great blunder on their part, since their estates were
+immediately confiscated, and since the forces left to support the
+throne were much diminished. The departure of so many distinguished
+persons, however, displeased the Assembly, and proposals were made to
+prevent it. But Mirabeau, who, until this time, had supported the
+popular side, now joined the throne, and endeavored to save it. His
+popularity was on the decline, when a natural death relieved him from
+a probable execution. He had contributed to raise the storm, but he
+had not the power to allay it. He exerted his splendid abilities to
+arrest the revolution, whose consequences, at last, he plainly
+perceived. But in vain. His death, however, was felt as a public
+calamity, and all Paris assembled to see his remains deposited, with
+extraordinary pomp, in the Pantheon, by the side of Des Cartes. Had he
+lived, he might possibly have saved the lives of the king and queen,
+but he could not have prevented the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
+
+Soon after, the royal family, perceiving, too late, that they were
+mere prisoners in the Tuileries, undertook to escape, and fly to
+Coblentz, where the great body of emigrants resided. The unfortunate
+king contrived to reach Varennes, was recognized, and brought back to
+Paris. But the National Assembly made a blunder in not permitting him
+to escape; for it had only to declare the throne vacant by his
+desertion, and proceed to institute a republican government. The crime
+of regicide might have been avoided, and further revolutionary
+excesses prevented. But his return increased the popular ferments, and
+the clubs demanded his head. He was suspended from his functions, and
+a guard placed over his person.
+
+On the 29th of September, 1791, the Constituent Assembly dissolved
+itself; having, during the three years of its existence enacted
+thirteen hundred and nine laws and decrees relative to the general
+administration of the state. It is impossible, even now, to settle the
+question whether it did good or ill, on the whole; but it certainly
+removed many great and glaring evils, and enacted many wise laws. It
+abolished torture, the _lettres de cachet_, the most oppressive
+duties, the privileges of the nobility, and feudal burdens. It
+established a uniform system of jurisprudence, the National Guards,
+and an equal system of finance. "It opened the army to men of merit,
+and divided the landed property of the aristocracy among the laboring
+classes; which, though a violation of the rights of property, enabled
+the nation to bear the burdens which were subsequently imposed, and to
+prosper under the evils connected with national bankruptcy,
+depreciated assignats, the Reign of Terror, the conscription of
+Napoleon, and the subjugation of Europe."
+
+The Legislative Assembly, composed of inexperienced men,--country
+attorneys and clerks for the most part, among whom there were not
+fifty persons possessed of one hundred pounds a year,--took the place
+of the Constituent Assembly, and opened its sittings on the 1st of
+October.
+
+In the first assembly there was a large party attached to royal and
+aristocratical interests, and many men of great experience and
+talents. But in the second nearly all were in favor of revolutionary
+principles. They only differed in regard to the extent to which
+revolution should be carried.
+
+The members of the right were called the _Feuillants_, from the club
+which formed the centre of their power, and were friends of the
+constitution, or the limited monarchy which the Constituent Assembly
+had established. The national guard, the magistrates, and all the
+constituted authorities, were the supporters of this party.
+
+[Sidenote: The Girondists and the Jacobins.]
+
+The _Girondists_, comprehending the more respectable of the
+republicans, and wishing to found the state on the model of antiquity,
+formed a second party, among whom were numbered the ablest men in the
+assembly. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Guadet, and Isnard, were
+among the leading members.
+
+There was also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and Merlin,
+which was supported by the clubs of the _Jacobins_ and the
+_Cordeliers_. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre,
+Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois; while the leaders of the Cordeliers
+were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, as were others
+of the last assembly, from the new one, by a sort of self-denying
+ordinance which he himself had proposed. His influence, at that time,
+was immense, from the extravagance of his opinions, the vehemence of
+his language, and the reputation he had acquired for integrity.
+
+Between these three parties there were violent contentions, and the
+struggle for ascendency soon commenced, to end in the complete triumph
+of the Jacobinical revolutionists.
+
+In the mean time, the restrictions imposed on the king, who still
+enjoyed the shadow of authority, the extent of popular excesses, and
+the diffusion of revolutionary principles, induced the leading
+monarchs of Europe to confederate together, in order to suppress
+disturbances in France. In July, the Emperor Leopold appealed to the
+sovereigns of Europe to unite for the deliverance of Louis XVI.
+Austria collected her troops, the emigrants at Coblentz made warlike
+demonstrations, and preparations were made for a contest, which,
+before it was finished, proved the most bloody and extensive which has
+desolated the world since the fall of the Roman empire.
+
+The Constituent Assembly rejected with disdain the dictation of the
+various European powers; and the new ministry, of which Dumourier and
+Roland were the most prominent members, prepared for war. All classes
+in France were anxious for it, and war was soon declared. On the 25th
+of July, the Duke of Brunswick, with an army of one hundred and
+forty-eight thousand Prussians, Austrians, and Hessians, entered the
+French territory. The spirit of resistance animated all classes, and
+the ardor of the multitude was without a parallel. The manifesto of
+the allied powers indicated the dispositions of the court and
+emigrants. Revolt against the throne now seemed necessary, in order to
+secure the liberty of the people, who now had no choice between
+victory and death. On the 25th of July, the Marseillais arrived in
+Paris, and augmented the strength and confidence of the insurgents.
+Popular commotions increased, and the clubs became unmanageable. On
+the 10th of August, the tocsin sounded, the _générale_ beat in every
+quarter of Paris, and that famous insurrection took place which
+overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the
+insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were
+massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was lost,
+and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob.
+
+The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of the
+foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation of
+their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, the
+fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legislative
+Assembly, rapidly succeeded.
+
+[Sidenote: The National Convention.]
+
+On the 21st of September, the National Convention was opened, and was
+composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. It was ruled by
+those popular orators who had the greatest influence in the clubs. The
+most influential of these leaders were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.
+Danton was the hero of the late insurrection; was a lawyer, a man of
+brutal courage, the slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the
+Parisian mob. He was made minister of justice, and was the author of
+the subsequent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity,
+he was lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the
+period of danger had passed.
+
+[Sidenote: Marat--Danton--Robespierre.]
+
+Marat was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member of the
+convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary excesses. His
+bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand of a heroine,
+Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid the country of
+the greatest monster which the annals of crime have consigned to an
+infamous immortality.
+
+Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the mask of
+patriotism and philanthropy, an insatiable ambition, inordinate
+vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the passion of money,
+and, when he had at his disposal the lives and fortunes of his
+countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is the fashion to deny
+to him any extraordinary talent; but that he was a man of domineering
+will, of invincible courage, and austere enthusiasm appears from
+nearly all the actions of his hateful career.
+
+It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where more
+than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated vengeance of the
+Parisian mob, that the National Convention commenced its sittings.
+
+Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim a
+republic; the next, to issue new assignats. The two preceding
+assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred
+millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on the
+security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, the trial of
+the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, his examination
+commenced. On his appearance at the bar of the Convention, the
+president, Barrere, said, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you
+are about to hear the charges that are to be preferred. Louis, be
+seated."
+
+The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to which
+he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. He was defended,
+in the mock trial, by Desèze, Tronchet, and Malesherbes; but his blood
+was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pronounced the condemnation
+of their king. That seven hundred men, with all the natural
+differences of opinion, could be found to do this, shows the excess of
+revolutionary madness. On the 20th of January, Santerre appeared in
+the royal prison, and read the sentence of death; and only three days
+were allowed the king to prepare for the last hour of anguish. On the
+24th of January, he mounted the scaffold erected between the garden of
+the Tuileries and the Champs Élysées, and the fatal axe separated his
+head from his body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of
+the Madeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of
+Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until the
+restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the beautiful
+church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The spot where
+Louis XVI. offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes of his
+ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red granite, which
+the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a monument which
+has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may survive the glory of the
+French nation itself.
+
+[Sidenote: General War.]
+
+The martyrdom of Louis XVI. was the signal for a general war. All the
+powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the principles of
+the French revolutionists. The Convention, after declaring war against
+England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies,
+the Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont,--all of which had combined
+together,--ordered a levy of three hundred thousand men, instituted a
+military tribunal, and imposed a forced loan on the rich of one
+thousand millions, and prepared to defend the principles of liberty
+and the soil of France. The enthusiasm of the French was unparalleled,
+and the energies put forth were most remarkable. Patriotism and
+military ardor were combined, and measures such as only extraordinary
+necessities require were unhesitatingly adopted.
+
+A Committee of Public Safety was appointed, and the dictatorship of
+Danton, Marat, and Robespierre commenced, marked by great horrors and
+barbarities, but signalized by wonderful successes in war, and by
+exertions which, under common circumstances, would be scarcely
+credited.
+
+This committee was composed of twenty-five persons at first, and
+twelve afterwards; but Robespierre and Marat were the leading members.
+The committee assigned to ruling Jacobins the different departments of
+the government. St. Just was intrusted with the duty of denouncing its
+enemies; Couthon for bringing forward its general measures; Billaud
+Varennes and Collot d'Herbois with the management of departments;
+Carnot was made minister of war; and Robespierre general dictator.
+This committee, though required to report to the Convention, as the
+supreme authority, had really all the power of government. "It named
+and dismissed generals, judges, and juries; brought forward all
+public measures in the Convention; ruled provinces and armies;
+controlled the Revolutionary Tribunal; and made requisitions of men
+and money; and appointed revolutionary committees, which sprung up in
+every part of the kingdom to the frightful number of fifty thousand.
+It was the object of the Committee of Public Safety to destroy all who
+opposed the spirit of the most violent revolutionary measures. Marat
+declared that two hundred and sixty thousand heads must fall before
+freedom was secure; the revolutionary committees discovered that seven
+hundred thousand persons must be sacrificed."
+
+[Sidenote: Reign of Terror.]
+
+Then commenced the Reign of Terror, when all the prisons of France
+were filled with victims, who were generally the most worthy people in
+the community, and whose only crime was in being obnoxious to the
+reigning powers. Those who were suspected fled, if possible, but were
+generally unable to carry away their property. Millions of property
+was confiscated; the prisons were crowded with the rich, the elegant,
+and the cultivated classes; thousands were guillotined; and universal
+anarchy and fear reigned without a parallel. Deputies, even those who
+had been most instrumental in bringing on the Revolution, were
+sacrificed by the triumphant Jacobins. Women and retired citizens were
+not permitted to escape their fear and vengeance. Marie Antoinette,
+and the Princess Elizabeth, and Madame Roland, were among the first
+victims. Then followed the executions of Bailly, Mayor of Paris;
+Barnave, one of the most eloquent and upright members of the
+Constituent Assembly; Dupont Dutertre, one of the ministers of
+Louis XVI.; Lavoisier, the chemist; Condorcet, the philosopher;
+General Custine; and General Houchard; all of whom had been the allies
+of the present dominant party. The Duke of Orleans, called _Égalité_,
+who had supported the revolt of the 10th of August, and had voted for
+the execution of the king, shared the fate of Louis XVI. He was the
+father of Louis Philippe, and, of all the victims of the revolution,
+died the least lamented.
+
+The "Decemvirs" had now destroyed the most illustrious advocates of
+constitutional monarchy and of republican liberty. The slaughter of
+their old friends now followed. The first victim was Danton himself,
+who had used his influence to put a stop to the bloody executions
+which then disgraced the country, and had recognized the existence of
+a God and the rights of humanity. For such sentiments he was denounced
+and executed, together with Camille Desmoulins, and Lacroix, who
+perished because they were less wicked than their associates. Finally,
+the anarchists themselves fell before the storm which they had raised,
+and Hebert, Gobet, Clootz, and Vincent died amid the shouts of general
+execration. The Committee of Public Safety had now all things in their
+own way, and, in their iron hands, order resumed its sway from the
+influence of terror. "The history of the world has no parallel to the
+horrors of that long night of suffering, because it has no parallel to
+the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed so hideous a form,
+because licentiousness never required so severe a punishment."
+
+The Committee of Public Safety, now confident of its strength, decreed
+the disbanding of the revolutionary army, raised to overawe the
+capital, and the dissolution of all the popular societies which did
+not depend on the Jacobin Club, and devoted all their energies to
+establish their power. But death was the means which they took to
+secure it, and two hundred thousand victims filled the prisons of
+France.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Robespierre.]
+
+At last, fear united the members of the Convention, and they resolved
+to free the country of the great tyrant who aimed at the suppression
+of all power but his own. "Do not flatter yourselves," said Tallien to
+the Girondists, "that he will spare you, for you have committed an
+unpardonable offence in being freemen." "Do you still live?" said he
+to the Jacobins; "in a few days, he will have your heads if you do not
+take his." All parties in the assembly resolved to overthrow their
+common enemy. Robespierre, the chief actor of the bloody tragedy,
+Dumas, the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Henriot, the
+commander of the National Guard, Couthon and St. Just, the tools of
+the tyrant, were denounced, condemned, and executed. The last hours of
+Robespierre were horrible beyond description. When he was led to
+execution, the blood flowed from his broken jaw, his face was deadly
+pale, and he uttered yells of agony, which filled all hearts with
+terror. But one woman, nevertheless, penetrated the crowd which
+surrounded him, exclaiming, "Murderer of my kindred! your agony fills
+me with joy; descend to hell, covered with the curses of every mother
+in France."
+
+Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, during which, nearly nineteen
+thousand persons were guillotined; and among these were over two
+thousand nobles and one thousand priests, besides immense numbers of
+other persons, by war or the axe, in other parts of France.
+
+But vigorous measures had been adopted to carry on the war against
+united Christendom. No less than two hundred and eighty thousand men
+were in the field, on the part of the allies, from Basle to Dunkirk.
+Toulon and Lyons had raised the standard of revolt, Mayence gave the
+invaders a passage into the heart of the kingdom, while sixty thousand
+insurgents in La Vendée threatened to encamp under the walls of Paris.
+But under the exertions of the Committee, and especially of Carnot,
+the minister of war, still greater numbers were placed under arms,
+France was turned into an immense workshop of military preparations,
+and the whole property of the state, by means of confiscations and
+assignats, put at the disposal of the government. The immense debts of
+the government were paid in paper money, while conscription filled the
+ranks with all the youth of the state. Added to all this force which
+the government had at its disposal, it must be remembered that the
+army was burning with enthusiastic dreams of liberty, and of
+patriotism, and of glory. No wonder that such a nation of soldiers and
+enthusiasts should have been able to resist the armies of united
+Christendom.
+
+[Sidenote: New Constitution.]
+
+On the death of Robespierre, (July, 1794,) a great reaction succeeded
+the Reign of Terror. His old associates and tools were executed or
+transported, the club of the Jacobins was closed, the Revolutionary
+Tribunals were suppressed, the rebellious faubourgs were subdued, the
+National Guard was reorganized, and a new constitution was formed.
+
+[Sidenote: The Directory.]
+
+The constitution of 1798, framed under different influences,
+established the legislative power among two councils,--that of the
+_Five Hundred_, and that of the _Ancients_. The former was intrusted
+with the power of originating laws; the latter had the power to reject
+or pass them. The executive power was intrusted to five persons,
+called _Directors_, who were nominated by the Council of Five Hundred,
+and approved by that of the Ancients. Each individual was to be
+president by rotation during three months, and a new director was to
+be chosen every year. The Directory had the entire disposal of the
+army, the finances, the appointment of public functionaries, and the
+management of public negotiations.
+
+But there were found powerful enemies to the new constitution. Paris
+was again agitated. The National Guard took part with the disaffected,
+and the Convention, threatened and perplexed, summoned to its aid a
+body of five thousand regular troops. The National Guard mustered in
+great strength, to the number of thirty thousand men, and resolved to
+overawe the Convention, which was likened to the Long Parliament in
+the times of Cromwell. The Convention intrusted Barras with its
+defence, and he demanded, as his second in command, a young officer of
+artillery who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon. By his
+advice, a powerful train of artillery was brought to Paris by a
+lieutenant called _Murat_. On the 4th of October, 1795, the whole
+neighborhood of the Tuileries resembled an intrenched camp. The
+commander of the Convention then waited the attack of the insurgents,
+and the action soon commenced. Thirty thousand men surrounded the
+little army of six thousand, who defended the Convention and the cause
+of order and law. Victory inclined to the regular troops, who had the
+assistance of artillery, and, above all, who were animated by the
+spirit of their intrepid leader--_Napoleon Bonaparte_. The insurgents
+were not a rabble, but the flower of French citizens; but they were
+forced to yield to superior military skill, and the reign of the
+military commenced.
+
+Thus closed what is technically called the French Revolution; the most
+awful political hurricane in the annals of modern civilized nations.
+It closed, nominally, with the accession of the Directory to power,
+but really with the accession of Napoleon; for, shortly after, his
+victories filled the eyes of the French nation, and astonished the
+whole world.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections.]
+
+It is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revolution,
+since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form healthy
+judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some of the actors
+every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. But
+unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men who excite
+our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might have been
+respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an honorable name to
+his death, as an upright judge. But the French mind was deranged. New
+ideas had turned the brains of enthusiasts. The triumph of the
+abstract principles of justice seemed more desirable than the
+preservation of human life. The sense of injury and wrong was too
+vivid to allow heated partisans to make allowances for the common
+infirmities of man. The enthusiasts in liberty could not see in
+Louis XVI. any thing but the emblem of tyranny in the worst form. They
+fancied that they could regenerate society by their gospel of social
+rights, and they overvalued the virtues of the people. But, above all,
+they over-estimated themselves, and placed too light a value on the
+imperishable principles of revealed religion; a religion which enjoins
+patience and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and
+progress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, and
+however marked the providence of God in overruling them for the
+ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men behold in the
+Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in humiliating a
+proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and oppressive nobility
+for the evils they had inflicted on society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Alison's History of the French Revolution,
+     marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and
+     inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and
+     profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes
+     different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the
+     most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of
+     his affected and abominable style. Lamartine's History of
+     the Girondists is sentimental, but pleasing and instructive.
+     Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacretelle's Histoire
+     de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and
+     Robespierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and
+     Danton are extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be
+     read by all who wish to have the most vivid conception of
+     the horrors of the awful event which he deprecated. The
+     Annual Register should be consulted. For a general list of
+     authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index
+     of writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too
+     numerous to be mentioned here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon Bonaparte.]
+
+Mr. Alison has found it necessary to devote ten large octavo volumes
+to the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte; nor can the varied events
+connected with his brilliant career be satisfactorily described in
+fewer volumes. The limits of this work will not, however, permit a
+notice extending beyond a few pages. Who, then, even among those for
+whom this History is especially designed, will be satisfied with our
+brief review? But only a brief allusion to very great events can be
+made; for it is preposterous to attempt to condense the life of the
+greatest actor on the stage of real tragedy in a single chapter. And
+yet there is a uniformity in nearly all of the scenes in which he
+appears. The history of war is ever the same--the exhibition of
+excited passions, of restless ambition, of dazzling spectacles of
+strife, pomp, and glory. Pillage, oppression, misery, crime, despair,
+ruin, and death--such are the evils necessarily attendant on all war,
+even glorious war, when men fight for their homes, for their altars,
+or for great ideas. The details of war are exciting, but painful. We
+are most powerfully reminded of our degeneracy, of our misfortunes, of
+the Great Destroyer. The "Angel Death" appears before us, in grim
+terrors, punishing men for crimes. But while war is so awful, and
+attended with all the evils of which we can conceive, or which it is
+the doom of man to suffer, yet warriors are not necessarily the
+enemies of mankind. They are the instruments of the Almighty to
+scourge a wicked world, or to bring, out of disaster and suffering,
+great and permanent blessings to the human race.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon is contemplated by historians in both those lights. The
+English look upon him, generally, as an ambitious usurper, who aimed
+to erect a universal empire upon universal ruin; as an Alexander, a
+Cæsar, an Attila, a Charles XII. The French nation regard him almost
+as a deity, as a messenger of good, as a great conqueror, who fought
+for light and freedom. But he was not the worst or the best of
+warriors. His extraordinary and astonishing energies were called into
+exercise by the circumstances of the times; and he, taking advantage
+of both ideas and circumstances, attempted to rear a majestic throne,
+and advance the glory of the country, of which he made himself the
+absolute ruler. His nature was not sanguinary, or cruel, or
+revengeful; but few conquerors have ever committed crimes on a greater
+scale, or were more unscrupulous in using any means, lawful or
+unlawful, to accomplish a great end. Napoleon had enlightened views,
+and wished to advance the real interests of the French nation, but not
+until he had climbed to the summit of power, and realized all those
+dreams which a most inordinate ambition had excited. He doubtless
+rescued his country from the dangers which menaced it from foreign
+invasion; but his conquests and his designs led to still greater
+combinations, and these, demanding for their support the united
+energies of Christendom, deluged the world with blood. Napoleon, to an
+extraordinary degree, realized the objects to which he had aspired;
+but these were not long enjoyed, and he was hurled from his throne of
+grandeur and of victory, to impress the world, which he mocked and
+despised, of the vanity of military glory and the dear-earned trophies
+of the battle field. No man was ever permitted by Providence to
+accomplish so much mischief, and yet never mortal had more admirers
+than he, and never were the opinions of the wise more divided in
+regard to the effects of his wars. A painful and sad recital may be
+made of the desolations he caused, so that Alaric, in comparison,
+would seem but a common robber, while, at the same time, a glorious
+eulogium might be justly made of the many benefits he conferred upon
+mankind. The good and the evil are ever combined in all great
+characters; but the evil and the good are combined in him in such vast
+proportions, that he seems either a monster of iniquity, or an object
+of endless admiration. There are some characters which the eye of the
+mind can survey at once, as the natural eye can take in the
+proportions of a small but singular edifice; but Napoleon was a genius
+and an actor of such wonderful greatness and majesty, both from his
+natural talents and the great events which he controlled, that he
+rises before us, when we contemplate him, like some vast pyramid or
+some majestic cathedral, which the eye can survey only in details. Our
+age is not sufficiently removed from the times in which he lived, we
+are too near the object of vision, to pronounce upon the general
+effect of his character, and only prejudiced or vain persons would
+attempt to do so. He must remain for generations simply an object of
+awe, of wonder, of dread, of admiration, of hatred, or of love.
+
+Nor can we condense the events of his life any more than we can
+analyze his character and motives. We do not yet know their relative
+importance. In the progress of ages, some of them will stand out more
+beautiful and more remarkable, and some will be entirely lost sight
+of. Thousands of books will waste away as completely as if they were
+burned, like the Alexandrian library; and a future age may know no
+more of the details of Napoleon's battles than we now know of
+Alexander's marches. But the main facts can never be lost; something
+will remain, enough to "point a moral or adorn a tale." The object of
+all historical knowledge is moral wisdom, and this we may learn from
+narratives as brief as the stories of Joseph and Daniel, or the
+accounts which Tacitus has left us of the lives of the Roman tyrants.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Days of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, the 15th of August, 1769, of
+respectable parents, and was early sent to a royal military school at
+Brienne. He was not distinguished for any attainments, except in
+mathematics; he was studious, reserved, and cold; he also exhibited an
+inflexible will, the great distinguishing quality of his mind. At the
+age of fourteen, in view of superior attainments, he was removed to
+the military school at Paris, and, at the age of seventeen, received
+his commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Services to the Republic.]
+
+When the Revolution broke out, Toulon, one of the arsenals of France,
+took a more decided part in favor of the king and the constitution
+than either Marseilles or Lyons, and invited the support of the
+English and Spanish squadrons. The Committee of Public Safety
+resolved to subdue the city; and Bonaparte, even at that time a
+brigadier-general, with the command of the artillery at the siege,
+recommended a course which led to the capture of that important place.
+
+For his distinguished services and talents, he was appointed second in
+command, by the National Convention, when that body was threatened and
+overawed by the rebellious National Guard. He saved the state and
+defended the constitutional authorities, for which service he was
+appointed second in command of the great army of the interior, and
+then general-in-chief in the place of Barras, who found his new office
+as director incompatible with the duties of a general.
+
+The other directors who now enjoyed the supreme command were Reubel,
+Laréveillère-Lépeaux, Le Tourneur, and Carnot. Sièyes, a man of great
+genius, had been elected, but had declined. Among these five men,
+Carnot was the only man of genius, and it was through his exertions
+that France, under the Committee of Public Safety, had been saved from
+the torrent of invasion. But Barras, though inferior to Carnot in
+genius, had even greater influence, and it was through his favor that
+Bonaparte received his appointments. That a young man of twenty-five
+should have the command of the army of the interior, is as remarkable
+as the victories which subsequently showed that his elevation was not
+the work of chance, but of a providential hand.
+
+The acknowledged favorite of Barras was a young widow, by birth a
+Creole of the West Indies, whose husband, a general in the army of the
+Rhine, had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Her name was
+Josephine Beauharnois; and, as a woman of sense, of warm affections,
+and of rare accomplishments, she won the heart of Bonaparte, and was
+married to him, March 9, 1796. Her dowry was the command of the army
+of Italy, which, through her influence, the young general received.
+
+Then commenced his brilliant military career. United with Josephine,
+whom he loved, he rose in rank and power.
+
+The army which Bonaparte commanded was composed of forty-two thousand
+men, while the forces of the Italian states numbered one hundred and
+sixty thousand, and could with ease be increased to three hundred
+thousand. But Italian soldiers had never been able to contend with
+either Austrian or French, and Bonaparte felt sure of victory. His
+soldiers were young men, inured to danger and toil; and among his
+officers were Berthier, Massena, Marmont, Augereau, Serrurier,
+Joubert, Lannes, and Murat. They were not then all generals, but they
+became afterwards marshals of France.
+
+[Sidenote: The Italian Campaign.]
+
+The campaign of 1796, in Italy, was successful beyond precedent in the
+history of war; and the battles of Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego,
+the passage of the bridge of Lodi, the siege of Mantua, and the
+victories at Castiglione, Caldiero, Arcola, Rivoli, and Mantua,
+extended the fame of Bonaparte throughout the world. The Austrian
+armies were every where defeated, and Italy was subjected to the rule
+of the French. "With the French invasion commenced tyranny under the
+name of liberty, rapine under the name of generosity, the stripping of
+churches, the robbing of hospitals, the levelling of the palaces of
+the great, and the destruction of the cottages of the poor; all that
+military license has of most terrible, all that despotic authority has
+of most oppressive."
+
+While Bonaparte was subduing Italy, the French under Moreau were
+contending, on the Rhine, with the Austrians under the Archduke
+Charles. Several great battles were fought, and masterly retreats were
+made, but without decisive results.
+
+It is surprising that England, France, and the other contending
+powers, were able at this time to commence the contest, much more so
+to continue it for more than twenty years. The French Directory, on
+its accession to power, found the finances in a state of inextricable
+confusion. Assignats had fallen to almost nothing, and taxes were
+collected with such difficulty, that there were arrears to the amount
+of fifteen hundred millions of francs. The armies were destitute and
+ill paid, the artillery without horses, and the infantry depressed by
+suffering and defeat. In England, the government of Pitt was violently
+assailed for carrying on a war against a country which sought simply
+to revolutionize her own institutions, and which all the armies of
+Europe had thus far failed to subdue. Mr. Fox, and others in the
+opposition, urged the folly of continuing a contest which had already
+added one hundred millions of pounds to the national debt, and at a
+time when French armies were preparing to invade Italy; but Pitt
+argued that the French must be nearly exhausted by their great
+exertions, and would soon be unable to continue the warfare. The
+nation, generally, took this latter view of the case, and parliament
+voted immense supplies.
+
+The year 1797 opened gloomily for England. The French had gained
+immense successes. Bonaparte had subdued Italy, Hoche had suppressed
+the rebellion in La Vendée, Austria was preparing to defend her last
+barriers in the passes of the Alps, Holland was virtually incorporated
+with Republican France, Spain had also joined its forces, and the
+whole continent was arrayed against Great Britain. England had
+interfered in a contest in which she was not concerned, and was forced
+to reap the penalty. The funds fell from ninety-eight to fifty-one,
+and petitions for a change of ministers were sent to the king from
+almost every city of note in the kingdom. The Bank of England stopped
+payment in specie, and the country was overburdened by taxation.
+Nevertheless, parliament voted new supplies, and made immense
+preparations, especially for the increase of the navy. One hundred and
+twenty-four ships of the line, one hundred and eighty frigates, and
+one hundred and eighty-four sloops, were put in commission, and sent
+to the various quarters of the globe.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of St. Vincent.]
+
+Soon after occurred the memorable mutiny in the English fleet, which
+produced the utmost alarm; but it was finally suppressed by the
+vigorous measures which the government adopted, and the happy union of
+firmness and humanity, justice and concession which Mr. Pitt
+exercised. The mutiny was entirely disconnected with France, and
+resulted from the real grievances which existed in the navy;
+grievances which, to the glory of Pitt, were candidly considered and
+promptly redressed. The temporary disgrace which resulted to the navy
+by this mutiny was soon, however, wiped away by the battle of Cape St.
+Vincent, in which Admiral Jervis, seconded by Nelson and Collingwood,
+with fifteen ships of the line and six frigates, defeated a Spanish
+fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line and twelve frigates. This
+important naval victory delivered England from all fears of invasion,
+and inspired courage into the hearts of the nation, groaning under the
+heavy taxes which the war increased. Before the season closed, the
+Dutch fleet, of fifteen ships of the line and eleven frigates, was
+defeated by an English one, under Admiral Duncan, consisting of
+sixteen ships of the line and three frigates. The battles of
+Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent, in which the genius of Duncan and
+Nelson were signally exhibited, were among the most important fought
+at sea during the war, and diffused unexampled joy throughout Great
+Britain. The victors were all rewarded. Jervis became Earl St.
+Vincent, Admiral Duncan became a viscount, and Commodore Nelson became
+a baronet. Soon after the bonfires and illuminations for these
+victories were ended, Mr. Burke died urging, as his end approached,
+the ministry to persevere in the great struggle to which the nation
+was committed.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of Venice by Napoleon.]
+
+While the English were victorious on the water, the French obtained
+new triumphs on the land. In twenty days after the opening of the
+campaign of 1797, Bonaparte had driven the Archduke Charles, with an
+army equal to his own, over the Julian Alps, and occupied Carniola,
+Carinthia, Trieste, Fiume, and the Italian Tyrol, while a force of
+forty-five thousand men, flushed with victory, was on the northern
+declivity of the Alps, within fifty leagues of Vienna. In the midst of
+these successes, an insurrection broke out in the Venetian
+territories; and, as Bonaparte was not supported, as he expected, by
+the Armies of the Rhine, and partly in consequence of the jealousy of
+the Directory, he resolved to forego all thoughts of dictating peace
+under the walls of Vienna, and contented himself with making as
+advantageous terms as possible with the Austrian government. Bonaparte
+accomplished his object, and directed his attention to the subjugation
+of Venice, no longer the "Queen of the Adriatic, throned on her
+hundred isles," but degenerate, weakened, and divided. Bonaparte
+acted, in his treaty with Austria, with great injustice to Venice, and
+also encouraged the insurrection of the people in her territories. And
+when the Venetian government attempted to suppress rebellion in its
+own provinces, Bonaparte affected great indignation, and soon found
+means to break off all negotiations. The Venetian senate made every
+effort to avert the storm, but in vain. Bonaparte declared war against
+Venice, and her fall soon after resulted. The French seized all the
+treasure they could find, and obliged the ruined capital to furnish
+heavy contributions, and surrender its choicest works of art. Soon
+after, the youthful conqueror established himself in the beautiful
+chateau of Montebello near Milan, and there dictated peace to the
+assembled ambassadors of Germany, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples,
+Piedmont, and the Swiss republic. The treaty of Campo Formio exhibited
+both the strength and the perfidy of Bonaparte, especially in
+reference to Venice, which was disgracefully despoiled to pay the
+expenses of the Italian wars. Among other things, the splendid bronze
+horses, which, for six hundred years, had stood over the portico of
+the church of St. Mark, to commemorate the capture of Constantinople
+by the Venetian crusaders, and which had originally been brought from
+Corinth to Rome by ancient conquerors, were removed to Paris to
+decorate the Tuileries.
+
+Bonaparte's journey from Italy to Paris, after Venice, with its
+beautiful provinces, was surrendered to Austria, was a triumphal
+procession. The enthusiasm of the Parisians was boundless; the public
+curiosity to see him indescribable. But he lived in a quiet manner,
+and assumed the dress of a member of the Institute, being lately
+elected. Great _fêtes_ were given to his honor, and his victories were
+magnified.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Egypt.]
+
+But he was not content with repose or adulation. His ambitious soul
+panted for new conquests, and he conceived the scheme of his Egyptian
+invasion, veiled indeed from the eyes of the world by a pretended
+attack on England herself. He was invested, with great pomp, by the
+Directory, with the command of the army of England, but easily induced
+the government to sanction the invasion of Egypt. It is not probable
+that Bonaparte seriously contemplated the conquest of England, knowing
+the difficulty of supporting and recruiting his army, even if he
+succeeded in landing his forces. He probably designed to divert the
+attention of the English from his projected enterprise.
+
+When all was ready, Bonaparte (9th May) embarked at Toulon in a fleet
+of thirteen ships of the line, fourteen frigates, seventy-two brigs,
+and four hundred transports, containing thirty-six thousand soldiers
+and ten thousand sailors. He was joined by reinforcements at Genoa,
+Ajaccio, Civita Castellana, and on the 10th of June arrived at Malta,
+which capitulated without firing a shot; proceeded on his voyage,
+succeeded in escaping the squadron of Nelson, and on the 1st of July
+reached Alexandria. He was vigorously opposed by the Mamelukes, who
+were the actual rulers of the country, but advanced in spite of them
+to Cairo, and marched along the banks of the Nile. Near the Pyramids,
+a great battle took place, and the Mamelukes were signally defeated,
+and the fate of Egypt was sealed.
+
+[Sidenote: Siege of Acre.]
+
+But Nelson got intelligence of Bonaparte's movements, and resolved to
+"gain a peerage, or a grave in Westminster Abbey." Then succeeded the
+battle of the Nile, and the victory of Nelson, one of the most
+brilliant but bloody actions in the history of naval warfare. Nelson
+was wounded, but gained a peerage and magnificent presents. The battle
+was a mortal stroke to the French army, and made the conquest of Egypt
+useless. Bonaparte found his army exiled, and himself destined to
+hopeless struggles with Oriental powers. But he made gigantic efforts,
+in order to secure the means of support, to prosecute scientific
+researches, and to complete the conquest of the country. He crossed
+the desert which separates Africa from Asia, with his army, which did
+not exceed sixteen thousand men, invaded Syria, stormed Jaffa,
+massacred its garrison, since he could not afford to support the
+prisoners,--a most barbarous measure, and not to be excused even in
+view of the policy of the act,--and then advanced to Acre. Its
+memorable siege in the time of the Crusades should have deterred
+Bonaparte from the attempt to subdue it with his little army in the
+midst of a hostile population. But he made the attack. The fortress,
+succored by Sir Sidney Smith, successfully resisted the impetuosity of
+his troops, and they were compelled to retire with the loss of three
+thousand men. His discomfited army retreated to Egypt, and suffered
+all the accumulated miseries which fatigue, heat, thirst, plague, and
+famine could inflict. He, however, amidst all these calamities, added
+to discontents among the troops, won the great battle of Aboukir, and
+immediately after, leaving the army under the command of Kleber,
+returned to Alexandria, and secretly set sail for France, accompanied
+by Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Marmont, and other generals. He succeeded
+in escaping the English cruisers, and, on the 8th of October, 1799,
+landed in France.
+
+Bonaparte, had he not been arrested at Acre by Sir Sidney Smith,
+probably would have conquered Asia Minor, and established an Oriental
+empire; but such a conquest would not have been permanent. More
+brilliant victories were in reserve for him than conquering troops of
+half-civilized Turks and Arabs.
+
+During the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, the French Directory became
+unpopular, and the national finances more embarrassed than ever. But
+Switzerland was invaded and conquered--an outrage which showed the
+ambitious designs of the government more than any previous attack
+which it had made on the liberties of Europe. The Papal States were
+next seized, the venerable pontiff was subjected to cruel indignities,
+and the treasures and monuments of Rome were again despoiled. "The
+Vatican was stripped to its naked walls, and the immortal frescoes of
+Raphael and Michael Angelo alone remained in solitary beauty amidst
+the general desolation." The King of Sardinia was driven from his
+dominions, and Naples yielded to the tricolored flag. Immense military
+contributions were levied in all these unfortunate states, and all
+that was beautiful in art was transported to Paris.
+
+[Sidenote: Reverses of the French.]
+
+In the mean time, the spirits of the English were revived by the
+victories of Nelson, and greater preparations than ever were made to
+resist the general, who now plainly aimed at the conquest of Europe.
+England, Austria, and Russia combined against France and her armies
+met with reverses in Italy and on the Rhine. Suwarrow, with a large
+army of Russians united with Austrians gained considerable success,
+and General Moreau was obliged to retreat before him. Serrurier
+surrendered with seven thousand men, and Suwarrow entered Milan in
+triumph, with sixty thousand troops. Turin shared the fate of Milan,
+and Piedmont and Lombardy were overrun by the allies. The republicans
+were expelled from Naples. Mantua fell, and Suwarrow marched with his
+conquering legions into Switzerland.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon First Consul.]
+
+These disasters happened while Bonaparte was in Egypt; and his return
+to France was hailed with universal joy. His victories in Egypt had
+prepared the way for a most enthusiastic reception, and for his
+assumption of the sovereign power. All the generals then in Paris paid
+their court to him, and his saloon, in his humble dwelling in the Rue
+Chantereine, resembled the court of a monarch. Lannes, Murat,
+Berthier, Jourdan, Augereau, Macdonald, Bournonville, Leclerc,
+Lefebvre, and Marmont, afterwards so illustrious as the marshals of
+the emperor, offered him the military dictatorship, while Sièyes,
+Talleyrand, and Régnier, the great civil leaders, concurred to place
+him at the head of affairs. He himself withdrew from the gaze of the
+people, affected great simplicity, and associated chiefly with men
+distinguished for literary and scientific attainments. But he secretly
+intrigued with Sièyes and with his generals. Three of the Directory
+sent in their resignations, and Napoleon assumed the reins of
+government under the title of _First Consul_, and was associated with
+Sièyes and Roger Ducos. The legislative branches of the government
+resisted, but the Council of Five Hundred was powerless before the
+bayonets of the military. A new revolution was effected, and despotic
+power in the hands of a military chieftain commenced. He, however,
+signalized himself by the clemency he showed in the moment of victory,
+and the principles of humanity, even in the government of a military
+despot, triumphed over the principles of cruelty. Bonaparte chose able
+men to assist him in the government. Talleyrand was made minister of
+foreign affairs. Fouché retained his portfolio of police, and the
+celebrated La Place was made minister of the interior. On the 24th of
+December, 1799, the new constitution was proclaimed; and, shortly
+after, Sièyes and Roger Ducos withdrew from the consulate, and gave
+place to Cambacères and Lebrun, who were in the interests of Napoleon.
+
+The first step of the first consul was to offer peace to Great
+Britain; and he wrote a letter to the king, couched in his peculiar
+style of mock philanthropy and benevolence, in which he spoke of peace
+as the first necessity and truest glory of nations! Lord Grenville,
+minister of foreign affairs, replied in a long letter, in which he
+laid upon France the blame of the war, in consequence of her
+revolutionary principles and aggressive spirit, and refused to make
+peace while the causes of difficulty remained; in other words, until
+the Bourbon dynasty was restored. The Commons supported the government
+by a large majority, and all parties prepared for a still more
+desperate conflict. Napoleon was obliged to fight, and probably
+desired to fight, feeling that his power and the greatness of his
+country would depend upon the victories he might gain; that so long as
+the _éclat_ of his government continued, his government would be
+strong. Mr. Pitt was probably right in his opinion that no peace could
+be lasting with a revolutionary power, and that every successive peace
+would only pave the way for fresh aggressions. Bonaparte could only
+fulfil what he called his destiny, by continual agitation; and this
+was well understood by himself and by his enemies. The contest had
+become one of life and death; and both parties resolved that no peace
+should be made until one or the other was effectually conquered The
+land forces of Great Britain, at the commencement of the year 1800,
+amounted to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand men, exclusive of
+eighty thousand militia, while one hundred and twenty thousand seamen
+and marines were voted. The ships in commission were no less than five
+hundred, including one hundred and twenty-four of the line. The
+charter of the Bank of England was renewed, and the union with Ireland
+effected. The various German states made still greater exertions, and
+agreed to raise a contingent force of three hundred thousand men. They
+were greatly assisted in this measure by subsidies from Great Britain.
+Austria, alone, had in the field at this time a force of two hundred
+thousand men, half of whom belonged to the army of Italy under Melas.
+
+[Sidenote: Immense Military Preparations.]
+
+To make head against the united forces of England and Austria, with a
+defeated army, an exhausted treasury, and a disunited people, was the
+difficult task of Bonaparte. His first object was to improve the
+finances; his second, to tranquillize La Vendée; his third, to detach
+Russia from the allies; his fourth, to raise armies equal to the
+crisis; and all these measures he rapidly accomplished. One hundred
+and twenty thousand men were raised by conscription, without any
+exemption from either rank or fortune, and two hundred and fifty
+thousand men were ready to commence hostilities. The first consul
+suppressed the liberty of the press, fixed his residence in the
+Tuileries, and established the usages and ceremonial of a court. He
+revoked the sentence of banishment on illustrious individuals,
+established a secret police, and constructed the gallery of the
+Louvre.
+
+Hostilities commenced in Germany, and General Moreau was successful
+over General Kray at the battles of Engen, Moeskirch, and Biberach.
+General Massena fought with great courage in the Maritime Alps, but
+was obliged to retreat before superior forces, and shut himself up in
+Genoa, which endured a dreadful siege, but was finally compelled to
+surrender. The victor, Melas, then set out to meet Bonaparte himself,
+who was invading Italy, and had just effected his wonderful passage
+over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, one of the most wonderful
+feats in the annals of war; for his artillery and baggage had to be
+transported over one of the highest and most difficult passes of the
+Alps. The passes of the St. Gothard and Mount Cenis were also effected
+by the wings of the army. The first action was at Montebello, which
+ended in favor of the French; and this was soon followed by a decisive
+and brilliant victory at Marengo, (June 14,) one of the most
+obstinately contested during the war, and which was attended with
+greater results than perhaps any battle that had yet occurred in
+modern warfare. Moreau also gained a great victory over the Austrians
+at Hohenlinden, and Macdonald performed great exploits amid the
+mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The treaty of Lunéville, (February 9,
+1801,) in consequence of the victorious career of Bonaparte, ceded to
+France the possession of Belgium, and the whole left bank of the
+Rhine. Lombardy was erected into an independent state, Venice was
+restored to Austria, and the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic,
+Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics was guaranteed. This peace excited
+unbounded joy at Paris, and was the first considerable pause in the
+continental strife.
+
+[Sidenote: The Reforms of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon returned to his capital to reconstruct society, which was
+entirely disorganized. It was his object to restore the institutions
+of religion, law, commerce, and education. He did not attempt to give
+constitutional freedom. This was impracticable; but he did desire to
+bring order out of confusion. One night, going to the theatre, he
+narrowly escaped death by the explosion of an "infernal machine." He
+attributed the design of assassination to the Jacobins, and forthwith
+transported one hundred and thirty of them, more as a statesman than
+as a judge. He was determined to break up that obnoxious party, and
+the design against his life furnished the pretence. Shortly after, he
+instituted the Legion of Honor, an order of merit which was designed
+to restore gradually the gradation in the ranks of society. He was
+violently opposed, but he carried his measures through the Council of
+State; and this institution, which at length numbered two thousand
+persons, civil and military, became both popular and useful. He then
+restored the external institution of religion, and ten archbishops and
+fifty bishops administered the affairs of the Gallican Church. The
+restoration of the Sunday, with its customary observances, was hailed
+by the peasantry with undisguised delight, and was a pleasing sight to
+the nations of Europe. He then contemplated the complete restoration
+of all the unalienated national property to the original proprietors,
+but was forced to abandon the design. A general amnesty, was also
+proclaimed to emigrants, by which one hundred thousand people
+returned, not to enjoy their possessions, but to recover a part of
+them, and breathe the air of their native land. At last, he resolved
+to make himself first consul for life, and seat his family on a
+monarchical throne. He was opposed by the Council of State; but he
+appealed to the people, and three million three hundred and
+sixty-eight thousand two hundred and nine, out of three million five
+hundred and fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-five
+electors, voted for his elevation.
+
+[Sidenote: The Code Napoléon.]
+
+The "_Code Napoléon_" then occupied his attention, indisputably the
+greatest monument of his reign, and the most beneficial event of his
+age. All classes and parties have praised the wisdom of this great
+compilation, which produced more salutary changes than had been
+effected by all the early revolutionists. Amid these great
+undertakings of the consul, the internal prosperity of France was
+constantly increasing, and education, art, and science received an
+immense impulse. Every thing seemed to smile upon Bonaparte, and all
+appeared reconciled to the great power which he exercised.
+
+But there were some of his generals who were attached to republican
+principles, and viewed with ill-suppressed jealousy the rapid strides
+he was making to imperial power. Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden,
+was at the head of these, and, in conjunction with Fouché, who had
+been turned out of his office on account of the immense power which it
+gave him, formed a conspiracy of republicans and royalists to overturn
+the consular throne. But Fouché revealed the plot to Bonaparte, who
+restored him to power, and Generals Moreau and Pichegru, the Duke
+d'Enghien, and other illustrious persons were arrested. The duke
+himself was innocent of the conspiracy, but was sacrificed to the
+jealousy of Bonaparte, who wished to remove from the eyes of the
+people this illustrious scion of the Bourbon family, the only member
+of it he feared. This act was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable,
+and therefore, impolitic, which Bonaparte ever committed. "It was
+worse than a crime," said Talleyrand; "it was a blunder." His murder
+again lighted the flames of continental war, and from it may be dated
+the commencement of that train of events which ultimately hurled
+Napoleon from the imperial throne.
+
+That possession was what his heart now coveted, and he therefore
+seized what he desired, and what he had power to retain. On the 18th
+of May, 1804, Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French, and an
+overwhelming majority of the electoral votes of France confirmed him
+in his usurpation of the throne of Hugh Capet.
+
+His first step, as emperor, was the creation of eighteen marshals, all
+memorable in the annals of military glory--Berthier, Murat, Moncey,
+Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier,
+Ney, Davoust, Bessières, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Pérignon, and
+Serrurier. The individual lives of these military heroes cannot here
+be alluded to.
+
+Early in the year 1805, the great powers of England, Austria, and
+Russia entered into a coalition to reduce France to its ancient
+limits, and humble the despot who had usurped the throne. Enormous
+preparations were made by all the belligerent states, and four hundred
+thousand men were furnished by the allies for active service; a force
+not, however, much larger than Napoleon raised to prosecute his scheme
+of universal dominion.
+
+[Sidenote: Meditated Invasion of England.]
+
+Among other designs, he meditated the invasion of England itself, and
+assembled for that purpose one of the most splendid armies which had
+been collected since the days of the Roman legions. It amounted to one
+hundred and fourteen thousand men, four hundred and thirty-two pieces
+of cannon, and fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty-four horses.
+Ample transports were provided to convey this immense army to the
+shores of England. But the English government took corresponding means
+of defence, having fathomed the designs of the enemy, who had
+succeeded in securing the coöperation of Spain. This great design of
+Napoleon was defeated by the vigilance of the English, and the number
+of British ships which defended the coasts--the "wooden walls" which
+preserved England from a most imminent and dreaded danger.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Austerlitz.]
+
+Frustrated in the attempt to invade Great Britain, Napoleon instantly
+conceived the plan of the campaign of Austerlitz, and without delay
+gave orders for the march of his different armies to the banks of the
+Danube. The army of England on the shores of the Channel, the forces
+in Holland, and the troops in Hanover were formed into seven corps,
+under the command of as many marshals, comprising altogether one
+hundred and ninety thousand men, while the troops of his allies in
+Italy and Germany amounted to nearly seventy thousand more. Eighty
+thousand new conscripts were also raised, and all of these were
+designed for the approaching conflict with the Austrians.
+
+But before the different armies could meet together in Germany, Nelson
+had gained the great and ever-memorable victory of Trafalgar, (October
+23,) on the coast of Spain, by which the naval power of France and
+Spain was so crippled and weakened, that England remained, during the
+continuance of the war, sovereign mistress of the ocean. Nothing could
+exceed the transports of exultation which pervaded the British empire
+on the news of this great naval victory--perhaps the greatest in the
+annals of war. And all that national gratitude could prompt was done
+in honor of Nelson. The remains of the fallen victor were buried in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, over which a magnificent monument was erected.
+His brother, who inherited his title, was made an earl, with a grant
+of six thousand pounds a year, and an estate worth one hundred
+thousand pounds. Admiral Collingwood, the second in command, was
+raised to the peerage, with a grant of two thousand pounds yearly. But
+the thoughts of the nation were directed to the departed hero, and
+countless and weeping multitudes followed him to the grave; and his
+memory has ever since been consecrated in the hearts of his
+countrymen, who regard him, and with justice, as the greatest naval
+commander whom any nation or age has produced.
+
+Early in October, the forces of Napoleon were marshalled on the plains
+of Germany, and the Austrians, under the Archduke Charles, acted on
+the defensive. Napoleon advanced rapidly on Vienna, seized the bridge
+which led from it to the northern provinces of the empire, passed
+through the city, and established his head-quarters at Schoenbrunn. On
+the 1st of December was fought the celebrated battle of Austerlitz,
+the most glorious of all Napoleon's battles, and in which his military
+genius shone with the greatest lustre, and which decided the campaign.
+Negotiations with Austria, dictated by the irresistible power of the
+French emperor, were soon concluded at Presburg, (27th December,) by
+which that ancient state was completely humbled. The dethronement of
+the King of Naples followed, and the power of Napoleon was
+consolidated on the continent of Europe.
+
+The defeat of Austerlitz was a great blow to the allied powers, and
+the health and spirits of Pitt sunk under the disastrous intelligence.
+A devouring fever seized his brain, and delirium quenched the fire of
+his genius. He died on the 23d of January, 1806, at the age of
+forty-seven, with the exclamation, "Alas, my country!" after having
+nobly guided the British bark in the most stormy times his nation had
+witnessed since the age of Cromwell. He was buried with great pomp in
+Westminster Abbey, and died in debt, after having the control, for so
+many years, of the treasury of England. Mr. Fox did not long survive
+his more illustrious rival, but departed from the scene of conflict
+and of glory the 13th of September.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Jena.]
+
+The humiliation of Prussia succeeded that of Austria. The battle of
+Jena, the 14th of October, prostrated, in a single day, the strength
+of the Prussian monarchy, and did what the united armies of Austria,
+Russia, and France could not accomplish by the Seven Years' War.
+Napoleon followed up his victories by bold and decisive measures,
+invested Magdeburg, which was soon abandoned, entered Berlin in
+triumph, and levied enormous contributions on the kingdom, to the
+amount of one hundred and fifty-nine millions of francs. In less than
+seven weeks, three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces
+of cannon, and eighty thousand prisoners were taken; while only
+fifteen thousand, out of one hundred and twenty thousand men, were
+able to follow the standards of the conquered king to the banks of the
+Vistula. Alarm, as well as despondency, now seized all the nations of
+Europe. All the coalitions which had been made to suppress a
+revolutionary state had failed, and the proudest monarchs of
+Christendom were suppliant at the feet of Napoleon.
+
+The unfortunate Frederic William sued for peace; but such hard
+conditions were imposed by the haughty conqueror at Berlin, that the
+King of Prussia prepared for further resistance, especially in view of
+the fact that the Russians were coming to his assistance At Berlin,
+Napoleon issued his celebrated decrees against British commerce,
+which, however, flourished in spite of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon Aggrandizes France.]
+
+Napoleon then advanced into Poland to meet the Russian armies, and at
+Eylau, on the 8th of February, 1807, was fought a bloody battle, in
+which fifty thousand men perished. It was indecisive, but had the
+effect of checking the progress of the French armies. But Napoleon
+ordered new conscriptions, and made unusual exertions, so that he soon
+had two hundred and eighty thousand men between the Vistula and Memel.
+New successes attended the French armies, which resulted in a peace
+with Russia, at Tilsit, on the river Niemen, at which place Napoleon
+had a personal interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of
+Prussia. By this treaty, (7th July,) Poland was erected into a
+separate principality, and the general changes which Napoleon had made
+in Europe were ratified by the two monarchs. Soon after, Napoleon,
+having subdued resistance on the continent of Europe, returned to his
+capital. He was now at the height of his fame and power, but on an
+elevation so high that his head became giddy. Moreover, his elevation,
+at the expense of Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia,
+Saxony, and Russia, to say nothing of inferior powers, excited the
+envy and the hatred of all over whom he had triumphed, and prepared
+the way for new intrigues and coalitions.
+
+Napoleon after the peace of Tilsit, devoted all his energies to the
+preservation of his power and to the improvement of his country, and
+expected of his numerous subjects the most implicit obedience to his
+will. He looked upon himself as having received a commission from
+Heaven to rule and to reign as absolute monarch of a vast empire, as a
+being upon whom the fate of France depended. The watchwords "liberty,"
+"equality," "fraternity," "the public welfare," were heard no more,
+and gave place to others which equally flattered the feelings of the
+French people--"the interests of the empire," "the splendor of the
+imperial throne." From him emanated all glory and power, and the whole
+structure of the state, executive, judicial, and legislative, depended
+upon his will. Freedom, in the eyes of the people, was succeeded by
+glory, and the _éclat_ of victory was more highly prized than any
+fictitious liberty. The _Code Napoléon_ rapidly progressed; schools of
+science were improved; arts, manufactures, and agriculture revived.
+Great monuments were reared to gratify the national pride and
+perpetuate the glory of conquests. The dignity of the imperial throne
+was splendidly maintained, and the utmost duties of etiquette were
+observed. He encouraged amusements, festivities, and _fêtes_; and
+Talma, the actor, as well as artists and scholars, received his
+personal regard. But his reforms and his policy had reference chiefly
+to the conversion of France into a nation of soldiers; and his system
+of conscription secured him vast and disciplined armies, not animated,
+as were the soldiers of the revolution, by the spirit of liberty, but
+transformed into mechanical forces. The time was to come, in spite of
+the military enthusiasm of his veteran soldiers, when it was to be
+proved that the throne of absolutism is better sustained by love than
+by mechanism.
+
+[Sidenote: Aggrandizement of Napoleon's Family.]
+
+Napoleon had already elevated his two brothers, Louis and Joseph, to
+the thrones of Holland and Naples. He now sought to make his brother
+Joseph the King of Spain. He availed himself of a quarrel between King
+Charles and his son; acted as mediator, in the same sense that
+Hastings and Clive acted as mediators in the quarrels of Indian
+princes; and prepared to seize, not to humble, one of the oldest and
+proudest monarchies of Europe.
+
+The details of that long war on the Spanish peninsula, which resulted
+from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain, have
+been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best military history
+that has been written in modern times. The great hero of that war was
+Wellington; and, though he fought under the greatest disadvantages and
+against superior forces,--though unparalleled sufferings and miseries
+ensued among all the belligerent forces,--still he succeeded in
+turning the tide of French conquest.
+
+Spain did not fall without a struggle. The Spanish Juntas adopted all
+the means of defence in their power; and the immortal defence of
+Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, should have taught the imperial
+robber that the Spanish spirit, though degenerate, was not yet
+extinguished.
+
+It became almost the universal wish of the English to afford the
+Spaniards every possible assistance in their honorable struggle, and
+Sir Arthur Wellesley, the conqueror of the Mahrattas, landed in
+Portugal in August, 1808. He was immediately opposed by Marshal Junot.
+Napoleon could not be spared to defend in person the throne of his
+brother, but his most illustrious marshals were sent into the field;
+and, shortly after, the battle of Corunna was fought, at which Sir
+John Moore, one of the bravest of generals, was killed in the moment
+of victory.
+
+[Sidenote: The Peninsular War.]
+
+Long and disastrous was that Peninsular war. Before it could be
+closed, Napoleon was called to make new exertions. Austria had again
+declared war, and the forces which she raised were gigantic. Five
+hundred and fifty thousand men, in different armies, were put under
+the command of the Archduke Charles. Napoleon advanced against him,
+and was again successful, at Abensberg and at Eckmuhl. Again he
+occupied Vienna; but its fall did not discourage the Austrians, who,
+soon after, were marshalled against the French at Wagram, which
+dreadful battle made Napoleon once more the conqueror of Austria. On
+the 14th of November, 1809, he returned to Paris, and soon after made
+the grand mistake of his life.
+
+He resolved to divorce Josephine, whom he loved and respected; a woman
+fully worthy of his love, and of the exalted position to which she was
+raised. But she had no children, and Napoleon wanted an heir to the
+universal empire which he sought to erect on the ruins of the ancient
+monarchies of Europe. The dream of Charlemagne and of Charles V. was
+his, also--the revival of the great Western Empire. Moreover, Napoleon
+sought a domestic alliance with the proud family of the German
+emperor. He sought, by this, to gratify his pride and strengthen his
+throne. He perhaps also contemplated, with the Emperor of Austria for
+his father and ally, the easy conquest of Russia. Alexander so
+supposed. "His next task," said he, "will be to drive me back to my
+forests."
+
+The Empress Josephine heard of the intentions of Napoleon with
+indescribable anguish, but submitted to his will; thus sacrificing her
+happiness to what she was made to believe would advance the welfare of
+her country and the interests of that heartless conqueror whom she
+nevertheless loved with unparalleled devotion. On the 11th of March,
+1810, the espousals of Napoleon and Maria Louisa were celebrated at
+Vienna, the person of the former being represented by his favorite
+Berthier. A few days afterwards she set out for France; and her
+marriage, in a domestic point of view, was happy. Josephine had the
+advantage over her in art and grace, but she was superior in the
+charms of simplicity and modesty. "It is singular," says Sir Walter
+Scott, "that the artificial character should have belonged to the
+daughter of a West India planter; that, marked by nature and
+simplicity, to a princess of the proudest court in Europe."
+
+[Sidenote: War in Spain.]
+
+Meanwhile, the war in Spain was prosecuted, and Napoleon was master of
+its richest and most powerful provinces. Seventy-five thousand men in
+Andalusia, under Soult; fifty thousand under Marmont, in Leon; sixty
+thousand under Bessières, at Valladolid and Biscay; forty-five
+thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to guard Catalonia; thirty
+thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand under Joseph and Jourdan,
+fifteen thousand under Régnier, besides many more thousand troops in
+the various garrisons,--in all over three hundred thousand men,--held
+Spain in military subjection. Against these immense forces, marshalled
+under the greatest generals of France, Spain and her allies could
+oppose only about ninety thousand men, for the most part ill
+disciplined and equipped.
+
+The vital point of resistance was to be found shut up within the walls
+of Cadiz, which made a successful defence. But Tortosa, Tarragona,
+Saguntum, and Valentia, after making most desperate resistance, fell.
+But Wellington gained, on the other hand, the great battle of Albuera,
+one of the bloodiest ever fought, and which had a great effect in
+raising the spirits of his army and of the Spaniards. The tide of
+French conquest was arrested, and the English learned from their
+enemies those arts of war which had hitherto made Napoleon triumphant.
+
+In the next campaign of 1812, new successes were obtained by
+Wellington, and against almost overwhelming difficulties. He renewed
+the siege of Badajoz, and carried this frontier fortress, which
+enabled him now to act on the offensive, and to enter the Spanish
+territories. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo was attended with the same
+important consequences. Wellington now aimed to reduce the French
+force on the Peninsula, although vastly superior to his own. He had
+only sixty thousand men; but, with this force, he invaded Spain,
+defended by three hundred thousand. Salamanca was the first place of
+consequence which fell: Marmont was totally defeated. Wellington
+advanced to Madrid, which he entered the 12th of August, amid the
+enthusiastic shouts of the Spanish population. Soult was obliged to
+raise the siege of Cadiz, abandon Andalusia, and hasten to meet the
+great English general, who had turned the tide of French aggression.
+Wellington was compelled, of course, to retire before the immense
+forces which were marching against him, and fell back to Salamanca,
+and afterwards to Ciudad Rodrigo. The campaign, on the part of the
+English, is memorable in the annals of successful war, and the French
+power was effectually weakened, if it was not destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Russia.]
+
+In the midst of these successes, Napoleon prepared for his disastrous
+invasion of Russia; the most gigantic and most unfortunate expedition
+in the whole history of war.
+
+Napoleon was probably induced to invade Russia in order to keep up the
+succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance;
+that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter;
+that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new
+triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however,
+dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly
+aggressive and unnecessary, but because it was impolitic. Three
+hundred thousand men were fighting in Spain to establish his family on
+the throne of the Bourbons, and the rest of Europe was watching his
+course, with the intention of assailing him so soon as he should meet
+with misfortunes.
+
+But neither danger nor difficulty deterred Napoleon from the
+commission of a gigantic crime, for which no reasonable apology could
+be given, and which admits of no palliation. He made, however, a
+fearful mistake, and his rapid downfall was the result. Providence
+permitted him to humble the powers of Europe, but did not design that
+he should be permanently aggrandized by their misfortunes.
+
+The forces of all the countries he had subdued were marshalled with
+the French in this dreadful expedition, and nothing but enthusiasm was
+excited in all the dominions of the empire. The army of invasion
+amounted to above five hundred thousand men, only two hundred thousand
+of whom were native French. To oppose this enormous force, the
+Russians collected about three hundred thousand men; but Napoleon felt
+secure of victory.
+
+On the banks of the Niemen he reviewed the principal corps of his
+army, collected from so many countries, and for the support of which
+they were obliged to contribute. On the 24th of June, he and his hosts
+crossed the river; and never, probably, in the history of man, was
+exhibited a more splendid and imposing scene.
+
+The Russians retreated as the allied armies advanced; and, on the 28th
+of June, Napoleon was at Wilna, where he foolishly remained seventeen
+days--the greatest military blunder of his life. The Emperor Alexander
+hastened to Moscow, collected his armaments, and issued proclamations
+to his subjects, which excited them to the highest degree of
+enthusiasm to defend their altars and their firesides.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Smolensko.]
+
+Both armies approached Smolensko about the 16th of July, and there was
+fought the first great battle of the campaign. The town was taken, and
+the Russians retreated towards Moscow. But before this first conflict
+began, a considerable part of the army had perished from sickness and
+fatigue. At Borodino, another bloody battle was fought, in which more
+men were killed and wounded than in any battle which history records.
+Napoleon, in this battle, did not exhibit his usual sagacity or
+energy, being, perhaps, overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. His
+dispirited and broken army continued the march to Moscow, which was
+reached the 14th of September. The Sacred City of the Russians was
+abandoned by the army, and three hundred thousand of the inhabitants
+took to flight. Napoleon had scarcely entered the deserted capital,
+and taken quarters in the ancient palace of the czars, before the city
+was discovered to be on fire in several places; and even the Kremlin
+itself was soon enveloped in flames. Who could have believed that the
+Russians would have burnt their capital? Such an event surely never
+entered into a Frenchman's head. The consternation and horrors of that
+awful conflagration can never be described, or even conceived. Pillage
+and murder could scarcely add to the universal wretchedness.
+Execration, indignation, and vengeance filled the breasts of both the
+conquerors and the conquered. But who were the conquerors? Alas! those
+only, who witnessed the complicated miseries and awful destruction of
+the retreating army, have answered.
+
+[Sidenote: Retreat of the French.]
+
+The retreat was the saddest tragedy ever acted by man, but rendered
+inevitable after the burning of Moscow, for Napoleon could not have
+advanced to St. Petersburg. For some time, he lingered in the vicinity
+of Moscow, hoping for the submission of Russia. Alexander was too wise
+to treat for peace, and Napoleon and his diminished army, loaded,
+however, with the spoil of Moscow, commenced his retreat, in a hostile
+and desolate country, harassed by the increasing troops of the enemy.
+Soon, however, heavy frosts commenced, unusual even in Russia, and the
+roads were strewed by thousands who perished from fatigue and cold.
+The retreat became a rout; for order, amid general destruction and
+despair, could no longer be preserved. The Cossacks, too, hung upon
+the rear of the retreating army, and cut off thousands whom the
+elements had spared. In less than a week, thirty thousand horses died,
+and the famished troops preyed upon their remains. The efforts of
+Napoleon proved in vain to procure provisions for the men, or forage
+for the horses. Disasters thickened, and all abandoned themselves to
+despair. Of all the awful scenes which appalled the heart, the passage
+of the Beresina was the most dreadful. When the ice was dissolved in
+the following spring, twelve thousand dead bodies were found upon the
+shore. The shattered remnants of the Grand Army, after unparalleled
+suffering, at length reached the bank of the Niemen. Not more than
+twenty thousand of the vast host with which Napoleon passed Smolensko
+left the Russian territory. Their course might be traced by the bones
+which afterwards whitened the soil. But before the Polish territories
+were reached, Napoleon had deserted his army, and bore to Paris
+himself the first intelligence of his great disaster. One hundred and
+twenty-five thousand of his troops had died in battle, one hundred and
+ninety thousand had been taken prisoners, and one hundred and
+thirty-two thousand had died of cold, fatigue and famine. Only eighty
+thousand had escaped, of whom twenty-five thousand were Austrians and
+eighteen thousand were Prussians. The annals of the world furnish no
+example of so complete an overthrow of so vast an armament, or so
+terrible a retribution to a vain-glorious nation.
+
+This calamity proved the chief cause of Napoleon's overthrow. Had he
+retained his forces to fight on the defensive, he would have been too
+strong for his enemies; but, by his Russian campaign, he lost a great
+part of his veteran troops, and the veneration of his countrymen.
+
+His failure was immediately followed by the resurrection of Germany.
+Both Austria and Prussia threw off the ignominious yoke he had
+imposed, and united with Russia to secure their ancient liberties. The
+enthusiasm of the Prussians was unbounded, and immense preparations
+were made by all the allied powers for a new campaign. Napoleon
+exerted all the energies, which had ever distinguished him, to rally
+his exhausted countrymen, and a large numerical force was again
+raised. But the troops were chiefly conscripts, young men, unable to
+endure the fatigue which his former soldiers sustained, and no longer
+inspired with their sentiments and ideas.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen.]
+
+The campaign of 1813 was opened in Germany, signalized by the battles
+of Lutzen and Bautzen, in which the French had the advantage. Saxony
+still remained true to Napoleon, and he established his head-quarters
+in Dresden. The allies retreated, but only to prepare for more
+vigorous operations. England nobly assisted, and immense supplies were
+sent to the mouth of the Elbe, and distributed immediately through
+Germany. While these preparations were going on, the battle of
+Vittoria, in Spain, was fought, which gave a death blow to French
+power in the Peninsula, and placed Wellington in the front rank of
+generals. Napoleon was now more than ever compelled to act on the
+defensive, which does not suit the genius of the French character, and
+he resolved to make the Elbe the base of his defensive operations. His
+armies, along this line, amounted to the prodigious number of four
+hundred thousand men; and Dresden, the head-quarters of Napoleon,
+presented a scene of unparalleled gayety and splendor, of
+licentiousness, extravagance, and folly. But Napoleon was opposed by
+equally powerful forces, under Marshal Blucher, the Prussian general,
+a veteran seventy years of age, and Prince Schwartzenberg, who
+commanded the Austrians. But these immense armies composed not one
+half of the forces arrayed in desperate antagonism. Nine hundred
+thousand men in arms encircled the French empire, which was defended
+by seven hundred thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Leipsic.]
+
+The allied forces marched upon Dresden, and a dreadful battle was
+fought, on the 27th of August, beneath its walls, which resulted in
+the retreat of the allies, and in the death of General Moreau, who
+fought against his old commander. But Napoleon was unable to remain
+long in that elegant capital, having exhausted his provisions and
+forage, and was obliged to retreat. On the 15th of October was fought
+the celebrated battle of Leipsic, in which a greater number of men
+were engaged than in any previous battle during the war, or probably
+in the history of Europe--two hundred and thirty thousand against one
+hundred and sixty thousand. The triumph of the allies was complete.
+Napoleon was overpowered by the overwhelming coalition of his enemies.
+He had nothing to do, after his great discomfiture, but to retreat to
+France, and place the kingdom in the best defence in his power.
+Misfortunes thickened in every quarter; and, at the close of the
+campaign, France retained but a few fortresses beyond the Rhine. The
+contest in Germany was over, and French domination in that country was
+at an end. Out of four hundred thousand men, only eighty thousand
+recrossed the Rhine. So great were the consequences of the battle of
+Leipsic, in which the genius of Napoleon was exhibited as in former
+times, but which availed nothing against vastly superior forces. A
+grand alliance of all the powers of Europe was now arrayed against
+Napoleon--from the rock of Gibraltar to the shores of Archangel; from
+the banks of the Scheldt to the margin of the Bosphorus; the mightiest
+confederation ever known, but indispensably necessary. The greatness
+of Napoleon is seen in his indomitable will in resisting this
+confederation, when his allies had deserted him, and when his own
+subjects were no longer inclined to rally around his standard. He
+still held out, even when over a million of men, from the different
+states that he had humbled, were rapidly hemming him round and
+advancing to his capital. Only three hundred and fifty thousand men
+nominally remained to defend his frontiers, while his real effective
+army amounted to little over one hundred thousand men. A million of
+his soldiers in eighteen months had perished, and where was he to look
+for recruits?
+
+[Sidenote: The Allied Powers Invade France.]
+
+On the 31st of December, 1814, fourteen hundred and seven years after
+the Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine and entered
+without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul, the united
+Prussians, Austrians, and Russians crossed the same river, and invaded
+the territories of the modern Cæsar. They rapidly advanced towards
+Paris, and Napoleon went forth from his capital to meet them. His
+cause, however, was now desperate: but he made great exertions, and
+displayed consummate abilities, so that the forces of his enemies were
+for a time kept at bay. Battles were fought and won by both sides,
+without decisive results. Slowly, but surely, the allied armies
+advanced, and gradually surrounded him. By the 30th of March, they
+were encamped on the heights of Montmartre; and Paris, defenceless and
+miserable, surrendered to the conquerors. They now refused to treat
+with Napoleon, who, a month before, at the conference of Chatillon,
+might have retained his throne, if he had consented to reign over the
+territories of France as they were before the Revolution. Napoleon
+retired to Fontainebleau; and, on the 4th of April, he consented to
+abdicate the throne he no longer could defend. His wife returned to
+her father's protection, and nearly every person of note or
+consideration abandoned him. On the 11th, he formally abdicated, and
+the house of Bourbon was restored. He himself retired to the Island of
+Elba, but was allowed two million five hundred thousand francs a year,
+the title of emperor, and four hundred soldiers as his body guard. His
+farewell address to the soldiers of his old guard, at Fontainebleau,
+was pathetic and eloquent. They retained their attachment amid general
+desertion and baseness.
+
+Josephine did not long survive the fall of the hero she had loved, and
+with whose fortunes her own were mysteriously united. She died on the
+28th, and her last hours were soothed by the presence of the Emperor
+Alexander, who promised to take her children under his protection. Of
+all the great monarchs of his age, he was the most extensively beloved
+and the most profoundly respected.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace of Paris.]
+
+The allies showed great magnanimity and moderation after their
+victory. The monarchy of France was established nearly as it was
+before the Revolution, and the capital was not rifled of any of its
+monuments, curiosities, or treasures--not even of those which Napoleon
+had brought from Italy. Nor was there a military contribution imposed
+upon the people. The allies did not make war to destroy the kingdom
+of France, but to dethrone a monarch who had proved himself to be
+the enemy of mankind. The peace of Paris was signed by the
+plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and
+Austria, on the 30th of April; and Christendom, at last, indulged the
+hope that the awful conflict had ended. The Revolution and its
+offspring Napoleon were apparently suppressed, after more than three
+millions of men had perished in the struggle on the part of France and
+of her allies alone.
+
+Great changes had taken place in the sentiments of all classes, since
+the commencement of the contest, twenty years before, and its close
+excited universal joy. In England, the enthusiasm was unparalleled,
+and not easy to be conceived. The nation, in its gratitude to
+Wellington, voted him four hundred thousand pounds, and the highest
+military triumphs. It also conferred rewards and honors on his
+principal generals; for his successful operations in Spain were no
+slight cause of the overthrow of Napoleon.
+
+But scarcely were these rejoicings terminated, before Napoleon escaped
+from Elba, and again overturned the throne of the Bourbons. The
+impolitic generosity and almost inconceivable rashness of the allies
+had enabled Napoleon to carry on extensive intrigues in Paris, and to
+collect a respectable force on the island of which he was constituted
+the sovereign; while the unpopularity and impolitic measures of the
+restored dynasty singularly favored any scheme which Napoleon might
+have formed. The disbanding of an immense military force, the
+humiliation of those veterans who still associated with the eagles of
+Napoleon the glory of France, the derangement of the finances, and the
+discontents of so many people thrown out of employment, naturally
+prepared the way for the return of the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon's Return to France.]
+
+On the 26th of February, he gave a brilliant ball to the principal
+people of the island, and embarked the same evening, with eleven
+hundred troops, to regain the sceptre which had been wrested from him
+only by the united powers of Europe. On the 1st of March, his vessels
+cast anchor in the Gulf of St. Juan, on the coast of Provence; and
+Napoleon immediately commenced his march, having unfurled the
+tricolored flag. As he anticipated he was welcomed by the people, and
+the old cry of "_Vive l'Empereur_" saluted his ears.
+
+The court of the Bourbons made vigorous preparations of resistance,
+and the armies of France were intrusted to those marshals who owed
+their elevation to Napoleon. Soult, Ney, Augereau, Massena, Oudinot,
+all protested devotion to Louis XVIII.; and Ney promised the king
+speedily to return to Paris with Napoleon in an iron cage. But Ney was
+among the first to desert the cause of law and legitimacy, and threw
+himself into the arms of the emperor. He could not withstand the arts
+and the eloquence of that great hero for whose cause he had so long
+fought. The defection of the whole army rapidly followed. The king was
+obliged to fly, and Napoleon took possession of his throne, amid the
+universal transports of the imperial party in France.
+
+The intelligence of his restoration filled Europe with consternation,
+rage, and disappointment, and greater preparations were made than ever
+to subdue a man who respected neither treaties nor the interests of
+his country. The unparalleled sum of one hundred and ten millions of
+pounds sterling was decreed by the British senate for various
+purposes, and all the continental powers made proportionate exertions.
+The genius of Napoleon never blazed so brightly as in preparing for
+his last desperate conflict with united Christendom; and, considering
+the exhaustion of his country, the forces which he collected were
+astonishing. Before the beginning of June, two hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran soldiers were completely armed and equipped; a great
+proof of the enthusiastic ardor which the people felt for Napoleon to
+the last.
+
+The Duke of Wellington had eighty thousand effective men under his
+command, and Marshal Blucher one hundred and ten thousand. These
+forces were to unite, and march to Paris through Flanders. It was
+arranged that the Austrians and Russians should invade France first,
+by Befort and Huningen, in order to attract the enemy's principal
+forces to that quarter.
+
+Napoleon's plan was to collect all his forces into one mass, and
+boldly to place them between the English and Prussians, and attack
+them separately. He had under his command one hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran troops, and therefore, not unreasonably, expected to
+combat successfully the one hundred and ninety thousand of the enemy.
+He forgot, however, that he had to oppose Wellington and Blucher.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Waterloo.]
+
+On the 18th of June was performed the last sad act of the great
+tragedy which had for twenty years convulsed Europe with blood and
+tears. All the combatants on that eventful day understood the nature
+of the contest, and the importance of the battle. At Waterloo,
+Napoleon staked his last throw in the desperate game he had hazarded,
+and lost it; and was ruined, irrevocably and forever.
+
+Little signified his rapid flight, his attempt to defend Paris, or his
+readiness to abdicate in favor of his son. The allied powers again, on
+the 7th of July, entered Paris, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored.
+
+Napoleon retired to Rochefort, hoping to escape his enemies and reach
+America. It was impossible. He then resolved to throw himself upon the
+generosity of the English. He was removed to St. Helena, where he no
+longer stood a chance to become the scourge of the nations. And there,
+on that lonely island, in the middle of the ocean, guarded most
+effectually by his enemies, his schemes of conquest ended. He
+supported his hopeless captivity with tolerable equanimity, showing no
+signs of remorse for the injuries he had inflicted, but meditating
+profoundly on the mistakes he had committed, and conjecturing vainly
+on the course he might have adopted for the preservation of his power.
+
+How idle were all his conjectures and meditations! His fall was
+decreed in the councils of Heaven, and no mortal strength could have
+prevented his overthrow. His mission of blood was ended; and his
+nation, after its bitter humiliation, was again to enjoy repose. But
+he did not live in vain. He lived as a messenger of divine vengeance
+to chastise the objects of divine indignation. He lived to show to the
+world what a splendid prize human energy could win; and yet to show
+how vain, after all, was military glory, and how worthless is the
+enjoyment of any victory purchased by the sufferings of mankind. He
+lived to point the melancholy moral, that war, for its own sake, is a
+delusion, a mockery, and a snare, and that the greater the elevation
+to which unlawful ambition can raise a man, the greater will be his
+subsequent humiliation; that "pride goeth before destruction, and a
+haughty spirit before a fall."
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections on Napoleon's Fall.]
+
+The allied sovereigns of Europe insisted on the restoration of the
+works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. "The bronzed horses, brought
+from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old station in the front of
+the Church of St. Mark; the Transfiguration was restored to the
+Vatican; the Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned St. Peter's; the
+Venus was enshrined with new beauty at Florence; and the Descent from
+the Cross was replaced in the Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty
+which restored peace to Europe for a generation, the old dominions of
+Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Holland, and Italy were restored, and
+the Bourbons again reigned over the ancient provinces of France.
+Popular liberty on the continent of Europe was entombed, and the
+dreams of revolutionists were unrealized; but suffering proved a
+beneficial ordeal, and prepared the nations of Europe to appreciate,
+more than ever, the benefits and blessings of peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The most complete work, on the whole, though
+     full of faults, and very heavy and prosaic, is Alison's
+     History of the French Revolution. Scott's Life of Napoleon
+     was too hastily written, and has many mistakes. No English
+     author has done full justice to Napoleon. Thiers's Histories
+     are invaluable. Napier's History of the Peninsula War is
+     masterly. Wellington's Despatches are indispensable only to
+     a student. Botta's History of Italy under Napoleon.
+     Dodsley's Annual Register. Labaume's Russian Campaign.
+     Southey's Peninsular War. Liborne's Waterloo Campaign.
+     Southey's Life of Nelson. Sherer's Life of the Duke of
+     Wellington. Gifford's Life of Pitt. Moore's Life of Sir John
+     Moore. James's Naval History. Memoirs of the Duchess
+     d'Abrantes. Berthier's Histoire de l'Expédition d'Égypte.
+     Schlosser's Modern History. The above works are the most
+     accessible, but form but a small part of those which have
+     appeared concerning the French Revolution and the career of
+     Napoleon. For a complete list of original authorities, see
+     the preface of Alison, and the references of Thiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Complexity of Modern History.]
+
+It would be interesting to trace the history of the civilized world
+since the fall of Napoleon; but any attempt to bring within the limits
+of a history like this a notice of the great events which have
+happened for thirty-five years, would be impossible. And even a notice
+as extended as that which has been presented of the events of three
+hundred years would be unsatisfactory to all minds. The common reader
+is familiar with the transactions of the present generation, and
+reflections on them would be sure to excite the prejudices of various
+parties and sects. A chronological table of the events which have
+transpired since the downfall of Napoleon is all that can be
+attempted. The author contemplates a continuation of this History,
+which will present more details, collected from original authorities.
+The history of the different American States, since the Revolution;
+the administration of the various presidents; the late war with Great
+Britain; the Seminole and Mexican wars; the important questions
+discussed by Congress; the contemporary history of Great Britain under
+George IV., William IV., and Victoria; the conquests in India and
+China; the agitations of Ireland; the great questions of Reform,
+Catholic Emancipation, Education, and Free Trade; the French wars in
+Africa; the Turkish war; the independence of the Viceroy of Egypt; the
+progress of Russian territorial aggrandizement; the fall of Poland;
+the Spanish rebellion; the independence of the South American states;
+the Dutch and Belgic war; the two last French revolutions; the great
+progress made in arts and sciences, and the various attempts in
+different nations to secure liberty;--these, and other great subjects,
+can only be properly discussed in a separate work, and even then
+cannot be handled by any one, however extraordinary his talents or
+attainments, without incurring the imputation of great audacity, which
+only the wants of the public can excuse.
+
+In concluding the present History, a very brief notice of the state of
+the civilized world at the fall of Napoleon may be, perhaps, required.
+
+[Sidenote: Remarkable Men of Genius.]
+
+England suffered less than any other of the great powers from the
+French Revolution. A great burden was, indeed, entailed on future
+generations; but the increase of the national debt was not felt so
+long as English manufactures were purchased, to a great extent, by the
+Continental States. Six hundred million pounds were added to the
+national debt; but England, internally, was never more flourishing
+than during this long war of a quarter of a century. And not only was
+glory shed around the British throne by the victories of Nelson and
+Wellington, and the effectual assistance which England rendered to the
+continental powers, and without which the liberties of Europe would
+have been subverted, but, during the reign of George III., a splendid
+constellation of men of genius, in literature and science, illuminated
+the world. Dr. Johnson made moral reflections on human life which will
+ever instruct mankind; Burke uttered prophetic oracles which even his
+age was not prepared to appreciate; and his rivals thundered in the
+senate with an eloquence and power not surpassed by the orators of
+antiquity; Gibbon wrote a history which such men as Guizot and Milman
+pronounced wonderful both for art and learning; Hume, Reid, and
+Stewart, carried metaphysical inquiry to its utmost depth; Gray,
+Burns, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, were not
+unworthy successors of Dryden and Pope; Adam Smith called into
+existence the science of political economy, and nearly brought it to
+perfection in a single lifetime; Reynolds and West adorned the
+galleries with pictures which would not have disgraced the land of
+artists; while scholars, too numerous to mention, astonished the world
+by the extent of their erudition; and divines, in language which
+rivalled the eloquence of Chrysostom or Bossuet, declared to an
+awakened generation the duties and destinies of man.
+
+France, the rival of England, was not probably permanently injured by
+the Revolution; for, if millions of lives were sacrificed, and
+millions of property were swept away, still important civil and social
+privileges were given to the great mass of the people, and odious
+feudal laws and customs were broken forever. All the glory which war
+can give, was obtained; and France, for twenty years, was feared and
+respected. Popular liberty was not secured; but advances were made
+towards it, and great moral truths were impressed upon the nation,--to
+be again disregarded, but not to be forgotten. The territorial limits
+of France were not permanently enlarged, and the conquests of Napoleon
+were restored to the original rulers. The restoration of the former
+political system was insisted upon by the Holy Alliance, and the
+Bourbon kings, in regaining their throne, again possessed all that
+their ancestors had enjoyed but the possession of the hearts of the
+people. The allied powers may have restored despotism and legitimacy
+for a while; they could not eradicate the great ideas of the
+Revolution, and these were destined once more to overturn their
+thrones. The reigns of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe
+were but different acts of the long tragedy which was opened by the
+convocation of the States General, and which is not probably closed by
+the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to the presidency of the French
+republic. The _ideas_ which animated La Fayette and Moreau, and which
+Robespierre and Napoleon at one time professed, still live, in spite
+of all the horrors of the Reign of Terror, and all the streams of
+blood which flowed at Leipsic and Waterloo. Notwithstanding the
+suicidal doctrines of Socialists and of the various schools of infidel
+philosophers, and in view of all the evils which papal despotism, and
+democratic license, and military passions have inflicted, and will
+continue to inflict, still the immortal principles of liberty are safe
+under the protection of that Providence which has hitherto advanced
+the nations of Europe from the barbarism and paganism of ancient
+Teutonic tribes.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Germany.]
+
+Germany suffered the most, and apparently reaped the least, from the
+storms which revolutionary discussion had raised. Austria and Prussia
+were invaded, pillaged, and humiliated. Their cities were sacked,
+their fields were devastated, and the blood of their sons was poured
+out like water. But sacrifice and suffering developed extraordinary
+virtues and energies, united the various states, and gave nationality
+to a great confederation. The struggles of the Germans were honorable
+and gigantic, and proved to the world the impossibility of the
+conquest of states, however afflicted, when they are resolved to
+defend their rights. The career of Napoleon demonstrated the
+impossibility of a universal empire in Europe, and least of all, an
+empire erected over the prostrated thrones and discomfited armies of
+Germany. The Germans learned the necessity and the duty of union, and
+proved the strength of their sincere love for their native soil and
+their venerable institutions. The Germans, though poor in gold and
+silver, showed that they were rich in patriotic ardor, and in all
+those glorious sentiments which ennoble a great and progressive
+nation. After twenty years' contention, and infinite sacrifices and
+humiliations, the different princes of Germany recovered their ancient
+territorial possessions, and were seated, more firmly than before on
+the thrones which legitimacy had consecrated.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Other Powers.]
+
+Absolute monarchy was restored also to Spain; but the imbecile
+Bourbons, the tools of priests and courtiers, revived the ancient
+principles of absolutism and bigotry, without any of those virtues
+which make absolutism respectable or bigotry endurable. But in the
+breasts of Spanish peasants the fires of liberty burned, which all the
+terrors of priestly rule, and all the evils of priestly corruption,
+could not quench. They, thus far, have been unfortunate, but no person
+who has studied the elements of the Spanish character, or has faith in
+the providence of God, can doubt that the day of deliverance will,
+sooner or later, come, unless he has the misfortune to despair of any
+permanent triumph of liberty in our degenerate world.
+
+In the northern kingdoms of Europe, no radical change took place; and
+Italy, the land of artists, so rich in splendid recollections, so poor
+in all those blessings which we are taught to value, returned to the
+dominion of Austria, and to the rule of despotic priests. Italy,
+disunited, abandoned, and enslaved, has made generous efforts to
+secure what is enjoyed in more favored nations, but hitherto in vain.
+So slow is the progress of society! so hard are the struggles to which
+man is doomed! so long continued are the efforts of any people to
+secure important privileges!
+
+Greece made, however, a more successful effort, and the fetters of the
+Turkish sultan were shaken off. The Ottoman Porte looked, with its
+accustomed indifference, on the struggles of the Christians, and took
+no active part in the war until absolutely forced. But it looked with
+the indifference of decrepit age, rather than with the philosophical
+calmness of mature strength, and exerted all the remaining energies it
+possessed to prevent the absorption of the state in the vast and
+increasing empire of the czars. Russia, of all the great powers which
+embarked in the contest to which we have alluded, arose the strongest
+from defeat and disaster. The rapid aggrandizement of Russia
+immediately succeeded the fall of Napoleon.
+
+The spiritual empire of the Popes was again restored, and the Jesuits,
+with new powers and privileges, were sent into all the nations of the
+earth to uphold the absolutism of their great head. Again they have
+triumphed when their cause seemed hopeless; nor is it easy to predict
+the fall of their empire. So long as the principle of Evil shall
+contend with the principle of Good, the popes will probably rejoice
+and weep at alternate victories and defeats.
+
+[Sidenote: The United States of America.]
+
+The United States of America were too far removed from the scene of
+conflict to be much affected by the fall of thrones. Moreover, it was
+against the wise policy of the government to interfere with foreign
+quarrels. But the American nation beheld the conflict with any
+feelings but those of indifference, and, while its enlightened people
+speculated on the chances of war, they still devoted themselves with
+ardor to the improvement of their institutions, to agriculture, and
+manufacturing interests. Merchants, for a while, made their fortunes
+by being the masters of the carrying trade of the world, and the
+nation was quietly enriched. The wise administrations of Washington,
+Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, much as they conflicted, in some
+respects, with each other, resulted in the growth of commerce,
+manufactures, agriculture, and the arts; while institutions of
+literature and religion took a deep hold of the affections of the
+people. The country increased and spread with unparalleled rapidity on
+all sides, and the prosperity of America was the envy and the
+admiration of the European world. The encroachments of Great Britain,
+and difficulties which had never been settled, led to a war between
+the two countries, which, though lamented at the time, is now viewed,
+by all parties, as resulting in the ultimate advancement of the United
+States in power and wealth, as well as in the respect of foreign
+nations. Great questions connected with the rapid growth of the
+country, unfortunately at different times, have produced acrimonious
+feelings between different partisans; but the agitation of these has
+not checked the growth of American institutions, or weakened those
+sentiments of patriotism and mutual love, which, in all countries and
+ages, have constituted the glory and defence of nations. The greatness
+of American destinies is now a favorite theme with popular orators.
+Nor is it a vain subject of speculation. Our banner of Liberty will
+doubtless, at no distant day, wave over all the fortresses which may
+be erected on the central mountains of North America, or on the shores
+of its far distant oceans; but all national aggrandizement will be in
+vain without regard to those sacred principles of law, religion, and
+morality, for which, in disaster and sorrow, both Puritan Settler and
+Revolutionary Hero contended. The believer in Progress, as affected by
+influences independent of man, as coming from the benevolent
+Providence which thus far has shielded us, cannot otherwise than hope
+for a still loftier national elevation than has been yet attained,
+with all the aid of circumstances, and all the energies of heroes.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+
+FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+     1815.--Battle of Waterloo, (June 18.) Napoleon embarks for
+     St. Helena, (August 7.) Final Treaty at Paris between the
+     Allied Powers, (November 20.) Inauguration of the King of
+     Holland. First Steam Vessels on the Thames.
+
+     1816.--Great Agricultural distress in Great Britain. Brazil
+     declared a Kingdom. Consolidation of the Exchequers of
+     England and Ireland. Marriage of the Princess Charlotte with
+     Prince Leopold.
+
+     1817.--Disorders in Spain. Renewal of the Bill for the
+     suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Inauguration of
+     President Monroe. Death of the Princess Charlotte. Death of
+     Curran.
+
+     1818.--Entire Withdrawal of Foreign Forces from France.
+     Seminole War. Great Discussions in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Warren Hastings, of Lord Ellenborough, and
+     of Sir Philip Francis.
+
+     1819.--Great depression of Trade and Manufactures in Great
+     Britain. Great Reform meetings in Manchester, Leeds, and
+     other large Towns, Lord John Russell's Motion for a Reform
+     in Parliament. Organized bands of robbers in Spain.
+     Settlement of the Pindarrie War in India. Assassination of
+     Kotzebue.
+
+     1820.--Death of George III., (January 23.) Lord Brougham's
+     Plan of Popular Education. Proceedings against Queen
+     Caroline. Rebellion in Spain. Trial of Sir Francis Burdett.
+     Election of Sir Humphrey Davy as President of the Royal
+     Society. Ministry in France of the Duc de Richelieu. Death
+     of Grattan; of the Duke of Kent.
+
+     1821.--Second Inauguration of President Monroe. Revolution
+     in Naples and Piedmont. Insurrections in Spain. Independence
+     of Colombia, and fall of Spanish Power in Mexico and Peru.
+     Disturbances in Ireland. War in the Morea. Formal occupation
+     of the Floridas by the United States. Extinction of the
+     Mamelukes. Revolt in Wallachia and Moldavia. Death of Queen
+     Caroline; of Napoleon.
+
+     1822.--Mr. Canning's Bill for the admission of Catholic
+     Peers to the House of Lords. Disturbances in Ireland. Sir
+     James Mackintosh's Motion for a reform of Criminal Law. Mr.
+     Canning succeeds the Marquis of Londonderry (Lord
+     Castlereagh) as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Lord
+     Amherst appointed Governor-General of India. Fall of the
+     administration of the Duc de Richelieu. Congress of Vienna.
+     War in Greece. Insurrection of the Janizaries. The Persian
+     War. Settlement of the Canadian Boundary. Suicide of the
+     Marquis of Londonderry.
+
+     1823.--Great Agricultural Distress in Great Britain. Debates
+     on Catholic Emancipation, and on the Slave Trade. French
+     Invasion of Spain. Captain Franklin's Voyage to the Polar
+     Seas. Death of Pius VII.
+
+     1824.--General Prosperity in England. Capture of Ipsara by
+     the Turks. Visit of La Fayette to the United States. Leaders
+     of the Carbonari suppressed in Italy by the Austrian
+     Government. Repeal of duties between Great Britain and
+     Ireland. Burmese War, and Capture of Rangoon. Censorship of
+     the Press in France. Death of Louis XVIII., (September 16.)
+
+     1825.--Inauguration of President Adams. Independence of
+     Brazil acknowledged by Portugal. Coronation of Charles X.
+     Siege of Missolonghi. Inundations in the Netherlands. Death
+     of the Emperor Alexander, (December 1.)
+
+     1826.--Bolivar chosen President of Peru for Life.
+     Independence of Hayti acknowledged by France. Riots in
+     Lancashire. Surrender of the fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa to
+     the Mexicans. Great Debates in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Ex-President Adams; of Jefferson. Coronation
+     of the Emperor Nicholas.
+
+     1827.--Death of the Earl of Liverpool, and dissolution of
+     the Ministry. Mr. Canning appointed First Lord of the
+     Treasury; dies four months after; succeeded by Lord
+     Goderich. National Guard disbanded in France. Defeat of the
+     Greek army before Athens. Battle of Navarino. Foundation of
+     the University of London. Death of the Duke of York; of La
+     Place; of Mitford, the Historian; of Eichhorn; of
+     Pestalozzi; of Beethoven; of King Frederic Augustus of
+     Saxony.
+
+     1828.--Dissolution of Lord Goderich's Ministry, and new one
+     formed under the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel and the Earl
+     of Aberdeen. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. New
+     Corn Law. Riots in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell represents the
+     County of Clare. New and Liberal ministry in France. Final
+     departure of the French Armies from Spain. War between
+     Naples and Tripoli. War between Russia and Turkey.
+     Independence of Greece. Death of Ypsilanti.
+
+     1829.--Inauguration of President Jackson. Passage of the
+     Catholic Emancipation Bill. New and Ultra-Royalist ministry
+     in France, under Polignac. Victories of Count Diebitsch
+     against the Turks. Surrender of Adrianople. Civil War in
+     Mexico. Don Miguel acknowledged as King of Portugal by
+     Spain. Burning of York Cathedral. Treaty between the United
+     States and Brazil. Civil War in Chili. Death of Judge
+     Washington.
+
+     1830.--Great discussions in Congress on the Tariff. Reform
+     Agitations in England. Death of George IV., (June 26.) New
+     Whig Ministry under Earl Grey and Lord John Russell. Opening
+     of the Liverpool Railroad. Revolution in France, and the
+     Duke of Orleans declared King. Capture of Algiers by the
+     French. Belgium erected into an independent Kingdom. Riots
+     and Insurrections in Germany. Plots of the Carlists in
+     Spain. Murder of Joseph White. Death of Pope Leo XII.; of
+     the King of Naples; of Sir Thomas Lawrence; of the Grand
+     Duke of Baden.
+
+     1831.--Dissolution of the Cabinet at Washington. Great
+     discussions on the Reform Bill. Agitations in Ireland.
+     Leopold made King of Belgium. Insurrection in Switzerland.
+     Revolution in Poland. Treaty between the United States and
+     Turkey. Coronation of William IV. Appearance of the Cholera
+     in England. Its great ravages on the Continent. Death of
+     Bolivar; of Robert Hall; of Mrs. Siddons; of William Roscoe;
+     of James Monroe.
+
+     1832.--Veto of President Jackson of the Bill to recharter
+     the United States Bank. Discontents in South Carolina, in
+     consequence of the Tariff. War with the Indians. Bristol and
+     Birmingham Riots. Final passage of the Reform Bill.
+     Abolition of the Slave Trade in Brazil. Death of Casimir
+     Périer, Prime Minister of France, who is succeeded by
+     Marshal Soult. Death of Sir Walter Scott; of Sir James
+     Mackintosh; of Spurzheim; of Cuvier; of Goethe; of
+     Champollion; of Adam Clarke; of Andrew Bell; of Anna Maria
+     Porter; of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
+
+     1833.--Second Inauguration of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Clay's
+     Tariff Bill. President Jackson's war with the United States
+     Bank. Recharter of the Bank of England and of the East India
+     Company. Fortifications of Paris commenced. Santa Anna
+     inaugurated President of Mexico. Bill passed to abolish
+     slavery in the British Colonies. Trial of Avery. Death of
+     the King of Spain; of Mr. Wilberforce; of Hannah More; of
+     Caspar Hauser; of Lord Grenville; of Dr. Schleiermacher.
+
+     1834.--Discussions on the Corn Laws. Destruction of the two
+     Houses of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress
+     of Vienna. Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal.
+     Opening of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of
+     Earl Grey, succeeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly
+     succeeded by Sir Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death of
+     La Fayette; of William Wirt; of Dr. Porter; of General
+     Huntingdon; of Coleridge; of Rev. Edward Irving.
+
+     1835.--New Ministry of Viscount Melbourne. French expedition
+     to Algiers. Otho made King of Greece. Suppression of the
+     Jesuits in Spain. Remarkable eruption of Vesuvius. Revolt in
+     Spain. Great fire in New York. Death of the Emperor of
+     Austria; of Chief Justice Marshall; of Nathan Dane; of
+     McCrie; of William Cobbett.
+
+     1836.--Settlement of the disputes between France and the
+     United States. Resignation of M. Thiers, who is succeeded,
+     as Prime Minister of France, by Count Molé. Military
+     operations against Abd-el-Kader. Massacre of the Carlist
+     Prisoners at Barcelona. Isturitz made Prime Minister of
+     Spain. Prince Louis Napoleon attempts an insurrection at
+     Strasburg. Commutation of Tithes in England. Bill for the
+     Registration of Births and Marriages. Passage of the Irish
+     Municipal Corporation Bill. Agitations in Canada. War
+     between Texas and Mexico. Burning of the Patent Office at
+     Washington. Death of Aaron Burr; of the Abbé Sièyes; of Lord
+     Stowell; of Godwin.
+
+     1837.--Inauguration of President Van Buren. Death of
+     William IV., (June 20.) Insurrection in Canada. Suspension
+     of cash payments by the Bank of the United States in
+     Philadelphia, and by the banks in New York. Acknowledgment
+     of the Independence of Texas. Treaty with the Indians. Great
+     failures in New York. Great Protestant Meeting in Dublin.
+     Change of Ministry in Spain. Death of Gustavus Adolphus IV.
+     of Sweden; of M. de Pradt; of Abiel Holmes; of Dr. Griffin;
+     of Charles Botta; of Lovejoy.
+
+     1838.--War with the Seminoles. General Scott takes command
+     of the New York Militia on the Frontiers. Affair of the
+     Caroline. Lord Durham Governor-General of Canada. Coronation
+     of Queen Victoria; of the Emperor Ferdinand. Violence of
+     Civil War in Spain. Circassian War. Revolution in Peru and
+     Bolivia. Peace between Russia and Turkey. Great Chartist
+     meetings in England. Emancipation of the West India Negro
+     Apprentices. Death of Lord Eldon; of Talleyrand; of Noah
+     Worcester; of Dr. Bowditch; of Zachary Macaulay.
+
+     1839.--Disputes between Maine and New Brunswick. Resignation
+     of the Melbourne Ministry, and the failure of Sir Robert
+     Peel to construct a new one. Birmingham Riots. Chartist
+     Convention. Resignation of Count Molé, who is succeeded, as
+     Prime Minister, by Marshal Soult, and Guizot. Capture of the
+     fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa by the French. Treaty of Peace
+     between France and Mexico. Affghan War. War between Turkey
+     and Mohammed Ali. Invasion of Syria. Death of Lady Hester
+     Stanhope; of Governor Hayne; of Dr. Bancroft; of Stephen Van
+     Rensselaer; of Zerah Colburn; of Samuel Ward.
+
+     1840.--Marriage of Queen Victoria. Penny Postage in England.
+     Affghan War. Difficulties in China respecting the Opium
+     Trade. Blockade of Canton. Ministry of M. Thiers. Arrival of
+     Napoleon's Remains from St. Helena. Abdication of the King
+     of Holland. Continued Civil War in Spain. Burning of the
+     Lexington. Ministry of Espartero. Death of Frederic
+     William III. of Prussia; of Lord Camden; of Dr. Olinthus
+     Gregory; of Blumenbach; of Dr. Follen; of Dr. Kirkland; of
+     John Lowell; of Judge Mellen; of Dr. Emmons; of Prof. Davis.
+
+     1841.--Inauguration of President Harrison; his Death;
+     succeeded by John Tyler. Trial of McLeod. Repeal of the
+     Sub-Treasury. Veto, by the President, of the Bill to
+     establish a Bank. Resignation of the Melbourne Ministry,
+     succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel. War in Scinde.
+     Espartero sole Regent of Spain. Revolution in Mexico. Treaty
+     between Turkey and Egypt. Treaty between the United States
+     and Portugal. Death of Chantrey; of Dr. Marsh; of Dr.
+     Oliver; of Dr. Ripley; of Blanco White; of William Ladd.
+
+     1842.--Great Debates in Parliament on the Corn Laws. New
+     Tariff of Sir Robert Peel. Affghan War. Treaty of Peace
+     between England and China. Treaty between England and the
+     United States respecting the North-eastern Boundary
+     Question. Chartist Petitions. Income Tax. Accident on the
+     Paris and Versailles Railroad. Death of the Duke of Orleans;
+     of Lord Hill; of Dr. Charming; of Dr. Arnold; of Jeremiah
+     Smith.
+
+     1843.--Activity of the Anti Corn Law League. Repeal
+     Agitation in Ireland. Monster Meetings. Establishment of the
+     Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland. War in Scinde. Sir
+     James Graham's Factory Bill. Repudiation of State Debts.
+     Death of Southey; of Dr. Ware; of Allston; of Legare; of Dr.
+     Richards; of Noah Webster.
+
+     1844.--Corn Law Agitations in Great Britain. Passage of the
+     Sugar Duties Bill; of the Dissenters' Chapel Bill. State
+     Trials in Ireland. Opening of the Royal Exchange. Sir
+     Charles Napier's victories in India. Louis Philippe's visit
+     to England. War between France and Morocco. Disturbances on
+     the Livingston and Rensselaer Manors. Insurrection in
+     Mexico. Death of Secretary Upshur.
+
+     1845.--Installation of President Polk. Treaty between the
+     United States and China. Great Fire in New York. Municipal
+     disabilities removed from the Jews by Parliament. War in
+     Algeria. Abdication of Don Carlos. Termination of the War in
+     Scinde. Revolution in Mexico. War in the Punjaub.
+
+     1846--War between the United States and Mexico. Battle of
+     Monterey. New Tariff Bill. Passage of the Corn Bill in
+     England, and Repeal of Duties. Free Trade policy of Sir
+     Robert Peel. Settlement of the Oregon Question. Distress in
+     Ireland by the failure of the Potato Crop. Resignation of
+     Sir Robert Peel; succeeded by Lord John Russell. Marriage of
+     the Queen of Spain; and of her sister, the Infanta, to the
+     Due de Montpensier. Escape of Prince Louis Napoleon from
+     Ham. Death of Pope Gregory XVI., and elevation of Pius IX.
+     Death of Louis Napoleon, Ex-King of Holland.
+
+     1847.--Splendid military successes of Generals Scott and
+     Taylor in Mexico. Fall of Mexico. Ravages of the Potato
+     Disease. Awful Distress in Ireland. Guizot succeeds Soult as
+     President of the Council. Frequent changes of Ministry in
+     Spain. Civil War in Switzerland. Grant of a Constitution to
+     Prussia. Liberal Measures of Pius IX. Death of the King of
+     Denmark; of Dr. Chalmers; of Silas Wright.
+
+     1848.--French Revolution, and Fall of Louis Philippe.
+     Abdication of the King of Bavaria. Tumults in Vienna and
+     Berlin. Riots in Rome. Chartist demonstrations in London.
+     Election of the National Assembly in France. General
+     fermentation throughout Europe. Distress of Ireland. Oregon
+     Territorial Bill. Free Soil Convention in Buffalo. Death of
+     John Quincy Adams. Election of General Taylor for President
+     of the United States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PRIME MINISTERS OF ENGLAND SINCE THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII.
+
+
+KING HENRY VIII.
+
+    1509. Bishop Fisher, and Earl of Surrey.
+
+    1513. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
+
+    1529. Sir Thomas More, and Cranmer.
+
+    1532. Lord Audley, (Chancellor,) Archbishop Cranmer.
+
+    1538. Lord Cromwell, (Earl of Essex.)
+
+    1540. Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, and Bishop Gardiner.
+
+    1544. Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Hertford.
+
+
+KING EDWARD VI.
+
+    The Earl of Hertford, continued.
+
+    1552. John, Duke of Northumberland.
+
+
+QUEEN MARY.
+
+    1553. Bishop Gardiner.
+
+
+QUEEN ELIZABETH.
+
+    1558. Sir Nicholas Bacon, and Sir William Cecil, (afterwards
+          Lord Burleigh.)
+
+    1564. Earl of Leicester, (a favorite)
+
+    1588. Earl of Essex.
+
+    1601. Lord Buckhurst.
+
+
+JAMES I.
+
+    Lord Buckhurst, (Earl of Dorset.)
+
+    1608. Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, and Northampton.
+
+    1612. Sir Robert Carr (Earl of Somerset.)
+
+    1615. Sir George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham.)
+
+
+CHARLES I.
+
+    Duke of Buckingham.
+
+    1628. Earl of Portland, Archbishop Laud.
+
+    1640. Archbishop Laud, Earl of Strafford, Lord Cottington.
+
+    1640. Earl of Essex.
+
+    1641. Lord Falkland, Lord Digby.
+
+          Civil War, and Oliver Cromwell.
+
+
+CHARLES II.
+
+    1660. Earl of Clarendon.
+
+    1667. Dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale.
+
+    1667. Lord Ashley, Lord Arlington, Lord Clifford.
+
+    1673. Lord Arlington, Lord Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury,) and
+          Sir Thomas Osborne.
+
+    1674. Sir Thomas Osborne.
+
+    1677. Earl of Essex, Duke of Ormond, Marquis of Halifax,
+          Sir William Temple.
+
+    1682. Duke of York and his friends.
+
+
+JAMES II.
+
+    1685. Earls of Sunderland and Tyrconnell, Lord Jeffreys.
+
+    1687. Lord Jeffreys, Lord Arundel, Earl of Middleton.
+
+
+WILLIAM III.
+
+    1688. Lord Somers, Lord Godolphin, Earl of Danby (Duke of Leeds.)
+
+    1695. Earl of Sunderland.
+
+    1697. Charles Montague (Earl of Halifax,) Earl of Pembroke,
+          Viscount Lonsdale, Earl of Oxford.
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE.
+
+    1705. Lord Godolphin, R. Harley, Lord Pembroke, Duke of
+          Buckingham, Duke of Marlborough.
+
+    1707. Earl Godolphin, Lord Cowper, Dukes of Marlborough and
+          Newcastle.
+
+    1710. R. Harley (Earl of Oxford.)
+
+    1710. Earl of Rochester, Lord Dartmouth, Henry St. John
+          (Lord Bolingbroke,) Lord Harcourt.
+
+    1714. Duke of Shrewsbury.
+
+
+GEORGE I.
+
+    1714. Lord Cowper, Duke of Shrewsbury, Marquis of Wharton,
+          Earl of Oxford, Duke of Marlborough, Viscount Townshend.
+
+    1715. Robert Walpole, Esq.
+
+    1717. Earl Stanhope.
+
+    1718. Earl of Sunderland.
+
+    1721. Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford.)
+
+
+GEORGE II.
+
+    1742. Lord Carteret, Lord Wilmington, Lord Bath, Mr. Sandys, &c.
+
+    1743. Hon. Henry Pelham, Lord Carteret, Earl of Harrington,
+          Duke of Newcastle, &c.
+
+    1746. Mr. Pelham, Earl of Chesterfield, Duke of Bedford, &c.
+
+    1754. Duke of Newcastle, Sir Thos. Robinson, Henry Fox, &c.
+
+    1756. Duke of Devonshire, Mr. William Pitt, Earl Temple,
+          Hon. H. B. Legge, &c. (Dismissed in April, 1757; restored
+          in June the same year.)
+
+    1757. William Pitt, Mr. Legge, Earl Temple, Duke of Newcastle, &c.
+
+
+GEORGE III.
+
+    1761. Earl of Bute, Earl of Egremont, Duke of Bedford, &c.
+
+    1762. Earl of Bute, Hon. George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, &c.
+
+    1763. Hon. George Grenville, Earl of Halifax, Earl of Sandwich, &c.
+
+    1765. Marquis of Rockingham, Duke of Grafton, Earl of Shelburne, &c.
+
+    1766. Duke of Grafton, Hon. Chas. Townshend, Earl of Chatham, &c.
+
+    1767. Duke of Grafton, Lord North, &c.
+
+    1770. Lord North, Lord Halifax, &c.
+
+    1779. Lord North, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Stormont, &c.
+
+    1782. Marquis of Rockingham, Chas. James Fox, &c.
+
+    1782. Earl of Shelburne, William Pitt, &c.
+
+    1783. Duke of Portland, Lord North, Mr. Fox, &c.
+
+    1783. Mr. Pitt, Lord Gower, Lord Thurlow, &c.
+
+    1786. Mr. Pitt, Lord Camden, Marquis of Stafford, &c.
+
+    1790. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Duke of Leeds.
+
+    1795. Mr. Pitt, Duke of Portland, Mr. Dundas, &c.
+
+    1801. Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, Duke of Portland, &c.
+
+    1804. Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville, Geo. Canning, &c.
+
+    1806. Lord Grenville, Earl Spencer, Mr. Fox, &c.
+
+    1807. Duke of Portland, Mr. Canning, Earl Camden, &c.
+
+    1809. Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, Marquis Wellesley, &c.
+
+
+REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
+
+    Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, &c.
+
+    1812. Earl of Liverpool, Viscount Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, &c.
+
+
+GEORGE IV.
+
+    Earl of Liverpool, &c.
+
+    1827. Rt. Hon. George Canning, Lord Goderich, Lord Lyndhurst, &c.
+
+    1827. Viscount Goderich, Duke of Portland, Mr. Huskisson, &c.
+
+    1828. Duke of Wellington, Rt. Hon. Robert Peel, Viscount Melville, &c.
+
+    1828. Duke of Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen, Sir G. Murray, &c.
+
+
+WILLIAM IV.
+
+    Duke of Wellington, &c.
+
+    1830. Earl Grey, Viscount Althorpe, Melbourne, Goderich, and
+          Palmerston, &c. (Earl Grey resigns May 9, but resumes office
+          May 18.)
+
+    1834. Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Althorpe, Lord John Russell,
+          Lord Palmerston, &c.
+
+    1834. Viscount Melbourne's Administration dissolved. The Duke of
+          Wellington takes the helm of state provisionally, waiting
+          the return of Sir Robert Peel from Italy.
+
+    1834. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, &c.
+
+    1835. Viscount Melbourne and his colleagues return to office.
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    Viscount Melbourne, and the same Cabinet.
+
+    1839. Viscount Melbourne resigns, May 7.
+
+    Sir Robert Peel fails to form an administration. Lord Melbourne
+        and friends reinstated.
+
+    1841. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen.
+
+    1846. Lord John Russell, &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TABLE OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE
+
+DURING THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+
+ENGLAND.
+
+  1509. Henry VIII.
+  1547. Edward VI.
+  1553. Mary.
+  1558. Elizabeth.
+  1603. James I.
+  1625. Charles I.
+  1653. Cromwell.
+  1660. Charles II.
+  1685. James II.
+  1688. William & Mary.
+  1702. Anne.
+  1714. George I.
+  1727. George II.
+  1760. George III.
+  1811. Prince of Wales, (Regent.)
+  1820. George IV.
+  1830. William IV.
+  1837. Victoria.
+
+
+FRANCE.
+
+  1515. Francis I.
+  1547. Henry II.
+  1559. Francis II.
+  1560. Charles IX.
+  1574. Henry III.
+  1589. Henry IV.
+  1610. Louis XIII.
+  1643. Louis XIV.
+  1715. Louis XV.
+  1774. Louis XVI.
+  1789. Revolution.
+  1792. Republic.
+  1795. Directory.
+  1799. Consuls.
+  1802. Napoleon First Consul.
+  1804. Napoleon Emp'r.
+  1815. Louis XVIII.
+  1825. Charles X.
+  1830. Louis Philippe.
+
+
+GERMANY.
+
+  1493. Maximilian.
+  1519. Charles V.
+  1558. Ferdinand I.
+  1564. Maximilian II.
+  1576. Rodolph II.
+  1612. Matthias.
+  1619. Ferdinand II.
+  1637. Ferdinand III.
+  1658. Leopold I.
+  1705. Joseph I.
+  1711. Charles VI.
+  1742. Charles VII.
+  1745. Francis & Maria Theresa.
+  1765. Joseph II.
+  1790. Leopold II.
+  1792. Francis II.
+
+
+EMPERORS OF AUSTRIA.
+
+  1804. Francis.
+  1835. Ferdinand I.
+
+
+SPAIN.
+
+  1516. Charles I.
+  1556. Philip II.
+  1598. Philip III.
+  1621. Philip IV.
+  1665. Charles II.
+  1700. Philip V.
+  1724. Louis.
+  1725. Philip V.
+  1746. Ferdinand VI.
+  1759. Charles III.
+  1788. Charles IV.
+  1808. Ferdinand VII.
+  1808. Jos. Bonaparte.
+  1814. Ferdinand VII.
+  1820. Revolution.
+  1833. Isabella II.
+
+
+SWEDEN.
+
+  1523. Gustavus II.
+  1560. Erick XVI.
+  1568. John III.
+  1592. Sigismund.
+  1599. Charles IX.
+  1611. Gust. Adolphus.
+  1632. Christina.
+  1654. Charles X.
+  1660. Charles XI.
+  1697. Charles XII.
+  1718. Ulrica Leonora.
+  1751. Adolphus Frederic.
+  1771. Gustavus III.
+  1792. Gustavus IV.
+  1809. Charles XIII.
+  1810. Bernadotte.
+
+
+DENMARK.
+
+  1513. Christian II.
+  1523. Frederic I.
+  1534. Christian III.
+  1559. Frederic II.
+  1588. Christian IV.
+  1648. Frederic III.
+  1670. Christian V.
+  1699. Frederic IV.
+  1730. Christian VI.
+  1746. Frederic V.
+  1766. Christian VII.
+  1784. Regency.
+  1808. Frederic VI.
+  1839. Christian VIII.
+
+
+RUSSIA.
+
+  1696. Peter the Great.
+  1725. Catharine I.
+  1727. Peter II.
+  1730. Ivan.
+  1741. Elizabeth.
+  1761. Peter III.
+  1762. Catharine II.
+  1796. Paul I.
+  1801. Alexander.
+  1825. Nicholas.
+
+
+PRUSSIA.
+
+  1700. Frederic.
+  1713. Frederic Wm.
+  1740. Frederic II.
+  1786. Frederic Wm. II.
+  1796. Fred. Wm. III.
+  1840. Fred. Wm. IV.
+
+
+TURKEY.
+
+  1512. Selim.
+  1520. Solyman.
+  1566. Selim II.
+  1574. Amurath III.
+  1595. Mohammed III.
+  1604. Achmet I.
+  1617. Mustapha I.
+  1618. Othman II.
+  1622. Mustapha II.
+  1623. Amurath IV.
+  1640. Ibrahim.
+  1655. Mohammed IV.
+  1687. Solyman II.
+  1691. Achmet II.
+  1695. Mustapha III.
+  1703. Achmet III.
+  1730. Mohammed V.
+  1757. Achmet IV.
+  1789. Selim III.
+  1807. Mustapha IV.
+  1808. Mohammed VI.
+  1819. Abdul Medjid.
+
+
+POPES.
+
+  1513. Leo X.
+  1522. Adrian VI.
+  1523. Clement VII.
+  1534. Paul III.
+  1550. Julius III.
+  1555. Marcellus III.
+  1555. Paul IV.
+  1559. Pius IV.
+  1566. Pius V.
+  1572. Gregory XIII.
+  1585. Sixtus V.
+  1590. Gregory XIV.
+  1590. Gregory XV.
+  1591. Innocent IX.
+  1592. Clement VIII.
+  1605. Leo XI.
+  1623. Urban VIII.
+  1644. Innocent X.
+  1655. Alexander VII.
+  1667. Clement IX.
+  1670. Clement X.
+  1676. Innocent XI.
+  1689. Alexander VIII.
+  1691. Innocent XII.
+  1700. Clement XI.
+  1721. Innocent XIII.
+  1724. Benedict XIII.
+  1730. Clement XII.
+  1740. Benedict XIV.
+  1758. Clement XIII.
+  1769. Clement XIV.
+  1775. Pius VI.
+  1800. Pius VII.
+  1823. Leo XII.
+  1831. Gregory XVI.
+  1847. Pius IX.
+
+
+
+
+GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF GREAT BRITAIN
+
++ _denotes date of decease._
+
+                                                JAMES I.
+                                               + 1625.
+                                                  |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |                      |                                                     |
+  Henry, d. young.      CHARLES I.                                   Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.
+                        + 1649.                                                   |
+                            |                                                     |
+         -----------------------------------                                      |
+         |                                 |                                      |
+     CHARLES II.                       JAMES II.                     Electress Sophia of Hanover.
+     + 1685                       Abdic. 1688.                                 + 1714.
+                                      + 1701.                                     |
+                                           |                                      |
+                  ------------------------------------------------                | George Louis,
+                  |                        |                     |                | Elector of Hanover,
+                MARY,                    ANNE,         James the Pretender.       | and GEORGE I.
+              + 1694                   + 1714.                                    |  + 1727.
+          Wife of William III.   Wife of George, Prince of Denmark,               |
+                                 Duke of Gloucester, d. young.         ------------------------
+                                                                       |                      |
+                                                                   GEORGE II.         Sophia, mother of
+                                                                    + 1760.          Frederic the Great.
+                                                                       |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |               |              |           |           |             |           |             |
+  Frederic,     Anne, married    Amelia,     Elizabeth,   William,      Maria,      Louisa,       George,
+   Prince          Prince       d. unmar.   d. unmar.     Duke of      Princess     Queen        d. young.
+  of Wales,      of Orange.                              Cumberland.   of Hesse.   of Denmark.
+   + 1750.
+     |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |             |               |              |          |         |             |              |
+   GEORGE III.  Edward,       William, Duke    Henry,    Frederic,  Augusta,     Elizabeth       Caroline
+   + 1820.    Duke of York,  of Gloucester,   Duke of   d. young.  Duchess of    Louisa,         Mathilda,
+     |          + 1767.        + 1805.       Cumberland.           Brunswick.   d. unmarried.    Queen of
+     |                                                                                           Denmark.
+     |
+     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |            |          |       |      |            |            |             |           |          |            |           |          |
+   GEORGE IV. Frederic,  WILLIAM IV. |   Edward,      Augusta     Elizabeth,     Ernest,    Augustus,   Adolphus,     Mary,      Sophia,    Amelia,
+    + 1830.    Duke of     + 1837.   | Duke of Kent,  + 1840.     Princess of    Duke of     Duke of    Duke of     Duchess of   d. unmar.  + 1809.
+     |          York.        |       |   + 1820.                 Hesse-Homburg, Cumberland,  Sussex.    Cambridge.  Gloucester.
+     |         + 1827.       |       |      |                       + 1840.      King of                   |
+     |                       |       |      |                                    Hanover.       -----------------------
+     |                       |       |      |                                       |           |          |          |
+  Charlotte,            Charlotte,   |  VICTORIA.                                George.     George.    Augusta.    Mary.
+  Princess of           Elizabeth.   |      |
+    Wales,                           |      |
+    + 1817.                          |      |
+                                     |      |
+                                     |      |---------------------------------------------------------------
+                                     |      |                        |                  |                  |
+                             Charlotte,   Victoria Adelaide.    Prince Edward.     Alice Maud.    Alfred Ernest Albert.
+                             Queen of
+                            Wirtemberg,
+                              + 1828.
+
+
+
+
+GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE BOURBONS.
+
++ _denotes date of decease._
+
+                                     HENRY IV. + 1610.
+                                         |
+                                     LOUIS XIII. + 1643.
+                                         |
+                         ---------------------------------
+                         |                               |
+                   LOUIS XIV. + 1715.         Philip, Duke of Orleans,
+                         |                            + 1710.
+                         |                               |
+                   Louis (Dauphin,)              Philip (Regent,)
+                       + 1711.                        + 1723.
+                         |                               |
+        -----------------------------            Louis, Duke of Orleans,
+        |                           |                 + 1752.
+        |                           |                    |
+      Louis,                    PHILIP           Louis Philip, D. of Orleans,
+    Duke of Burgundy,      (Duke of Anjou,)           + 1785.
+      + 1712.               King of Spain,               |
+        |                        + 1746.                 |
+        |                           |                    |
+        |             -----------------              -------------------
+        |             |               |              |                 |
+    LOUIS XV.    FERDINAND VI.   CHARLES IV.     Louis Philip   Louisa Maria,
+      + 1774.       + 1759.     King of Naples,   (Égalité,)     Duchess of
+        |             |             + 1759.         + 1796.       Bourbon.
+        |             |               |              |
+      Louis      CHARLES III.   FERDINAND IV.        |
+    (Dauphin,)     + 1788.          + 1825.          |
+      + 1765.         |               |              |
+        |        CHARLES IV.      FRANCIS.           |
+        |         Ab. 1808         + 1830.           |
+        |             |               |              |
+        |   --------------------      |             -----------------------
+        |   |                  |      |             |         |           |
+        | FERDINAND VII.  Charles, FERDINAND V.   LOUIS   Anthony,      Louis,
+        |    + 1833.        or                  PHILIPPE.  Duke of     Count of
+        |   |            Don Carlos.                     Montpensier.  Beaujolais,
+        |   |                                                           + 1808.
+        | ISABELLA II.
+        |
+        -------------------------------------------------
+        |                         |                     |
+    LOUIS XVI.              LOUIS XVIII.           CHARLES X.
+      + 1793.                  + 1825.                (Abd.)
+        |                                             + 1836.
+        |                                               |
+        ------------------------          --------------------------
+        |                      |          |                        |
+    Louis Joseph,      Louis XVII.      Louis,             Charles, Duke of Berri,
+      + 1789.            + 1795.       Duke of                   + 1820.
+                                      Angoulême.                   |
+                                                           Henry, Duke of
+                                                              Bourdeaux.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of
+Luther to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of A Modern History, from the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon; Author: John Lord, A.M.</title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of Luther
+to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon
+       For the Use of Schools and Colleges
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24598]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN HISTORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This book was produced from scanned images of public
+domain material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="tn"><p class="noindent">[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
+been maintained.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Page 492: A probable typographical error "Camide, Desmoulins" has been
+replaced by "Camille Desmoulin".</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The following sentences had illegible words; inserted words are shown
+here between "=".</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Page 82: "and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the =ruler= of
+the nation."</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Page 178: "The minority had now become a majority," &mdash; which is not
+unusual in revolutionary times, &mdash; and proceeded to the work, in good
+earnest, which =he= had long contemplated.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Page 487: All classes in France were anxious for it, and =war= was
+soon declared.]</p></div>
+
+
+<h1><span class="smaller">A</span><br>
+MODERN HISTORY,<br>
+<span class="smaller">FROM THE</span><br>
+TIME OF LUTHER<br>
+<span class="smaller">TO THE</span><br>
+FALL OF NAPOLEON.</h1>
+
+<p class="center noindent">FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">BY</p>
+
+<h2>JOHN LORD, A.M.,</h2>
+
+<p class="center noindent">LECTURER ON HISTORY.</p>
+
+<p class="p4 center noindent toc">PHILADELPHIA:<br>
+  CHARLES DESILVER;<br>
+  CLAXTON, REMSEN &amp; HAFFELFINGER;<br>
+  J. B. LIPPINCOTT &amp; CO.<br>
+  <span class="smcap">New York</span>: D. APPLETON &amp; CO. <span class="smcap">Boston</span>: NICHOLS &amp; HALL.<br>
+  <span class="smcap">Cincinnati</span>: ROBERT CLARKE &amp; CO; WILSON, HINKLE &amp; CO.<br>
+  <span class="smcap">San Francisco</span>: A. L. BANCROFT &amp; CO.<br>
+  <span class="italic">Chicago:</span> <span class="smcap">S. C. Griggs &amp; Co.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Charleston, S. C.</span>: <span class="smcap">J. M. Greer &amp; Son; Edward Perry
+  &amp; Son.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Raleigh, N. C.</span>: <span class="smcap">Williams &amp; Lambeth.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Baltimore, Md.</span>: <span class="smcap">Cushings
+  &amp; Bailey; W. J. C Dulaney &amp; Co.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">New Orleans, La.</span>: <span class="smcap">Stevens &amp;
+  Seymour.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Savannah, Ga.</span>: <span class="smcap">J. M. Cooper &amp; Co.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Macon, Ga.</span>:
+  <span class="smcap">J. M. Boardman.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Augusta, Ga.</span>: <span class="smcap">Thos. Richards &amp;
+  Son.</span> &mdash; <span class="italic">Richmond, Va.</span>: <span class="smcap">Woodhouse &amp; Parham.</span><br>
+  1874.</p>
+
+<p class="p4 center noindent toc smaller">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by<br>
+  JOHN LORD,<br>
+  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.</p>
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>(p. v)</span>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In preparing this History, I make no claim to original and profound
+investigations; but the arrangement, the style, and the sentiments,
+are my own. I have simply attempted to condense the great and varied
+subjects which are presented, so as to furnish a connected narrative
+of what is most vital in the history of the last three hundred years,
+avoiding both minute details and elaborate disquisitions. It has been
+my aim to write a book, which should be neither a chronological table
+nor a philosophical treatise, but a work adapted to the wants of young
+people in the various stages of education, and which, it is hoped,
+will also prove interesting to those of maturer age; who have not the
+leisure to read extensive works, and yet who wish to understand the
+connection of great events since the Protestant Reformation. Those
+characters, institutions, reforms, and agitations, which have had the
+greatest influence in advancing society, only have been described, and
+these not to the extent which will satisfy the learned or the curious.
+Dates and names, battles and sieges, have not been disregarded; but
+more attention has been given to those ideas and to those men by whose
+influence and agency great changes have taken place. <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevi" name="pagevi"></a>(p. vi)</span>In a
+work so limited, and yet so varied, marginal references to original
+authorities have not been deemed necessary; but a list of standard and
+accessible authors is furnished, at the close of each chapter, which
+the young student, seeking more minute information, can easily
+consult. A continuation of this History to the present time might seem
+desirable; but it would be difficult to condense the complicated
+events of the last thirty years into less than another volume. Instead
+of an unsatisfactory compend, especially of subjects concerning which
+there are great differences of opinion, and considerable warmth of
+feeling, useful tables of important events are furnished in the
+Appendix. I have only to add, that if I have succeeded in remedying,
+in some measure, the defects of those dry compendiums, which are used
+for want of living histories; if I have combined what is instructive
+with what is entertaining; and especially if I shall impress the
+common mind, even to a feeble degree, with those great moral truths
+which history ought to teach, I shall feel that my agreeable labor is
+not without its reward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="col60">J. L.</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">Boston,</span> <span class="italic">October, 1849</span>.</p>
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>(p. vii)</span>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<a id="toc" name="toc"></a>
+<div class="toc">
+<p class="center">CHAPTER <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH
+  CENTURIES.<br>
+<a href="#page001" title="Link to page 1">(pp. 1-9.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Revival</span> of the Arts &mdash; Influence of Feudalism &mdash; Effects of Scholasticism &mdash; Ecclesiastical
+    Corruptions &mdash; Papal Infallibility &mdash; The sale of Indulgences &mdash; The
+    Corruptions of the Church &mdash; Necessity for Reform.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.<br>
+<a href="#page010" title="Link to page 10">(pp. 10-29.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Early Life of Luther &mdash; Luther's Early Religious Struggles &mdash; The
+    Ninety-Five Propositions &mdash; Erasmus &mdash; Melancthon &mdash; Leo <abbr title="10">X.</abbr> &mdash; The
+    Leipsic Disputation &mdash; Principles of the Leipsic Disputation &mdash; The
+    Rights of Private Judgment &mdash; Luther's Elements of Greatness &mdash; Excommunication
+    of Luther &mdash; The Diet of Worms &mdash; Imprisonment at
+    Wartburg &mdash; Carlstadt &mdash; Thomas Münzer Ulric &mdash; Zwingle &mdash; Controversy
+    between Luther and Zwingle &mdash; Diet of Augsburg &mdash; League of
+    Smalcalde &mdash; Death and Character of Luther.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE EMPEROR CHARLES <abbr title="5">V.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page030" title="Link to page 30">(pp. 30-44.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Charles</span> <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> &mdash; Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century &mdash; Wars between
+    Charles and Francis. &mdash; Diet of Spires &mdash; Hostilities between Charles
+    and Francis &mdash; African War &mdash; Council of Trent &mdash; Treachery of Maurice &mdash; Captivity
+    of the Landgrave of Hesse &mdash; Heroism of Maurice &mdash; Misfortunes
+    of Charles &mdash; Treaty of Passau &mdash; Character of Charles.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">HENRY <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page045" title="Link to page 45">(pp. 45-59.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Rise</span> of Absolute Monarchy &mdash; Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> &mdash; Rise of Cardinal Wolsey &mdash; Magnificence
+    of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> &mdash; Anne Boleyn &mdash; Queen Catharine &mdash; Disgrace
+    and Death of Wolsey &mdash; More &mdash; Cranmer &mdash; Cromwell &mdash; Quarrel
+    with the Pope &mdash; Suppression of Monasteries &mdash; Execution of Anne
+    Boleyn &mdash; Anne of Cleves &mdash; Catharine Howard &mdash; Last Days of Henry &mdash; Death
+    of Henry.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">EDWARD <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> AND MARY.<br>
+<a href="#page060" title="Link to page 60">(pp. 60-68.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">War</span> with Scotland &mdash; Rebellions and Discontents &mdash; Rivalry of the great
+    Nobles &mdash; Religious Reforms &mdash; Execution of Northumberland &mdash; Marriage
+    of the Queen &mdash; Religious Persecution &mdash; Character of Mary &mdash; Accession
+    of Elizabeth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">ELIZABETH.<br>
+<a href="#page069" title="Link to page 69">(pp. 69-81.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Mary,</span> Queen of Scots &mdash; John Knox &mdash; Marriage of Mary &mdash; Darnley &mdash; Bothwell &mdash; Civil
+    War in Scotland &mdash; Captivity of Queen Mary &mdash; Execution
+    of Mary &mdash; Military Preparations of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> &mdash; Spanish Armada &mdash; Irish
+    Rebellion &mdash; The Earl of Essex &mdash; Character of Elizabeth &mdash; Improvements
+    made in the Reign of Elizabeth &mdash; Reflections.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">FRANCIS <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, CHARLES <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, HENRY <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, AND HENRY <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page082" title="Link to page 82">(pp. 82-90.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Catharine</span> de Medicis &mdash; Civil War in France &mdash; Massacre of St. Bartholomew &mdash; Henry
+    <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> &mdash; Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> &mdash; Edict of Nantes &mdash; Improvements
+    during the Reign of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> &mdash; Peace Scheme of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> &mdash; Death
+    of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> &mdash; France at the Death of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">PHILIP <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.<br>
+<a href="#page091" title="Link to page 91">(pp. 91-96.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Bigotry</span> of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> &mdash; Revolt of the Netherlands &mdash; Revolt of the Moriscoes &mdash; Causes
+    of the Decline of the Spanish Monarchy &mdash; The Increase
+    of Gold and Silver &mdash; Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.<br>
+<a href="#page097" title="Link to page 97">(pp. 97-107.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century &mdash; Rise of the Jesuits &mdash; Rapid
+    Spread of the Jesuits &mdash; Extraordinary Virtues of the older Jesuits &mdash; The
+    Constitution of the Jesuits &mdash; Degeneracy of the Jesuits &mdash; Evils
+    in the Jesuit System &mdash; The Popes in the Seventeenth Century &mdash; Nepotism
+    of the Popes &mdash; Rome in the Seventeenth Century.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THIRTY YEARS' WAR.<br>
+<a href="#page108" title="Link to page 108">(pp. 108-119.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Political</span> Troubles after the Death of Luther &mdash; Diet of Augsburg &mdash; Commencement
+    of the Thirty Years' War &mdash; The Emperor Frederic &mdash; Count
+    Wallenstein &mdash; Character of Wallenstein &mdash; Gustavus Adolphus &mdash; Loss
+    of Magdeburg &mdash; Wallenstein reinstated in Power &mdash; Death of Gustavus
+    Adolphus &mdash; Assassination of Wallenstein &mdash; Treaty of Westphalia.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.<br>
+<a href="#page120" title="Link to page 120">(pp. 120-132.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Regency</span> of Mary de Medicis &mdash; Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu &mdash; Suppression
+    of the Huguenots &mdash; The Depression of the great Nobles &mdash; Power
+    of Richelieu &mdash; Character of Richelieu &mdash; Effects of Richelieu's Policy &mdash; Richelieu's
+    Policy &mdash; Cardinal de Retz &mdash; Prince of Condé &mdash; Power
+    of Mazarin &mdash; Death of Mazarin.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE REIGNS OF JAMES <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> AND CHARLES.<br>
+<a href="#page133" title="Link to page 133">(pp. 133-180.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Accession</span> of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> &mdash; The Genius of the Reign of James &mdash; Conspiracy
+    of Sir Walter Raleigh &mdash; Gunpowder Plot &mdash; Persecution of the Catholics &mdash; Robert
+    Carr, Earl of Somerset &mdash; Greatness and Fall of Somerset &mdash; Duke
+    of Buckingham &mdash; Lord Bacon &mdash; Trial and Execution of Raleigh &mdash; Encroachments
+    of James &mdash; Quarrel between James and Parliament &mdash; Death
+    of James &mdash; The Struggle of Classes &mdash; Rise of Popular
+    Power &mdash; Quarrel between the King and the Commons &mdash; The Counsellors
+    of Charles &mdash; Death of Buckingham &mdash; Petition of Right &mdash; Earl of
+    Strafford &mdash; John Hampden &mdash; Insurrection in Scotland &mdash; Long Parliament &mdash; Rebellion
+    of Ireland &mdash; Flight of the King from London &mdash; Rise
+    of the Puritans &mdash; Original Difficulties and Differences &mdash; Persecution
+    during the Reign of Elizabeth &mdash; Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift &mdash; Persecution
+    under James &mdash; Puritans in Exile &mdash; Troubles in Scotland &mdash; Peculiarities
+    of Puritanism in England &mdash; Conflicts among the Puritans &mdash; Character
+    of the Puritans &mdash; John Hampden &mdash; Oliver Cromwell &mdash; The
+    King at Oxford &mdash; Cromwell after the Battle of Marston Moor &mdash; Enthusiasm
+    of the Independents &mdash; Battle of Naseby &mdash; Success of the
+    Parliamentary Army &mdash; Seizure of the King &mdash; Triumph of the Independents &mdash; Cromwell
+    invades Scotland &mdash; Seizure of the King a second
+    Time &mdash; Trial of the King.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.<br>
+<a href="#page181" title="Link to page 181">(pp. 181-191.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Storming</span> of Drogheda and Wexford &mdash; Battle of Worcester &mdash; Policy of
+    Cromwell &mdash; The Rump Parliament &mdash; Dispersion of the Parliament
+    Cromwell assumes the Protectorship &mdash; The Dutch War &mdash; Cromwell
+    rules without a Parliament &mdash; The Protectorate &mdash; Regal Government
+    restored.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE REIGN OF CHARLES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page192" title="Link to page 192">(pp. 192-210.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Restoration &mdash; Great Public Rejoicings &mdash; Reaction to Revolutionary
+    Principles &mdash; Excellencies in Charles's Government &mdash; Failure of the
+    Puritan Experiment &mdash; Repeal of the Triennial Bill &mdash; Secret Alliance
+    with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> &mdash; Venality and Sycophancy of Parliament &mdash; Restrictions
+    on the Press &mdash; Habeas Corpus Act &mdash; Titus Oates &mdash; Oates's Revelations &mdash; Penal
+    Laws against Catholics &mdash; Persecution of Dissenters &mdash; Execution
+    of Russell and Sydney &mdash; Manners and Customs of England &mdash; Milton &mdash; Dryden &mdash; Condition
+    of the People of England.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE REIGN OF JAMES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page211" title="Link to page 211">(pp. 211-233.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Accession</span> of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> &mdash; Monmouth lands in England &mdash; Battle of Sedgemoor &mdash; Death
+    of Monmouth &mdash; Brutality of Jeffreys &mdash; Persecution of
+    the Dissenters &mdash; George Fox &mdash; Persecution of the Quakers &mdash; Despotic
+    Power of James &mdash; Favor extended to Catholics &mdash; High Commission
+    Court &mdash; Quarrel with the Universities &mdash; Magdalen College &mdash; Prosecution
+    of the Seven Bishops &mdash; Tyranny and infatuation of James &mdash; Organized
+    Opposition &mdash; William, Prince of Orange &mdash; Critical condition
+    of James &mdash; Invasion of England by William &mdash; Flight of the King &mdash; Consummation
+    of the Revolution &mdash; Declaration of Rights.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">LOUIS <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page234" title="Link to page 234">(pp. 234-251.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Power and Resources of Louis &mdash; His Habits and Pleasures &mdash; His
+    Military Ambition &mdash; William, Prince of Orange &mdash; Second Invasion of
+    Holland &mdash; Dutch War &mdash; Madame de Montespan &mdash; Madame de Maintenon &mdash; League
+    of Augsburg &mdash; Opposing Armies and Generals &mdash; War
+    of the Spanish Succession &mdash; Duke of Marlborough &mdash; Battle of Blenheim &mdash; Exertions
+    and Necessities of Louis &mdash; Treaty of Utrecht &mdash; Last
+    Days of Louis &mdash; His Character.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="17">XVII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">WILLIAM AND MARY.<br>
+<a href="#page252" title="Link to page 252">(pp. 252-270.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Irish</span> Rebellion &mdash; King James in Ireland &mdash; Freedom of the Press &mdash; Act
+    of Settlement &mdash; Death of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> &mdash; Character of William &mdash; Sir
+    Isaac Newton and John Locke &mdash; Anne &mdash; The Duke of Marlborough &mdash; Character
+    of Marlborough &mdash; Whigs and Tories &mdash; Dr. Henry Sacheverell &mdash; Union
+    of Scotland and England &mdash; Duke of Hamilton &mdash; Wits of
+    Queen Anne's Reign &mdash; Swift &mdash; Pope &mdash; Bolingbroke &mdash; Gay &mdash; Prior &mdash; Writers
+    of the Age of Queen Anne.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.<br>
+<a href="#page271" title="Link to page 271">(pp. 271-289.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Early</span> History of Russia &mdash; The Tartar Conquest &mdash; Accession of Peter the
+    Great &mdash; Peter's Reforms &mdash; His War with Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> &mdash; Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> &mdash; Building
+    of St. Petersburg &mdash; New War with Sweden &mdash; War with
+    the Turks &mdash; Peter makes a second Tour &mdash; Elevation of Catharine &mdash; Early
+    History of Sweden &mdash; Introduction of Christianity &mdash; Gustavus
+    Vasa &mdash; Early Days of Charles XII &mdash; Charles's Heroism &mdash; His Misfortunes &mdash; His
+    Return to Sweden &mdash; His Death.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="19">XIX.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">GEORGE <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.<br>
+<a href="#page290" title="Link to page 290">(pp. 290-309.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Accession</span> of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> &mdash; Sir Robert Walpole &mdash; The Pretender &mdash; Invasion
+    of Scotland &mdash; The South Sea Bubble &mdash; The South Sea Company &mdash; Opposition
+    of Walpole &mdash; Mania for Speculation &mdash; Bursting of the
+    South Sea Bubble &mdash; Enlightened policy of Walpole &mdash; East India
+    Company &mdash; Resignation of Townshend &mdash; Unpopularity of Walpole &mdash; Decline
+    of his power &mdash; John Wesley &mdash; Early life of Wesley &mdash; Whitefield &mdash; Institution
+    of Wesley &mdash; Itinerancy &mdash; Great influence and power
+    of Wesley.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="20">XX.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.<br>
+<a href="#page310" title="Link to page 310">(pp. 310-341.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Commercial</span> Enterprise &mdash; Spanish Conquests and Settlements &mdash; Portuguese
+    Discoveries &mdash; Portuguese Settlements &mdash; Early English Enterprise &mdash; Sir
+    Walter Raleigh &mdash; London Company incorporated &mdash; Hardships
+    of the Virginia Colony &mdash; New Charter of the London Company &mdash; Rapid
+    Colonization &mdash; Indian Warfare &mdash; Governor Harvey &mdash; Arbitrary
+    Policy of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> &mdash; Settlement of New England &mdash; Arrival of
+    the Mayflower &mdash; Settlement of New Hampshire &mdash; Constitution of the
+    Colony &mdash; Doctrines of the Puritans &mdash; Pequod War &mdash; Union of the
+    New England Colonies &mdash; William Penn &mdash; Settlement of New York &mdash; Conquest
+    of New Netherlands &mdash; Discovery of the St. Lawrence &mdash; Jesuit
+    Missionaries &mdash; Prosperity of the English Colonies &mdash; French
+    Encroachments &mdash; European Settlements in the East &mdash; French Settlements
+    in India &mdash; La Bourdonnais and Dupleix &mdash; Clive's Victories &mdash; Conquest
+    of India.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="21">XXI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE REIGN OF GEORGE <abbr title="2">II.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page342" title="Link to page 342">(pp. 342-359.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Pelhams &mdash; The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart &mdash; Surrender of
+    Edinburgh &mdash; Success of the Pretender &mdash; The Retreat of the Pretender &mdash; Battle
+    of Culloden &mdash; Latter Days of the Pretender &mdash; Maria Theresa &mdash; Capture
+    of Louisburg &mdash; Great Colonial Contest &mdash; Character of the
+    Duke of Newcastle &mdash; Unpopularity of the Pelhams &mdash; Rise of William
+    Pitt &mdash; Brilliant Military Successes &mdash; Military Successes in America &mdash; Victories
+    of Clive in India &mdash; Resignation of Pitt &mdash; Peace of Paris.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="22">XXII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">LOUIS <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page360" title="Link to page 360">(pp. 360-379.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Regency</span> of the Duke of Orleans &mdash; John Law &mdash; Mississippi Company &mdash; Popular
+    Delusion &mdash; Fatal Effects of the Delusion &mdash; Administration
+    of Cardinal Fleury &mdash; Cornelius Jansen &mdash; St. Cyran &mdash; Arnauld &mdash; Le
+    Maitre &mdash; The Labors of the Port Royalists &mdash; Principles of Jansenism &mdash; Functions
+    of the Parliament &mdash; The Bull Unigenitus &mdash; Madame de
+    Pompadour &mdash; The Jesuits &mdash; Exposure of the Jesuits &mdash; Their Expulsion
+    from France &mdash; Suppression in Spain &mdash; Pope Clement <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> &mdash; Death
+    of Ganganelli &mdash; Death of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="23">XXIII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">FREDERIC THE GREAT.<br>
+<a href="#page380" title="Link to page 380">(pp. 380-390.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Frederic</span> William &mdash; Accession of Frederic the Great &mdash; The Seven Years'
+    War &mdash; Battle of Rossbach &mdash; Battle of Leuthen &mdash; Fall of Dresden &mdash; Reverses
+    of Frederic &mdash; Continued Disasters &mdash; Exhaustion of Prussia
+    by the War &mdash; Death of Frederic &mdash; Character of Frederic.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="24">XXIV.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE <abbr title="2">II.</abbr><br>
+<a href="#page391" title="Link to page 391">(pp. 391-401.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Germanic Constitution &mdash; The Hungarian War &mdash; The Emperor Joseph &mdash; Accession
+    of Maria Theresa &mdash; She institutes Reforms &mdash; Successors
+    of Peter the Great &mdash; Murder of Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> &mdash; Assassination, of
+    Ivan &mdash; Death of Catharine &mdash; Her Character.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="25">XXV.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">CALAMITIES OF POLAND.<br>
+<a href="#page402" title="Link to page 402">(pp. 402-408.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">The</span> Crown of Poland made elective &mdash; Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou &mdash; Sobieski
+    assists the Emperor Leopold &mdash; The Liberum Veto &mdash; The
+    Fall of Poland.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="26">XXVI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.<br>
+<a href="#page409" title="Link to page 409">(pp. 409-415.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Saracenic</span> Empire &mdash; Rise of the Turks &mdash; Turkish Conquerors &mdash; Progress
+    of the Turks &mdash; Decline of Turkish Power &mdash; Turkish Institutions &mdash; Turkish
+    Character.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="27">XXVII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">REIGN OF GEORGE <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> TO ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.<br>
+<a href="#page416" title="Link to page 416">(pp. 416-431.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Military</span> Successes in America &mdash; Prosecution of Wilkes &mdash; Churchill &mdash; Grafton's
+    Administration &mdash; Popularity of Wilkes &mdash; Taxation of the
+    Colonies &mdash; Indignation of the Colonies &mdash; Functions of the Parliament &mdash; The
+    Stamp Act &mdash; Lord Chatham &mdash; Administration of Lord North &mdash; Irish
+    Discontents &mdash; Protestant Association &mdash; Lord George Gordon's
+    Riots &mdash; Parliamentary Reforms.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="28">XXVIII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.<br>
+<a href="#page432" title="Link to page 432">(pp. 432-449.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Causes</span> of the Revolution &mdash; Riots and Disturbances &mdash; Duty on Tea &mdash; Port
+    of Boston closed &mdash; Meeting of Congress &mdash; Speech of Burke &mdash; Battle
+    of Bunker Hill &mdash; Death of Montgomery &mdash; Declaration of American
+    Independence &mdash; Commissioners sent to France &mdash; Capture of Burgoyne &mdash; Moral
+    Effects of Burgoyne's Capture &mdash; Arrival of La Fayette &mdash; Evacuation
+    of Philadelphia &mdash; The Treason of Arnold &mdash; Surrender
+    of Lord Cornwallis &mdash; Resignation of Lord North.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="29">XXIX.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.<br>
+<a href="#page450" title="Link to page 450">(pp. 450-470.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">William</span> Pitt &mdash; Early Life of Pitt &mdash; Policy of Pitt &mdash; Difficulties with
+    Ireland &mdash; The United Irishmen &mdash; Union of England and Ireland &mdash; Condition
+    of Ireland &mdash; Parliamentary Reform &mdash; Warren Hastings &mdash; War
+    with Hyder Ali &mdash; Robbery of the Princesses of Oude &mdash; Prosecution
+    of Hastings &mdash; Edmund Burke &mdash; Charles James Fox &mdash; Richard
+    Brinsley Sheridan &mdash; Bill for the Regulation of India &mdash; War with Tippoo
+    Saib &mdash; Conquest of India &mdash; Consequences of the Conquest &mdash; War
+    with France &mdash; Policy of Pitt.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="30">XXX.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.<br>
+<a href="#page471" title="Link to page 471">(pp. 471-495.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Causes</span> of the French Revolution &mdash; Helvetius &mdash; Voltaire &mdash; Rousseau &mdash; Diderot &mdash; General
+    Influence of the Philosophers &mdash; Sufferings of the
+    People &mdash; Degradation of the People &mdash; Derangement of Finances &mdash; Maurepas &mdash; Turgot &mdash; Malesherbes &mdash; Necker &mdash; Calonne &mdash; States General &mdash; The
+    <span lang="fr">Tiers État</span> &mdash; Commotions &mdash; Rule of the People &mdash; National
+    Federation &mdash; Flight of the King &mdash; The Girondists and the Jacobins &mdash; The
+    National Convention &mdash; Marat &mdash; Danton &mdash; Robespierre &mdash; General
+    War &mdash; Reign of Terror &mdash; Death of Robespierre &mdash; New Constitution &mdash; The
+    Directory.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="31">XXXI.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.<br>
+<a href="#page496" title="Link to page 496">(pp. 496-526.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Character</span> of Bonaparte &mdash; Early Days of Bonaparte &mdash; Early Services to the
+    Republic &mdash; The Italian Campaign &mdash; Battle of Cape St. Vincent &mdash; Conquest
+    of Venice by Bonaparte &mdash; Invasion of Egypt &mdash; Siege of Acre &mdash; Reverses
+    of the French &mdash; Bonaparte First Consul &mdash; Immense Military Preparations &mdash; The
+    Reforms of Bonaparte &mdash; The <span lang="fr">Code Napoléon</span> &mdash; Bonaparte becomes
+    Emperor of the French &mdash; Meditated Invasion of England &mdash; Battle
+    of Austerlitz &mdash; Battle of Jena &mdash; Bonaparte aggrandizes France &mdash; Aggrandizement
+    of Bonaparte's Family &mdash; The Peninsular War &mdash; Invasion
+    of Russia &mdash; Battle of Smolensko &mdash; Retreat of the French &mdash; Battles of
+    Lutzen and Bautzen &mdash; Battle of Leipsic &mdash; The Allied Powers invade
+    France &mdash; Peace of Paris &mdash; Bonaparte escapes from Elba &mdash; Battle of Waterloo &mdash; Reflections
+    on Napoleon's Fall.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">CHAPTER <abbr title="32">XXXII.</abbr></p>
+<p class="center smaller">EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.<br>
+<a href="#page527" title="Link to page 527">(pp. 527-532.)</a></p>
+
+<p class="add1em noindent"><span class="min1em">Remarkable</span> Men of Genius &mdash; Condition of Germany &mdash; Condition of
+    other Powers &mdash; The United States of America.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="p2 center">APPENDIX.</p>
+
+<ul class="add2em">
+<li><span class="min1em">Chronological</span> Table, from the Fall of Napoleon,
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#page533" title="Link to page 533">533</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="min1em">Prime</span> Ministers of England, from the Accession of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>,
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#page538" title="Link to page 538">538</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="min1em">Table</span> of the Monarchy of Europe, during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries,
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#page541" title="Link to page 541">541</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="min1em">Genealogical</span> Table of the Royal Family of England,
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#page543" title="Link to page 543">543</a></span></li>
+<li><span class="min1em">Genealogical</span> Table of the Bourbons,
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#page544" title="Link to page 544">544</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a id="page001" name="page001"></a>(p. 001)</span>MODERN HISTORY.</h1>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The period at which this History commences,&mdash;the beginning of the
+sixteenth century,&mdash;when compared with the ages which had preceded it,
+since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented
+brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men
+and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to
+experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been
+suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put
+forth new energies in every department of life. The material and the
+political, the moral and the social condition of society was subject
+to powerful agitations, and passed through important changes.</p>
+
+<p>Great <span class="italic">discoveries and inventions</span> had been made. The use of movable
+types, first ascribed to a German, of Mentz, by the name of Gutenberg,
+in 1441, and to Peter Sch&oelig;ffer, in 1444, changed the whole system
+of book-making, and vastly increased the circulation of the
+Scriptures, the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable
+works, which, by the industry of the monkish copyist, had been
+preserved from the ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose
+explosive power had been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280,
+though it was not used on the field of battle until 1346, had
+completely changed the art of war and had greatly contributed to
+undermine the feudal system. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page002" name="page002"></a>(p. 002)</span>The polarity of the magnet,
+also discovered in the middle ages, and not practically applied to the
+mariner's compass until 1403, had led to the greatest event of the
+fifteenth century&mdash;the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus,
+in 1492. The impulse given to commerce by this and other discoveries
+of unknown continents and oceans, by the Portuguese, the Spaniards,
+the Dutch, the English, and the French, cannot be here enlarged on.
+America revealed to the astonished European her riches in gold and
+silver; and Indian spices, and silks, and drugs, were imported,
+through new channels, into all the countries inhabited by the Teutonic
+races. Mercantile wealth, with all its refinements, acquired new
+importance in the eyes of the nations. The world opened towards the
+east and the west. The horizon of knowledge extended. Popular
+delusions were dispelled. Liberality of mind was acquired. The
+material prosperity of the western nations was increased. Tastes
+became more refined, and social intercourse more cheerful.</p>
+
+<p>Art, <span class="inline">Revival of the Arts.</span> in all its departments, was every where revived at this epoch.
+Houses became more comfortable, and churches more splendid. The
+utensils of husbandry and of cookery were improved. Linen and woollen
+manufactures supplanted the coarser fabrics of the dark ages. Music
+became more elaborate, and the present system of notation was adopted.
+The genius of the sculptor again gave life and beauty to a marble
+block, and painting was carried to greater perfection than by the
+ancient Greeks and Romans. Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome became
+seats of various schools of this beautiful art, of which Michael
+Angelo, Correggio, the Carracci, and Raphael were the most celebrated
+masters, all of whom were distinguished for peculiar excellences,
+never since surpassed, or even equalled. The Flemish artists were
+scarcely behind the Italian; and Rubens, of Antwerp, may well rank
+with Correggio and Titian. To Raphael, however, the world has, as yet,
+furnished no parallel.</p>
+
+<p><span class="italic">The political and social structure</span> of society changed. The crusades,
+long before, had given a shock to the political importance of the
+feudal aristocracy, and reviving commerce and art had shaken the
+system to its foundations. The Flemish weavers <span class="pagenum"><a id="page003" name="page003"></a>(p. 003)</span>had arisen,
+and a mercantile class had clamored for new privileges. In the
+struggle of classes, and in the misfortunes of nobles, monarchs had
+perceived the advantages they might gain, and fortunate circumstances
+enabled them to raise absolute thrones, and restore a central power,
+always so necessary to the cause of civilization. <span class="inline">Influence of Feudalism.</span> Feudalism had
+answered many useful ends in the dark ages. It had secured a
+reciprocity of duties between a lord and his vassal; it had restored
+loyalty, truth, and fidelity among semi-barbarians; it had favored the
+cultivation of the soil; it had raised up a hardy rural population; it
+had promoted chivalry, and had introduced into Europe the modern
+gentleman; it had ennobled friendship, and spread the graces of
+urbanity and gentleness among rough and turbulent warriors. But it
+had, also, like all human institutions, become corrupt, and failed to
+answer the ends for which it was instituted. It had become an
+oppressive social despotism; it had widened the distinction between
+the noble and ignoble classes; it had produced selfishness and
+arrogance among the nobles, and a mean and cringing sycophancy among
+the people; it had perpetuated privileges, among the aristocracy,
+exceedingly unjust, and ruinous to the general welfare of society. It
+therefore fell before the advancing spirit of the age, and monarchies
+and republics were erected on its ruins. The people, as well as
+monarchs, had learned the secret of their power. They learned that, by
+combining their power, they could successfully resist their enemies.
+The principle of association was learned. Combinations of masses took
+place. Free cities were multiplied. A population of artificers, and
+small merchants, and free farmers arose. They discussed their
+privileges, and asserted their independence. Political liberty was
+born, and its invaluable blessings were conceived, if they were not
+realized.</p>
+
+<p><span class="italic">And the intellectual state</span> of Europe received an impulse as marked
+and beneficent as the physical and social. <span class="inline">Effects of Scholasticism.</span> The scholastic philosophy,
+with its dry and technical logic, its abstruse formulas, and its
+subtle refinements, ceased to satisfy the wants of the human mind, now
+craving light and absolute knowledge in all departments of science and
+philosophy. Like feudalism, it had once been useful; but like that
+institution, it had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page004" name="page004"></a>(p. 004)</span>also become corrupted, and an object of
+sarcasm and mockery. It had trained the European mind for the
+discoveries of the sixteenth century; it had raised up an inquisitive
+spirit, and had led to profound reflections on the existence of God,
+on his attributes and will, on the nature of the soul, on the
+faculties of the mind and on the practical duties of life. But this
+philosophy became pedantic and cold; covered, as with a funereal
+shade, the higher pursuits of life; and diverted attention from what
+was practical and useful. That earnest spirit, which raised up Luther
+and Bacon, demanded, of the great masters of thought, something which
+the people could understand, and something which would do them good.</p>
+
+<p>In poetry, the insipid and immoral songs of the Provençal bards gave
+place to the immortal productions of the great creators of the
+European languages. Dante led the way in Italy, and gave to the world
+the "Divine Comedy"&mdash;a masterpiece of human genius, which raised him
+to the rank of Homer and Virgil. Petrarch followed in his steps, and,
+if not as profound or original as Dante, yet is unequalled as an
+"enthusiastic songster of ideal love." He also gave a great impulse to
+civilization by his labors in collecting and collating manuscripts.
+Boccaccio also lent his aid in the revival of literature, and wrote a
+series of witty, though objectionable stories, from which the English
+Chaucer borrowed the notion of his "Canterbury Tales." Chaucer is the
+father of English poetry, and kindled a love of literature among his
+isolated countrymen; and was one of the few men who, in the evening of
+his days, looked upon the world without austerity, and expressed
+himself with all the vivacity of youthful feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Such were some of the leading events and circumstances which gave a
+new life to European society, and created a desire for better days.
+All of these causes of improvement acted and reacted on each other in
+various ways, and prepared the way to new and great developments of
+action and passion. These new energies were, however, unfortunately
+checked by a combination of evils which had arisen in the dark ages,
+and which required to be subverted before any great progress could be
+reasonably expected. <span class="inline">Ecclesiastical Corruptions.</span> These evils were most remarkable in the church
+itself <span class="pagenum"><a id="page005" name="page005"></a>(p. 005)</span>and almost extinguished the light which Christ and
+his apostles had kindled. The church looked with an evil eye on many
+of the greatest improvements and agitations of the age, and attempted
+to suppress the spirit of insurrection which had arisen against the
+abuses and follies of past ages. Great ideas were ridiculed, and
+daring spirits were crushed. There were many good men in the church
+who saw and who lamented prevailing corruptions, but their voice was
+overwhelmed by the clamors of interested partisans, or silenced by the
+authority of the popes. The character of the popes themselves was not
+what was expected of the heads of the visible church, or what was
+frequently exhibited in those ignorant and superstitious times, when
+the papacy fulfilled, in the opinion of many enlightened Protestants,
+a benevolent mission. None had the disinterestedness of Gregory <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, or
+the talents of Gregory <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr> There had been a time when the great
+central spiritual monarchy of Rome had been exercised for the peace
+and tranquillity of Europe, when it was uniformly opposed to slavery
+and war, and when it was a mild and paternal government, which
+protected innocence and weakness, while it punished injustice and
+crime. The time was, when popes had been elevated for their piety and
+learning, and when they lived as saints and died as martyrs. But that
+time had passed. The Roman church did not keep up with the spirit or
+the wants of the age, and moreover did not reform itself from vices
+which had been overlooked in ages of ignorance and superstition. In
+the fifteenth century, many great abuses scandalized a body of men who
+should have been the lights of the world; and the sacred pontiffs
+themselves set examples of unusual depravity. Julius <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> marched at
+the head of armies. Alexander <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> secured his election by bribery, and
+reigned by extortion. He poisoned his own cardinals, and bestowed on
+his son Cæsar Borgia&mdash;an incarnated demon&mdash;the highest dignities and
+rewards. It was common for the popes to sell the highest offices in
+the church for money, to place boys on episcopal thrones, to absolve
+the most heinous and scandalous crimes for gold, to encourage the
+massacre of heretics, and to disgrace themselves by infamous vices.
+And a general laxity of morals existed among all orders of the clergy.
+They were ignorant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were
+exceedingly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page006" name="page006"></a>(p. 006)</span>numerous; had ceased to be men of prayer and
+contemplation, as in the days of Benedict and Bernard; and might be
+seen frequenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to
+pleasure, and enriched by inglorious gains.</p>
+
+<p>But the evils which the church encouraged were more dangerous than the
+vices of its members. These evils were inherent in the papal system,
+and were hard to be subverted. There were corruptions of doctrine, and
+corruptions in the government and customs of the church.</p>
+
+<p>There generally prevailed, throughout Christendom, <span class="inline">Papal Infallibility.</span> the belief in papal
+infallibility, which notion subverted the doctrines of the Bible, and
+placed its truths, at least, on a level with the authority of the
+schoolmen. It favored the various usurpations of the popes, and
+strengthened the bonds of spiritual despotism.</p>
+
+<p>The popes also claimed a control over secular princes, as well as the
+supremacy of the church. Hildebrand was content with riveting the
+chains of universal spiritual authority, the evil and absurdity of
+which cannot well be exaggerated; but his more ambitious successors
+sought to reduce the kings of the earth to perfect vassalage, and,
+when in danger of having their monstrous usurpations torn from them,
+were ready to fill the world with discord and war.</p>
+
+<p>But the worldly popes of the fifteenth century also aspired to be
+temporal princes. They established the most elegant court in Europe;
+they supported large armies; they sought to restore the splendor of
+imperial Rome; they became ambitious of founding great families; they
+enriched their nephews and relations at the sacrifice of the best
+interests of their church; they affected great state and dignity; they
+built gorgeous palaces; they ornamented their capital with pictures
+and statues.</p>
+
+<p>The territories of Rome were, however, small. The lawful revenues of
+the popes were insufficient to gratify their extravagance and pomp.
+But money, nevertheless, they must have. In order to raise it, they
+resorted to extortion and corruption. They imposed taxes on
+Christendom, direct and indirect. These were felt as an intolerable
+burden; but such was the superstition of the times, that they were
+successfully raised. But even these were insufficient to gratify papal
+avarice and rapacity. They <span class="pagenum"><a id="page007" name="page007"></a>(p. 007)</span>then resorted, in their
+necessities, to the meanest acts, imposed on the simplicity of their
+subjects, and finally adopted the most infamous custom which ever
+disgraced the world.</p>
+
+<p>They <span class="inline">The Sale of Indulgences.</span> pardoned sins for money&mdash;granted sales of indulgences for crime.
+A regular scale for absolution was graded. A proclamation was made
+every fifty, and finally every twenty-five years, of a year of
+jubilee, when plenary remission of all sin was promised to those who
+should make a pilgrimage to Rome. And so great was the influx of
+strangers, and consequently of wealth, to Rome, that, on one occasion,
+it was collected into piles by rakes. It is computed that two hundred
+thousand deluded persons visited the city in a single month. But the
+vast sums they brought to Rome, and the still greater sums which were
+obtained by the sale of indulgences, and by various taxations, were
+all squandered in ornamenting the city, and in supporting a luxurious
+court, profligate cardinals, and superfluous ministers of a corrupted
+religion. Then was erected the splendid church of St. Peter, more
+after the style of Grecian temples, than after the model of the Gothic
+cathedrals of York and Cologne. Glorious was that monument of reviving
+art; wonderful was its lofty dome; but the vast sums required to build
+it opened the eyes of Christendom to the extravagance and presumption
+of the popes; and this splendid trophy of their glory also became the
+emblem of their broken power. Their palaces and temples made an
+imposing show, but detracted from their real strength, which consisted
+in the affections of their spiritual subjects. Their outward grandeur,
+like the mechanical agencies which kings employ, was but a poor
+substitute for the invisible power of love,&mdash;in all ages, and among
+all people, "that cheap defence" which supports thrones and kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>Another great evil was, the prevalence of an idolatrous spirit. In the
+churches and chapels, and even in private families, were innumerable
+images of saints, pictures of the Virgin, relics, crucifixes, &amp;c.,
+designed at first to kindle a spirit of devotion among the rude and
+uneducated, but gradually becoming objects of real adoration.
+Intercessions were supposed to be made by the Virgin Mary, and by
+favorite saints, more efficacious with Deity than the penitence and
+prayers of the erring and sinful themselves. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page008" name="page008"></a>(p. 008)</span>influence
+of this veneration for martyrs and saints was degrading to the mind,
+and became a very lucrative source of profit to the priests, <span class="inline">The Corruptions of the Church.</span> who
+peddled the bones and relics of saints as they did indulgences, and
+who invented innumerable lies to attest the genuineness and antiquity
+of the objects they sold, all of which were parts of the great system
+of fraud and avarice which the church permitted.</p>
+
+<p>Again; the public worship of God was in a language the people could
+not understand, but rendered impressive by the gorgeous dresses of the
+priests, and the magnificence of the altar, and the images and vessels
+of silver and gold, reflecting their splendor, by the light of wax
+candles, on the sombre pillars, roofs, and windows of the Gothic
+church, and the effect heightened by exciting music, and other appeals
+to the taste or imagination, rather than to the reason and the heart.
+The sermons of the clergy were frivolous, and ill adapted to the
+spiritual wants of the people. "Men went to the Vatican," says the
+learned and philosophical Ranke, "not to pray, but to contemplate the
+Belvidere Apollo. They disgraced the most solemn festivals by open
+profanations. The clergy, in their services, sought the means of
+exciting laughter. One would mock the cuckoo, and another recite
+indecent stories about St. Peter." Luther, when he visited Italy, was
+extremely shocked at the infidel spirit which prevailed among the
+clergy, who were hostile to the circulation of the Scriptures, and who
+encouraged persecutions and inquisitions. This was the age when the
+dreadful tribunal of the Inquisition flourished, although its chief
+enormities were perpetrated in Spain and Portugal. It never had an
+existence in England, and but little influence in France and Germany.
+But if the Church did not resort, in all countries, to that dread
+tribunal which subjected youth, beauty, and innocence to the
+inquisitorial vengeance of narrow-minded Dominican monks, still she
+was hostile to free inquiry, and to all efforts made to emancipate the
+reason of men.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of religious persecution, which inflamed the Roman Church
+to punish all dissenters from the doctrine and abuses she promulgated,
+can never be questioned. The Waldenses and Albigenses had suffered, in
+darker times, almost incredible hardships and miseries&mdash;had been
+almost annihilated by the dreadful <span class="pagenum"><a id="page009" name="page009"></a>(p. 009)</span>crusade which was carried
+on against them, so that two hundred thousand had perished for
+supposed heresy. But reference is not now made to this wholesale
+massacre, but to those instances of individual persecution which
+showed the extreme jealousy and hatred of Rome of all new opinions.
+John Huss and Jerome of Prague were publicly burned for attempting to
+reform the church, and even Savonarola, who did not deny the authority
+of the popes, was condemned to the flames for denouncing the vices of
+his age, rather than the evils of the church.</p>
+
+<p>These multiplied evils, which checked the spirit of improvement,
+<span class="inline">Necessity for Reform.</span> called loudly for reform. Councils were assembled for the purpose; but
+councils supported, rather than diminished, the evils of which even
+princes complained. The reform was not destined to come from
+dignitaries in the church or state; not from bishops, nor
+philosophers, nor kings, but from an obscure teacher of divinity in a
+German university, whom the genius of a reviving and awakened age had
+summoned into the field of revolutionary warfare. It was reserved for
+Martin Luther to commence the first successful rebellion against the
+despotism of Rome, and to give the greatest impulse to freedom of
+thought, and a general spirit of reform, which ten centuries had seen.</p>
+
+<p>The most prominent event in modern times is unquestionably the
+Protestant Reformation, and it was by far the most momentous in its
+results. It gave rise, directly or indirectly, to the great wars of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as to those rival
+sects which agitated the theological world. It is connected with the
+enterprises of great monarchs, with the struggle of the Huguenots and
+Puritans, with the diffusion of knowledge, and with the progress of
+civil and religious liberty in Europe. An event, therefore, of such
+interest and magnitude, may well be adopted as a starting point in
+modern history, and will, accordingly, be the first subject of
+especial notice. History is ever most impressive and philosophical
+when great changes and revolutions are traced to the agency of great
+spiritual ideas. Moreover, modern history is so complicated, that it
+is difficult to unravel it except by tracing the agency of great
+causes, rather than by detailing the fortunes of kings and
+nobles.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page010" name="page010"></a>(p. 010)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.</h4>
+
+<p>Martin <span class="inline">The Early Life of Luther.</span> Luther was born the 10th of November, 1483, at Eisleben, in
+Saxony. His father was a miner, of Mansfield, and his ancestors were
+peasants, who lived near the summit of the Thuringian Forest. His
+early years were spent at Mansfield, in extreme poverty, and he earned
+his bread by singing hymns before the houses of the village. At the
+age of fifteen, he went to Eisenach, to a high school, and at eighteen
+entered the university of Erfurt, where he made considerable progress
+in the sciences then usually taught, which, however, were confined
+chiefly to the scholastic philosophy. He did not know either Greek or
+Hebrew, but read the Bible in Latin. In 1505, he took his degree of
+bachelor of arts, and, shortly after, his religious struggles
+commenced. He had witnessed a fearful tempest, which alarmed him,
+while on a visit at his father's house, and he was also much depressed
+by the death of an intimate friend. In that age, the serious and the
+melancholy generally sought monastic retreats, and Luther, thirsty
+after divine knowledge, and anxious to save his soul, resolved to
+forsake the world, and become a monk. He entered an Augustinian
+monastery at Erfurt, soon after obtaining his first degree. But the
+duties and studies of monastic life did not give his troubled soul the
+repose he sought. He submitted to all the irksome labors which the
+monks imposed; he studied the fathers and the schoolmen; he practised
+the most painful austerities, and fastings, and self-lacerations:
+still he was troubled with religious fears. His brethren encouraged
+his good works, but his perplexities and doubts remained. In this
+state of mind, he was found by Staupitz, vicar-general of the order,
+who was visiting Erfurt, in his tour of inspection, with a view to
+correct the bad morals of the monasteries. He sympathized with Luther
+in his religious feelings, treated him with great kindness, and
+recommended the reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St.
+Augustine <span class="pagenum"><a id="page011" name="page011"></a>(p. 011)</span>whose theological views he himself had embraced.
+Although St. Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still,
+his doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from
+those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines generally,
+who attached less importance to justification by faith than did the
+venerated bishop of Hyppo. In that age of abuses, great importance was
+attached, by the church, to austerities, penance, and absolutions for
+money. But Luther, deeply imbued with the spirit of Augustine, at
+length found light, and repose, and joy, in the doctrine of
+justification by faith alone. This became more and more the idea of
+his life, especially at this time. The firmness of his convictions on
+this point became extraordinary, and his spiritual gladness now
+equalled his former depression and anxiety. He was soon to find a
+sphere for the development of his views.</p>
+
+<p>Luther was consecrated as a priest in 1507, and in 1508 he was invited
+by Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to become a professor in the new
+university which he had established at Wittemberg. He was now
+twenty-five years of age, and the fact, that he should have been
+selected, at that early age, to teach dialectics, is a strong argument
+in favor of his attainments and genius.</p>
+
+<p>He now began to apply himself to the study of the Greek and Hebrew,
+and delivered lectures on biblical theology; and his novel method, and
+great enthusiasm, attracted a crowd of students. But his sermons were
+more striking even than his lectures, and he was invited, by the
+council of Wittemberg, to be the preacher for the city. His eloquence,
+his learning, and his zeal, now attracted considerable attention, and
+the elector himself visited Wittemberg to hear him preach.</p>
+
+<p>In 1512, he was sent on an embassy to Rome, and, while in Italy,
+obtained useful knowledge of the actual state of the hierarchy, and of
+morals and religion. Julius <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, a warlike pontiff, sat on the throne
+of St. Peter; and the "Eternal City" was the scene of folly,
+dissipation, and clerical extortion. Luther returned to Germany
+completely disgusted with every thing he had seen&mdash;the levity and
+frivolity of the clergy, and the ignorance and vices of the people. He
+was too earnest in his religious views and feelings to take much
+interest in the works of art, or <span class="pagenum"><a id="page012" name="page012"></a>(p. 012)</span>the pleasures, which
+occupied the attention of the Italians; and the impression of the
+general iniquity and corruption of Rome never passed away, and
+probably gave a new direction to his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>On his return, in 1512, he was made doctor of divinity, then a great
+distinction, and renewed his lectures in the university with great
+ardor. He gave a new impulse to the studies, and a new form to the
+opinions of both professors and students. Lupinus and Carlstadt, his
+colleagues, were converts to his views. All within his sphere were
+controlled by his commanding genius, and extraordinary force of
+character. <span class="inline">Luther's Early Religious Struggles.</span> He commenced war upon the schoolmen, and was peculiarly
+hostile to Thomas Aquinas, whom he accused of Pelagianism. He also
+attacked Aristotle, the great idol of the schools, and overwhelmed
+scholasticism with sarcasm and mockery.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when the preachers of indulgences, whom
+Leo <abbr title="10">X.</abbr> had encouraged, in order to raise money for St. Peter's Church,
+arrived in the country round the Elbe. They had already spread over
+Germany, Switzerland, and France. Their luxury and extravagance were
+only equalled by their presumption and insolence. All sorts of crime
+were pardoned by these people for money. Among the most remarkable of
+these religious swindlers and peddlers was Tetzel. He was a friar of
+the Dominicans, apostolical commissioner, inquisitor, and bachelor of
+theology. He united profligate morals with great pretensions to
+sanctity; was somewhat eloquent, so far as a sonorous voice was
+concerned, and was very bold and haughty, as vulgar men, raised to
+eminence and power, are apt to be. But his peculiarity consisted in
+the audacity of his pretensions, and his readiness in inventing
+stories to please the people, ever captivated by rhetoric and
+anecdote. "Indulgences," said he, "are the most precious and sublime
+of God's gifts." "I would not exchange my privileges for those of St.
+Peter in heaven; for I have saved more souls, with my indulgences,
+than he, with his sermons." "There is no sin so great that the
+indulgence cannot remit it: even repentance is not necessary:
+indulgences save not the living alone,&mdash;they save the dead." "The very
+moment that the money clinks against the bottom of this chest, the
+soul escapes from purgatory, and flies to heaven." "And do you know
+why <span class="pagenum"><a id="page013" name="page013"></a>(p. 013)</span>our Lord distributes so rich a grace? The dilapidated
+Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is to be restored, which contains the
+bodies of those holy apostles, and which are now trodden, dishonored,
+and polluted."</p>
+
+<p>Tetzel found but few sufficiently enlightened to resist him, and he
+obtained great sums from the credulous people. This abomination
+excited Luther's intensest detestation; <span class="inline">The Ninety-Five Propositions.</span> and he accordingly wrote
+ninety-five propositions, and nailed them, in 1517, to the gates of
+the church, in which he denounced the traffic in indulgences, and
+traced the doctrine of absolution to the usurped power of the pope. He
+denied the value of his absolution, and maintained that the divine
+favor would only be granted on the condition of repentance and faith.</p>
+
+<p>In these celebrated propositions, he struck at the root of scholastic
+absurdities, and also of papal pretensions. The spirit which they
+breathed was bold, intrepid, and magnanimous. They electrified
+Germany, and gave a shock to the whole papal edifice. They had both a
+religious and a political bearing; religious, in reference to the
+grounds of justification, and political, in opening men's eyes to the
+unjust and ruinous extortions of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who perceived with great clearness the political tendency
+of these propositions, and rejoiced in it, was the elector of Saxony
+himself, the most powerful prince of the empire, who had long been
+vexed, in view of the vast sums which had been drained from his
+subjects. He also lamented the corruptions of the church, and probably
+sympathized with the theological opinions of Luther. He accordingly
+protected the bold professor, although he did not openly encourage
+him, or form an alliance with him. He let things take their course.
+Well did Frederic deserve the epithet of <span class="italic">Wise</span>.</p>
+
+<p>There was another great man who rejoiced in the appearance of Luther's
+theses; and this was <span class="inline">Erasmus &mdash; Melancthon.</span> Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, the
+autocrat of letters, and, at that time, living in Basle. He was born
+in Rotterdam, in 1467, of poor parents, but early attracted notice for
+his attainments, and early emancipated himself from the trammels of
+scholasticism, which he hated and despised as cordially as Luther
+himself. He also attacked, with elegant sarcasm the absurdities of his
+age, both in literature and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page014" name="page014"></a>(p. 014)</span>morals. He denounced the sins
+and follies of the monks, and spoke of the necessity of reform. But
+his distinguishing excellence was his literary talent and taste. He
+was a great Greek scholar, and published a critical edition of the
+Testament, which he accompanied with a Latin translation. In this, he
+rendered great service to the reformers, especially to Luther. His
+fascinating style and extensive erudition gave him great literary
+fame. But he was timid, conservative, and vain; and sought to be
+popular, except among the monks, whom he uniformly ridiculed. One
+doctor hated him so cordially, that he had his picture hung up in his
+study, that he might spit in his face as often as he pleased. So far
+as Luther opposed monkery and despotism, his sympathies were with him.
+But he did not desire a radical reformation, as Luther did, and always
+shunned danger and obloquy. He dreaded an insurrection among the
+people, and any thing which looked either revolutionary or fanatical.
+Luther, therefore, much as he was gratified by his favor at first,
+soon learned to distrust him; and finally these two great men were
+unfriendly to each other.</p>
+
+<p>Melancthon was too prominent an actor in the great drama about to be
+performed, to be omitted in this sketch of great men who were on the
+side of reform. He was born in 1497, and was, therefore, fourteen
+years younger than Luther. He was educated under the auspices of the
+celebrated Greek scholar Reuchlin, who was also a relative. At twelve,
+he was sent to the university of Heidelberg; at fourteen, was made
+bachelor of arts; and at seventeen, doctor of philosophy. He began to
+lecture publicly at the age of seventeen; and, for his extraordinary
+attainments, was invited to Wittemberg, as professor of ancient
+languages, at the age of twenty-one. He arrived there in 1518, and
+immediately fell under the influence of Luther, who, however,
+acknowledged his classical attainments. He was considered a prodigy;
+was remarkably young looking, and so boyish, that the grave professors
+conceived but little hope of him at first. But, when he delivered his
+inaugural oration in Latin, all were astonished; and their prejudices
+were removed. Luther himself was enthusiastic in his praises, and a
+friendship commenced between them, which was never weakened by a
+quarrel. The mildness and gentleness <span class="pagenum"><a id="page015" name="page015"></a>(p. 015)</span>of Philip Melancthon
+strongly contrasted with the boldness, energy, and tumultuous passions
+of Luther. The former was the more learned and elegant; the latter was
+the superior genius&mdash;a genius for commanding men, and guiding great
+enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another great personage, who now viewed the movement of
+Luther with any thing but indifference; and this was <span class="inline">Melancthon &mdash; Leo <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></span> Leo <abbr title="10">X.</abbr>, the
+reigning pope when the theses were published. He belonged to the
+illustrious family of the Medici, and was chosen cardinal at the age
+of thirteen. He was the most elegant and accomplished of all the
+popes, patronized art and literature, and ornamented his capital with
+palaces, churches, and statues. But with his sympathy for intellectual
+excellence, he was prodigal, luxurious, and worldly. Indeed, his
+spirit was almost infidel. He was more ambitious for temporal than
+spiritual power; and, when he commenced his reign, the papal
+possessions were more extensive and flourishing, than at any previous
+period. His leading error was, his recklessness in the imposition of
+taxes, even on the clergy themselves, by which he lost their
+confidence and regard. With a very fine mind, he was, nevertheless,
+quite unfitted for his station and his times.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far, he had allowed the outcry which Luther had raised against
+indulgences to take its course, and even disregarded the theses, which
+he supposed originated in a monkish squabble. But the Emperor
+Maximilian was alarmed, and wrote to the pope an account of Luther's
+differences with Tetzel. Frederic of Saxony had also written to his
+holiness, to palliate the conduct of Luther.</p>
+
+<p>When such powerful princes became interested, Leo was startled. He
+summoned Luther to Rome, to be tried by Prierias. Luther, not daring
+to refuse, and not willing to obey, wrote to his friend Spalatin to
+use his influence with the elector to have his cause tried in Germany;
+and the pope, willing to please Frederic, appointed De Vio, his
+legate, to investigate the matter. Luther accordingly set out for
+Augsburg, in obedience to the summons of De Vio, although dissuaded by
+many of his friends. He had several interviews with the legate, by
+whom he was treated with courtesy and urbanity, and by whom he was
+dissuaded from his present courses. But all the persuasion and
+argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of
+Luther, whose <span class="pagenum"><a id="page016" name="page016"></a>(p. 016)</span>convictions were not to be put aside by either
+kindness or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to
+retract; but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed
+his tone, and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to
+leave Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign
+pontiff, whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled from
+the city, and returned to Wittemberg, being countenanced by the
+elector, to whom he also addressed letters. His life was safe so long
+as Frederic protected him.</p>
+
+<p>The next event in the progress of Luther was the <span class="inline">The Leipsic Disputation.</span> Leipsic disputation,
+June, 1519. The pope seemed willing to make one more effort to
+convince Luther, before he proceeded to more violent courses. There
+was then at his court a noble Saxon, Charles Miltitz, whose talents
+and insinuating address secured him the high office of chamberlain to
+the pope. He accordingly was sent into his native country, with the
+dignity of legate, to remove the difficulties which De Vio had
+attempted. He tried persuasion and flattery, and treated the reformer
+with great civility. But Luther still persisted in refusing to
+retract, and the matter was referred to the elector archbishop of
+Trèves.</p>
+
+<p>While the controversy was pending, Dr. Eck, of the university of
+Ingolstadt, a man of great scholastic ingenuity and attainment, and
+proud of the prizes of eight universities, challenged the professors
+of Wittemberg to a public controversy on Grace and Free Will. He
+regarded a disputation with the eye of a practised fencer, and sought
+the means of extending his fame over North Germany. Leipsic was the
+appointed arena, and thither resorted the noble and the learned of
+Saxony. Eck was among the first who arrived, and, soon after, came
+Carlstadt, Luther, and Melancthon.</p>
+
+<p>The place for the combat was a hall in the royal palace of Duke
+George, cousin to the elector Frederic, which was arranged and
+ornamented with great care, and which was honored by the presence of
+the duke, and of the chief divines and nobles of Northern Germany.
+Carlstadt opened the debate, which did not excite much interest until
+Luther's turn came, the antagonist whom Eck was most desirous to meet,
+and whose rising fame he hoped to crush by a brilliant victory. Ranke
+thus describes Luther's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page017" name="page017"></a>(p. 017)</span>person at this time. "He was of the
+middle size, and so thin as to be mere skin and bone. He possessed
+neither the thundering voice, nor the ready memory, nor the skill and
+dexterity, of his distinguished antagonist. But he stood in the prime
+of manhood and in the fulness of his strength. His voice was melodious
+and clear; he was perfectly versed in the Bible, and its aptest
+sentences presented themselves unbidden to his mind; above all, he
+inspired an irresistible conviction that he sought the truth. He was
+always cheerful at home, and a joyous, jocose companion at table; he
+even, on this grave occasion, ascended the platform with a nosegay in
+his hand; but, when there, he displayed the intrepid and
+self-forgetting earnestness arising from the depth of a conviction,
+until now, unfathomed, even by himself. He drew forth new thoughts,
+and placed them in the fire of the battle, with a determination that
+knew no fear and no personal regard. His features bore the traces of
+the storms that had passed over his soul, and of the courage with
+which he was prepared to encounter those which yet awaited him. His
+whole aspect evinced profound thought, joyousness of temper, and
+confidence in the future. <span class="inline">Principles of the Leipsic Disputation.</span> The battle immediately commenced on the
+question of the authority of the papacy, which, at once intelligible
+and important, riveted universal attention." Eck, with great erudition
+and masterly logic, supported the claim of the pope, from the decrees
+of councils, the opinions of scholastics, and even from those
+celebrated words of Christ to Peter&mdash;"Thou art Peter, and on this rock
+will I build my church," &amp;c. Luther took higher and bolder ground,
+denied the infallibility of councils, and appealed to Scripture as the
+ultimate authority. Eck had probably the advantage over his
+antagonist, so far as dialectics were concerned, being a more able
+disputant; but Luther set at defiance mere scholastic logic, and
+appealed to an authority which dialectics could not reach. The victory
+was claimed by both parties; but the result was, that Luther no longer
+acknowledged the authority of the Roman church, and acknowledged none
+but the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>The Leipsic disputation was the grand intellectual contest of the
+Reformation, and developed its great idea&mdash;the only great principle,
+around which all sects and parties among the Protestants rally. This
+is the idea, that <span class="italic">the Scriptures are the only ultimate <span class="pagenum"><a id="page018" name="page018"></a>(p. 018)</span>
+grounds of authority in religion, and that, moreover, every man has a
+right to interpret them for himself.</span> <span class="inline">The Rights of Private Judgment.</span> The rights of private
+judgment&mdash;that religion is a matter between the individual soul and
+God, and that every man is answerable to his own conscience alone how
+he interprets Scripture&mdash;these constitute the great Protestant
+platform. Different sects have different views respecting
+justification, but all profess to trace them to the Scriptures.
+Luther's views were similar to those of St. Augustine&mdash;that "man could
+be justified by faith alone," which was <span class="italic">his</span> great theological
+doctrine&mdash;a doctrine adopted by many who never left the communion of
+the Church of Rome, before and since his day, and a doctrine which
+characterized the early reformers, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, and
+the Puritans generally. It is as absurd to say that Luther's animating
+principle in religion was not this doctrine, as it is unphilosophical
+to make the reformation consist merely in its recognition. After
+Luther's convictions were settled on this point, and he had generally
+and openly declared them, the main contest of his life was against the
+papacy, which he viewed as the predicted Antichrist&mdash;the "scarlet
+mother of abominations." It is not the object of the writer of this
+History to defend or oppose Luther's views, or argue any cause
+whatever, but simply to place facts in their true light, which is, to
+state them candidly.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Leipsic controversy brought out the great principle of
+the Reformation, Luther's views, both respecting the true doctrines
+and polity of the church, were not, on all points, yet developed, and
+were only gradually unfolded, as he gained knowledge and light. It was
+no trifling matter, even to deny the supremacy of the Roman church in
+matters of faith. He was thus placed in the position of Huss and
+Jerome, and other reformers, who had been destroyed, with scarcely an
+exception. He thus was brought in direct conflict with the pope, with
+the great dignitaries of the church, with the universities, and with
+the whole scholastic literature. He had to expect the violent
+opposition and vengeance of the pope, of the monks, of the great
+ecclesiastical dignitaries, of the most distinguished scholars, and of
+those secular princes who were friendly to Rome. He had none to
+protect him but a prince of the empire, powerful, indeed, and wise,
+but old and wavering. There were but few to uphold and defend him&mdash;the
+satirical <span class="pagenum"><a id="page019" name="page019"></a>(p. 019)</span>Erasmus, who was called a second Lucian, the
+feeble Staupitz, the fanatical Carlstadt, and the inexperienced
+Melancthon. The worldly-minded, the learned, the powerful, and the
+conservative classes were his natural enemies. But he had reason and
+Scripture on his side, and he appealed to their great and final
+verdict. He had singular faith in the power of truth, and the gracious
+protection of God Almighty. Reposing on the greatness of his cause,
+and the providence of the omnipotent Protector, he was ready to defy
+all the arts, and theories, and malice of man. His weapon was truth.
+For truth he fought, and for truth he was ready to die. The
+sophistries of the schools he despised; they had distorted and
+mystified the truth. And he knew them well, for he had been trained in
+the severest dialectics of his time, and, though he despised them, he
+knew how to use them. The simple word of God, directed to the reason
+and conscience of men, seemed alone worthy of his regard.</p>
+
+<p>But, beside Scripture and unperverted reason, he had another element
+of power. He was master of the sympathies and passions of the people.
+His father was a toiling miner. His grandfather was a peasant. He had
+been trained to penury; he had associated with the poor; he was a man
+of the people; he was their natural friend. He saw and lamented their
+burdens, and rose up for their deliverance. <span class="inline">Luther's Elements of Greatness.</span> And the people
+distinguished their true friend, from their false friends. They saw
+the sincerity, earnestness, and labors of the new apostle of liberty,
+and believed in him, and made an idol of him. They would protect him,
+and honor him, and obey him, and believe what he taught them, for he
+was their friend, whom God had raised up to take off their burdens,
+and point a way to heaven, without the intercession of priests, or
+indulgences, or penance. Their friend was to expose the corruptions of
+the clergy, and to give battle to the great arch enemy who built St.
+Peter's Church from their hard-earned pittances. A spirit from heaven
+enlightened those to whom Luther preached, and they rallied around his
+standard, and swore never to separate, until the great enemies of the
+poor and the oppressed were rendered powerless. And their sympathies
+were needed, and best services, too; for the great man of the age&mdash;the
+incarnated spirit of liberty&mdash;was in danger.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page020" name="page020"></a>(p. 020)</span>
+
+<p>The pope, hitherto mild, persuasive, and undecided, now arose in the
+majesty of his mighty name, and, as the successor of St. Peter, hurled
+those weapons which had been thunderbolts in the hands of the
+Gregories and the Innocents. From his papal throne, and with all the
+solemnity of God's appointed vicegerent, he denounced the daring monk
+of Wittemberg, and sentenced him to the wrath of God, and to the
+penalty of eternal fire. <span class="inline">Excommunication of Luther.</span> Luther was excommunicated by a papal bull,
+and his writings were condemned as heretical and damnable.</p>
+
+<p>This was a dreadful sentence. Few had ever resisted it successfully,
+even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was still a fearful weapon,
+and used only in desperate circumstances. It was used only as the last
+resort; for frequency would destroy its power. In the middle ages,
+this weapon was omnipotent; and the middle ages had but just passed
+away. No one could stand before that awful anathema which consigned
+him to the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some
+professed to despise the sentence, still, when inflicted, it could not
+be borne, especially if accompanied with an interdict. Children were
+left unburied. The churches were closed. The rites of religion were
+suspended. A funereal shade was spread over society. The fears of hell
+haunted every imagination. No reason was strong enough to resist the
+sentence. No arm was sufficiently powerful to remove the curse. It
+hung over a guilty land. It doomed the unhappy offender, who was
+cursed, wherever he went, and in whatever work he was engaged.</p>
+
+<p>But Luther was strong enough to resist it, and to despise it. He saw
+it was an imposition, which only barbarous and ignorant ages had
+permitted. Moreover, he perceived that there was now no alternative
+but victory or death; that, in the great contest in which he was
+engaged, retreat was infamy. Nor did he wish to retreat. He was
+fighting for oppressed humanity, and death even, in such a cause, was
+glory. He understood fully the nature and the consequence of the
+struggle. He perceived the greatness of the odds against him, in a
+worldly point of view. No man but a Luther would have been equal to
+it; no man, before him, ever had successfully rebelled against the
+pope. It is only in view of this circumstance, that his intrepidity
+can be appreciated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page021" name="page021"></a>(p. 021)</span>What did the Saxon monk do, when the papal bull was
+published? He assembled the professors and students of the university,
+declared his solemn protest against the pope as Antichrist, and
+marched in procession to the gates of the Castle of Wittemberg, and
+there made a bonfire, and cast into it the bull which condemned him,
+the canon law, and some writings of the schoolmen, and then reëntered
+the city, breathing defiance against the whole power of the pope,
+glowing in the consciousness that the battle had commenced, to last as
+long as life, and perfectly secure that the victory would finally be
+on the side of truth. This was in 1520, on the 10th of December.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of the whole nation was necessarily drawn to this open
+resistance; and the sympathy of the free thinking, the earnest, and
+the religious, was expressed for him. Never was popular interest more
+absorbing, in respect to his opinions, his fortunes, and his fate. The
+spirit of innovation became contagious, and pervaded the German mind.
+It demanded the serious attention of the emperor himself.</p>
+
+<p>A great Diet of the empire was convened at <span class="inline">The Diet of Worms.</span> Worms, and thither Luther
+was summoned by the temporal power. He had a safe-conduct, which even
+so powerful a prince as Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> durst not violate. In April, 1521,
+the reformer appeared before the collected dignitaries of the German
+empire, both spiritual and temporal, and was called upon to recant his
+opinions as heretical in the eyes of the church, and dangerous to the
+peace of the empire. Before the most august assembly in the world,
+without a trace of embarrassment, he made his defence, and refused to
+recant. "Unless," said he, "my errors can be demonstrated by texts
+from Scripture, I will not and cannot recant; for it is not safe for a
+man to go against his conscience. Here I am. I can do no otherwise.
+God help me! Amen."</p>
+
+<p>This declaration satisfied his friends, though it did not satisfy the
+members of the diet. Luther was permitted to retire. He had gained the
+confidence of the nation. From that time, he was its idol, and the
+acknowledged leader of the greatest insurrection of human intelligence
+which modern times have seen. The great principles of the reformation
+were declared. The great hero of the Reformation had planted his cause
+upon a rock. And yet his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page022" name="page022"></a>(p. 022)</span>labors had but just commenced.
+Henceforth, his life was toil and vexation. New difficulties
+continually arose. New questions had to be continually settled.
+Luther, by his letters, was every where. He commenced the translation
+of the Scriptures; he wrote endless controversial tracts; his
+correspondence was unparalleled; his efforts as a preacher were
+prodigious. But he was equal to it all; was wonderfully adapted to his
+age and circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>About this time commenced his <span class="inline">Imprisonment at Wartburg.</span> voluntary imprisonment at Wartburg,
+among the Thuringian forests: he being probably conducted thither by
+the orders of the elector of Saxony. Here he was out of sight, but not
+out of mind; and his retirement, under the disguise of a knight, gave
+him leisure for literary labor. In the old Castle of Wartburg, a great
+part of the Scriptures was translated into that beautiful and simple
+version, which is still the standard of the German language.</p>
+
+<p>While Luther was translating the Scriptures, in his retreat,
+Wittemberg was the scene of new commotions, pregnant with great
+results. There were many of the more zealous converts to the reformed
+doctrines, headed by <span class="inline">Carlstadt.</span> Carlstadt, dean of the faculty of theology, who
+were not content with the progress which had been made, and who
+desired more sweeping and radical changes. Such a party ever exists in
+all reforms; for there are some persons who are always inclined to
+ultra and extravagant courses. Carlstadt was a type of such men. He
+was learned, sincere, and amiable, but did not know where to stop; and
+the experiment was now to be tried, whether it was possible to
+introduce a necessary reform, without annihilating also all the
+results of the labors of preceding generations. Carlstadt's mind was
+not well balanced, and to him the reformation was only a half measure,
+and a useless movement, unless all the external observances of
+religion and the whole economy of the church were destroyed. He
+abolished, or desired to abolish, all priestly garments, all fasts and
+holydays, all pictures in the churches, and all emblematical
+ceremonies of every kind. He insisted upon closing all places of
+public amusement, the abolition of all religious communities, and the
+division of their possessions among the poor. He maintained that there
+was no need of learning, or of academic studies, and even went into
+the houses of the peasantry to seek explanation of difficult passages
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page023" name="page023"></a>(p. 023)</span>of Scripture. For such innovations, the age was certainly
+not prepared, even had they been founded on reason; and the
+conservative mind of Luther was shocked at extravagances which served
+to disgust the whole Christian world, and jeopardize the cause in
+which he had embarked. So, against the entreaties of the elector, and
+in spite of the ban of the empire, he returned to Wittemberg, a small
+city, it was true, but a place to which had congregated the flower of
+the German youth. He resolved to oppose the movements of Carlstadt,
+even though opposition should destroy his influence. Especially did he
+declare against all violent measures to which the ultra reformers were
+inclined, knowing full well, that, if his cause were sullied with
+violence or fanaticism, all Christendom would unite to suppress it.
+His sermons are, at this time, (1522,) pervaded with a profound and
+conservative spirit, and also a spirit of conciliation and love,
+calculated to calm passions, and carry conviction to excited minds.
+His moderate counsels prevailed, the tumults were hushed, and order
+was restored. Carlstadt was silenced for a time; but a mind like his
+could not rest, especially on points where he had truth on his side.
+One of these was, in reference to the presence of Christ's body in the
+Eucharist, which Carlstadt totally denied. He taught "that the Lord's
+supper was purely symbolic, and was simply a pledge to believers of
+their redemption." But Luther saw, in every attempt to exhibit the
+symbolical import of the supper, only the danger of weakening the
+authority of Scripture, which was his stronghold, and became
+exceedingly tenacious on that point; carried his views to the extreme
+of literal interpretation, and never could emancipate himself from the
+doctrines of Rome respecting the eucharist. Carlstadt, finding himself
+persecuted at Wittemberg left the city, and, as soon as he was
+released from the presence of Luther, began to revive his former zeal
+against images also, and was the promoter of great disturbances. He at
+last sought refuge in Strasburg, and sacrificed fame, and friends, and
+bread to his honest convictions.</p>
+
+<p>But, nevertheless, the views of Carlstadt found advocates, and his
+extravagances were copied with still greater zeal. Many pretended to
+special divine illumination&mdash;the great central principle of all
+fanaticism. Among these was <span class="inline">Thomas Münzer.</span> Thomas Münzer, of Zwickau, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page024" name="page024"></a>(p. 024)</span>
+mystical, ignorant, and conceited, but sincere and simple hearted.
+"Luther," said he, "has liberated men's consciences from the papal
+yoke, but has not led them in spirit towards God." Considering himself
+as called upon by a special revelation to bring men into greater
+spiritual liberty, he went about inflaming the popular mind, and
+raising discontents, and even inciting to a revolt. Religion now
+became mingled with politics, and social and political evils were
+violently resisted, under the garb of religion. An insurrection at
+last arose in the districts of the Black Forest, (1524,) near the
+sources of the Danube, and spread from Suabia to the Rhine provinces,
+until it became exceedingly formidable. Then commenced what is called
+the "peasants' war," which was only ended by the slaughter of fifty
+thousand people. As the causes of this war, after all, were chiefly
+political, the details belong to our chapter on political history. For
+this insurrection of the peasantry, however, Luther expressed great
+detestation; although he availed himself of it to lecture the princes
+of Germany on their duties as civil rulers.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant war was scarcely ended, when Luther married Catharine
+Bora; and, as she was a nun, and he was a monk, the marriage gave
+universal scandal. But this marriage, which proved happy, was the
+signal of new reforms. Luther now emancipated himself from his
+monastic fetters, and lifted up his voice against the whole monastic
+system. Eight years had elapsed since he preached against indulgences.
+During these eight years, reform had been gradual, and had now
+advanced to the extreme limit it ever reached during the life of the
+reformer.</p>
+
+<p>But, in another quarter, it sprang up with new force, and was carried
+to an extent not favored in Germany. It was in Switzerland that the
+greatest approximation was made to the forms, if not to the spirit, of
+primitive Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>The great hero of this Swiss movement was <span class="inline">Ulric Zwingle.</span> Ulric Zwingle, the most
+interesting of all the reformers. He was born in 1484, and educated
+amid the mountains of his picturesque country, and, like Erasmus,
+Reuchlin, Luther, and Melancthon, had no aristocratic claims, except
+to the nobility of nature. But, though poor, he was well educated, and
+was a master of the scholastic philosophy and of all the learning of
+his age. Like Luther, he was passionately <span class="pagenum"><a id="page025" name="page025"></a>(p. 025)</span>fond of music, and
+played the lute, the harp, the violin, the flute and the dulcimer.
+There was no more joyous spirit in all Switzerland than his. Every one
+loved his society, and honored his attainments, and admired his
+genius. Like Luther and Erasmus, he was disgusted with scholasticism,
+and regretted the time he had devoted to its study. He was ordained in
+1506, by the bishop of Constance, and was settled in Zurich in 1518.
+At first, his life did not differ from that which the clergy generally
+led, being one of dissipation and pleasure. But he was studious, and
+became well acquainted with the fathers, and with the original Greek.
+Only gradually did light dawn upon him, and this in consequence of his
+study of the Scriptures, not in consequence of Luther's preaching. He
+had no tempests to withstand, such as shook the soul of the Saxon
+monk. Nor had he ever devoted himself with the same ardor to the
+established church. Nor was he so much interested on doctrinal points
+of faith. But he saw with equal clearness the corruptions of the
+church, and preached with equal zeal against indulgences and the
+usurpations of the popes. The reformation of morals was the great aim
+of his life. His preaching was practical and simple, and his doctrine
+was, that "religion consisted in trust in God, loving God, and
+innocence of life." Moreover, he took a deep interest in the political
+relations of his country, and was an enthusiast in liberty as well as
+in religion. To him the town of Zurich was indebted for its
+emancipation from the episcopal government of Constance, and also for
+a reformation in all the externals of the church. He inspired the
+citizens with that positive spirit of Protestantism, which afterwards
+characterized Calvin and the Puritans. He was too radical a reformer
+to suit Luther, although he sympathized with most of his theological
+opinions.</p>
+
+<p>On one point, however, they differed; and this difference led to an
+acrimonious contest, quite disgraceful to Luther, and the greatest
+blot on his character, inasmuch as it developed, to an extraordinary
+degree, both obstinacy and dogmatism, and showed that he could not
+bear contradiction or opposition. <span class="inline">Controversy between Luther and Zwingle.</span> The quarrel arose from a difference
+of views respecting the Lord's supper, Luther maintaining not exactly
+the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but something
+approximating to it&mdash;even the omnipresence of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page026" name="page026"></a>(p. 026)</span>Christ's body
+in the sacred elements. He relinquished the doctrine of the
+continually repeated miracle, but substituted a universal miracle,
+wrought once for all. In his tenacity to the opinions of the schoolmen
+on this point, we see his conservative spirit; for he did not deny
+tradition, unless it was expressly contradicted by Scripture. He would
+have maintained the whole structure of the Latin church, had it not
+been disfigured by modern additions, plainly at variance with the
+Scriptures; and so profoundly was he attached to the traditions of the
+church, and to the whole church establishment, that he only
+emancipated himself by violent inward storms. But Zwingle had not this
+lively conception of the universal church, and was more radical in his
+sympathies. He took Carlstadt's view of the supper, that it was merely
+symbolic. Still he shrunk from a rupture with Luther, which, however,
+was unavoidable, considering Luther's views of the subject and his
+cast of mind. Luther rejected all offers of conciliation, and, as he
+considered it essential to salvation to believe in the real presence
+of Christ in the sacrament, he refused to acknowledge Zwingle as a
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Zwingle, nevertheless, continued his reforms, and sought to restore,
+what he conceived to be, the earliest forms in which Christianity had
+manifested itself. He designed to restore a worship purely spiritual.
+He rejected all rites and ceremonies, not expressly enjoined in the
+Bible. Luther insisted in retaining all that was not expressly
+forbidden. And this was the main point of distinction between them and
+their adherents.</p>
+
+<p>But Zwingle contemplated political, as well as religious, changes,
+and, as early as 1527, two years before his conference with Luther at
+Marburg, had projected a league of all the reformers against the
+political authorities which opposed their progress. He combated the
+abuses of the state, as well as of the church. This opposition created
+great enemies against him among the cantons, with their different
+governments and alliances. He also secured enthusiastic friends, and,
+in all the cantons, there was a strong democratic party opposed to the
+existing oligarchies, which party, in Berne and Basle, St. Gall,
+Zurich, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, and Glarus, obtained the ascendency.
+This led to tumults and violence, and finally to civil war between the
+different cantons, those which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page027" name="page027"></a>(p. 027)</span>adhered to the old faith
+being assisted by Austria. Lucerne, Uri Schwytz, Zug, Unterwalden took
+the lead against the reformed cantons, the foremost of which was
+Zurich, where Zwingle lived. Zurich was attacked. Zwingle, from
+impulses of patriotism and courage, issued forth from his house, and
+joined the standard of his countrymen, not as a chaplain, but as an
+armed warrior. This was his mistake. "They who take the sword shall
+perish with the sword." The intrepid and enlightened reformer was
+slain in 1531, and, with his death, expired the hopes of his party.
+The restoration of the Roman Catholic religion immediately commenced
+in Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>Luther, more wise than Zwingle, inasmuch as he abstained from
+politics, continued his labors in Germany. And they were immense. The
+burdens of his country rested on his shoulders. He was the dictator of
+the reformed party, and his word was received as law. Moreover, the
+party continually increased, and, from the support it received from
+some of the most powerful of the German princes, it became formidable,
+even in a political point of view. Nearly one half of Germany embraced
+the reformed faith.</p>
+
+<p>The illustrious Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> had now, for some time, been emperor, and,
+in the prosecution of his conquests, found it necessary to secure the
+support of united Germany, especially since Germany was now invaded by
+the Turks. In order to secure this support, he found it necessary to
+make concessions in religion to his Protestant subjects. <span class="inline">Diet of Augsburg.</span> At the diet
+of Augsburg, (1530,) where there was the most brilliant assemblage of
+princes which had been for a long time seen in Germany, the celebrated
+confession of the faith of the Protestants was read. It was written by
+Melancthon, in both Latin and German, on the basis of the articles of
+Torgau, which Luther had prepared. The style was Melancthon's; the
+matter was Luther's. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles, of
+which twenty-one pertained to the faith of the Protestants&mdash;the name
+they assumed at the second diet of Spires, in 1529&mdash;and the remaining
+seven recounted the errors and abuses of Rome. It was subscribed by
+the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Duke of
+Lunenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page028" name="page028"></a>(p. 028)</span>Prince of Anhalt, and
+the deputies of the imperial cities Nuremberg and Reutlingen. But the
+Catholics had the ascendency in the diet, and the "Confession of
+Augsburg" was condemned. But the emperor did not venture on any
+decisive measures for the extirpation of the "heresy." He threatened
+and published edicts, but his menaces had but little force.
+Nevertheless, the Protestant princes assembled, first at Smalcalde,
+and afterwards at Frankfort, for an alliance of mutual defence,&mdash;the
+first effective union of free princes and states against their
+oppressors in modern Europe,&mdash;and laid the foundation of liberty of
+conscience. Hostilities, however, did not commence, since the emperor
+was desirous of uniting Germany against the Turks; and he therefore
+recalled his edicts of Worms and Augsburg against the Protestants, and
+made important concessions, and promised them undisturbed enjoyment of
+their religion. This was a great triumph to the Protestants, and as
+great a shock to the Papal power.</p>
+
+<p>The Confession of Augsburg and the <span class="inline">League of Smalcalde.</span> League of Smalcalde form an
+important era of Protestantism, since, by these, the reformed faith
+received its definite form, and was moreover guaranteed. The work for
+which Luther had been raised up was now, in the main, accomplished.
+His great message had been delivered and heard.</p>
+
+<p>After the confirmation of his cause, his life was perplexed and
+anxious. He had not anticipated those civil commotions which he now
+saw, sooner or later, were inevitable. With the increase of his party
+was the decline of spirituality. Political considerations, also, with
+many, were more prominent than moral. Religion and politics were
+mingled together, not soon to be separated in the progress of reform.
+Moreover, the reformers differed upon many points among themselves.
+There was a lamentable want of harmony between the Germans and the
+Swiss. Luther had quarrelled with nearly every prominent person with
+whom he had been associated, except Melancthon, who yielded to him
+implicit obedience. But, above all, the Anabaptist disorders, which he
+detested, and which distracted the whole bishopric of Münster,
+oppressed and mortified him. <span class="inline">Death and Character of Luther.</span> Worn out with cares, labors, and
+vexations, which ever have disturbed the peace and alloyed the
+happiness of great <span class="pagenum"><a id="page029" name="page029"></a>(p. 029)</span>heroes, and from which no greatness is
+exempt, he died at Eisleben, in 1545, while on a visit to his native
+place in older to reconcile dissensions between the counts of
+Mansfeldt.</p>
+
+<p>Luther's name is still reverenced in Germany, and, throughout all
+Protestant countries, he is regarded as the greatest man connected
+with the history of the church since the apostolic age. Others have
+been greater geniuses, others more learned, others more devout, and
+others more amiable and interesting; but none ever evinced greater
+intrepidity, or combined greater qualities of mind and heart. He had
+his faults: he was irritable, dogmatic, and abusive in his
+controversial writings. He had no toleration for those who differed
+from him&mdash;the fault of the age. But he was genial, joyous, friendly,
+and disinterested. His labors were gigantic; his sincerity
+unimpeached; his piety enlightened; his zeal unquenchable.
+Circumstances and the new ideas of his age, favored him, but he made
+himself master of those circumstances and ideas, and, what is more,
+worked out ideas of his own, which were in harmony with Christianity.
+The Reformation would have happened had there been no Luther, though
+at a less favorable time; but, of all the men of his age that the
+Reformation could least spare, Martin Luther stands preëminent. As the
+greatest of reformers, his name will be ever honored.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;The attention of the student is directed only
+     to the most prominent and valuable works which treat of
+     Luther and the Protestant reformation. All the works are too
+     numerous, even to be decimated. Allusion is made to those
+     merely which are accessible and useful. Among them may be
+     mentioned, as most important, Ranke's History of the
+     Reformation; D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation;
+     Michelet's Life of Luther; Audin's Life of Luther, a
+     Catholic work, written with great spirit, but not much
+     liberality; Stebbing's History of the Reformation; a Life of
+     Luther, by Rev. Dr. Sears, a new work, written with great
+     correctness and ability; Guizot's Lectures on Civilization;
+     Plank's Essay on the Consequences of the
+Reformation.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page030" name="page030"></a>(p. 030)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE EMPEROR CHARLES <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Luther appeared upon the stage, the great monarchies of Europe
+had just arisen upon the ruins of those Feudal states which survived
+the wreck of Charlemagne's empire.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></span> Emperor of Germany, of all the monarchs of Europe, had the
+greatest claim to the antiquity and dignity of his throne. As
+hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, he
+had absolute authority in his feudal provinces; while, as an elected
+emperor, he had an indirect influence over Saxony, the Palatinate, the
+three archbishoprics of Trèves, Mentz, and Cologne, and some
+Burgundian territories.</p>
+
+<p>But the most powerful monarchy, at this time, was probably that of
+<span class="inline">Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century.</span> France; and its capital was the finest city in Europe, and the resort
+of the learned and elegant from all parts of Christendom. All
+strangers extolled the splendor of the court, the wealth of the
+nobles, and the fame of the university. The power of the monarch was
+nearly absolute, and a considerable standing army, even then, was
+ready to obey his commands.</p>
+
+<p>Spain, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was ruled by
+Ferdinand and Isabella, who, by their marriage, had united the crowns
+of Castile and Arragon. The conquest of Granada and the discovery of
+America had added greatly to the political importance of Spain, and
+laid the foundation of its future greatness under Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>England, from its insular position, had not so much influence in
+European politics as the other powers to which allusion has been made,
+but it was, nevertheless, a flourishing and united kingdom.
+Henry <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr>, the founder of the house of Tudor, sat on the throne, and
+was successful in suppressing the power of the feudal nobility, and in
+increasing the royal authority. Kings, in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page031" name="page031"></a>(p. 031)</span>fifteenth
+century, were the best protectors of the people, and aided them in
+their struggles against their feudal oppressors. England, however, had
+made but little advance in commerce or manufactures, and the people
+were still rude and ignorant. The clergy, as in other countries, were
+the most intelligent and wealthy portion of the population, and,
+consequently, the most influential, although disgraced by many vices.</p>
+
+<p>Italy then, as now, was divided into many independent states, and
+distracted by civil and religious dissensions. The duchy of Milan was
+ruled by Ludovico Moro, son of the celebrated Francis Sforza. Naples,
+called a kingdom, had just been conquered by the French. Florence was
+under the sway of the Medici. Venice, whose commercial importance had
+begun to decline, was controlled by an oligarchy of nobles. The chair
+of St. Peter was filled by pope Alexander <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>, a pontiff who has
+obtained an infamous immortality by the vices of debauchery, cruelty,
+and treachery. The papacy was probably in its most corrupt state, and
+those who had the control of its immense patronage, disregarded the
+loud call for reformation which was raised in every corner of
+Christendom. The popes were intent upon securing temporal as well as
+spiritual power, and levied oppressive taxes on both their spiritual
+and temporal subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The great northern kingdoms of Europe, which are now so
+considerable,&mdash;Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,&mdash;did not, at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, attract much attention. They were
+plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of science or
+religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The monarchs were
+sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, the clergy
+ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet insensible to
+their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom and no appreciation
+of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as Peter and Gustavus
+Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were these northern nations
+destined to be immediately benefited by the impulse which the
+reformation gave, with the exception of Sweden, then the most powerful
+of these kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek empire became extinct when Constantinople was taken by the
+Turks, in 1453. On its ruins, the Ottoman power was raised. At the
+close of the fifteenth century, the Turkish <span class="pagenum"><a id="page032" name="page032"></a>(p. 032)</span>arms were very
+powerful, and Europe again trembled before the Moslems. Greece and the
+whole of Western Asia were obedient to the sultan. But his power did
+not reach its culminating point until a century afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the various states of Europe when the Reformation broke out.
+Maximilian was emperor of Germany, and Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> had just inherited,
+from his father, Philip the Fair, who had married a daughter of
+Ferdinand and Isabella, the kingdom of Spain, in addition to the
+dominion of the Netherlands.</p>
+
+<p>By the death of Maximilian, in 1519, the youthful sovereign of Spain
+and the Netherlands came into possession of the Austrian dominions;
+and the electors, shortly after, chose him emperor of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>He was born at Ghent, A. D. 1500, and was educated with great care. He
+early displayed his love of government, and, at fifteen, was present
+at the deliberations of the cabinet. But he had no taste for learning,
+and gave but few marks of that genius which he afterwards evinced. He
+was much attached to his Flemish subjects, and, during the first year
+of his reign, gave great offence to the grandees of Spain and the
+nobles of Germany by his marked partiality for those men who had been
+his early companions.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to trace, in the career of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, any powerful
+motives of conduct, separate from the desire of aggrandizement. The
+interests of the church, with which he was identified, and the true
+welfare of his subjects, were, at different times, sacrificed to his
+ambition. Had there been no powerful monarchs on the other thrones of
+Europe, his dreams of power might possibly have been realized. But at
+this period there happened to be a constellation of princes.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest of these, and the chief rival through life of Charles,
+was Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> of France. He had even anticipated an election to the
+imperial crown, which would have made him more powerful than even
+Charles himself. The electors feared both, and chose Frederic of
+Saxony; but he declined the dangerous post. Charles, as Archduke of
+Austria, had such great and obvious claims, that they could not be
+disregarded. He was therefore the fortunate candidate. But his
+election was a great disappointment <span class="pagenum"><a id="page033" name="page033"></a>(p. 033)</span>to Francis, and he could
+not conceal his mortification. <span class="inline">Wars between Charles and Francis.</span> Peace could not long subsist between
+two envious and ambitious princes. Francis was nearly of the same age
+as Charles, had inherited nearly despotic power, was free from
+financial embarrassments, and ruled over an united and loyal people.
+He was therefore no contemptible match for Charles. In addition, he
+strengthened himself by alliances with the Swiss and Venetians.
+Charles sought the favor of the pope and Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> of England. The
+real causes of war were mutual jealousies, and passion for military
+glory. The assigned causes were, that Charles did not respect the
+claims of Francis as king of Naples; and, on the other hand, that
+Francis had seized the duchy of Milan, which was a fief of the empire,
+and also retained the duchy of Burgundy, the patrimonial inheritance
+of the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The political history of Europe, for nearly half a century, is a
+record of the wars between these powerful princes, of their mutual
+disasters, disappointments, and successes. Other contests were
+involved in these, and there were also some which arose from causes
+independent of mutual jealousy, such as the revolt of the Spanish
+grandees, of the peasants in Germany, and of the invasion of the
+empire by the Turks. During the reign of Charles, was also the
+division of the princes of Germany, on grounds of religion&mdash;the
+foundation of the contest which, after the death of Charles, convulsed
+Germany for thirty years. But the Thirty Years' War was a religious
+war&mdash;was one of the political consequences of the Reformation. The
+wars between Charles and Francis were purely wars of military
+ambition. Charles had greater territories and larger armies; but
+Francis had more money, and more absolute control over his forces.
+Charles's power was checked in Spain by the free spirit of the Cortes,
+and in Germany by the independence of the princes, and by the
+embarrassing questions which arose out of the Reformation.</p>
+
+<p>It would be tedious to read the various wars between Charles and his
+rival. Each of them gained, at different times, great successes, and
+each experienced, in turn, the most humiliating reverses. Francis was
+even taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and confined in a
+fortress at Madrid, until he promised to the victors the complete
+dismemberment of France&mdash;an extorted <span class="pagenum"><a id="page034" name="page034"></a>(p. 034)</span>promise he never meant
+to keep. No sooner had he recovered his liberty, than he violated all
+his oaths, and Europe was again the scene of fresh hostilities. The
+passion of revenge was now added to that of ambition, and, as the pope
+had favored the cause of Francis, the generals of Charles invaded
+Italy. Rome was taken and sacked by the constable Bourbon, a French
+noble whom Francis had slighted, and cruelties and outrages were
+perpetrated by the imperial forces which never disgraced Alaric or
+Attila.</p>
+
+<p>Charles affected to be filled with grief in view of the victories of
+his generals, and pretended that they acted without his orders. He
+employed every artifice to deceive indignant Christendom, and
+appointed prayers and processions throughout Spain for the recovery of
+the pope's liberty, which one stroke of his pen could have secured.
+Thus it was, that the most Catholic and bigoted prince in Europe
+seized the pope's person, and sacked his city, at the very time when
+Luther was prosecuting his reform. And this fact shows how much more
+powerfully the emperor was influenced by political, than by religious
+considerations. It also shows the providence of God in permitting the
+only men, who could have arrested the reformation, to spend their
+strength in battling each other, rather than the heresy which they
+deplored. Had Charles been less powerful and ambitious, he probably
+would have contented himself in punishing heretics, and in uniting
+with his natural ally, the pope, in suppressing every insurrection
+which had for its object the rights of conscience and the enjoyment of
+popular liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The war was continued for two years longer between Francis and
+Charles, with great acrimony, but with various success, both parties
+being, at one time, strengthened by alliances, and then again weakened
+by desertions. At last, both parties were exhausted, and were willing
+to accede to terms which they had previously rejected with disdain.
+Francis was the most weakened and disheartened, but Charles was the
+most perplexed. The troubles growing out of the Reformation demanded
+his attention, and the Turks, at this period a powerful nation, were
+about invading Austria. The Spaniards murmured at the unusual length
+of the war, and money was with difficulty obtained.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page035" name="page035"></a>(p. 035)</span>Hence the peace of Cambray, August 5, 1529; which was very
+advantageous to Charles, in consequence of the impulsive character of
+Francis, and his impatience to recover his children, whom he had
+surrendered to Charles in order to recover his liberty. He agreed to
+pay two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons, and renounce
+his pretensions in the Low Countries and Italy. He, moreover, lost
+reputation, and the confidence of Europe, by the abandonment of his
+allies. Charles remained the arbiter of Italy, and was attentive to
+the interests of all who adhered to him. With less <span class="italic">chivalry</span> than his
+rival, he had infinitely more <span class="italic">honor</span>. Cold, sagacious, selfish, and
+ambitious, he was, however, just, and kept his word. He combined
+qualities we often see in selfish men&mdash;a sort of legal and technical
+regard to the letter of the law, with the constant violation of its
+spirit. A Shylock might not enter a false charge upon his books, while
+he would adhere to a most extortionate bargain.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, after the treaty of Cambray was signed, visited Italy with
+all the pomp of a conqueror. At Genoa, he honored Doria with many
+marks of distinction, and bestowed upon the republic new privileges.
+He settled all his difficulties with Milan, Venice, and Florence, and
+reëstablished the authority of the Medici. He was then crowned by the
+pope, whom he had trampled on, as King of Lombardy and Emperor of the
+Romans, and hastened into Germany, which imperatively required his
+presence, both on account of dissensions among the princes, which the
+reformation caused, and the invasion of Austria by three hundred
+thousand Turks. He resolved to recover the old prerogatives of the
+emperor of Germany, and crush those opinions which were undermining
+his authority, as well as the power of Rome, with which his own was
+identified.</p>
+
+<p>A Diet of the empire was accordingly summoned at <span class="inline">Diet of Spires.</span> Spires, in order to
+take into consideration the state of religion, the main cause of all
+the disturbances in Germany. It met on the 15th of March, 1529, and
+the greatest address was required to prevent a civil war. All that
+Charles could obtain from the assembled princes was, the promise to
+prevent any further innovations. A decree to that effect was passed,
+against which, however, the followers of Luther protested, the most
+powerful of whom were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page036" name="page036"></a>(p. 036)</span>the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of
+Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Lunenburg, the Prince
+of Anhalt, and the deputies of fourteen imperial cities. This protest
+gave to them the name of <span class="italic">Protestants</span>&mdash;a name ever since retained.
+Soon after, the diet assembled at Augsburg, when the articles of faith
+among the Protestants were read,&mdash;known as the Confession of
+Augsburg,&mdash;which, however, the emperor opposed. In consequence of his
+decree, the Protestant princes entered into a league at Smalcalde,
+(December 22, 1530,) to support one another, and defend their
+religion. Circumstances continually occurred to convince Charles, that
+the extirpation of heresy by the sword was impossible in Germany, and
+moreover, he saw it was for his interest&mdash;to which his eye was
+peculiarly open&mdash;to unite all the German provinces in a vigorous
+confederation. Accordingly after many difficulties, and with great
+reluctance, terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremburg,
+(1531,) and ratified in the diet at Ratisbon, shortly after, by which
+it was agreed that no person should be molested in his religion, and
+that the Protestants, on their part, should assist the emperor in
+resisting the invasion of the Turks. The Germans, with their customary
+good faith, furnished all the assistance they promised, and one of the
+best armies ever raised in Germany, amounting to ninety thousand foot,
+and thirty thousand horse, took the field, commanded by the emperor in
+person. But the campaign ended without any memorable event, both
+parties having erred from excessive caution.</p>
+
+<p>Francis soon availed himself of the difficulties and dangers of his
+rival, formed an alliance with the Turks, put forth his old claims,
+courted the favor of the German Protestants, and <span class="inline">Hostilities between Charles and Francis.</span> renewed hostilities.
+He marched towards Italy, and took possession of the dominions of the
+duke of Savoy, whom the emperor, at this juncture, was unable to
+assist, on account of his African expedition against the pirate
+Barbarossa. This noted corsair had built up a great power in Tunis and
+Algiers, and committed shameful ravages on all Christian nations.
+Charles landed in Africa with thirty thousand men, took the fortress
+of Goletta, defeated the pirate's army, captured his capital, and
+restored the exiled Moorish king to his throne. In the midst of these
+victories <span class="pagenum"><a id="page037" name="page037"></a>(p. 037)</span>Francis invaded Savoy. Charles was terribly
+indignant, and loaded his rival with such violent invectives that
+Francis challenged him to single combat. The challenge was accepted,
+but the duel was never fought. Charles, in his turn, invaded France,
+with a large army, for that age&mdash;forty thousand foot and ten thousand
+horse; but the expedition was unfortunate. Francis acted on the
+defensive with admirable skill, and was fortunate in his general
+Montmorency, who seemed possessed with the spirit of a Fabius. The
+emperor, at last, was compelled to return ingloriously, having lost
+half of his army without having gained a single important advantage.
+The joy of Francis, however, was embittered by the death of the
+dauphin, attributed by some to the infamous Catharine de Medicis, wife
+of the Duke of Orleans, in order to secure the crown to her husband.
+War did not end with the retreat of Charles, but was continued, with
+great personal animosity, until mutual exhaustion led to a truce for
+ten years, concluded at Nice, in 1538. Both parties had exerted their
+utmost strength, and neither had obtained any signal advantage.
+Notwithstanding their open and secret enmity, they had an interview
+shortly after the truce, in which both vied with each other in
+expressions of esteem and friendship, and in the exhibition of
+chivalrous courtesies&mdash;a miserable mockery, as shown by the violation
+of the terms of the truce, and the renewal of hostilities in 1541.</p>
+
+<p>These were, doubtless, facilitated by Charles's unfortunate expedition
+against Algiers in 1541, by which he gained nothing but disgrace. <span class="inline">African Wars.</span> His
+army was wasted by famine and disease, and a tempest destroyed his
+fleet. All the complicated miseries which war produces were endured by
+his unfortunate troops, but a small portion of whom ever returned.
+Francis, taking advantage of these misfortunes, made immense military
+preparations, formed a league with the Sultan Solyman, and brought
+five armies into the field. He assumed the offensive, and invaded the
+Netherlands, but obtained no laurels. Charles formed a league with
+Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, and the war raged, with various success, without either
+party obtaining any signal advantage, for three years, when a peace
+was concluded at Crespy, in 1544. Charles, being in the heart of
+France with an invading army, had the apparent advantage but the
+difficulty of retreating out of France in case of disaster, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page038" name="page038"></a>(p. 038)</span>
+and the troubles in Germany, forced him to suspend his military
+operations. The pope, also, was offended because he had conceded so
+much to the Protestants, and the Turks pressed him on the side of
+Hungary. Moreover, he was afflicted with the gout, which indisposed
+him for complicated enterprises. In view of these things, he made
+peace with Francis, formed a strong alliance with the pope, and
+resolved to extirpate the Protestant religion, which was the cause of
+so many insurrections in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the pope resolved to assemble the famous <span class="inline">Council of Trent.</span> Council of
+Trent, the legality of which the Protestants denied. It met in
+December, 1545, and was the last general council which the popes ever
+assembled. It met with a view of healing the dissensions of the
+church, and confirming the authority of the pope. The princes of
+Europe hoped that important reforms would have been made; but nothing
+of consequence was done, and the attention of the divines was directed
+to dogmas rather than morals. The great number of Italian bishops
+enabled the pope to have every thing his own way, in spite of the
+remonstrance of the German, Spanish, and French prelates, and the
+ambassadors of the different monarchs, who also had seats in the
+council. The decrees of this council, respecting articles of faith,
+are considered as a final authority by the Roman church. It denounced
+the reform of Luther, and confirmed the various ecclesiastical
+usurpations which had rendered the reformation necessary. It lasted
+twenty-two years, at different intervals, during the pontificate of
+five popes. The Jesuits, just rising into notice, had considerable
+influence in the council, in consequence of the learning and ability
+of their representatives, and especially of Laynez, the general of the
+order. The Dominicans and Franciscans manifested their accustomed
+animosities and rivalries, and questions were continually proposed and
+agitated, which divided the assembly. The French bishops, headed by
+the Cardinal of Lorraine, were opposed to the high pretensions of the
+Italians, especially of Cardinal Morone, the papal legate; but, by
+artifice and management, the more strenuous adherents of the pope
+attained their ends.</p>
+
+<p>About the time the council assembled, died three distinguished
+persons&mdash;Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> of England, Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, and Luther. Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>
+was freed from his great rival, and from the only <span class="pagenum"><a id="page039" name="page039"></a>(p. 039)</span>private
+person in his dominions he had reason to fear. He now, in good
+earnest, turned his attention to the internal state of his empire, and
+resolved to crush the Reformation, and, by force, if it were
+necessary. He commenced by endeavoring to amuse and deceive the
+Protestants, and evinced that profound dissimulation, which was one of
+his characteristics. He formed a strict alliance with the pope, made a
+truce with Solyman, and won over to his side Maurice and other German
+princes. His military preparations and his intrigues alarmed the
+Protestants, and they prepared themselves for resistance. Religious
+zeal seconded their military ardor. One of the largest armies, which
+had been raised in Europe for a century, took the field, and Charles,
+shut up in Ratisbon, was in no condition to fight. Unfortunately for
+the Protestants, they negotiated instead of acting. The emperor was in
+their power, but he was one of those few persons who remained haughty
+and inflexible in the midst of calamities. He pronounced the ban of
+the empire against the Protestant princes, who were no match for a man
+who had spent his life in the field: they acted without concert, and
+committed many errors. Their forces decreased, while those of the
+emperor increased by large additions from Italy and Flanders. Instead
+of decisive action, the Protestants dallied and procrastinated,
+unwilling to make peace, and unwilling to face their sovereign. Their
+army melted away, and nothing of importance was effected.</p>
+
+<p>Maurice, cousin to the Elector of Saxony, with a baseness to which
+history scarcely affords a parallel, <span class="inline">Treachery of Maurice.</span> deserted his allies, and joined
+the emperor, purely from ambitious motives, and invaded the
+territories of his kinsman with twelve thousand men. The confederates
+made overtures of peace, which being rejected, they separated, and
+most of them submitted to the emperor. He treated them with
+haughtiness and rigor, imposed on them most humiliating terms, forced
+them to renounce the league of Smalcalde, to give up their military
+stores, to admit garrisons into their cities, and to pay large
+contributions in money.</p>
+
+<p>The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, however held out;
+and such was the condition of the emperor, that he could not
+immediately attack them. But the death of Francis gave him leisure to
+invade Saxony, and the elector was defeated at the battle <span class="pagenum"><a id="page040" name="page040"></a>(p. 040)</span>of
+Muhlhausen, (1547,) and taken prisoner. The captive prince approached
+the victor without sullenness or pride. "The fortune of war," said he,
+"has made me your prisoner, most gracious emperor, and I hope to be
+treated &mdash;&mdash;" Here Charles interrupted him&mdash;"And am I, at last,
+acknowledged to be emperor? Charles of Ghent was the only title you
+lately allowed me. You shall be treated as you deserve." At these
+words he turned his back upon him with a haughty air.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate prince was closely guarded by Spanish soldiers, and
+brought to a trial before a court martial, at which presided the
+infamous Duke of Alva, afterwards celebrated for his cruelties in
+Holland. He was convicted of treason and rebellion, and sentenced to
+death&mdash;a sentence which no court martial had a right to inflict on the
+first prince of the empire. He was treated with ignominious harshness,
+which he bore with great magnanimity, but finally made a treaty with
+the emperor, by which, for the preservation of his life, he
+relinquished his kingdom to Maurice.</p>
+
+<p>The landgrave was not strong enough to resist the power of Charles,
+after all his enemies were subdued, and he made his submission, though
+Charles extorted the most rigorous conditions, he being required to
+surrender his person, abandon the league of Smalcalde, implore pardon
+on his knees, demolish his fortifications, and pay an enormous fine.
+In short, it was an unconditional submission. Beside infinite
+mortifications, <span class="inline">Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse.</span>  he was detained a prisoner, which, on Charles's part,
+was but injury added to insult&mdash;an act of fraud and injustice which
+inspired the prince, and the Protestants, generally, with unbounded
+indignation. The Elector of Brandenburg and Maurice in vain solicited
+for his liberty, and showed the infamy to which he would be exposed if
+he detained the landgrave a prisoner. But the emperor listened to
+their remonstrances with the most provoking coolness, and showed very
+plainly that he was resolved to crush all rebellion, suppress
+Protestantism, and raise up an absolute throne in Germany, to the
+subversion of its ancient constitution.</p>
+
+<p>To all appearances, his triumph was complete. His great rival was
+dead; his enemies were subdued and humiliated; Luther's voice was
+hushed; and immense contributions filled the imperial treasury. He now
+began to realize the dreams of his life. He <span class="pagenum"><a id="page041" name="page041"></a>(p. 041)</span>was
+unquestionably, at that time, the most absolute and powerful prince
+Europe has ever seen since Charlemagne, with the exception of
+Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>But what an impressive moral does the history of human greatness
+convey! The hour of triumph is often but the harbinger of defeat and
+shame. "Pride goeth before destruction." Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, with all his
+policy and experience, overreached himself. The failure of his
+ambitious projects and the restoration of Protestantism, were brought
+about by instruments the least anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of Protestantism and the liberties of Germany were
+endangered by the treachery of Maurice, who received, as his reward,
+the great electorate of Saxony. He had climbed to the summit of glory
+and power. Who would suppose that this traitor prince would desert the
+emperor, who had so splendidly rewarded his services, <span class="inline">Heroism of Maurice.</span>. and return to
+the rescue of those princes whom he had so basely betrayed? But who
+can thread the labyrinth of an intriguing and selfish heart? Who can
+calculate the movements of an unprincipled and restless politician?
+Maurice, at length, awoke to the perception of the real condition of
+his country. He saw its liberties being overturned by the most
+ambitious man whom ten centuries had produced. He saw the cause, which
+his convictions told him was the true one, in danger of being wrecked.
+He was, moreover, wounded by the pride, coldness, and undisguised
+selfishness of the emperor. He was indignant that the landgrave, his
+father-in-law, should be retained a prisoner, against all the laws of
+honor and of justice. He resolved to come to the rescue of his
+country. He formed his plans with the greatest coolness, and exercised
+a power of dissimulation that has no parallel in history. But his
+address was even greater than his hypocrisy. He gained the confidence
+of the Protestants, without losing that of the emperor. He even
+obtained the command of an army which Charles sent to reduce the
+rebellious city of Magdeburg, and, while he was besieging the city, he
+was negotiating with the generals who defended it for a general union
+against the emperor. Magdeburg surrendered in 1551. Its chieftains
+were secretly assured that the terms of capitulation should not be
+observed. His next point was, to keep the army together until his
+schemes were ripened, and then to arrest the emperor, whose <span class="pagenum"><a id="page042" name="page042"></a>(p. 042)</span>
+thoughts now centred on the council of Trent. So he proposed sending
+Protestant divines to the council, but delayed their departure by
+endless negotiations about the terms of a safe conduct. He, moreover,
+formed a secret treaty with Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, the successor of Francis, whose
+animosity against Charles was as intense as was that of his father.
+When his preparations were completed, he joined his army in Thuringia,
+and took the field against the emperor, who had no suspicion of his
+designs, and who blindly trusted to him, deeming it impossible that a
+man, whom he had so honored and rewarded, could turn against him.
+March 18, 1552, Maurice published his manifesto, justifying his
+conduct; and his reasons were, to secure the Protestant religion, to
+maintain the constitution of the empire, and deliver the Landgrave of
+Hesse from bondage. He was powerfully supported by the French king,
+and, with a rapidly increasing army, marched towards Innspruck, where
+the emperor was quartered. <span class="inline">Misfortunes of Charles.</span> The emperor was thunderstruck when he heard
+the tidings of his desertion, and was in no condition to resist him.
+He endeavored to gain time by negotiations, but these were without
+effect. Maurice, at the head of a large army, advanced rapidly into
+Upper Germany. Castles and cities surrendered as he advanced, and so
+rapid was his progress, that he came near taking the emperor captive.
+Charles was obliged to fly, in the middle of the night, and to travel
+on a litter by torchlight, amid the passes of the Alps. He scarcely
+left Innspruck before Maurice entered it&mdash;but too late to gain the
+prize he sought. The emperor rallied his armies, and a vigorous war
+was carried on between the contending parties, to the advantage of the
+Protestants. The emperor, after a while, was obliged to make peace
+with them, for his Spanish subjects were disgusted with the war, his
+funds were exhausted, his forces dispersed, and his territories
+threatened by the French. On the 2d of August, 1552, was concluded the
+peace of Passau, which secured the return of the landgrave to his
+dominions, the freedom of religion to the Protestants, and the
+preservation of the German constitution. The sanguine hopes of the
+emperor were dispelled, and all his ambitious schemes defeated, and he
+left to meditate, in the intervals of the pains which he suffered from
+the gout, on the instability of all greatness, and the vanity of human
+life. Maurice was now <span class="pagenum"><a id="page043" name="page043"></a>(p. 043)</span>extolled as extravagantly as he had
+been before denounced, and his treachery justified, even by grave
+divines. But what is most singular in the whole affair, was, that the
+French king, while persecuting Protestants at home, should protect
+them abroad. But this conduct may confirm, in a signal manner, the
+great truth of history, that God regulates the caprice of human
+passions, and makes them subservient to the accomplishment of his own
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p>The labors and perplexities of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> were not diminished by the
+<span class="inline">Treaty of Passau.</span> treaty of Passau. He continued his hostilities against the French and
+against the Turks. He was obliged to raise the siege of Metz, which
+was gallantly defended by the Duke of Guise. To his calamities in
+France, were added others in Italy. Sienna revolted against his
+government, and Naples was threatened by the Turks. The imperialists
+were unsuccessful in Italy and in Hungary, and the Archduke Ferdinand
+was obliged to abandon Transylvania. But war was carried on in the Low
+Countries with considerable vigor.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, whose only passion was the aggrandizement of his house, now
+projected a marriage of his son, Philip, with Mary, queen of England.
+The queen, dazzled by the prospect of marrying the heir of the
+greatest monarch in Europe, and eager to secure his powerful aid to
+reëstablish Catholicism in England, listened to his proposal, although
+it was disliked by the nation. In spite of the remonstrance of the
+house of commons, the marriage treaty was concluded, and the marriage
+celebrated, (1554.)</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, Charles formed the extraordinary resolution of resigning
+his dominions to his son, and of retiring to a quiet retreat.
+Diocletian is the only instance of a prince, capable of holding the
+reins of government, who had adopted a similar course. All Europe was
+astonished at the resolution of Charles, and all historians of the
+period have moralized on the event. <span class="inline">Character of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></span> But it ceases to be mysterious,
+when we remember that Charles was no nearer the accomplishment of the
+ends which animated his existence, than he was thirty years before;
+that he was disgusted and wearied with the world; that he suffered
+severely from the gout, which, at times, incapacitated him for the
+government of his extensive dominions. It was never his habit to
+intrust others with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page044" name="page044"></a>(p. 044)</span>duties and labors which he could perform
+himself, and he felt that his empire needed a more powerful protector
+than his infirmities permitted him to be. He was grown prematurely
+old, he felt his declining health; longed for repose, and sought
+religious consolation. Of all his vast possessions, he only reserved
+an annual pension of one hundred thousand crowns; resigning Spain and
+the Low Countries into the hands of Philip, and the empire of Germany
+to his brother Ferdinand, who had already been elected as King of the
+Romans. He then set out for his retreat in Spain, which was the
+monastery of St. Justus, near Placentia, situated in a lovely vale,
+surrounded with lofty trees, watered by a small brook, and rendered
+attractive by the fertility of the soil, and the delightful
+temperature of the climate. Here he spent his last days in
+agricultural improvements and religious exercises, apparently
+regardless of that noisy world which he had deserted forever, and
+indifferent to those political storms which his restless ambition had
+raised. Here his grandeur and his worldly hopes were buried in
+preparing himself for the future world. He lived with great
+simplicity, for two years after his retreat, and died (1558,) from the
+effects of the gout, which, added to his great labors, had shattered
+his constitution. He was not what the world would call a great genius,
+like Napoleon; but he was a man of great sagacity, untiring industry,
+and respectable attainments. He was cautious, cold, and selfish; had
+but little faith in human virtue, and was a slave, in his latter days,
+to superstition. He was neither affable nor courteous, but was sincere
+in his attachments, and munificent in rewarding his generals and
+friends. He was not envious nor cruel, but inordinately ambitious, and
+intent on aggrandizing his family. This was his characteristic defect,
+and this, in a man so prominent and so favored by circumstances, was
+enough to keep Europe in a turmoil for nearly half a century.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Robertson's History of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> Ranke's
+     History of the Reformation. Kohlrausch's History of Germany.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The above-mentioned authors are
+     easily accessible, and are all that are necessary for the
+     student. Robertson's History is a classic, and an immortal
+     work.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page045" name="page045"></a>(p. 045)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>HENRY <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>The history of Europe in the sixteenth century is peculiarly the
+history of the wars of kings, and of their efforts to establish
+themselves and their families on absolute thrones. The monotonous, and
+almost exclusive, record of royal pleasures and pursuits shows in how
+little consideration the people were held. They struggled, and toiled,
+and murmured as they do now. They probably had the same joys and
+sorrows as in our times. But, in these times, they have considerable
+influence on the government, the religion, the literature, and the
+social life of nations. In the sixteenth century, this influence was
+not so apparent; but power of all kinds seemed to emanate from kings
+and nobles; at least from wealthy and cultivated classes. When this is
+the case, when kings give a law to society, history is not
+unphilosophical which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Rise of Absolute Monarchy.</span> rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is one of
+the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was
+every where a strong tendency to centralization. Provinces, before
+independent, were controlled by a central government. Standing armies
+took the place of feudal armies. Kings took away from nobles the right
+to coin money, administer justice, and impose taxes. The power of the
+crown became supreme and unlimited.</p>
+
+<p>But some monarchs were more independent than others, in proportion as
+the power of nobles was suppressed, or, as the cities sided with the
+central government, or, as provinces were connected and bound
+together. The power of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> was somewhat limited, in Spain, by
+the free spirit of the Cortes, and, in Germany, by the independence of
+the princes of the empire. But, in France and England, the king was
+more absolute, although he did not rule over so great extent of
+territory as did the emperor of Germany; and this is one reason why
+Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> proved so strong an antagonist to his more powerful rival.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page046" name="page046"></a>(p. 046)</span>The history of France, during the reign of this monarch, is
+also the history of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, since they were both engaged in the
+same wars; which wars have already been alluded to. Both of these
+monarchs failed in the objects of their existence. If Charles did not
+realize his dream of universal empire, neither did Francis leave his
+kingdom, at his death, in a more prosperous state than he found it.</p>
+
+<p>Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> was succeeded by his son Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, a warlike prince, but
+destitute of prudence, and under the control of women. His policy,
+however, was substantially that of his father, and he continued
+hostilities against the emperor of Germany, till his resignation. He
+was a bitter persecutor of the Protestants, and the seeds of
+subsequent civil wars were sown by his zeal. He was removed from his
+throne prematurely, being killed at a tournament, in 1559, soon after
+the death of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> Tournaments ceased with his death.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of <span class="inline">Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></span> Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, the other great contemporary of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>,
+merits a larger notice, not only because his reign was the
+commencement of a new era in England, but, also, because the affairs,
+which engaged his attention, are not much connected with continental
+history.</p>
+
+<p>He ascended the throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth year,
+without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation; for his
+manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, and his
+person was handsome. He had made respectable literary attainments, and
+he gave promise of considerable abilities. He was married, soon after
+his accession, to Catharine, daughter of the King of Spain, and the
+first years of his reign were happy, both to himself and to his
+subjects. He had a well-filled treasury, which his father had amassed
+with great care, a devoted people and an obedient parliament. All
+circumstances seemed to conspire to strengthen his power, and to make
+him the arbiter of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>But this state did not last long. The young king was resolved to make
+war on France, but was diverted from his aim by troubles in Scotland,
+growing out of his own rapacity&mdash;a trait which ever peculiarly
+distinguished him. These troubles resulted in a war with the Scots,
+who were defeated at the memorable battle of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page047" name="page047"></a>(p. 047)</span>Flodden Field,
+which Sir Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has immortalized. The Scotch
+commanders, Lenox and Argyle, both perished, as well as the valiant
+King James himself. There is scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who
+had not an ancestor slain on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But
+the victory was dearly bought, and Surrey, the English general,
+afterwards Duke of Norfolk, was unable to pursue his advantages.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, the celebrated <span class="inline">Rise of Cardinal Wolsey.</span> Cardinal Wolsey began to act a
+conspicuous part in English affairs. His father was a butcher of
+Ipswich; but was able to give his son a good education. He studied at
+Oxford, was soon distinguished for his attainments, and became tutor
+to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The marquis gave him the rich
+living of Limington; but the young parson, with his restless ambition,
+and love of excitement and pleasure, was soon wearied of a country
+life. He left his parish to become domestic chaplain to the treasurer
+of Calais. This post introduced him to Fox, bishop of Winchester, who
+shared with the Earl of Surrey the highest favors of royalty. The
+minister and diplomatist, finding in the young man learning, tact,
+vivacity, and talent for business, introduced him to the king, hoping
+that he would prove an agreeable companion for Henry, and a useful
+tool for himself. But those who are able to manage other people's
+business, generally are able to manage their own. The tool of Fox
+looked after his own interest chiefly. He supplanted his master in the
+loyal favor, and soon acquired more favor and influence at court than
+any of the ministers or favorites. Though twenty years older than
+Henry, he adapted himself to all his tastes, flattered his vanity and
+passions, and became his bosom friend. He gossiped with him about
+Thomas Aquinas, the Indies, and affairs of gallantry. He was a great
+refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and
+display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and
+drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the
+dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed
+craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master
+of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once
+gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York,
+papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and
+lord chancellor. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page048" name="page048"></a>(p. 048)</span>He also obtained the administration and the
+temporalities of the rich abbey of St. Albans, and of the bishoprics
+of Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester. By these gifts, his revenues
+almost equalled those of the crown; and he squandered them in a style
+of unparalleled extravagance. He dressed in purple and gold, supported
+a train of eight hundred persons, and built Hampton Court. He was the
+channel through which the royal favors flowed. But he made a good
+chancellor, dispensed justice, repressed the power of the nobles,
+encouraged and rewarded literary men, and endowed colleges. He was the
+most magnificent and the most powerful subject that England has ever
+seen. Even nobles were proud to join his train of dependants. There
+was nothing sordid or vulgar, however, in all his ostentation. Henry
+took pleasure in his pomp, for it was a reflection of the greatness of
+his own majesty.</p>
+
+<p>The first years of the reign of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, after the battle of
+Flodden Field, were spent in pleasure, and in great public displays of
+<span class="inline">Magnificence of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></span> magnificence, which charmed the people, and made him a popular idol.
+Among these, the interview of the king with Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> is the most
+noted, on the 4th of June, 1520; the most gorgeous pageant of the
+sixteenth century, designed by Wolsey, who had a genius for such
+things. The monarchs met in a beautiful valley, where jousts and
+tournaments were held, and where was exhibited all the magnificence
+which the united resources of France and England could command. The
+interview was sought by Francis to win, through Wolsey, the favor of
+the king, and to counterbalance the advantages which it was supposed
+Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> had gained on a previous visit to the king at Dover.</p>
+
+<p>The getting up of the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" created some
+murmurs among the English nobility, many of whom were injured by the
+expensive tastes of Wolsey. Among these was the Duke of Buckingham,
+hereditary high constable of England, and connected with the royal
+house of the Plantagenets. Henry, from motives of jealousy, both on
+account of his birth and fortune, had long singled him out as his
+victim. He was, also, obnoxious to Wolsey, since he would not flatter
+his pride, and he had, moreover, insulted him. It is very easy for a
+king to find a pretence for committing a crime; and Buckingham was
+arrested, tried, and executed, for making traitorous prophecies. His
+real crime was in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page049" name="page049"></a>(p. 049)</span>being more powerful than it suited the
+policy of the king. With the death of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in
+1521, commenced the bloody cruelty of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Soon after the death of Buckingham, the king made himself notorious
+for his theological writings against Luther, whose doctrines he
+detested. He ever had a taste for theological disputation, and a love
+of the schoolmen. His tracts against Luther, very respectable for
+talent and learning, though disgraced by coarse and vulgar
+vituperation, secured for him the favor of the pope, who bestowed upon
+him the title of "Defender of the Faith;" and a strong alliance
+existed between them until the divorce of Queen Catharine.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulties and delays, attending this act of cruelty and
+injustice, constitute no small part of the domestic history of England
+during the reign of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> Any event, which furnishes subjects of
+universal gossip and discussion, is ever worthy of historical notice,
+inasmuch as it shows prevailing opinions and tastes.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain, was eight years
+older than her husband, whom she married in the first year of his
+reign. She had been previously married to his brother Arthur, who died
+of the plague in 1502. For several years after her marriage with
+Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, her domestic happiness was a subject of remark; and the
+emperor, Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, congratulated her on her brilliant fortune. She
+was beautiful, sincere, accomplished; religious, and disinterested,
+and every way calculated to secure, as she had won, the king's
+affections.</p>
+
+<p>But among her maids of honor there was one peculiarly accomplished and
+fascinating, to whom the king transferred his affections with unwonted
+vehemence. <span class="inline">Anne Boleyn.</span> This was Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who,
+from his great wealth, married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the first
+duke of Norfolk. This noble alliance brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into
+close connection with royalty, and led to the appointment of his
+daughter to the high post which she held at the court of Queen
+Catharine. It is probable that the king suppressed his passion for
+some time; and it would have been longer concealed, even from its
+object, had not his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy,
+son of the Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his
+passion; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page050" name="page050"></a>(p. 050)</span>but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or
+too politic, or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It
+was only <span class="italic">as queen of England</span>, that she would return the passion of
+her royal lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the
+all-powerful cardinal, for assisting in her separation from Percy,
+whom she loved with romantic attachment. The king waited four years,
+but Anne remained inflexibly virtuous. He then meditated the divorce
+from Catharine, as the only way to accomplish the object which now
+seemed to animate his existence. He confided the matter to his
+favorite minister; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the disclosure, and
+remained with him four hours on his knees, to dissuade him from a
+step which he justly regarded as madness. Here Wolsey appears as an
+honest man and a true friend; but royal infatuation knows neither
+wisdom, justice, nor humanity. Wolsey, as a man of the world, here
+made a blunder, and departed from the policy he had hitherto
+pursued&mdash;that of flattering the humors of his absolute master. Wolsey,
+however, recommended the king to consult the divines; for Henry
+pretended that, after nearly twenty years of married life, he had
+conscientious scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage. The
+learned English doctors were afraid to pronounce their opinions, and
+suggested a reference to the fathers. But the king was not content
+with their authority; he appealed to the pope, and to the decisions of
+half of the universities of Europe. It seems very singular that a
+sovereign so unprincipled, unscrupulous, and passionate, and yet so
+absolute and powerful as was Henry, should have wasted his time and
+money in seeking countenance to an act on which he was fully
+determined, and which countenance he never could reasonably hope to
+secure. But his character was made up of contradictions. His caprice,
+violence, and want of good faith, were strangely blended with
+superstition and reverence for the authority of the church. His temper
+urged him to the most rigorous measure of injustice; and his injustice
+produced no shame, although he was restrained somewhat by the opinions
+of the very men whom he did not hesitate to murder.</p>
+
+<p>Queen <span class="inline">Queen Catharine.</span> Catharine, besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, was
+powerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudiation,
+therefore, could not take place without offending the very <span class="pagenum"><a id="page051" name="page051"></a>(p. 051)</span>
+persons whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate especially
+the Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and all the high
+dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even Wolsey could not in
+honor favor the divorce, although it was his policy to do so. In
+consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal and offence so
+outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must necessarily produce
+throughout the civilized world, Henry long delayed to bring the matter
+to a crisis, being afraid of a war with Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, and of the
+anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he hoped to gain him over, for the
+pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio to London, to hold, with his legate
+Wolsey, a court to hear the case. But it was the farthest from his
+intention to grant the divorce, for the pope was more afraid of
+Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> than he was of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards
+<span class="inline">Disgrace and Death of Wolsey.</span> Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The
+accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of
+royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in
+England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost
+his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and
+his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a
+single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious,
+most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken
+heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my
+God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given
+me over in my gray hairs"&mdash;these were the words of the dying cardinal;
+his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human life. But the
+vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or regret to escape him,
+when he heard of the death of his prime minister, and his intimate
+friend for twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the disgrace of Wolsey, which happened nearly a year
+before his death, (1529,) three remarkable men began to figure in
+English politics and history. These were <span class="inline">More &mdash; Cranmer &mdash; Cromwell.</span> Sir Thomas More, Thomas
+Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most
+learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but
+very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral
+elevation of character, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page052" name="page052"></a>(p. 052)</span>beautiful serenity of soul, the
+annals of the great men of his country furnish no superior. His
+extensive erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official
+station which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always the
+intimate friend of the king, and his conversation, so enlivened by
+wit, and so rich and varied in matter, caused his society to be
+universally sought. He discharged his duties with singular
+conscientiousness and ability; and no one ever had cause to complain
+that justice was not rendered him.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer's elevation was owing to a fortunate circumstance,
+notwithstanding his exalted merit. He happened to say, while tutor to
+a gentleman of the name of Cressy, in the hearing of Dr. Gardiner,
+then secretary to Henry, that the proper way to settle the difficulty
+about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who would settle the
+matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without reference to the
+pope. This remark was reported to the king, and Cranmer was sent to
+reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and was employed in writing a
+treatise to support his opinion. His ability led to further honors,
+until, on the death of Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, he was
+appointed to the vacant see, the first office in dignity and
+importance in the kingdom, and from which no king, however absolute,
+could eject him, except by the loss of life. We shall see that, in all
+matters of religion, Cranmer was the ruling spirit in England until
+the accession of Mary.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell's origin was even more obscure than that of Wolsey's; but he
+received his education at one of the universities. We first hear of
+him as a clerk in an English factory at Antwerp, then as a soldier in
+the army of the Constable Bourbon when it sacked Rome, then as a clerk
+in a mercantile house in Venice, and then again as a lawyer in
+England, where he attracted the attention of Wolsey, who made him his
+solicitor, and employed him in the dissolution of monasteries. He then
+became a member of the house of commons, where his address and
+business talents were conspicuous. He was well received at court, and
+confirmed in the stewardship of the monasteries, after the disgrace of
+his master. His office brought him often into personal conference with
+the king; and, at one of these, he recommended him to deny the
+authority of the pope altogether, and declare himself supreme head of
+the church. The boldness of this advice was congenial to the temper of
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page053" name="page053"></a>(p. 053)</span>king, worried by the opposition of Rome to his intended
+divorce, and Cromwell became a member of the privy council. His
+fortune was thus made by his seasonable advice. All who opposed the
+king were sure to fall, and all who favored him were sure to rise, as
+must ever be the case in an absolute monarchy, where the king is the
+centre and the fountain of all honor and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>With such ministers as Cranmer and Cromwell, the measures of Henry
+were now prompt and bold. Queen Catharine was soon disposed of; she
+was divorced and disgraced, and Anne Boleyn was elevated to her
+throne, (1533.) The anathemas of the pope and the outcry of all Europe
+followed. Sir Thomas More resigned the seals, and retired to poverty
+and solitude. But he was not permitted to enjoy his retirement long.
+Refusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henry, as head of the church
+as well as of the state, he was executed, with other illustrious
+Catholics. The execution of More was the most cruel and uncalled-for
+act of the whole reign, and entailed on its author the execrations of
+all the learned and virtuous men in Europe, most of whom appreciated
+the transcendent excellences of the murdered chancellor, the author of
+the Utopia, and the Boethius of his age.</p>
+
+<p>The fulminations of the pope only excited Henry to more <span class="inline">Quarrel with the Pope.</span> decided
+opposition. The parliament, controlled by Cromwell, acknowledged him
+as the supreme head of the Church of England, and the separation from
+Rome was final and irrevocable. The tenths were annexed to the crown,
+and the bishops took a new oath of supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>The independence of the Church of England, effected in 1535, was
+followed by important consequences, and was the first step to the
+reformation, afterwards perfected by Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> But as the first acts
+of the reformation were prompted by political considerations, the
+reformers in England, during the reign of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, should be
+considered chiefly in a political point of view. The separation from
+Rome, during the reign of this prince, was not followed by the
+abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, nor any of the rites and
+ceremonies of that church. Nor was religious toleration secured. Every
+thing was subservient to the royal conscience, and a secular, instead
+of an ecclesiastical pope, still reigned in England.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page054" name="page054"></a>(p. 054)</span>
+
+<p>Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English Church,
+imposed new duties and cares: he therefore established a separate
+department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over which he
+placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell&mdash;a fit minister to
+such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, and who looked solely
+to the pecuniary interests of his master, was thus placed over the
+highest prelates of the church. But Cromwell, in consulting the
+pecuniary interests of the king, also had an eye to the political
+interests of the kingdom. He was a sagacious and practical man of the
+world, and was disgusted with the vices of the clergy, and especially
+with the custom of sending money to Rome, in the shape of annates and
+taxes. This evil he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the
+country, for the popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He
+then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic
+institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell
+hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a
+great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they
+were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads,
+taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them.
+Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on
+religious grounds, and readily coöperated with Cromwell; while the
+king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no bounds, listened, with
+glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two favorite ministers. The
+nation was suddenly astounded with the intelligence that parliament
+had passed a bill, <span class="inline">Abolition of Monasteries.</span> giving to the king and his heirs all the monastic
+establishments in the kingdom, which did not exceed two hundred pounds
+a year. Three hundred and eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king
+was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred
+thousand pounds ready money&mdash;an immense sum in that age. By this
+spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceedingly unjust and harsh, and
+in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced to
+beggary and misery, while there was scarcely an eminent man in the
+kingdom who did not come in for a share of the plunder. Vast grants of
+lands were bestowed by the king on his favorites and courtiers, in
+order to appease the nation; and thus the foundations of many of the
+great estates of the English nobility were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page055" name="page055"></a>(p. 055)</span>laid. The
+spoliations, however, led to many serious riots and insurrections,
+especially in Lincolnshire. At one place there were forty thousand
+rebels under arms; but they were easily suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The rapacious king was not satisfied with the plunder he had secured,
+and, in 1539, the <span class="inline">Suppression of Monasteries.</span> final suppression of all the monasteries in England
+was decreed. Then followed the seizure of all the church property in
+England connected with monasteries&mdash;shrines, relics, gold and silver
+vessels of immense value and rarity, lands, and churches. Canterbury,
+Bath, Merton, Stratford, Bury St. Edmonds, Glastonbury, and St.
+Albans, suffered most, and many of those beautiful monuments of Gothic
+architecture were levelled with the dust. Their destruction deprived
+the people of many physical accommodations, for they had been
+hospitals and caravansaries, as well as "cages of unclean birds."
+Neither the church nor the universities profited much from the
+confiscation of so much property, and only six new bishoprics were
+formed, and only fourteen abbeys were converted into cathedrals and
+collegiate churches. The king and the nobles were the only gainers by
+the spoil; the people obtained no advantage in that age, although they
+have in succeeding ages.</p>
+
+<p>After renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing the
+monasteries, where were collected the treasures of the middle ages,
+one would naturally suppose that the king would have gone farther, and
+changed the religion of his people. But Henry hated Luther and his
+doctrines, and did not hate the pope, or the religion of which he was
+the sovereign pontiff. He loved gold and new wives better than the
+interests of the Catholic church. Reform proceeded no farther in his
+reign; while, on the other hand, he caused a decree to pass both
+houses of his timid, complying parliament, by which the doctrines of
+transubstantiation, the communion of one kind, the celibacy of the
+clergy, masses, and auricular confession, were established; and any
+departure from, or denial of, these subjected the offender to the
+punishment of death.</p>
+
+<p>But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of
+monasteries&mdash;the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife,
+Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the
+very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the
+gratification of all worldly wishes. She <span class="pagenum"><a id="page056" name="page056"></a>(p. 056)</span>had been very vain,
+and fond of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life
+were marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform
+doctrines. But her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen.
+She could win, but she could not retain, the affections of her royal
+husband. His passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The
+beauty of Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid
+of honor, attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife
+now became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by
+the divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity
+and freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against
+her, because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step
+between the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was
+committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without
+evidence, and <span class="inline">Execution of Anne Boleyn.</span> executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had
+honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have
+believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he
+served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman
+who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the
+Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was
+past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom
+of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for whose
+sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, and had
+kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, "the fairest,
+discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as the historians
+say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the affections of Henry
+and receive his addresses, while his queen was devoted to her husband.
+But Anne Boleyn had done so before her, and suffered a natural
+retribution.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, and died
+two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> She was
+one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She
+indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful
+predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence
+or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy of preservation.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page057" name="page057"></a>(p. 057)</span>
+
+<p>She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round for
+another wife, and besought Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> to send the most beautiful
+ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect them, and
+select one according to his taste. But this Oriental notion was not
+indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and
+Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses
+of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this
+royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was
+affianced to <span class="inline">Anne of Cleves &mdash; Catharine Howard.</span> Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on
+the banks of the Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf.</p>
+
+<p>The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed and
+disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, calling her
+a "great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consummated his marriage,
+although his disgust constantly increased. This mistake of Cromwell
+was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The king vented on him all the
+displeasure which had been gathering in his embittered soul.
+Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had offended an absolute monarch. He
+was accused of heresy and treason,&mdash;the common accusations in that age
+against men devoted to destruction,&mdash;tried by a servile board of
+judges, condemned, and judicially murdered, in 1540. In his
+misfortunes, he showed no more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere
+of a court is fatal to all moral elevation.</p>
+
+<p>But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and worthy
+woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, granddaughter of the victor
+of Flodden Field, became queen of England. The king now fancied that
+his domestic felicity was complete; but, soon after his marriage, it
+was discovered that his wife had formerly led a dissolute life, and
+had been unfaithful also to her royal master. When the proofs of her
+incontinence were presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears;
+but soon his natural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated
+her crime by death on the scaffold, in 1542.</p>
+
+<p>Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord
+Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. She
+favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep her opinions
+from the king, who would have executed her, had he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page058" name="page058"></a>(p. 058)</span>suspected
+her real views. She survived her husband, who died four years after
+her marriage, in 1547.</p>
+
+<p>The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry
+were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were
+deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He
+was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He
+added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for
+their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had
+left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey
+lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he
+was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the
+most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of
+pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and
+his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most
+inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was
+dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was
+impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into
+fits of madness and frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>In <span class="inline">Last Days of Henry.</span> his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of
+the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given
+offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales,
+and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died
+before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the
+good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several
+thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his
+disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and
+the glory of their country.</p>
+
+<p>Tyrannical as was Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, still he ever ruled by the laws. He did
+not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament
+authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent
+measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the
+parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as
+did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for
+resistance, and the king had every thing after his own way.</p>
+
+<p>By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his temper
+was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page059" name="page059"></a>(p. 059)</span>The
+moroseness he exhibited in his latter days was partly the effect of
+physical disease, brought about, indeed, by intemperance and gluttony.
+He was faithful to his wives, so long as he lived with them; and,
+while he doted on them, listened to their advice. But few of his
+advisers dared tell him the truth; and Cranmer himself can never be
+exculpated from flattering his perverted conscience. No one had the
+courage to tell him he was dying but one of the nobles of the court.
+<span class="inline">Death of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></span> He died, in great agony, June, 1547, in the thirty-eighth year of his
+reign, and the fifty-sixth of his age, and was buried, with great
+pomp, in St. George Chapel, Windsor Castle.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;The best English histories of the reign of
+     Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> are the standard ones of Hume and Lingard. The
+     Pictorial History, in spite of its pictures, is also
+     excellent. Burnet should be consulted in reference to
+     ecclesiastical matters, and Hallam, in reference to the
+     constitution. See also the lives of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More,
+     and Cranmer. The lives of Henry's queens have been best
+     narrated by Agnes Strickland.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page060" name="page060"></a>(p. 060)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>EDWARD <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> AND MARY.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> was succeeded by his son, Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>, a boy of nine years
+of age, learned, pious, and precocious. Still he was a boy; and, as
+such, was a king but in name. The history of his reign is the history
+of the acts of his ministers.</p>
+
+<p>The late king left a will, appointing sixteen persons, mostly members
+of his council, to be guardians of his son, and rulers of the nation
+during his minority. The Earl of Hertford, being uncle of the king,
+was unanimously named protector.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing the council did was to look after themselves, that is,
+to give themselves titles and revenues. Hertford became Duke of
+Somerset; Essex, Marquis of Northampton; Lisle, Earl of Warwick; the
+Chancellor Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. At the head of these
+nobles was Somerset. He was a Protestant, and therefore prosecuted
+those reforms which Cranmer had before projected. Cranmer, as member
+of the council, archbishop of Canterbury, and friend of Somerset, had
+ample scope to prosecute his measures.</p>
+
+<p>The history of this reign is not important in a political point of
+view, and relates chiefly to the completion of the reformation, and to
+the squabbles and jealousies of the great lords who formed the council
+of regency.</p>
+
+<p>The most important event, of a political character, was a <span class="inline">War with Scotland.</span> war with
+Scotland, growing out of the attempts of the late king to unite both
+nations under one government. In consequence, Scotland was invaded by
+the Duke of Somerset, at the head of eighteen thousand men. A great
+battle was fought, in which ten thousand of the Scots were slain. But
+the protector was compelled to return to England, without following up
+the fruits of victory, in consequence of cabals at court. His brother,
+Lord Seymour, a man of reckless ambition, had married the queen
+dowager, and openly aspired to the government of the kingdom. He
+endeavored <span class="pagenum"><a id="page061" name="page061"></a>(p. 061)</span>to seduce the youthful king, and he had provided
+arms for ten thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>The protector sought to win his brother from his treasonable designs
+by kindness and favors; but, all his measures proving ineffectual, he
+was arrested, tried, and executed, for high treason.</p>
+
+<p>But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother; and this was
+the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity by his suppression
+of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the country had witnessed
+since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred years before. <span class="inline">Rebellions and Discontents.</span> The discontent
+of the people appears to have arisen from their actual suffering. Coin
+had depreciated, without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was
+cheap, because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular
+discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers
+introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. The
+priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it broke out
+into a flame.</p>
+
+<p>The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a law which
+he caused to be passed against enclosures; and, as he lost influence,
+his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, at last, was obliged
+to resign his protectorship; and Warwick, who had suppressed the
+rebellion, formed the chief of a new council of regency. He was a man
+of greater talents than Somerset, and equal ambition, and more fitted
+for stormy times.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as his power was established, and the country was at peace,
+and he had gained friends, he began to execute those projects of
+ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of Northumberland
+having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired to the extinct title and
+the estates, and procured for himself a grant of the same, with the
+title of duke. But there still remained a bar to his elevation; and
+this was the opposition of the Duke of Somerset, who, though disgraced
+and unpopular, was still powerful. It is unfortunate to be in the way
+of a great man's career, and Somerset paid the penalty of his
+opposition&mdash;the common fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times.
+He was accused of treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.)</p>
+
+<p>Northumberland, as the new dictator, seemed to have attained <span class="pagenum"><a id="page062" name="page062"></a>(p. 062)</span>
+the highest elevation to which a subject could aspire. In rank, power,
+and property, he was second only to the royal family, but his ambition
+knew no bounds, and he began his intrigues to induce the young king,
+whose health was rapidly failing, and who was zealously attached to
+Protestantism, to set aside the succession of his sister Mary to the
+throne, really in view of the danger to which the reformers would be
+subjected, but under pretence of her declared illegitimacy, which
+would also set aside the claims of the Princess Elizabeth. Mary, Queen
+of Scots, was to be set aside on the ground of the will of the late
+king, and the succession would therefore devolve on the Lady Jane
+Grey, granddaughter of the Duke of Suffolk and of the French queen,
+whom he hoped to unite in marriage with his son. This was a
+deeply-laid scheme, and came near being successful, since Edward
+listened to it with pleasure. Northumberland then sought to gain over
+the judges and other persons of distinction, and succeeded by bribery
+and intimidation. At this juncture, the young king died, possessed of
+all the accomplishments which could grace a youth of sixteen, but
+still a tool in the hands of his ministers.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the political movements of this reign&mdash;memorable for the
+<span class="inline">Rivalry of the Great Nobles.</span> rivalries of the great nobles. But it is chiefly distinguished for the
+changes which were made in the church establishment, and the
+introduction of the principles of the continental reformers. <span class="inline">Religious Reforms.</span> No
+changes of importance were ever made beyond what Cranmer and his
+associates effected. Indeed, all that an absolute monarch could do,
+was done, and done with prudence, sagacity, and moderation. The people
+quietly&mdash;except in some rural districts&mdash;acquiesced in the change.
+Most of the clergy took the new oath of allegiance to Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>, as
+supreme head of the church; and very few suffered from religious
+persecution. There is no period in English history when such important
+changes were made, with so little bloodshed. Cranmer always watched
+the temper of the nation, and did nothing without great caution. Still
+a great change was effected&mdash;no less than a complete change from
+Romanism to Protestantism. But it was not so radical a reform as the
+Puritans subsequently desired, since the hierarchy and a liturgy, and
+clerical badges and dresses, were retained. It was the fortune of
+Cranmer, during the six years of Edward's reign, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page063" name="page063"></a>(p. 063)</span>to effect
+the two great objects of which the English church has ever since been
+proud&mdash;the removal of Roman abuses, and the establishment of the creed
+of Luther and Calvin; and this without sweeping away the union of
+church and state, which, indeed, was more intimate than before the
+reformation. The papal power was completely subverted. Nothing more
+remained to be done by Cranmer. He had compiled the Book of Common
+Prayer, abolished the old Latin service, the worship of images, the
+ceremony of the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars
+into communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service,
+caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the laity,
+added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies for the
+clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and magnificently
+endowed schools and universities.</p>
+
+<p>The Reformation is divested of much interest, since it was the work of
+<span class="italic">authority</span>, rather than the result of <span class="italic">popular convictions</span>. But
+Cranmer won immortal honor for his skilful management, and for making
+no more changes than he could sustain. A large part of the English
+nation still regard his works as perfect, and are sincerely and
+enthusiastically attached to the form which he gave to his church.</p>
+
+<p>The hopes of his party were suddenly dispelled by the death of the
+amiable prince whom he controlled, 6th of July, 1553. The succession
+to the throne fell to the Princess Mary, or, as princesses were then
+called, the <span class="italic">Lady</span> Mary; nor could all the arts of Northumberland
+exclude her from the enjoyment of her rights. This ambitious nobleman
+contrived to keep the death of Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> a secret two days, and
+secure from the Mayor and Alderman of London a promise to respect the
+will of the late king. In consequence, the Lady Jane Grey was
+proclaimed Queen of England. "So far was she from any desire of this
+advancement, that she began to act her part of royalty with many
+tears, thus plainly showing to those who had access to her, that she
+was forced by her relations and friends to this high, but dangerous
+post." She was accomplished, beautiful, and amiable, devoted to her
+young husband, and very fond of Plato, whom she read in the original.</p>
+
+<p>But Mary's friends exerted themselves, and her cause&mdash;the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page064" name="page064"></a>(p. 064)</span>
+cause of legitimacy, rather than that of Catholicism&mdash;gained ground.
+Northumberland was unequal to this crisis, and he was very feebly
+sustained. His forces were suppressed, his schemes failed, and his
+hopes fled. From rebellion, to the scaffold, there is but a step; and
+this great nobleman suffered the fate of Somerset, his former rival.
+<span class="inline">Execution of Northumberland.</span> His execution confirms one of the most striking facts in the history
+of absolute monarchies, when the idea of legitimacy is firmly
+impressed on the national mind; and that is, that no subject, or
+confederacy of subjects, however powerful, stand much chance in
+resisting the claims or the will of a legitimate prince. A nod or a
+word, from such a king, can consign the greatest noble to hopeless
+impotence. And he can do this from the mighty and mysterious force of
+ideas alone. Neither king nor parliament can ever resist the
+omnipotence of popular ideas. When ideas establish despots on their
+thrones, they are safe. When ideas demand their dethronement, no
+forces can long sustain them. The age of Queen Mary was the period of
+the most unchecked absolutism in England. Mary was apparently a
+powerless woman when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen by the party
+of Northumberland, and still she had but to signify her intentions to
+claim her rights, and the nation was prostrate at her feet. The
+Protestant party dreaded her accession; but loyalty was a stronger
+principle than even Protestantism, and she was soon firmly established
+in the absolute throne of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Then almost immediately followed a total change in the administration,
+which affected both the political and religious state of the country.
+Those who had languished in confinement, on account of their religion,
+obtained their liberty, and were elevated to power. Gardiner, Bonner,
+and other Catholic bishops, were restored to their sees, while
+Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper Coverdale, and other eminent
+Protestants, were imprisoned. All the statutes of Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>
+pertaining to religion were repealed, and the queen sent assurances to
+the pope of her allegiance to his see. Cardinal Pole, descended from
+the royal family of England, and a man of great probity, moderation,
+and worth, was sent as legate of the pope. Gardiner, Bishop of
+Winchester, was made lord chancellor, and became the prime minister.
+He and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page065" name="page065"></a>(p. 065)</span>his associates recommended violent councils; and a
+reign, unparalleled in England for religious persecution, commenced.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the queen's accession, <span class="inline">Marriage of the Queen.</span> she married Philip, son of the
+Emperor Charles, and heir of the Spanish monarchy. This marriage,
+brought about by the intrigues of the emperor, and favored by the
+Catholic party, was quite acceptable to Mary, whose issue would
+inherit the thrones of Spain and England. But ambitious matches are
+seldom happy, especially when the wife is much older than the husband,
+as was the fact in this instance. Mary, however, was attached to
+Philip, although he treated her with great indifference.</p>
+
+<p>This Spanish match, the most brilliant of that age, failed, however,
+to satisfy the English, who had no notion of becoming the subjects of
+the King of Spain. In consequence of this disaffection, a rebellion
+broke out, in which Sir Thomas Wyatt was the most conspicuous, and in
+which the Duke of Suffolk, and even the Lady Jane and her husband,
+were implicated, though unjustly. The rebellion was easily suppressed,
+and the leaders sent to the Tower. Then followed one of the most
+melancholy executions of this reign&mdash;that of the Lady Jane Grey, who
+had been reprieved three months before. The queen urged the plea of
+self-defence, and the safety of the realm&mdash;the same that Queen
+Elizabeth, in after times, made in reference to the Queen of the
+Scots. Her unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she
+suffered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband&mdash;two
+illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of
+their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of Suffolk,
+the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved his fate,
+according to the ideas of his age. The Princess Elizabeth expected
+also to be sacrificed, both because she was a Protestant and the next
+heiress to the throne. But she carefully avoided giving any offence,
+and managed with such consummate prudence, that she was preserved for
+the future glory and welfare of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1555 opened gloomily for the Protestants. The prisons were
+all crowded with the victims of <span class="inline">Religious Persecution.</span> religious persecution, and bigoted
+inquisitors had only to prepare their fagots and stakes. Over a
+thousand ministers were ejected from their <span class="pagenum"><a id="page066" name="page066"></a>(p. 066)</span>livings, and such
+as escaped further persecution fled to the continent. No fewer than
+two hundred and eighty-eight persons, among whom were five bishops,
+twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were burned
+for religious opinions, besides many thousands who suffered various
+other forms of persecution. The constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and
+Hooper has immortalized their names on the list of illustrious
+martyrs: but the greatest of all the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop
+of Canterbury. The most artful and insinuating promises were held out
+to him, to induce him to retract. Life and dignities were promised
+him, if he would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he
+yielded to the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid,
+heartbroken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were
+stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. But,
+when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suffered
+patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life was
+useful; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his memory from
+shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great author of the English
+Reformation, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his
+age; but he was timid, politic, and time-serving. The Reformation
+produced no perfect characters in any country. Some great defect
+blemished the lives of all the illustrious men who have justly earned
+imperishable glory. But the character of such men as Cranmer, and
+Ridley, and Latimer, present an interesting contrast to those of
+Gardiner and Bonner. The former did show, however, some lenity in the
+latter years of this reign of Mary; but the latter, the Bishop of
+London, gloated to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed.
+He even whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once
+pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in
+the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he might
+realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel is religious
+intolerance.</p>
+
+<p>But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is
+attributed to Mary, but which, in strict justice, should be ascribed
+to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a popular
+and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The fires of
+Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page067" name="page067"></a>(p. 067)</span>
+opened the eyes of the nation to the spirit of the old religion, and
+also caused the flight of many distinguished men to Frankfort and
+Geneva, where they learned the principles of both religious and civil
+liberty. "The blood of martyrs proved the seed of the church"&mdash;a
+sublime truth, revealed to Cranmer and Ridley amid the fires which
+consumed their venerable bodies; and not to them merely, but to all
+who witnessed their serenity, and heard their shouts of triumph when
+this mortal passed to immortality. Heretics increased with the
+progress of persecution, and firm conviction took the place of a blind
+confession of dogmas. "It was not," says Milman, "until Christ was
+lain in his rock-hewn sepulchre, that the history of Christianity
+commenced." We might add, it was not until the fires of Smithfield
+were lighted, that great spiritual ideas took hold of the popular
+mind, and the intense religious earnestness appeared which has so
+often characterized the English nation. The progress which man makes
+is generally seen through disaster, suffering, and sorrow. This is one
+of the fundamental truths which history teaches.</p>
+
+<p>The last years of the reign of Mary were miserable to herself, and
+disastrous to the nation. Her royal husband did not return her warm
+affections, and left England forever. She embarked in a ruinous war
+with France, and gained nothing but disgrace. Her health failed, and
+her disposition became gloomy. She continued, to the last, most
+intolerant in her religious opinions, and thought more of restoring
+Romanism, than of promoting the interests of her kingdom. Her heart
+was bruised and broken, and her life was a succession of sorrows. <span class="inline">Character of Mary.</span> It
+is fashionable to call this unfortunate queen the "bloody Mary," and
+not allow her a single virtue; but she was affectionate, sincere,
+high-minded, and shrunk from the dissimulation and intrigue which
+characterized "the virgin queen"&mdash;the name given to her masculine but
+energetic successor. Mary was capable of the warmest friendship; was
+attentive and considerate to her servants, charitable to the poor, and
+sympathetic with the unfortunate, when not blinded by her religious
+prejudices. She had many accomplishments, and a very severe taste, and
+was not addicted to oaths, as was Queen Elizabeth and her royal
+father. She was, however, a bigoted Catholic; and how could partisan
+historians see or acknowledge her merits?</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page068" name="page068"></a>(p. 068)</span>
+
+<p>But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthusiasm
+the <span class="inline">Accession of Elizabeth.</span> accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. With her
+reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of Europe. Who does
+not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protestantism was established in
+England, when illustrious poets and philosophers adorned the
+literature of the country, when commerce and arts received a great
+impulse, when the colonies in North America were settled, and when a
+constellation of great statesmen raised England to a pitch of glory
+not before attained?</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;See Hume's, and Lingard's, and other standard
+     Histories of England; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens
+     of England; Burnet's History of the Reformation; Life of
+     Cranmer; Fox's Book of Martyrs. These works contain all the
+     easily-accessible information respecting the reigns of
+     Edward and Mary, which is important.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page069" name="page069"></a>(p. 069)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>ELIZABETH.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Elizabeth, daughter of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, by Anne Boleyn, was in her
+twenty-sixth year when she ascended the throne. She was crowned the
+15th of June, 1559, and soon assembled her parliament and selected her
+ministers. After establishing her own legitimacy, she set about
+settling the affairs of the church, but only restored the Protestant
+religion as Cranmer had left it. Indeed, she ever retained a fondness
+for ceremonial, and abhorred a reform spirit among the people. She
+insisted on her supremacy, as head of the church, and on conformity
+with her royal conscience. But she was not severe on the Catholics,
+and even the gluttonous and vindictive Bonner was permitted to end his
+days in peace.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Protestant religion was established, the queen turned
+her attention towards Scotland, from which much trouble was expected.</p>
+
+<p>Scotland was then governed by Mary, daughter of James <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, and <span class="inline">Mary, Queen of Scots.</span> had
+succeeded her father while a mere infant, eight days after her birth,
+(1542.) In 1558, she married the dauphin, afterwards King of France,
+by which marriage she was Queen of France as well as of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>According to every canonical law of the Roman church, the claim of
+Mary Stuart to the English throne was preferable to that of her cousin
+Elizabeth. Her uncles, the Guises, represented that Anne Boleyn's
+marriage had never been lawful, and that Elizabeth was therefore
+illegitimate. In an evil hour, she and her husband quartered the arms
+of England with their own, and assumed the titles of King and Queen of
+Scotland and England. And Elizabeth's indignation was further excited
+by the insult which the pope had inflicted, in declaring her birth
+illegitimate. She, therefore, resolved to gratify, at once, both her
+ambition and her vengeance, encouraged by her ministers, who wished to
+advance the Protestant interest in the kingdom. Accordingly,
+Elizabeth, with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page070" name="page070"></a>(p. 070)</span>consummate art, undermined the authority of
+Mary in Scotland, now distracted by religious as well as civil
+commotions. Mary was a Catholic, and had a perfect abhorrence and
+disgust of the opinions and customs of the reformers, especially of
+<span class="inline">John Knox.</span> John Knox, whose influence in Scotland was almost druidical. The
+Catholics resolved to punish with fire and sword, while the
+Protestants were equally intent on defending themselves with the
+sword. And it so happened that some of the most powerful of the
+nobility were arrayed on the side of Protestantism. But the Scotch
+reformers were animated with a zeal unknown to Cranmer and his
+associates. The leaders had been trained at Geneva, under the guidance
+of Calvin, and had imbibed his opinions, and were, therefore, resolved
+to carry the work of reform after the model of the Genevan church.
+Accordingly, those pictures, and statues, and ornaments, and painted
+glass, and cathedrals, which Cranmer spared, were furiously destroyed
+by the Scotch reformers, who considered them as parts of an idolatrous
+worship. The antipathy to bishops and clerical vestments was equally
+strong, and a sweeping reform was carried on under the dictatorship of
+Knox. Elizabeth had no more sympathy with this bold, but uncouth,
+reformer and his movements, than had Mary herself, and never could
+forgive him for his book, written at Geneva, aimed against female
+government, called the "First Blast of a Trumpet against the monstrous
+Regiment of Women." But Knox cared not for either the English or the
+Scottish queens, and zealously and fearlessly prosecuted his work, and
+gained over to his side the moral strength of the kingdom. Of course,
+a Catholic queen resolved to suppress his doctrines; but nearly the
+whole Scottish nobility rallied around his standard, marching with the
+Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other. The queen brought in
+troops from France to support her insulted and tottering government,
+which only increased the zeal of the Protestant party, headed by the
+Earls of Argyle, Arran, Morton, and Glencairn, and James Stuart, Prior
+of St. Andrews, who styled themselves "Lords of the Congregation." A
+civil war now raged in Scotland, between the queen regent, who wished
+to suppress the national independence, and extinguish the Protestant
+religion, and the Protestants, who comprised a great part of the
+nation, and who were resolved on the utter extirpation of Romanism and
+the limitation <span class="pagenum"><a id="page071" name="page071"></a>(p. 071)</span>of the regal power. The Lords of the
+Congregation implored the aid of England, which Elizabeth was ready to
+grant, both from political and religious motives. The Protestant cause
+was in the ascendant, when the queen regent died, in 1560. The same
+year died Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, of France; and Mary, now a widow, resolved to
+return to her own kingdom. She landed at Leith, August, 1561, and was
+received with the grandest demonstration of joy. For a time, affairs
+were tolerably tranquil, Mary having intrusted the great Protestant
+nobles with power. She was greatly annoyed, however, by Knox, who did
+not treat her with the respect due to a queen, and who called her
+Jezebel; but the reformer escaped punishment on account of his great
+power.</p>
+
+<p>In 1565, Mary married her cousin, <span class="inline">Marriage of Mary &mdash; Darnley.</span> Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of
+Lennox,&mdash;a match exceedingly distasteful to Elizabeth, who was ever
+jealous of Mary, especially in matrimonial matters, since the Scottish
+queen had not renounced her pretensions to the throne of her
+grandfather, Henry <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr> The character of Elizabeth now appears in its
+worst light; and meanness and jealousy took the place of that
+magnanimity which her admirers have ascribed to her. She fomented
+disturbances in Scotland, and incited the queen's natural brother, the
+Prior of St. Andrews, now Earl of Murray, to rebellion, with the
+expectation of obtaining the government of the country. He formed a
+conspiracy to seize the persons of Mary and her husband. The plot was
+discovered, and Murray fled to England; but it was still unremittingly
+pursued, till at length it was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Darnley, the consort of Mary, was a man of low tastes, profligate
+habits, and shallow understanding. Such a man could not long retain
+the affections of the most accomplished woman of her age, accustomed
+to flattery, and bent on pursuing her own pleasure, at any cost.
+Disgust and coldness therefore took place. Darnley, enraged at this
+increasing coldness, was taught to believe that he was supplanted in
+the queen's affections by an Italian favorite, the musician Rizzio,
+whom Mary had made her secretary. He therefore signed a bond, with
+certain lords, for the murder of the Italian, who seems to have been a
+man of no character. One evening, as the queen was at supper, in her
+private apartment, with the countess of Argyle and Rizzio, the Earl of
+Morton, with one hundred and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page072" name="page072"></a>(p. 072)</span>sixty men, took possession of
+the palace of Holyrood, while Darnley himself showed the way to a band
+of ruffians to the royal presence. Rizzio was barbarously murdered in
+the presence of the queen, who endeavored to protect him.</p>
+
+<p>Darnley, in thus perpetrating this shocking murder, was but the tool
+of some of the great lords, who wished to make him hateful to the
+queen, and to the nation, and thus prepare the way for his own
+execution. And they succeeded. A plot was contrived for the murder of
+Darnley, of which Murray was probably the author. Shortly after, the
+house, in which he slept, was blown up by gunpowder, in the middle of
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>The public voice imputed to the <span class="inline">Bothwell &mdash; Civil War in Scotland.</span> Earl of Bothwell, a great favorite of
+the queen, the murder of Darnley. Nor did the queen herself escape
+suspicion. "But no inquiry or research," says Scott, "has ever been
+able to bring us either to that clear opinion upon the guilt of Mary
+which is expressed by many authors, or guide us to that triumphant
+conclusion in favor of her innocence of all accession, direct or
+tacit, to the death of her husband, which others have maintained with
+the same obstinacy." But whatever doubt exists as to the queen's
+guilt, there is none respecting her ministers&mdash;Maitland, Huntley,
+Morton, and Argyle. Still they offered a reward of two thousand pounds
+for the discovery of the murderers. The public voice accused Bothwell
+as the principal: and yet the ministers associated with him, and the
+queen, entirely exculpated him. He was brought to a trial, on the
+formal accusation of the Earl of Lennox, in the city of Edinburgh,
+which he was permitted to obtain possession of. In a place guarded by
+his own followers, it was not safe for any witnesses to appear against
+him, and he was therefore acquitted, though the whole nation believed
+him guilty.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was rash enough to marry, shortly after, the man whom public
+opinion pronounced to be the murderer of her husband; and Murray, her
+brother, was so ambitious and treacherous, as to favor the marriage,
+with the hope that the unpopularity of the act would lead to the
+destruction of the queen, and place him at the helm of state. No
+sooner was Mary married to Bothwell, than Murray and other lords threw
+off the mask, pretended to be terribly indignant, took up arms against
+the queen, with the view of making her <span class="pagenum"><a id="page073" name="page073"></a>(p. 073)</span>prisoner, and with
+the pretence of delivering her from her husband. Bothwell escaped to
+Norway, and the queen surrendered herself, at Carberry Hill, to the
+insurgent army, the chiefs of which instantly assumed the reins of
+government, and confined the queen in the castle of Lochleven, and
+treated her with excessive harshness. Shortly after, (1567,) she
+resigned her crown to her infant son, and Murray, the prime mover of
+so many disturbances, became regent of the kingdom. Murray was a
+zealous Protestant, and had the support of Knox in all his measures,
+and the countenance of the English ministry. Abating his intrigue and
+ambition, he was a most estimable man, and deserved the affections of
+the nation, which he retained until his death. M'Crie, in his Life of
+Knox, represents him as a model of Christian virtue and integrity, and
+every way worthy of the place he held in the affections of his party.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate queen suffered great unkindness in her lonely
+confinement, and Knox, with the more zealous of his party, clamored
+for her death, as an adulteress and a murderer. She succeeded in
+escaping from her prison, raised an army, marched against the regent,
+was defeated at the battle of Langside, fled to England, and became,
+May, 1568, the prisoner-guest of her envious rival. Elizabeth obtained
+the object of her desires. <span class="inline">Captivity of Queen Mary.</span> But the captivity of Mary, confined in
+Tutbury Castle, against all the laws of hospitality and justice, gave
+rise to incessant disturbances, both in England and Scotland, until
+her execution, in 1587. And these form no inconsiderable part of the
+history of England for seventeen years. Scotland was the scene of
+anarchy, growing out of the contentions and jealousies of rival
+chieftains, who stooped to every crime that appeared to facilitate
+their objects. In 1570, the regent Murray was assassinated. He was
+succeeded by his enemy, the Earl of Lennox, who, in his turn, was shot
+by an assassin. The Earl of Mar succeeded him, but lived only a year.
+Morton became regent, the reward of his many crimes but retribution at
+last overtook him, being executed when James assumed the sovereignty.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the unfortunate Mary pined in hopeless captivity. It was
+natural for her to seek release, and also for her friends to help her.
+Among her friends was the Duke of Norfolk, the first <span class="pagenum"><a id="page074" name="page074"></a>(p. 074)</span>
+nobleman in England, and a zealous Catholic. He aspired to her hand;
+but Elizabeth chose to consider his courtship as a treasonable act,
+and Norfolk was arrested. On being afterwards released, he plotted for
+the liberation of Mary, and his intrigues brought him to the block.
+The unfortunate captive, wearied and impatient, naturally sought the
+assistance of foreign powers. She had her agents in Rome, France,
+Spain, and the Low Countries. The Catholics in England espoused her
+cause, and a conspiracy was formed to deliver her, assassinate
+Elizabeth, and restore the Catholic religion. From the fact that Mary
+was privy to that part of it which concerned her own deliverance, she
+was brought to trial as a criminal, found guilty by a court
+incompetent to sit on her case, and <span class="inline">Execution of Mary.</span> executed without remorse, 8th
+February, 1587.</p>
+
+<p>Few persons have excited more commiseration than this unfortunate
+queen, both on account of her exalted rank, and her splendid
+intellectual accomplishments. Whatever obloquy she merited for her
+acts as queen of Scotland, no one can blame her for meditating escape
+from the power of her zealous but more fortunate rival; and her
+execution is the greatest blot in the character of the queen of
+England, at this time in the zenith of her glory.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the troubles with Scotland growing out of the interference of
+Elizabeth, the great political events of the reign were the long and
+protracted war with Spain, and the Irish rebellion. Both of these
+events were important.</p>
+
+<p>Spain was at this time governed by Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, son of the emperor
+Charles, one of the most bigoted Catholics of the age, and allied with
+Catharine de Medicis of France for the entire suppression of
+Protestantism. She incited her son Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> to the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew, and Philip established the inquisition in Flanders. This
+measure provoked an insurrection, to suppress which the Duke of Alva,
+one of the most celebrated of the generals of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, was sent
+into the Netherlands with a large army, and almost unlimited powers.
+The cruelties of Alva were unparalleled. In six years, eighteen
+thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner, and Alva
+counted on the entire suppression of Protestantism by the mere force
+of armies. He could count the physical resources of the people, but he
+could not estimate the degree of their resistance when animated by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page075" name="page075"></a>(p. 075)</span>spirit of liberty or religion. Providence, too, takes care
+of those who strive to take care of themselves. A great leader
+appeared among the suffering Hollanders, almost driven to despair&mdash;the
+celebrated William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. He appeared as the
+champion of the oppressed and insulted people; they rallied around his
+standard, fought with desperate bravery, opened the dikes upon their
+cultivated fields, expelled their invaders, and laid the foundation of
+their liberties. But they could not have withstood the gigantic power
+of the Spanish monarchy, then in the fulness of its strength, and the
+most powerful in Europe, had it not been for aid rendered by
+Elizabeth. She compassionated their sufferings, and had respect for
+their cause. She entered into an alliance, defensive and offensive,
+and the Netherlands became the great theatre of war, even after they
+had thrown off the Spanish yoke. Although the United Provinces in the
+end obtained their liberty, they suffered incredible hardships, and
+lost some of the finest of their cities, Antwerp among the rest, long
+the rival of Amsterdam, and the scene of Rubens's labors.</p>
+
+<p>The assistance which Elizabeth rendered to the Hollanders, of course,
+provoked the resentment of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and this was increased by the
+legalized piracies of Sir Francis Drake, in the West Indies, and on
+the coasts of South America. This commander, in time of peace,
+insisted on a right to visit those ports which the Spaniards had
+closed, which, by the law of nations, is piracy. Philip, according to
+all political maxims, was forced to declare war with England, and he
+made <span class="inline">Military Preparations of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></span> immense preparations to subdue it. But the preparations of
+Elizabeth to resist the powerful monarch were also great, and Drake
+performed brilliant exploits on the sea, among other things,
+destroying one hundred ships in the Bay of Cadiz, and taking immense
+spoil. The preparations of the Spanish monarch were made on such a
+gigantic scale, that Elizabeth summoned a great council of war to meet
+the emergency, at which the all-accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh took a
+leading part. His advice was to meet the Spaniards on the sea.
+Although the royal navy consisted, at this time, of only thirty-six
+sail, such vigorous measures were prosecuted, that one hundred and
+ninety-one ships were collected, manned by seventeen thousand four
+hundred seamen. The merchants of London <span class="pagenum"><a id="page076" name="page076"></a>(p. 076)</span>granted thirty ships
+and ten thousand men, and all England was aroused to meet the expected
+danger. Never was patriotism more signally evinced, never were more
+decisive proofs given of the popularity of a sovereign. Indeed,
+Elizabeth was always popular with the nation; and with all her
+ceremony, and state, and rudeness to the commons, and with all their
+apparent servility, she never violated the laws, or irritated the
+people by oppressive exactions. Many acts of the Tudor princes seem to
+indicate the reign of despotism in England, but this despotism was
+never grievous, and had all the benignity of a paternal government.
+Capricious and arbitrary as Elizabeth was, in regard to some
+unfortunate individuals who provoked her hatred or her jealousy, still
+she ever sedulously guarded the interests of the nation, and listened
+to the counsel of patriotic and able ministers. When England was
+threatened with a Spanish invasion, there was not a corner of the land
+which did not rise to protect a beloved sovereign; nor was there a
+single spot, where a landing might be effected, around which an army
+of twenty thousand could not be rallied in forty-eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>But Philip, nevertheless, expected the complete conquest of England;
+and, as his <span class="inline">Spanish Armada.</span> "Invincible Armada" of one hundred and thirty ships, left
+the mouth of the Tagus, commanded by Medina Sidonia, and manned by the
+noblest troops of Spain, he fancied his hour of triumph was at hand.
+But his hopes proved dreams, like most of the ambitious designs of
+men. The armada met with nothing but misfortunes, both from battle and
+from storms. Only fifty ships returned to Spain. An immense booty was
+divided among the English sailors, and Elizabeth sent, in her turn, a
+large fleet to Spain, the following year, (1589,) under the command of
+Drake, which, after burning a few towns, returned ingloriously to
+England, with a loss of ten thousand men. The war was continued with
+various success till 1598, when a peace was negotiated. The same year,
+died Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and Lord Burleigh, who, for forty years, directed the
+councils of Elizabeth, and to whose voice she ever listened, even when
+opposed by such favorites as Leicester and Essex. Burleigh was not a
+great genius, but was a man admirably adapted to his station and his
+times,&mdash;was cool, sagacious, politic, and pacific, skilful in the
+details of business <span class="pagenum"><a id="page077" name="page077"></a>(p. 077)</span>competent to advise, but not aspiring to
+command. He was splendidly rewarded for his services, and left behind
+him three hundred distinct landed estates.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the attention of the queen was directed to the affairs of
+Ireland, which had been conquered by Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> in the year 1170, but
+over which only an imperfect sovereignty had been exercised. The Irish
+princes and nobles, divided among themselves, paid the exterior marks
+of obedience, but kept the country in a constant state of
+insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>The impolitic and romantic projects of the English princes for
+subduing France, prevented a due attention to Ireland, ever miserably
+governed. Elizabeth was the first of the English sovereigns to
+perceive the political importance of this island, and the necessity
+for the establishment of law and order. Besides furnishing governors
+of great capacity, she founded the university of Dublin, and attempted
+to civilize the half-barbarous people. Unfortunately, she also sought
+to make them Protestants, against their will, which laid the
+foundation of many subsequent troubles, not yet removed. A spirit of
+discontent pervaded the country, and the people were ready for
+rebellion. Hugh O'Neale, the head of a powerful clan, and who had been
+raised to the dignity of Earl of Tyrone, yet attached to the barbarous
+license in which he had been early trained, fomented the popular
+discontents, and excited a <span class="inline">Irish Rebellion.</span> dangerous rebellion. Hostilities, of the
+most sanguinary character, commenced. The queen sent over her
+favorite, the Earl of Essex, with an army of twenty thousand men, to
+crush the rebellion. He was a brave commander, but was totally
+unacquainted with the country and the people he was expected to
+subdue, and was, consequently, unsuccessful. But his successor, Lord
+Mountjoy, succeeded in restoring the queen's authority, though at the
+cost of four millions and a half, an immense sum in that age, while
+poor Ireland was devastated with fire and sword, and suffered every
+aggravation of accumulated calamities.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, <span class="inline">The Earl of Essex.</span> Essex, who had returned to England against the queen's
+orders, was treated with coldness, deprived of his employments, and
+sentenced to be confined. This was more than the haughty favorite
+could bear, accustomed as he had been to royal favor. At first, he
+acquiesced in his punishment, with every mark <span class="pagenum"><a id="page078" name="page078"></a>(p. 078)</span>of penitence,
+and Elizabeth was beginning to relax in her severity for she never
+intended to ruin him; but he soon gave vent to his violent temper,
+indulged in great liberties of speech, and threw off all appearance of
+duty and respect. He even engaged in treasonable designs, encouraged
+Roman Catholics at his house, and corresponded with James <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> of
+Scotland about his succession. His proceedings were discovered, and he
+was summoned before the privy council. Instead of obedience, he armed
+himself and his followers, and, in conjunction with some discontented
+nobles, and about three hundred gentlemen, attempted to excite an
+insurrection in London, where he was very popular with the citizens.
+He was captured and committed to the Tower, with the Earl of
+Southampton. These rash but brave noblemen were tried by their peers,
+and condemned as guilty of high treason. In this trial, the celebrated
+Bacon appeared against his old patron, and likened him to the Duke of
+Guise. The great lawyer Coke, who was attorney-general, compared him
+to Catiline.</p>
+
+<p>Essex disdained to sue the queen for a pardon, and was privately
+beheaded in the Tower. He merited his fate, if the offence of which he
+was guilty deserved such a punishment. It is impossible not to be
+interested in the fate of a man so brave, high-spirited, and generous,
+the idol of the people, and the victor in so many enterprises. Some
+historians maintain that Elizabeth relented, and would have saved her
+favorite, had he only implored her clemency; but this statement is
+denied by others; nor have we any evidence to believe that Essex,
+caught with arms against the sovereign who had honored him, could have
+averted his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth may have wept for the death of the nobleman she had loved.
+It is certain that, after his death, she never regained her spirits,
+and that a deep melancholy was visible in her countenance. All her
+actions showed a deeply-settled inward grief, and that she longed for
+death, having tasted the unsubstantial nature of human greatness. She
+survived the execution of Essex two years, but lived long enough to
+see the neglect into which she was every day falling, and to feel
+that, in spite of all her glory and power, she was not exempted from
+drinking the cup of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever unamiable qualities she evinced as a woman, in spite of <span class="inline">Character of Elizabeth.</span> her
+vanity, and jealousy, and imperious temper, her reign was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page079" name="page079"></a>(p. 079)</span>
+one of the most glorious in the annals of her country. The policy of
+Burleigh was the policy of Sir Robert Walpole&mdash;that of peace, and a
+desire to increase the resources of the kingdom. Her taxes were never
+oppressive, and were raised without murmur; the people were loyal and
+contented; the Protestant religion was established on a firm
+foundation; and a constellation of great men shed around her throne
+the bright rays of immortal genius.</p>
+
+<p>The most unhappy peculiarity of her reign was the persecution of the
+Non-conformists, which, if not sanguinary, was irritating and severe.
+For some time after the accession of Elizabeth, the Puritans were
+permitted to indulge in their peculiarities, without being excluded
+from the established church; but when Elizabeth felt herself secure,
+then they were obliged to conform, or suffered imprisonment, fines,
+and other punishments. The original difficulty was their repugnance to
+the surplice, and to some few forms of worship, which gradually
+extended to an opposition to the order of bishops; to the temporal
+dignities of the church; to the various titles of the hierarchy; to
+the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts; to the promiscuous access of
+all persons to the communion table; to the liturgy; to the observance
+of holydays; to the cathedral worship; to the use of organs; to the
+presentation of living by patrons; and finally, to some of the
+doctrines of the established church. The separation of the Puritans
+from the Episcopal church, took place in 1566; and, from that time to
+the death of Elizabeth, they enjoyed no peace, although they sought
+redress in the most respectful manner, and raised no opposition to the
+royal authority. Thousands were ejected from their livings, and
+otherwise punished, for not conforming to the royal conscience. But
+persecution and penal laws fanned a fanatical spirit, which, in the
+reign of Charles, burst out into a destructive flame, and spread
+devastation and ruin through all parts of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>If the queen and her ministers did not understand the principles of
+religious toleration, they pursued a much more enlightened policy in
+regard to all financial and political subjects, than during any former
+reign. The commercial importance of England received a new impulse.
+The reign of Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> was a reign of spoliation. The king was
+enriched beyond all former precedent, but his riches did not keep pace
+with his spendthrift habits. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page080" name="page080"></a>(p. 080)</span>value of the abbey lands
+which Henry seized amounted, a century after his death, to six million
+pounds. The lands of the abbey of St. Alban's alone rented for two
+hundred thousand pounds. The king debased the coin, confiscated
+chapels and colleges, as well as monasteries, and raised money by
+embargoes, monopolies, and compulsory loans.</p>
+
+<p>But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, <span class="inline">Improvements Made in the Reign of Elizabeth.</span> paid off the old ones,
+restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual
+revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the
+rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her
+frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant
+only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her
+economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were
+passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial
+industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation
+followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir
+Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company
+was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was
+discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade
+commenced&mdash;a traffic which has been productive of more human misery,
+and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any
+other event in the history of modern times.</p>
+
+<p>During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable;
+chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden
+trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and
+woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries,
+apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the
+damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory
+of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the
+soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the
+orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the
+prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays,
+which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us
+almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of
+philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of
+the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser
+dedicated to Elizabeth <span class="pagenum"><a id="page081" name="page081"></a>(p. 081)</span>his "Fairy Queen," one of the most
+truly poetical compositions that genius ever produced. The age
+produced also great divines; but these did not occupy so prominent a
+place in the nation's eye as during the succeeding reigns.</p>
+
+<p>While <span class="inline">Reflections.</span> the virgin queen was exercising so benign an influence on the
+English nation, great events, though not disconnected with English
+politics, were taking place on the continent. The most remarkable of
+these was the persecution of the Huguenots. The rise and fortunes of
+this sect, during the reigns of Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>,
+Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, and Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, now demand our attention. If a newspaper
+had, in that age, been conducted upon the principles it now is, the
+sufferings of the Huguenots would always be noticed. It is our
+province to describe just what a modern newspaper would have alluded
+to, had it been printed three hundred years ago. It would not have
+been filled with genealogies of kings, but with descriptions of great
+popular movements. And this is history.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;For the history of this reign, see Hume,
+     Lingard, and Hallam; Miss Strickland's Queens of England;
+     Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; M'Crie's Life of Knox;
+     Robertson's History of Scotland; Macaulay's Essay on Nares's
+     Life of Burleigh; Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; Neale's
+     History of the Puritans. Kenilworth may also be profitably
+     read.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page082" name="page082"></a>(p. 082)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>FRANCIS <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, CHARLES <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, HENRY <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, AND HENRY <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>The history of France, from the death of Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> to the accession
+of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> is virtually the history of religious contentions and
+persecutions, and of those civil wars which grew out of them. The
+Huguenotic contest, then, is a great historical subject, and will be
+presented in connection with the history of France, until the death of
+Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, the greatest of the French monarchs, and long the
+illustrious head of the Protestant party.</p>
+
+<p>The reform doctrines first began to spread in France during the reign
+of Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> As early as 1523, he became a persecutor, and burned
+many at the stake, among whom the descendants of the Waldenses were
+the most numerous. In 1540, sentence was pronounced against them by
+the parliament of Aix. Their doctrines were the same in substance as
+those of the Swiss reformers.</p>
+
+<p>While this persecution was raging, John Calvin fled from France to
+Ferrara, from which city he proceeded to Geneva. This was in the year
+1536, when his theological career commenced by the publication of his
+Institutes, which were dedicated to Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, one of the most
+masterly theological works ever written, although compended from the
+writings of Augustine. The Institutes of Calvin, the great text-book
+of the Swiss and French reformers, were distasteful to the French
+king, and he gave fresh order for the persecution of the Protestants.
+Notwithstanding the hostility of Francis, the new doctrines spread,
+and were embraced by some of the most distinguished of the French
+nobility. The violence of persecution was not much arrested during the
+reign of Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and, through the influence of the Cardinal of
+Lorraine, the inquisition was established in the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The wife of Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was the celebrated <span class="inline">Catharine de Medicis.</span> Catharine de Medicis; and she
+was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited her husband
+to the most cruel atrocities. Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> continued the persecution,
+and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the ruler of the nation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page083" name="page083"></a>(p. 083)</span>The power of the queen mother was much increased when
+Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> died, and when his brother, Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, a boy of nine
+years of age, succeeded to the French crown. She exercised her power
+by the most unsparing religious persecution recorded in the history of
+modern Europe. There had been some hope that Protestantism would be
+established in France; but it did not succeed, owing to the violence
+of the persecution. It made, however, a desperate struggle before it
+was overcome.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the Cardinal
+of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Constable
+Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of the Spaniards,
+and a great majority of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of
+Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, the Prince of Condé, his brother, and Admiral Coligny; and
+they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and the
+Protestants of Germany and England.</p>
+
+<p>Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with various
+success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance did not lead
+to liberty. <span class="inline">Civil War in France.</span> Civil war in France did not secure the object sought.
+Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could always assemble a
+large army, they maintained their ground. Their conduct was not marked
+by the religious earnestness which characterized the Puritans, or by
+the same strength of religious principle. Moreover, political motives
+were mingled with religious. The contest was a struggle for the
+ascendency of rival chiefs, as well as for the establishment of
+reformed doctrines. The Bourbons hated the Guises, and the Guises
+resolved to destroy the Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and
+warfare, the Duke of Guise was assassinated, and the King of Navarre,
+as well as the Prince of Condé, were killed.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> was fourteen years of age when the young king of
+Navarre,&mdash;at that time sixteen years of age,&mdash;and his cousin, the
+Prince of Condé, became the acknowledged heads of the Protestant
+party. Their education was learned in the camp and the field of
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, under the influence of his hateful mother, finding that
+civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without
+weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page084" name="page084"></a>(p. 084)</span>
+their extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs he
+gave his sister, Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of
+Navarre, first prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age.
+Admiral Coligny was invited to Paris, and treated with distinguished
+courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the festivities which succeeded the marriage of the King
+of Navarre that Coligny was murdered, and the signal for the horrid
+slaughter of <span class="inline">Massacre of St. Bartholomew.</span> St. Bartholomew was given. At midnight, August 23, 1572,
+the great bell at the Hotel de Ville began to toll; torches were
+placed in the windows, chains were drawn across the streets, and armed
+bodies collected around the hotels. The doors of the houses were
+broken open, and neither age, condition, nor sex was spared, of such
+as were not distinguished by a white cross in the hat. The massacre at
+Paris was followed by one equally brutal in the provinces. Seventy
+thousand people were slain in cold blood. The King of Navarre and the
+Prince of Condé only escaped in consequence of their relationship with
+the king, and by renouncing the Protestant religion.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the European courts expressed their detestation of this
+foulest crime in the history of religious bigotry; but the pope went
+in grand procession to his cathedral, and ordered a <span class="italic">Te Deum</span> to be
+sung in commemoration of an event which steeped his cause in infamy to
+the end of time.</p>
+
+<p>The Protestants, though nearly exterminated, again rallied, and the
+King of Navarre and his cousin the Prince of Condé escaped, renounced
+the religion which had been forced on them by fear of death, and
+prosecuted a bloody civil war, with the firm resolution of never
+abandoning it until religious liberty was guarantied.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> died, as it was supposed, by poison. His last
+hours were wretched, and his remorse for the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew filled his soul with agony. He beheld spectres, and
+dreamed horrid dreams; his imagination constantly saw heaps of livid
+bodies, and his ears were assailed with imaginary groans. He became
+melancholy and ferocious, while his kingdom became the prey of
+factions and insurrections. But he was a timid and irresolute king,
+and was but the tool of his infamous mother, the grand patroness of
+assassins, against whom, on his death bed, he cautioned the king of
+Navarre.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page085" name="page085"></a>(p. 085)</span>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by his brother, the King of Poland, under the title
+of <span class="inline">Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> &mdash; Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></span> Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> The persecutions of the Huguenots were renewed, and the
+old scenes of treachery, assassination, and war were acted over again.
+The cause of religion was lost sight of in the labyrinth of
+contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and factions were
+endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, perished by the sword
+or the dagger. The Prince of Condé, the Duke of Guise, and his
+brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were assassinated. Shortly after,
+died the chief mover of all the troubles, Catharine de Medicis, a
+woman of talents and persuasive eloquence, but of most unprincipled
+ambition, perfidious, cruel, and dissolute. She encouraged the
+licentiousness of the court, and even the worst vices of her sons,
+that she might make them subservient to her designs. All her passions
+were subordinate to her calculations of policy, and every womanly
+virtue was suppressed by the desire of wielding a government which she
+usurped.</p>
+
+<p>Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> soon followed her to the grave, being, in turn,
+assassinated by a religious fanatic. His death (1589) secured the
+throne to the king of Navarre, who took the title of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, the first of the Bourbon line, was descended from Robert,
+the sixth son of St. Louis, who had married the daughter and heiress
+of John of Burgundy and Agnes of Bourbon. He was thirty-six years of
+age when he became king, and had passed through great experiences and
+many sorrows. Thus far he had contended for Protestant opinions, and
+was the acknowledged leader of the Protestant party in France. But a
+life of contention and bloodshed, and the new career opened to him as
+king of France, cooled his religious ardor, and he did not hesitate to
+accept the condition which the French nobles imposed, before they
+would take the oaths of allegiance. This was, that he should abjure
+Protestantism. "My kingdom," said he, "is well worth a mass." It will
+be ever laid to his reproach, by the Protestants, that he renounced
+his religion for worldly elevation. Nor is it easy to exculpate him on
+the highest principles of moral integrity. But there were many
+palliations for his conduct, which it is not now easy to appreciate.
+It is well known that the illustrious Sully, his prime minister, and,
+through life, a zealous Protestant, approved of his course. It was
+certainly clear that, without becoming a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page086" name="page086"></a>(p. 086)</span>Catholic, he never
+could peaceably enjoy his crown, and France would be rent, for another
+generation, by those civil wars which none lamented more than Henry
+himself. Besides, four fifths of the population were Catholics, and
+the Protestants could not reasonably expect to gain the ascendency.
+All they could expect was religious toleration, and this Henry was
+willing to grant. It should also be considered that the king, though
+he professed the reform doctrines, was never what may be called a
+religious man, being devoted to pleasure, and to schemes of ambition.
+It is true he understood and consulted the interests of his kingdom,
+and strove to make his subjects happy. Herein consists his excellence.
+As a magnanimous, liberal-minded, and enterprising man, he surpassed
+all the French kings. But it is ridiculous to call him a religious
+man, or even strongly fixed in his religious opinions. "Do you," said
+the king to a great Protestant divine, "believe that a man may be
+saved by the Catholic religion?" "Undoubtedly," replied the clergyman,
+"if his life and heart be holy." "Then," said the king, "prudence
+dictates that I embrace the Catholic religion, and not yours; for, in
+that case, according to both Catholics and Protestants, I may be
+saved; but, if I embrace your religion, I shall not be saved,
+according to the Catholics."</p>
+
+<p>But the king's conversion to Catholicism did not immediately result in
+the tranquillity of the distracted country. The Catholics would not
+believe in his sincerity, and many battles had to be fought before he
+was in peaceable enjoyment of his throne. But there is nothing so
+hateful as civil war, especially to the inhabitants of great cities;
+and Paris, at last, and the chief places in the kingdom, acknowledged
+his sway. The king of Spain, the great Catholic prelates, and the
+pope, finally perceived how hopeless was the struggle against a man of
+great military experience, with a devoted army and an enthusiastic
+capital on his side.</p>
+
+<p>The peace of Verviens, in 1598, left the king without foreign or
+domestic enemies. From that period to his death, his life was devoted
+to the welfare of his country.</p>
+
+<p>His first act was the celebrated <span class="inline">Edict of Nantes.</span> Edict of Nantes, by which the
+Huguenots had quiet and undisturbed residence, the free exercise of
+their religion, and public worship, except in the court, the army, and
+within five leagues of Paris. They were eligible to all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page087" name="page087"></a>(p. 087)</span>
+offices, civil and military; and all public prosecutions, on account
+of religion, were dropped. This edict also promulgated a general
+amnesty for political offences, and restored property and titles, as
+before the war; but the Protestants were prohibited from printing
+controversial books, and were compelled to pay tithes to the
+established clergy.</p>
+
+<p>Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, considering the obstacles with which he had to contend, was
+the greatest general of the age; but it is his efforts in civilization
+which entitle him to his epithet of <span class="italic">Great</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing which demanded his attention, as a civil ruler, was
+the <span class="inline">Improvements during the Reign of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></span> settlement of the finances&mdash;ever the leading cause of troubles
+with the French government. These were intrusted to the care of Rosny,
+afterward Duke of Sully, the most able and upright of all French
+financiers&mdash;a man of remarkable probity and elevation of sentiment. He
+ever continued to be the minister and the confidant of the king, and
+maintained his position without subserviency or flattery, almost the
+only man on the records of history who could tell, with impunity,
+wholesome truths to an absolute monarch. So wise were his financial
+arrangements, that a debt of three hundred million of livres was paid
+off in eight years. In five years, the taxes were reduced one half,
+the crown lands redeemed, the arsenals stored, the fortifications
+rebuilt, churches erected, canals dug, and improvements made in every
+part of the kingdom. On the death of the king, he had in his treasury
+nearly fifty millions of livres. Under the direction of this able
+minister, the laws were enforced, robbery and vagrancy were nearly
+stopped, and agriculture received a great impulse. But economy was the
+order of the day. The king himself set an illustrious example, and
+even dressed in gray cloth, with a doublet of taffeta, without
+embroidery, dispensed with all superfluity at his table, and dismissed
+all useless servants.</p>
+
+<p>The management and economy of the king enabled him to make great
+improvements, besides settling the deranged finances of the kingdom.
+He built innumerable churches, bridges, convents, hospitals,
+fortresses, and ships. Some of the finest palaces which adorn Paris
+were erected by him. He was also the patron of learning, the benefits
+of which he appreciated. He himself was well acquainted with the
+writings of the ancients. He was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page088" name="page088"></a>(p. 088)</span>particularly fond of the
+society of the learned, with whom he conversed with freedom and
+affability. He increased the libraries, opened public schools, and
+invited distinguished foreigners to Paris, and rewarded them with
+stipends. Lipsius, Scaliger, and De Thou, were the ornaments of his
+court.</p>
+
+<p>And his tender regard to the happiness and welfare of his subjects was
+as marked as his generous appreciation of literature and science. It
+was his ambition to be the father of his people; and his memorable
+saying, "Yes, I will so manage matters that the poorest peasant in my
+kingdom may eat meat each day in the week, and, moreover, be enabled
+to put a fowl in the pot on a Sunday," has alone embalmed his memory
+in the affections of the French nation, who, of all their monarchs,
+are most partial to Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>But this excellent king was also a philanthropist, and cherished the
+most enlightened views as to those subjects on which rests the
+happiness of nations. Though a warrior, the preservation of a lasting
+<span class="inline">Peace Scheme of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></span> peace was the great idea of his life. He was even visionary in his
+projects to do good; for he imagined it was possible to convince
+monarchs that they ought to prefer purity, peace, and benevolence, to
+ambition and war. Hence, he proposed to establish a Congress of
+Nations, chosen from the various states of Europe, to whom all
+international difficulties should be referred, with power to settle
+them&mdash;a very desirable object, the most so conceivable; for war is the
+greatest of all national calamities and crimes. The scheme of the
+enlightened Henry, however, did not attract much attention; and, even
+had it been encouraged, would have been set aside in the next
+generation. What would such men as Frederic the Great, or Marlborough,
+or Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, or Napoleon have cared for such an object? But Henry,
+in his scheme, also had in view the regulation of such forces as the
+European monarchs should sustain, and this arose from his desire to
+preserve the "Balance of Power"&mdash;the great object of European
+politicians in these latter times.</p>
+
+<p>But Henry was not permitted, by Providence, to prosecute his
+benevolent designs. <span class="inline">Death of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></span> He was assassinated by a man whom he had never
+injured&mdash;by the most unscrupulous of all misguided men&mdash;a religious
+bigot. The Jesuit Ravaillac, in a mood, as it is to be <span class="pagenum"><a id="page089" name="page089"></a>(p. 089)</span>hoped,
+bordering on madness, perpetrated the foul deed. But Henry only
+suffered the fate of nearly all the distinguished actors in those
+civil and religious contentions which desolated France for forty
+years. He died in 1610, at the age of fifty-seven, having reigned
+twenty-one years, nine of which were spent in uninterrupted warfare.</p>
+
+<p>By his death the kingdom was thrown into deep and undissembled
+mourning. Many fell speechless in the streets when the intelligence of
+his assassination was known; others died from excess of grief. All
+felt that they had lost more than a father, and nothing was
+anticipated but storms and commotions.</p>
+
+<p>He left no children by his wife, Margaret de Valois, who proved
+inconstant, and from whom he was separated. By his second wife, Mary
+de Medicis, he had three children, the oldest of whom was a child when
+he ascended the throne, by the title of Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> His daughter,
+Henrietta, married Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> of England.</p>
+
+<p>Though great advances were made in France during this reign, it was
+still far from that state of civilization which it attained a century
+afterwards. It contained about fifteen million of inhabitants, and
+Paris about one hundred and fifty thousand. The nobles were numerous
+and powerful, and engrossed the wealth of the nation. The people were
+not exactly slaves, but were reduced to great dependence, were
+uneducated, degraded, and enjoyed but few political or social
+privileges. They were oppressed by the government, by the nobles, and
+by the clergy.</p>
+
+<p>The highest official dignitary was the constable, the second the
+keeper of the seals, the third the chamberlain, then the six or eight
+marshals, then the secretary of state, then gentlemen of the
+household, and military commanders. The king was nearly absolute. The
+parliament was a judicial tribunal, which did not enact laws, but
+which registered the edicts of the king.</p>
+
+<p>Commerce and manufactures were extremely limited, and far from
+flourishing; and the arts were in an infant state. Architecture, the
+only art in which half-civilized nations have excelled, was the most
+advanced, and was displayed in the churches and royal palaces. Paris
+was crowded with uncomfortable houses, and the narrow streets were
+favorable to tumult as well as pestilence. Tapestry was the most
+common and the most expensive of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page090" name="page090"></a>(p. 090)</span>arts, and the hangings,
+in a single room, often reached a sum which would be equal, in these
+times, to one hundred thousand dollars. The floors of the palaces were
+spread with Turkey carpets. Chairs were used only in kings' palaces,
+and carriages were but just introduced, and were clumsy and awkward.
+Mules were chiefly used in travelling, the horses being reserved for
+war. Dress, especially of females, was gorgeous and extravagant; false
+hair, masks, trailed petticoats, and cork heels ten inches high, were
+some of the peculiarities. The French then, as now, were fond of the
+pleasures of the table, and the hour for dinner was eleven o'clock.
+Morals were extremely low, and gaming was a universal passion, in
+which Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> himself extravagantly indulged. The advice of
+Catharine de Medicis to her son Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> showed her knowledge of
+the French character, even as it exists now: "Twice a week give public
+assemblies, for the specific secret of the French government is, to
+keep the people always cheerful; for they are so restless you must
+occupy them, during peace, either with business or amusement, or else
+they will involve you in trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Such was France, at the death of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, 1610, <span class="inline">France at the Death of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></span> one of the largest
+and most powerful of the European kingdoms, though far from the
+greatness it was destined afterwards to attain.</p>
+
+<p>A more powerful monarchy, at this period, was Spain. As this kingdom
+was then in the zenith of its power and glory, we will take a brief
+survey of it during the reign of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, the successor of
+Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, a person to whom we have often referred. With his reign
+are closely connected the struggles of the Hollanders to secure their
+civil and religious independence. The Low Countries were provinces of
+Spain, and therefore to be considered in connection with Spanish
+history.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;For a knowledge of France during the reign of
+     Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, see James's History of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>; James's Life of
+     Condé; History of the Huguenots. Rankin's and Crowe's
+     Histories of France are the best in English, but far
+     inferior to Sismondi's, Millot's, and Lacretelle's. Sully's
+     Memoirs throw considerable light on this period, and Dumas's
+     Margaret de Valois may be read with profit.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page091" name="page091"></a>(p. 091)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>PHILIP <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Spain cannot be said to have been a powerful state until the reign of
+Ferdinand and Isabella; when the crowns of Castile and Arragon were
+united, and when the discoveries of Columbus added a new world to
+their extensive territories. Nor, during the reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, was the power of the crown as absolute as during the sway of
+the Austrian princes. The nobles were animated by a bold and free
+spirit, and the clergy dared to resist the encroachments of royalty,
+and even the usurpations of Rome. Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> succeeded in suppressing
+the power of the nobles, and all insurrections of the people, and laid
+the foundation for the power of his gloomy son, Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> With Philip
+commenced the grandeur of the Spanish monarchy. By him, also, were
+sown the seeds of its subsequent decay. Under him, the inquisition was
+disgraced by ten thousand enormities, Holland was overrun by the Duke
+of Alva, and America conquered by Cortes and Pizarro. It was he who
+built the gorgeous palaces of Spain, and who, with his Invincible
+Armada, meditated the conquest of England. The wealth of the Indies
+flowed into the royal treasury, and also enriched all orders and
+classes. Silver and gold became as plenty at Madrid as in old times at
+Jerusalem under the reign of Solomon. But Philip was a different
+prince from Solomon. His talents and attainments were respectable, but
+he had a jealous and selfish disposition, and exerted all the energies
+of his mind, and all the resources of his kingdom, to crush the
+<span class="inline">Bigotry of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></span> Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Among the first acts of his reign was the effort to extinguish
+Protestantism in the Netherlands, an assemblage of seigniories, under
+various titles, subject to his authority. The opinions of Luther and
+Calvin made great progress in this country, and Philip, in order to
+repress them, created new bishops, and established the Inquisition.
+The people protested, and these protests were considered as
+rebellious.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page092" name="page092"></a>(p. 092)</span>
+
+<p>At the head of the nobility was William, the Prince of Orange, on whom
+Philip had conferred the government of Holland, Zealand, Friesland,
+and Utrecht, provinces of the Netherlands. He was a haughty but
+resolute and courageous character, and had adopted the opinions of
+Calvin, for which he lost the confidence of Philip. In the prospect of
+destruction, <span class="inline">Revolt of the Netherlands.</span> he embraced the resolution of delivering his country from
+the yoke of a merciless and bigoted master. Having reduced the most
+important garrisons of Holland and Zealand, he was proclaimed
+stadtholder, and openly threw off his allegiance to Spain.
+Hostilities, of course, commenced. Alva, the general of Philip, took
+the old city of Haerlem, and put fifteen hundred to the sword, among
+whom were all the magistrates, and all the Protestant clergy.</p>
+
+<p>Don John, Archduke of Austria, and the brother of Philip, succeeded
+the Duke of Alva, during whose administration the seven United
+Provinces formed themselves into a confederation, and chose the Prince
+of Orange to be the general of their armies, admiral of their fleets,
+and chief magistrate, by the title of <span class="italic">stadtholder</span>. But William was
+soon after assassinated by a wretch who had been bribed by the
+exasperated Philip, and Maurice, his son, received his title,
+dignities, and power. His military talents, as the antagonist of the
+Duke of Parma, lieutenant to Philip, in the Netherlands, secured him a
+high place in the estimation of warriors. To protect this prince and
+the infant republic of Holland, Queen Elizabeth sent four thousand men
+under the Earl of Leicester, her favorite; and, with this assistance,
+the Hollanders maintained their ground against the most powerful
+monarch in Europe, as has been already mentioned in the chapter on
+Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>After the loss of the Netherlands, the next great event of his reign
+was the acquisition of Portugal, to which he laid claim on the death
+of Don Henry, in 1581. There were several other claimants, but Philip,
+with an army of twenty thousand, was stronger than any of the others.
+He gained a decisive victory over Don Antonio, uncle to the last
+monarch, and was crowned at Lisbon without opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Revolt of the Moriscoes.</span> revolt of the Moriscoes occupies a prominent place in the annals
+of this reign. They were Christianized Moors, but, at heart,
+Mohammedans. A decree had been published that their <span class="pagenum"><a id="page093" name="page093"></a>(p. 093)</span>children
+should frequent the Christian church, that the Arabic should no longer
+be used in writing, that both men and women should wear the Spanish
+costume, that they no longer should receive Mohammedan names, or marry
+without permission. The Moriscoes contended that no particular dress
+involved religious opinions, that the women used the veil according to
+their notions of modesty, that the use of their own language was no
+sin, and that baths were used, not from religious motives, but for the
+sake of cleanliness. These expostulations were, however, without
+effect. Nothing could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed
+cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties,
+and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of
+civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating
+picture of misery and crime. But in this war there was something
+fiendish. A clergyman was roasted over a brazier, and the women,
+wearied with his protracted death, despatched him with their needles
+and knives. The rebels ridiculed the sacrifice of the mass by
+slaughtering a pig on the high altar of a church. These insults were
+retaliated with that cruelty which Spanish bigotry and malice know so
+well how to inflict. Thousands of defenceless women and children were
+murdered in violation of the most solemn treaties. The whole Moorish
+population was finally exterminated, and Granada, with its beautiful
+mountains and fertile valleys, was made a desert. No less than six
+hundred thousand were driven to Africa&mdash;an act of great impolicy,
+since the Moriscoes were the most ingenious and industrious part of
+the population; and their exile contributed to undermine that national
+prosperity in which, at that day, every Spaniard gloried. But
+destruction ever succeeds pride: infatuation and blindness are the
+attendants of despotism.</p>
+
+<p>The destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the losses which the
+Spaniards suffered from Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Hawkins, have
+already been mentioned. But the pride of Philip was mortified, rather
+than that his power was diminished. His ambition received a check, and
+he found it impossible to conquer England. His finances, too, became
+deranged; still he remained the absolute master of the richest kingdom
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Causes of Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.</span> decline of the Spanish monarchy dates from his death <span class="pagenum"><a id="page094" name="page094"></a>(p. 094)</span>
+which took place in his magnificent palace of the Escurial, in 1598.
+Under his son Philip <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, decline became very marked, and future ruin
+could be predicted.</p>
+
+<p>The principal cause of the decline of prosperity was the great
+increase of the clergy, and the extent of their wealth. In the Spanish
+dominions, which included Spain, Naples, Milan, Parma, Sicily,
+Sardinia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Indies, there were
+fifty-four archbishops, six hundred and eighty-four bishops, seven
+thousand hospitals, one hundred thousand abbeys and nunneries, six
+hundred thousand monks, and three hundred and ten thousand secular
+priests&mdash;a priest to every ten families. Almost every village had a
+monastery. The diocese of Seville had fourteen thousand priests,
+nearly the present number of all the clergy of the establishment in
+England. The cathedral of Seville gave support and occupation to one
+hundred priests.</p>
+
+<p>And this numerous clergy usurped the power and dignities of the state.
+They also encouraged that frightful inquisition, the very name of
+which conjures up the most horrid images of death and torture. This
+institution, committed to the care of Dominican monks, was instituted
+to put down heresy; that is, every thing in poetry, philosophy, or
+religion, which was distasteful to the despots of the human mind. The
+inquisitors had power to apprehend people even suspected of heresy,
+and, on the testimony of two witnesses, could condemn them to torture,
+imprisonment, and death. Resistance was vain; complaint was ruin.
+Arrests took place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a
+knowledge of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused.
+The most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known
+integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could
+bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. Should the jailer take compassion,
+and bestow a few crumbs of bread or drops of water, he would be
+punished as the greatest of traitors. Even nobles were not exempted
+from the supervision of this court, which was established in every
+village and town in Portugal and Spain, and which, in the single city
+of Toledo, condemned, in one year, seventeen thousand people. This
+institution was tolerated by the king, since he knew very well that
+there ever exists an intimate union between absolutism in religion and
+absolutism in government.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page095" name="page095"></a>(p. 095)</span>
+
+<p>Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exercised
+over a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements of
+character, <span class="inline">The Increase of Gold and Silver.</span> the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury,
+idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence of the
+gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the cultivation
+of those things which money could procure. Then followed a great rise
+in the prices of all kinds of provision and clothing. Houses, lands,
+and manufactures also soon rose in value. Hence money was delusive,
+since, with ten times the increase of specie, there was a
+corresponding decrease in those necessaries of life which gold and
+silver would purchase. Silver and gold are only the medium of trade,
+not the basis of wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon
+the amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous as
+crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The sudden influx
+of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a temporary wealth to
+the kingdom; but when habits of industry were lost, and the culture of
+the soil was neglected, the gold and silver of the Spaniards were
+exchanged for the productive industry of other nations. The Dutch and
+the English, whose manufactures and commerce were in a healthy state,
+became enriched at their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth,
+that is, industry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of
+sentiment, became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and
+amusements, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, pantomimes,
+and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking nation, while
+the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, with the
+exception of that of France. The country became exhausted by war. The
+finances were deranged, and province after province rebelled. Every
+where were military reverses, and a decrease of population. Taxes, in
+the mean while, increased, and a burdened people lamented in vain
+their misfortune and decline. <span class="inline">Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.</span> The reign of Philip <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> was the most
+disastrous in the annals of the country. The Catalan insurrection, the
+loss of Jamaica, the Low Countries, and Portugal, were the results of
+his misrule and imbecility. So rapidly did Spain degenerate, that,
+upon the close of the Austrian dynasty, with all the natural
+advantages of the country, the best harbors and sea-coast in Europe,
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page096" name="page096"></a>(p. 096)</span>richest soil, and the finest climate, and with the
+possession of the Indies also, the people were the poorest, the most
+ignorant, and the most helpless in Europe. The death of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, a
+miserable, afflicted, superstitious, priest-ridden monarch, left Spain
+without a king, and the vacant throne became the prize of any monarch
+in Europe who could raise and send across the Pyrenees the largest
+army. It fell into the power of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, and the Bourbon princes
+have ever since in vain attempted the restoration of the broken
+monarchy to its former glory. But, alas, Spain has, since the
+spoliation of the Mexicans and Peruvians, only a melancholy history&mdash;a
+history of crime, bigotry, anarchy, and poverty. The Spaniards
+committed awful crimes in their lust for gold and silver. "They had
+their request," but God, in his retributive justice, "sent leanness
+into their souls."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference">For the history of Spain during the Austrian princes, see a
+     history in Lardner's Encyclopedia; Watson's Life of
+     Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>; James's Foreign Statesmen; Schiller's Revolt of
+     the Netherlands; Russell's Modern Europe; Prescott's
+     Conquest of Mexico and Peru.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page097" name="page097"></a>(p. 097)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.</h4>
+
+
+<p>During the period we have just been considering, the most marked
+peculiarity was, the struggle between Protestantism and Romanism. It
+is true that objects of personal ambition also occupied the minds of
+princes, and many great events occurred, which were not connected with
+the struggles for religious liberty and light. But the great feature
+of the age was the insurrection of human intelligence. There was a
+spirit of innovation, which nothing could suppress, and this was
+directed, in the main, to matters of religion. The conflict was not
+between church and state, but between two great factions in each. "No
+man asked whether another belonged to the same country as himself, but
+whether he belonged to the same sect." Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox,
+Cranmer, and Bacon were the great pioneers in this march of
+innovation. They wished to explode the ideas of the middle ages, in
+philosophy and in religion. They made war upon the Roman Catholic
+Church, as the great supporter and defender of old ideas. They
+renounced her authority. <span class="inline">The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century.</span> She summoned her friends and vassals, rallied
+all her forces, and, with desperate energy, resolved to put down the
+spirit of reform. The struggles of the Protestants in England,
+Germany, France, and the Netherlands, alike manifested the same
+spirit, were produced by the same causes, and brought forth the same
+results. The insurrection was not suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The hostile movements of Rome, for a while, were carried on by armies,
+massacres, assassinations, and inquisitions. The duke of Alva's
+cruelties in the Netherlands, St. Bartholomew's massacre in France,
+inquisitorial tortures in Spain, and Smithfield burnings in England,
+illustrate this assertion. But more subtle and artful agents were
+required, especially since violence had failed. Men of simple lives,
+of undoubted piety, of earnest zeal, and singular <span class="pagenum"><a id="page098" name="page098"></a>(p. 098)</span>
+disinterestedness to their cause, arose, and did what the sword and
+the stake could not do,&mdash;revived Catholicism, and caused a reaction to
+Protestantism itself. <span class="inline">Rise of the Jesuits.</span> These men were Jesuits, the most faithful,
+intrepid, and successful soldiers that ever enlisted under the banners
+of Rome. The rise and fortunes of this order of monks form one of the
+most important and interesting chapters in the history of the human
+race. Their victories, and the spirit which achieved them, are well
+worth our notice. In considering them, it must be borne in mind, that
+the Jesuits have exhibited traits so dissimilar and contradictory,
+that it is difficult to form a just judgment. While they were
+achieving their victories, they appeared in a totally different light
+from what distinguished them when they reposed on their laurels. In
+short, the <span class="italic">earlier</span> and the <span class="italic">latter</span> Jesuits were entirely different
+in their moral and social aspects, although they had the same external
+organization. The principles of their system were always the same. The
+men who defended them, at first, were marked by great virtues, but
+afterwards were deformed by equally as great vices. It was in the
+early days of Jesuitism that the events we have recorded took place.
+Hence our notice, at present, will be confined to the Jesuits when
+they were worthy of respect, and, in some things, even of admiration.
+Their courage, fidelity, zeal, learning, and intrepidity for half a
+century, have not been exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>The founder of the order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of
+noble birth, who first appeared as a soldier at the siege of
+Pampeluna, where he was wounded, about the time that Luther was
+writing his theses, and disputing about indulgences. He amused
+himself, on his sick bed, by reading the lives of the saints. His
+enthusiastic mind was affected, and he resolved to pass from worldly
+to spiritual knighthood. He became a saint, after the notions of the
+age; that is, he fasted, wore sackcloth, lived on roots and herbs,
+practised austerities, retired to lonely places, and spent his time in
+contemplation and prayer. The people were attracted by his sanctity,
+and followed him in crowds. His heart burned to convert heretics; and,
+to prepare himself for his mission, he went to the universities, and
+devoted himself to study. There he made some distinguished converts,
+all of whom afterwards became famous. In his narrow cell, at Paris, he
+induced Francis Xavier, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page099" name="page099"></a>(p. 099)</span>Faber, Laynez Bobadilla, and
+Rodriguez to embrace his views, and to form themselves into an
+association, for the conversion of the world. On the summit of
+Montmartre, these six young men, on one star-lit night, took the usual
+monastic vows of <span class="italic">poverty</span>, <span class="italic">chastity</span>, and <span class="italic">obedience</span>, and solemnly
+devoted themselves to their new mission.</p>
+
+<p>They then went to Rome, to induce the pope to constitute them a new
+missionary order. But they were ridiculed as fanatics. Moreover, for
+several centuries, there had been great opposition in Rome against the
+institution of new monastic orders. It was thought that there were
+orders enough; that the old should be reformed, not new ones created.
+Even St. Dominic and St. Francis had great difficulty in getting their
+orders instituted. But Loyola and his companions made extraordinary
+offers. They professed their willingness to go wherever the pope
+should send them, among Turks, heathens, or heretics, instantly,
+without condition, or reward.</p>
+
+<p>How could the pope refuse to license them? His empire was in danger;
+Luther was in the midst of his victories; the power of ideas and truth
+was shaking to its centre the pontifical throne; all the old orders
+had become degenerate and inefficient, and the pope did not know where
+to look for efficient support. The venerable Benedictines were
+revelling in the wealth of their splendid abbeys, while the Dominicans
+and the Franciscans had become itinerant vagabonds, peddling relics
+and indulgences, and forgetful of those stern duties and virtues which
+originally characterized them. All the monks were inexhaustible
+subjects of sarcasm and mockery. They even made scholasticism
+ridiculous, and the papal dogmas contemptible. Erasmus laughed at
+them, and Luther mocked them. They were sensual, lazy, ignorant, and
+corrupt. The pope did not want such soldiers. But the followers of
+Loyola were full of ardor, talent, and zeal; willing to do any thing
+for a sinking cause; able to do any thing, so far as human will can
+avail. And they did not disappoint the pope. <span class="inline">Rapid Spread of the Jesuit Order.</span> Great additions were
+made. They increased with marvellous rapidity. The zealous, devout,
+and energetic, throughout all ranks in the Catholic church, joined
+them. They spread into all lands. They became the confessors of kings,
+the teachers of youth, the most popular <span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>(p. 100)</span>preachers, the most
+successful missionaries. In sixteen years after the scene of
+Montmartre, Loyola had established his society in the affections and
+confidence of Catholic Europe, against the voice of universities, the
+fears of monarchs, and the jealousy of the other monastic orders. In
+sixteen years, from the condition of a ridiculed fanatic, whose voice,
+however, would have been disregarded a century earlier or later, he
+became one of the most powerful dignitaries of the church, influencing
+the councils of the Vatican, moving the minds of kings, controlling
+the souls of a numerous fraternity, and making his power felt, even in
+the courts of Japan and China. Before he died, his spiritual sons had
+planted their missionary stations amid Peruvian mines, amid the marts
+of the African slave trade, in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and in
+the cities of Japan and China. Nay, his followers had secured the most
+important chairs in the universities of Europe, and had become
+confessors to the most powerful monarchs, teachers in the best schools
+of Christendom, and preachers in its principal pulpits. They had
+become an organization, instinct with life, endued with energy and
+will, and forming a body which could outwatch Argus with his hundred
+eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred arms. It had forty
+thousand eyes open upon every cabinet and private family in Europe,
+and forty thousand arms extended over the necks of both sovereigns and
+people. It had become a mighty power in the world, inseparably
+connected with the education and the religion of the age, the prime
+mover of all political affairs, the grand prop of absolute monarchies,
+the last hope of the papal hierarchy.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden <span class="inline">Rapid Spread of the Jesuits.</span> growth and enormous resources of the "Society of Jesus"
+impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We almost attribute
+them to the agency of mysterious powers, and forget the operations of
+natural causes. The history of society shows that no body of men ever
+obtained a wide-spread ascendency, except by the exercise of
+remarkable qualities of mind and heart. And this is the reason why the
+Jesuits prospered. When Catholic Europe saw young men, born to fortune
+and honors, voluntarily surrendering their rank and goods, devoting
+themselves to religious duties, spending their days in hospitals and
+schools, wandering, as missionaries, into the most unknown and
+dangerous <span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>(p. 101)</span>parts of the world, exciting the young to study,
+making great attainments in all departments of literature and science,
+and shedding a light, wherever they went, by their genius and
+disinterestedness, it was natural that they would be received as
+preachers, teachers, and confessors. That they were characterized,
+during the first fifty years, by such excellencies, has never been
+denied. The Jesuit missionary called forth the praises of Baxter, and
+the panegyric of Leibnitz. He went forth, without fear, to encounter
+the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to him, for he knew
+that the altar, which might stream with his blood, would, in after
+times, be a cherished monument of his fame, and an impressive emblem
+of the power of his religion. Francis Xavier, one of the first
+converts of Loyola, a Spaniard of rank, traversed a tract of more than
+twice the circumference of the globe, preaching, disputing, and
+baptizing, until seventy thousand converts attested the fruits of his
+mission. In perils, fastings, and fatigues, was the life of this
+remarkable man passed, to convert the heathen world; and his labors
+have never been equalled, as a missionary, except by the apostle Paul.
+But China and Japan were not the only scenes of the enterprises of
+Jesuit missionaries. As early as 1634, they penetrated into Canada,
+and, shortly after to the sources of the Mississippi and the prairies
+of Illinois. "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, "is an envoy
+of France, to discover new countries; but I am an ambassador of God,
+to enlighten them with the gospel." But of all the missions of the
+Jesuits, those in Paraguay were the most successful. They there
+gathered together, in <span class="italic">reductions</span>, or villages, three hundred
+thousand Indians, and these were bound together by a common interest,
+were controlled by a paternal authority, taught useful arts, and
+trained to enjoy the blessings of civilization. On the distant banks
+of the La Plata, while the Spanish colonists were hunting the Mexicans
+and Peruvians with bloodhounds, or the English slave traders were
+consigning to eternal bondage the unhappy Africans, the Jesuits were
+realizing the ideal paradise of More&mdash;a Utopia, where no murders or
+robberies were committed, and where the blessed flowers of peace and
+harmony bloomed in a garden of almost primeval loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>In that age, the <span class="inline">Extraordinary Virtues of the Older Jesuits.</span> Jesuit excelled in any work to which he devoted
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>(p. 102)</span>his attention. He was not only an intrepid missionary, but a
+most successful teacher. Into the work of education he entered heart
+and soul. He taught gratuitously, without any crabbed harshness, and
+with a view to gain the heart. He entered into the feelings of his
+pupils, and taught them to subdue their tempers, and avoid quarrels
+and oaths. He excited them to enthusiasm, perceived their merits, and
+rewarded the successful with presents and favors. Hence the schools of
+the Jesuits were the best in Europe, and were highly praised even by
+the Protestants. The Jesuits were even more popular as preachers than
+they were as teachers; and they were equally prized as confessors.
+They were so successful and so respected, that they soon obtained an
+ascendency in Europe. Veneration secured wealth, and their
+establishments gradually became magnificently endowed. But all their
+influence was directed to one single end&mdash;to the building up of the
+power of the popes, whose obedient servants they were. Can we wonder
+that Catholicism should revive?</p>
+
+<p>Again, <span class="inline">The Constitution of the Jesuits.</span> their constitution was wonderful, and admirably adapted to the
+ends they had in view. Their vows were indeed substantially the same
+as those of other monks, but there was among them a more practical
+spirit of obedience. All the members were controlled by a single
+will&mdash;all were passive, instruments in the hands of the general of the
+order. He appointed presidents of colleges and of religious houses;
+admitted, dismissed, dispensed, and punished at his pleasure. His
+power was irresponsible, and for life. From his will there was no
+appeal. There were among them many gradations in rank, but each
+gradation was a gradation in slavery. The Jesuit was bound to obey
+even his own servant, if required by a superior. Obedience was the
+soul of the institution, absolute, unconditional, and unreserved&mdash;even
+the submission of the will, to the entire abnegation of self. The
+Jesuit gloried in being made a puppet, a piece of machinery, like a
+soldier, if the loss of his intellectual independence would advance
+the interests of his order. The <span class="italic" lang="fr">esprit de corps</span> was perfectly
+wonderful, and this spirit was one secret of the disinterestedness of
+the body. "<span class="italic">Ad majorem Dei gloriam</span>," was the motto emblazoned on
+their standards, and written on their hearts; but this glory of God
+was synonymous with the ascendency of their association.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>(p. 103)</span>The unconditional obedience to a single will, which is the
+genius of Jesuitism, while it signally advanced the interests of the
+body, and of the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the
+most detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by
+man. The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a tool,
+rather than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by the orders of
+his superiors, and they alone were responsible for his actions.</p>
+
+<p>We can easily see how the extraordinary virtues and attainments of the
+early Jesuits, and the wonderful mechanism of their system, would
+promote the growth of the order and the interests of Rome, before the
+suspicions of good people would be aroused. <span class="inline">Degeneracy of the Jesuits.</span> It was a long time after
+their piety had passed to fraud, their simplicity to cunning, their
+poverty to wealth, their humility to pride, and their indifference to
+the world to cabals, intrigues, and crimes, before the change was
+felt. And, moreover, it was more than a century before the fruits of
+the system were fully reaped. With all the excellences of their
+schools and missions, dangerous notions and customs were taught in
+them, which gradually destroyed their efficacy. A bad system often
+works well for a while, but always carries the seeds of decay and
+ruin. It was so with the institution of Loyola, in spite of the
+enthusiasm and sincerity of the early members, and the masterly wisdom
+displayed by the founders. In after times, evils were perceived, which
+had, at first, escaped the eye. It was seen that the system of
+education, though specious, and, in many respects, excellent, was
+calculated to narrow the mind, while it filled it with knowledge.
+Young men, in their colleges, were taught blindly to follow a rigid
+mechanical code; they were closely watched; all books were taken from
+them of a liberal tendency; mutilated editions of such as could not be
+denied only were allowed; truths of great importance were concealed or
+glossed over; exploded errors were revived, and studies recommended
+which had no reference to the discussion of abstract questions on
+government or religion. And the boys were made spies on each other,
+their spirits were broken, and their tastes perverted. The Jesuits
+sought to guard the avenues to thought, not to open them, were jealous
+of all independence of mind, and never sought to go beyond their age,
+or base any movement on ideal standards.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>(p. 104)</span>
+
+<p>Again, as preachers, though popular and eloquent, they devoted their
+talents to convert men to the <span class="italic">Roman church</span> rather than to <span class="italic">God</span>.
+They were <span class="inline">Evils in the Jesuit System.</span> bigoted sectarians; strove to make men Catholics rather than
+Christians. As missionaries, they were content with a mere nominal
+conversion. They gave men the crucifix, but not the Bible, and even
+permitted their converts to retain many of their ancient superstitions
+and prejudices. And thus they usurped the authority of native rulers,
+and sought to impose on China and Japan their despotic yoke. They
+greatly enriched themselves in consequence of the credulity of the
+natives, whom they flattered, and wielded an unlawful power. And this
+is one reason why they were expelled, and why they made no permanent
+conquests among the millions they converted in Japan. They wished not
+only to subjugate the European, but the Asiatic mind. Europe did not
+present a field sufficiently extensive for their cupidity and
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as confessors, they were peculiarly indulgent to those who
+sought absolution, provided their submission was complete. Then it was
+seen what an easy thing it was to bear the yoke of Christ. The
+offender was told that sin consisted in wilfulness, and wilfulness in
+the perfect knowledge of the nature of sin, according to which
+doctrine blindness and passion were sufficient exculpations. They
+invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so
+severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly
+determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of
+being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could
+thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry
+which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They
+tolerated, and some of them justified, crimes, if the same could be
+made subservient to the apparent interests of the church. Their
+principle was to do evil that good might come. Above all, they
+conformed to the inclinations of the great, especially to those of
+absolute princes, on whom they imposed no painful penance, or austere
+devotion. Their sympathies always were with absolutism, in all its
+forms and they were the chosen and trusted agents of the despots of
+mankind, until even the eyes of Europe were open to their vast
+ambition, which sought to erect an independent empire within the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>(p. 105)</span>limits of despotism itself. But the corruptions of the
+Jesuits, their system of casuistry, their lax morality, their
+disgraceful intrigues, their unprincipled rapacity, do not belong to
+the age we have now been considering. These fruits of a bad system had
+not then been matured; and the infancy of the society was as beautiful
+as its latter days were disgraceful and fearful. In a future chapter,
+we shall glance at the decline and fall of this celebrated
+institution&mdash;the best adapted to its proposed ends of any system ever
+devised by the craft and wisdom of man.</p>
+
+<p>The great patrons of the Jesuits&mdash;the popes and their empire in the
+sixteenth century, after the death of Luther&mdash;demand some notice. The
+Catholic church, in this century, was remarkable for the reformation
+it attempted within its own body, and for the zeal, and ability, and
+virtue, which marked the character of many of the popes themselves.
+Had it not been for this counter reformation, Protestantism would have
+obtained a great ascendency in Europe. But the Protestants were
+divided among themselves, while the Catholics were united, and
+animated with singular zeal. They put forth their utmost energies to
+reconquer what they had lost. They did not succeed in this, but they
+secured the ascendency, on the whole, of the Catholic cause in Europe.
+For this ascendency the popes are indebted to the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>At <span class="inline">The Popes in the Seventeenth Century.</span> the close of the sixteenth century, the popes possessed a
+well-situated, rich, and beautiful province. All writers celebrated
+its fertility. Scarcely a foot of land remained uncultivated. Corn was
+exported, and the ports were filled with ships. The people were
+courageous, and had great talents for business. The middle classes
+were peaceful and contented, but the nobles, who held in their hands
+the municipal authority, were turbulent, rapacious, and indifferent to
+intellectual culture. The popes were generally virtuous characters,
+and <span class="inline">Nepotism of the Popes.</span> munificent patrons of genius. Gregory <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> kept a list of men in
+every country who were likely to acquit themselves as bishops, and
+exhibited the greatest caution in appointing them. Sixtus <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, whose
+father was an humble gardener, encouraged agriculture and
+manufactures, husbanded the resources of the state, and filled Rome
+with statues. He raised the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, and
+completed the dome of the Cathedral. Clement <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> celebrated the mass
+himself, and scrupulously <span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>(p. 106)</span>devoted himself to religious
+duties. He was careless of the pleasures which formerly characterized
+the popes, and admitted every day twelve poor persons to dine with
+him. Paul <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> had equal talents and greater authority, but was bigoted
+and cold. Gregory <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> had all the severity of an ancient monk. The
+only religious peculiarity of the popes, at the latter end of the
+sixteenth century, which we unhesitatingly condemn, was, their
+religious intolerance. But they saw that their empire would pass away,
+unless they used vigorous and desperate measures to retain it. During
+this period, the great victories of the Jesuits, the establishment of
+their colleges, and the splendid endowments of their churches took
+place. Gregory <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> built, at his own cost, the celebrated church of
+St. Ignatius, at Rome, and instituted the Propaganda, a missionary
+institution, under the control of the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>The popes, whether good or bad, did not relinquish their nepotism in
+this century, in consequence of which great families arose with every
+pope, and supplanted the old aristocracy. The Barberini family, in one
+pontificate, amassed one hundred and five millions of scudi&mdash;as great
+a fortune as that left by Mazarin. But they, enriched under
+Urban <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr>, had to flee from <span class="inline">Rome in the Seventeenth Century.</span> Rome under Innocent <abbr title="10">X.</abbr> Jealousy and
+contention divided and distracted all the noble families, who vied
+with each other in titles and pomp, ceremony and pride. The ladies of
+the Savelli family never quitted their palace walls, except in closely
+veiled carriages. The Visconti decorated their walls with the
+portraits of the popes of their line. The Gaetana dwelt with pride on
+the memory of Boniface <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> The Colonna and Orsini boasted that for
+centuries no peace had been concluded in Christendom, in which they
+had not been expressly included. But these old families had become
+gradually impoverished, and yielded, in wealth and power, though not
+in pride and dignity, to the Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini,
+Ludovisi, Giustiniani, Chigi, and the Barberini. All these families,
+from which popes had sprung, had splendid palaces, villas, pictures,
+libraries, and statues; and they contributed to make Rome the centre
+of attraction for the elegant and the literary throughout Europe. It
+was still the moral and social centre of Christendom. It was a place
+to which all strangers resorted, and from which all intrigues sprung.
+It was the scene <span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>(p. 107)</span>of pleasure, gayety, and grandeur. And the
+splendid fabric, which was erected in the "ages of faith," in spite of
+all the calamities and ravages of time, remained still beautiful and
+attractive. Since the first secession, in the sixteenth century, Rome
+has lost none of her adherents, and those, who remained faithful, have
+become the more enthusiastic in their idolatry.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Ranke's History of the Popes. Father Bouhour's
+     Life of Ignatius Loyola. A Life of Xavier, by the same
+     author. Stephens's Essay on Loyola. Charlevoix's History of
+     Paraguay. Pascal's Provincial Letters. Macaulay's Review of
+     Ranke's History of the Popes. Bancroft's chapter, in the
+     History of the United States, on the colonization of Canada.
+     "Secreta Monita." Histoire des Jésuites. "Spiritual
+     Exercises." Dr. Williams's Essay. History of Jesuit
+     Missions. The works on the Jesuits are very numerous; but
+     those which are most accessible are of a violent partisan
+     character. Eugene Sue, in his "Wandering Jew," has given
+     false, but strong, impressions. Infidel writers have
+     generally been the most bitter, with the exception of
+     English and Scotch authors, in the seventeenth century. The
+     great work of Ranke is the most impartial with which the
+     author is acquainted. Ranke's histories should never be
+     neglected, of which admirable translations have been made.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>(p. 108)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THIRTY YEARS WAR.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Political Troubles after the Death of Luther.</span> contests which arose from the discussion of religious ideas did
+not close with the sixteenth century. They were, on the other hand,
+continued with still greater acrimony. Protestantism had been
+suppressed in France, but not in Holland or Germany. In England, the
+struggle was to continue, not between the Catholics and Protestants,
+but between different parties among the Protestants themselves. In
+Germany, a long and devastating war of thirty years was to be carried
+on before even religious liberty could be guaranteed.</p>
+
+<p>This struggle is the most prominent event of the seventeenth century
+before the English Revolution, and was attended with the most
+important religious and political consequences. The event itself was
+one of the chief political consequences of the Reformation. Indeed,
+all the events of this period either originated in, or became mixed up
+with, questions of religion.</p>
+
+<p>From the very first agitation of the reform doctrines, the house of
+Austria devoted against their adherents the whole of its immense
+political power. Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> resolved to suppress Protestantism, and
+would have perhaps succeeded, had it not been for the various wars
+which distracted his attention, and for the decided stand which the
+Protestant princes of Germany took respecting Luther and his
+doctrines. As early as 1530, was formed the league of Smalcalde,
+headed by the elector of Saxony, the most powerful of the German
+princes, next to the archduke of Austria. The princes who formed this
+league, resolved to secure to their subjects the free exercise of
+their religion, in spite of all opposition from the Catholic powers.
+But hostilities did not commence until after Luther had breathed his
+last. The Catholics gained a great victory at the battle of Mühlberg,
+when the Elector of Saxony was taken prisoner. With the treaty of
+Smalcalde, the freedom of Germany seemed prostrate forever, and the
+power of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>(p. 109)</span>Austria reached its meridian. But the cause of
+liberty revived under Maurice of Saxony, once its formidable enemy.
+All the fruits of victory were lost again in the congress of Passau,
+and the diet of Augsburg, when an equitable peace seemed guaranteed to
+the Protestants.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Diet of Augsburg.</span> diet of Augsburg, 1555, the year of the resignation of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>,
+divided Germany into two great political and religious parties, and
+recognized the independence of each. The Protestants were no longer
+looked upon as rebels, but as men who had a right to worship God as
+they pleased. Still, in reality, all that the Lutherans gained was
+toleration, not equality. The concessions of the Catholics were made
+to necessity, not to justice. Hence, the treaty of Augsburg proved
+only a truce, not a lasting peace. The boundaries of both parties were
+marked out by the sword, and by the sword only were they to be
+preserved.</p>
+
+<p>For a while, however, peace was preserved, and might have continued
+longer, had it not been for the dissensions of Protestants among
+themselves, caused by the followers of Calvin and Luther. The
+Lutherans would not include the Calvinists in their communion, and the
+Calvinists would not accede to the Lutheran church. During these
+dissensions, the Jesuits sowed tares, and the Protestants lost the
+chance of establishing their perfect equality with the Catholics.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all the bitterness and jealousy which existed between
+sects and parties, still the peace of Germany, in a political sense,
+was preserved during the reign of Ferdinand, the founder of the German
+branch of the house of Austria, and who succeeded his brother
+Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> On his death, in 1564, his son Maximilian <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, was chosen
+emperor, and during his reign, and until his death, in 1576, Germany
+enjoyed tranquillity. His successor was his son Rodolph, a weak
+prince, and incapable of uniting the various territories which were
+hereditary in his family&mdash;Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia,
+Moravia, and Styria. There were troubles in each of these provinces,
+and one after another revolted, until Rodolph was left with but the
+empty title of emperor. But these provinces acknowledged the sway of
+his brother Matthias, who had delivered them from the Turks, and had
+granted the Protestants liberty of conscience. The emperor was weak
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>(p. 110)</span>enough to confirm his brother in his usurpation. In 1612, he
+died, and Matthias mounted the imperial throne.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the reign of this prince, that the <span class="inline">Commencement of the Thirty Years War.</span> Thirty Years' War
+commenced. In proportion as the reformed religion gained ground in
+Hungary and Bohemia,&mdash;two provinces very difficult to rule,&mdash;the
+Protestant princes of the empire became desirous of securing and
+extending their privileges. Their demands were refused, and they
+entered into a new confederacy, called the <span class="italic">Evangelical Union</span>. This
+association was opposed by another, called the <span class="italic">Catholic League</span>. The
+former was supported by Holland, England, and Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, of France.
+The humiliation of Austria was the great object of Henry in supporting
+the Protestant princes of Germany, and he assembled an army of forty
+thousand men, which he designed to head himself. But, just as his
+preparations were completed, he was assassinated, and his death and
+the dissensions in the Austrian family prevented the war breaking out
+with the fury which afterwards characterized it.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Matthias died in 1618, and was succeeded by his cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, who was an inveterate enemy to the
+Protestant cause. His first care was to suppress the insurrection of
+the Protestants, which, just before his accession had broken out in
+Bohemia, under the celebrated Count Mansfeldt. The Bohemians renounced
+allegiance to Ferdinand <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and chose Frederic <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, elector palatine,
+for their king. Frederic unwisely accepted the crown, which confirmed
+the quarrel between Ferdinand and the Bohemians. Frederic was seconded
+by all the Protestant princes, except the Elector of Saxony, by two
+thousand four hundred English volunteers, and by eight thousand troops
+from the United Provinces. But Ferdinand, assisted by the king of
+Spain and all the Catholic princes, was more than a match for
+Frederic, who wasted his time and strength in vain displays of
+sovereignty. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, commanded the forces of the
+Catholics, who, with twenty-five thousand troops from the Low
+Countries, invaded Bohemia. The Bohemian forces did not amount to
+thirty thousand, but they intrenched themselves near Prague, where
+they were attacked (1620) and routed, with immense slaughter. The
+battle of Prague decided the fate of Bohemia, put Frederic in
+possession of all his dominions, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>(p. 111)</span>invested him with an
+authority equal to what any of his predecessors had enjoyed. All his
+wishes were gratified, and, had he been wise, he might have maintained
+his ascendency in Germany. But he was blinded by his success, and,
+from a rebellion in Bohemia, the war extended through Germany, and
+afterwards throughout Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor had regained his dominions by the victorious arms of
+Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. To compensate him, without detriment to
+himself, he resolved to bestow upon him the dominions of the Count
+Palatine of the Rhine, who had injudiciously accepted the crown of
+Bohemia. Frederic <span class="inline">The Emperor Frederic.</span> must be totally ruined. He was put under the ban of
+the empire, and his territories were devastated by the Spanish general
+Spinola, with an army of twenty-five thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently there was no hope for Frederic, or the Protestant cause.
+The only Protestant princes capable of arresting the Austrian
+encroachments were the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. But the
+former, John George, preferred the aggrandizement of his house to the
+emancipation of his country, and tamely witnessed the victories of the
+emperor, without raising an arm for the relief of the Protestants, of
+whom he was the acknowledged head. George William of Brandenburg was
+still more shamefully fettered by the fear of Austria, and of losing
+his dominions; and he, too, cautiously avoided committing himself to
+either party.</p>
+
+<p>But while these two great princes ingloriously abandoned Frederic to
+his fate, a single soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his
+sword, Ernest Count Mansfield, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen,
+to defy the whole power of Austria. Undismayed by the reverses of the
+elector palatine, he succeeded in enlisting an army of twenty thousand
+men. With such an army, the cause of Frederic was not irretrievably
+lost. New prospects began to open, and his misfortunes raised up
+unexpected friends. James of England opened his treasures, and
+Christian of Denmark offered his powerful support. Mansfeldt was also
+joined by the Margrave of Baden. The courage of the count palatine
+revived, and he labored assiduously to arouse his Protestant brethren.
+Meanwhile, the generals of the emperor were on the alert, and the
+rising hopes of Frederic were dissipated by the victories of Tilly.
+The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>(p. 112)</span>count palatine was again driven from his hereditary
+dominions, and sought refuge in Holland.</p>
+
+<p>But, though the emperor was successful, his finances were exhausted,
+and he was disagreeably dependent on Bavaria. Under his circumstances,
+nothing was more welcome than the proposal of <span class="inline">Count Wallenstein.</span> Wallenstein, an
+experienced officer, and the richest nobleman in Bohemia.</p>
+
+<p>He offered, at his own expense, and that of his friends, to raise,
+clothe, and maintain an army for the emperor, if he were allowed to
+augment it to fifty thousand men. His project was ridiculed as
+visionary; but the offer was too valuable to be rejected. In a few
+months, he had collected an army of thirty thousand. <span class="inline">Character of Wallenstein.</span> His reputation,
+the prospect of promotion, and the hope of plunder, attracted
+adventurers from all parts of Germany. Knowing that so large a body
+could not be held together without great resources, and having none of
+his own, he marched his troops into the most fertile territories,
+which had not yet suffered from the war, where they subsisted by
+contributions and plunder, as obnoxious to their friends as they were
+to their enemies. Nothing shows the weakness of the imperial power,
+with all its apparent strength, and the barbarous notions and customs
+of the country, more than this grant to Wallenstein. And, with all his
+heroism and success, he cannot now be viewed in any other light than
+as a licensed robber. He was virtually at the head of a troop of
+banditti, who fought for the sake of plunder, and who would join any
+side which would present the greatest hopes of gain. The genius of
+Schiller, both in his dramas and histories, has immortalized the name
+of this unprincipled hero, and has excited a strange interest in his
+person, his family, and his fortunes. He is represented as "born to
+command. His acute eye distinguished at a glance, from among the
+multitude, such as were competent, and he assigned to each his proper
+place. His praise, from being rarely bestowed, animated and brought
+into full operation every faculty; while his steady, reserved, and
+earnest demeanor secured obedience and discipline. His very appearance
+excited awe and reverence; his figure was proud, lofty, and warlike,
+while his bright, piercing eye expressed profundity of thought,
+combined with gravity and mystery. His favorite study was that of the
+stars, and his most intimate friend <span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>(p. 113)</span>was an Italian
+astrologer. He had a fondness for pomp and extravagance. He maintained
+sixty pages; his ante-chamber was guarded by fifty life-guards, and
+his table never consisted of less than one hundred covers. Six barons
+and as many knights were in constant attendance on his person. He
+never smiled, and the coldness of his temperament was proof against
+sensual seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he despised
+those amusements in which so many waste their lives. Terror was the
+talisman with which he worked: extreme in his punishments as in his
+rewards, he knew how to keep alive the zeal of his followers, while no
+general of ancient or modern times could boast of being obeyed with
+equal alacrity. Submission to his will was more prized by him than
+bravery, and he kept up the obedience of his troops by capricious
+orders. He was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion,
+with short, red hair, and small, sparkling eyes. A gloomy and
+forbidding seriousness sat upon his brow, and his munificent presents
+alone retained the trembling crowd of his dependants."</p>
+
+<p>Such was this enterprising nobleman, to whom the emperor Ferdinand
+committed so great authority. And the success of Wallenstein
+apparently justified the course of the emperor. The greater his
+extortions, and the greater his rewards, the greater was the concourse
+to his standard. Such is human nature. It is said that, in seven
+years, Wallenstein exacted not less than sixty millions of dollars
+from one half of Germany&mdash;an incredible sum, when the expenditure of
+the government of England, at this time, was less than two million
+pounds a year. His armies flourished, while the states through which
+they passed were ruined. What cared he for the curses of the people,
+or the complaints of princes, so long as his army adored him? It was
+his object to humble all the princes of the empire, and make himself
+so necessary to the emperor that he would gradually sink to become his
+tool. He already was created Duke of Friedland, and generalissimo of
+the imperial armies. Nor had his victorious career met with any severe
+check, but uninterrupted success seemed to promise the realization of
+his vast ambition. Germany lay bleeding at his feet, helpless and
+indignant.</p>
+
+<p>But the greatness and the insolence of Wallenstein raised up <span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>(p. 114)</span>
+enemies against him in all parts of the empire. Fear and jealousy
+increased the opposition, even in the ranks of the Catholics. His
+dismissal was demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by
+Spain. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, felt himself eclipsed by the
+successful general, and was at the head of the cabals against him.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor felt, at this crisis, as Ganganelli did when compelled to
+disband the Jesuits, that he was parting with the man to whom he owed
+all his supremacy. Long was he undecided whether or not he would make
+the sacrifice. But all Germany was clamorous, and the disgrace of
+Wallenstein was ordained.</p>
+
+<p>Would the ambitious chieftain, at the head of one hundred thousand
+devoted soldiers, regard the commands of the emperor? He made up his
+mind to obey, looking to the future for revenge, and feeling that he
+could afford to wait for it. Seni had read in the stars that glorious
+prospects still awaited him. Wallenstein retired to his estates in
+Bohemia, but maintained the pomp and splendor of a prince of the
+empire.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he retired from the command of the army before his
+services were again demanded. One hero produces another. A Wellington
+is ever found to oppose a Napoleon. Providence raised up a friend to
+Germany, in its distress, in the person of <span class="inline">Gustavus Adolphus.</span> Gustavus Adolphus, King of
+Sweden. It was not for personal aggrandizement that he lent his
+powerful arm to the Protestant princes, who, thus far, had vainly
+struggled against Maximilian, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Zeal for
+Protestantism, added to strong provocations, induced him to land in
+Germany with fifteen thousand men&mdash;a small body to oppose the
+victorious troops of the emperor, but they were brave and highly
+disciplined, and devoted to their royal master. He himself was
+indisputably the greatest general of the age, and had the full
+confidence of the Protestant princes, who were ready to rally the
+moment he obtained any signal advantage. Henceforth, Gustavus Adolphus
+was the hero of the war. He was more than a hero; he was a Christian,
+regardful of the morals of his soldiers, and devoted to the interests
+of spiritual religion. He was frugal, yet generous, serene in the
+greatest danger; and magnanimous beyond all precedent in the history
+of kings. On the 20th of May, 1630, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>(p. 115)</span>taking his daughter
+Christiana in his arms, then only four years of age, he presented her
+to the states as their future sovereign, and made his farewell
+address. "Not lightly, not wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve
+myself and you in this new and dangerous war. God is my witness that I
+do not fight to gratify my own ambition; but the emperor has wronged
+me, has supported my enemies, persecuted my friends, trampled my
+religion in the dust, and even stretched forth his revengeful arm
+against my crown. The oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid,
+which, by God's help, we will give them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed.
+I have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall
+always escape them. Hitherto, Providence has protected me; but I shall
+at last fall in defence of my country and my faith. I commend you to
+the protection of Heaven. Be just, conscientious, and upright, and we
+shall meet again in eternity. For the prosperity of all my subjects, I
+offer my warmest prayer to Heaven; and bid you all a sincere&mdash;it may
+be an eternal&mdash;farewell."</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely landed in Germany before his victorious career began.
+France concluded a treaty with him, and he advanced against Tilly, who
+now headed the imperial armies.</p>
+
+<p>The tardiness of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg in rendering
+assistance caused the <span class="inline">Loss of Magdeburg.</span> loss of Magdeburg, the most important fortress
+of the Protestants. It was taken by assault, even while Gustavus was
+advancing to its relief. No pen can paint, and no imagination can
+conceive, the horrors which were perpetrated by the imperial soldiers
+in the sack of that unfortunate place. Neither childhood nor helpless
+age&mdash;neither youth, beauty, sex, nor rank could disarm the fury of the
+conquerors. No situation or retreat was sacred. In a single church
+fifty-three women were beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with
+throwing children into the flames. Pappenheim's Walloons stabbed
+infants at the breast. The city was reduced to ashes, and thirty
+thousand of the inhabitants were slain.</p>
+
+<p>But the loss of this important city was soon compensated by the battle
+of Leipsic, 1630, which the King of Sweden gained over the imperial
+forces, and in which the Elector of Saxony at last <span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>(p. 116)</span>rendered
+valuable aid. The rout of Tilly, hitherto victorious, was complete,
+and he himself escaped only by chance. Saxony was freed from the
+enemy, while Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, were stripped of
+their defenders. Ferdinand was no longer secure in his capital; the
+freedom of Germany was secured. Gustavus was every where hailed as a
+deliverer, and admiration for his genius was only equalled by the
+admiration of his virtues. He rapidly regained all that the
+Protestants had lost, and the fruits of twelve years of war were
+snatched away from the emperor. Tilly was soon after killed, and all
+things indicated the complete triumph of the Protestants.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the turn of Ferdinand to tremble. The only person who could
+save him was dismissed and disgraced. Tilly was dead. Munich and
+Prague were in the hands of the Protestants, while the king of Sweden
+traversed Germany as a conqueror, law giver, and judge. No fortress
+was inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career. The Swedish
+standards were planted in Bavaria, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony,
+and along the banks of the Rhine. Meanwhile the Turks were preparing
+to attack Hungary, and a dangerous insurrection threatened his own
+capital. None came to his assistance in the hour of peril. On all
+sides, he was surrounded by hostile armies, while his own forces were
+dispirited and treacherous.</p>
+
+<p>From such a hopeless state he was rescued by the man whom he had
+injured, but not until he had himself to beg his assistance.
+Wallenstein was in retirement, and secretly rejoiced in the victories
+of the Swedish king, knowing full well that the emperor would soon be
+compelled to summon him again to command his armies. Now he could
+dictate his terms. Now he could humiliate his sovereign, and at the
+same time obtain all the power his ambition craved. <span class="inline">Wallenstein Reinstated in Power.</span> He declined
+entering his service unless he had the unlimited command of all the
+armies of Austria and Spain. No commission in the army was to be
+granted by the emperor, without his own approval. He demanded the
+ordinary pay, and an imperial hereditary estate. In short, he demanded
+sovereign authority; and with such humiliating terms the emperor, in
+his necessities, was obliged to comply.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner did he raise his standard, than it was resorted to by
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>(p. 117)</span>the unprincipled, the rapacious, and the needy from all
+parts of the empire. But Wallenstein now resolved to pursue,
+exclusively, his own selfish interests, and directed all his aims to
+independent sovereignty. When his forces were united with those of
+Maximilian, he found himself at the head of sixty thousand men. Then
+really commenced the severity of the contest, for Wallenstein was now
+stronger than Gustavus. Nevertheless, the heroic Swede offered to give
+his rival battle at Nuremburg, which was declined. He then attacked
+his camp, but was repulsed with loss. At last, the two generals met on
+the plains of Lutzen, in Saxony, 1632. During the whole course of the
+war, two such generals had not been pitted against each other, nor had
+so much been staked on the chance of a battle. Victory declared for
+the troops of <span class="inline">Death of Gustavus Adolphus.</span> Gustavus, but the heroic leader himself was killed, in
+the fulness of his glory. It was his fortune to die with an
+untarnished fame. "By an untimely death," says Schiller, "his
+protecting genius rescued him from the inevitable fate of man&mdash;that of
+forgetting moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in
+the plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived
+longer, he would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over
+his grave, or maintained his title to the admiration with which
+posterity regards him,&mdash;as the first and only just conqueror that the
+world has produced. But it was no longer the benefactor of Germany who
+fell at Lutzen; the beneficent part of his career Gustavus Adolphus
+had already terminated; and now the greatest service which he could
+render to the liberties of Germany was&mdash;to die. The all-engrossing
+power of an individual was at an end; the equivocal assistance of an
+over-powerful protector gave place to a more noble self-exertion on
+the part of the estates; and those who formerly were the mere
+instruments of his aggrandizement, now began to work for themselves.
+The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired, unquestionably, to
+establish a power within Germany inconsistent with the liberties of
+the estates. His aim was the imperial crown; and this dignity,
+supported by his power, would be liable to more abuse than had ever
+been feared from the house of Austria. His sudden disappearance
+secured the liberties of Germany, and saved his own reputation, while
+it probably spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in
+arms <span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>(p. 118)</span>against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn
+from him by a disadvantageous peace."</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of Lutzen we almost lose sight of Wallenstein, and no
+victories were commensurate with his reputation and abilities. He
+continued inactive in Bohemia, while all Europe was awaiting the
+exploits which should efface the remembrance of his defeat. He
+exhausted the imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and his
+whole conduct seems singular and treacherous. His enemies at the
+imperial court now renewed their intrigues, and his conduct was
+reviewed with the most malicious criticism. But he possessed too great
+power to be openly assailed by the emperor, and measures were
+concerted to remove him by treachery. Wallenstein obtained notice of
+the designs against him, and now, too late, resolved on an open
+revolt. But he was betrayed, and his own generals, on whom he counted,
+deserted him, so soon as the emperor dared to deprive him of his
+command. <span class="inline">Assassination of Wallenstein.</span> But he was only removed by assassination, and just at the
+moment when he deemed himself secure against the whole power of the
+emperor. No man, however great, can stand before an authority which is
+universally deemed legitimate, however reduced and weakened that
+authority may be. In times of anarchy and revolution, there is
+confusion in men's minds respecting the persons in whom legitimate
+authority should be lodged, and this is the only reason why rebellion
+is ever successful.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Wallenstein, in 1634, did not terminate the war. It raged
+eleven years longer, with various success, and involved the other
+European powers. France was then governed by Cardinal Richelieu, who,
+notwithstanding his Catholicism, lent assistance to the Protestants,
+with a view of reducing the power of Austria. Indeed, the war had
+destroyed the sentiments which produced it, and political motives
+became stronger than religious. Oxenstiern and Richelieu became the
+master spirits of the contest, and, in the recesses of their cabinets,
+regulated the campaigns of their generals. Battles were lost and won
+on both sides, and innumerable intrigues were plotted by interested
+statesmen. After all parties had exhausted their resources, and
+Germany was deluged with the blood of Spaniards, Hollanders,
+Frenchmen, Swedes, besides that of her own sons, the <span class="inline">Treaty of Westphalia.</span> peace of
+Westphalia was concluded, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>(p. 119)</span>(1648,)&mdash;the most important treaty
+in the history of Europe. All the princes and states of the empire
+were reëstablished in the lands, rights, and prerogatives which they
+enjoyed before the troubles in Bohemia, in 1619. The religious
+liberties of the Lutherans and Calvinists were guaranteed, and it was
+stipulated that the Imperial Chamber should consist of twenty-four
+Protestant members and twenty-six Catholic, and that the emperor
+should receive six Protestants into the Aulic Council, the highest
+judicial tribunal in the empire. This peace is the foundation of the
+whole system of modern European politics, of all modern treaties, of
+that which is called the freedom of Germany, and of a sort of balance
+of power among all the countries of Western Europe. Dearly was it
+purchased, by the perfect exhaustion of national energies, and the
+demoralizing sentiments which one of the longest and bloodiest wars in
+human history inevitably introduced.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. Coleridge's Translation of
+     Wallenstein. Kohlrausch's History of Germany. See also a
+     history of Germany in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopedia. History of
+     Sweden. Plank on the Political Consequences of the
+     Reformation. The History of Schiller, however is a classic,
+     and is exceedingly interesting and beautiful.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>(p. 120)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.</h4>
+
+
+<p>While Germany was rent with civil commotions, and the power of the
+emperors was limited by the stand taken against it by the Protestant
+princes, France was ruled with an iron hand, and a foundation was laid
+for the despotism of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> The energetic genius of Cardinal
+Richelieu, during the whole period of the thirty years' war, affected
+the councils of all the different courts of Europe. He was
+indisputably the greatest statesman of his age and nation. To him
+France is chiefly indebted for the ascendency she enjoyed in the
+seventeenth century. Had Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> lived to the age of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>,
+France would probably have been permanently greater, although the
+power of the king might not have been so absolute.</p>
+
+<p>When Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> died, he left his kingdom to his son Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr>, a
+child nine years of age. The first thing to be done was the
+appointment of a regent. The Parliament of Paris, in whom this right
+seems to have been vested, nominated the queen mother, <span class="inline">Regency of Mary de Medicis.</span> Mary de
+Medicis, and the young king, in a bed of justice,&mdash;the greatest of the
+royal prerogatives,&mdash;confirmed his mother in the regency. Her regency
+was any thing but favorable to the interests of the kingdom. The
+policy of the late king was disregarded, and a new course of measures
+was adopted. Sully, through whose counsels the reign of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> had
+been so beneficent, was dismissed. The queen regent had no sympathy
+with his views. Neither the corrupt court nor the powerful aristocracy
+cared any thing for the interests of the people, for the improvement
+of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, for the regulation of the
+finances, or for increasing the productive industry of the country, on
+which its material prosperity ever depends. The greedy courtiers
+obtained from a lavish queen the treasures which the wise care of
+Henry had amassed, and which he thoughtlessly bestowed in order to
+secure their fidelity. The foreign policy also <span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>(p. 121)</span>was changed,
+and a strong alliance was made with the pope, with Spain, and with the
+Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>On the retirement of the able and incorruptible Sully, favorites of no
+talent or worth arose to power. Concini, an Italian, controlled the
+queen regent, and through him all her favors flowed. He was succeeded
+by Luynes, a mere falconer, who made himself agreeable to the young
+king, and usurped the power of Concini, when the king attained his
+majority. He became constable of France, the highest officer in the
+realm, and surpassed all the old nobility in arrogance and cupidity.
+His mismanagement and selfishness led to an insurrection of some of
+the great nobles among whom were Condé and D'Épernon.</p>
+
+<p>While the kingdom was thus convulsed with civil war, and in every way
+mismanaged, <span class="inline">Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu.</span> Richelieu, Bishop of Luçon, appeared upon the stage. He
+was a man of high birth, was made doctor of the Sorbonne at the age of
+twenty-two, and, before he was twenty-five, a bishop. During the
+ascendency of Mancini, he attracted the attention of the queen, and
+was selected as secretary of state. Soon after the death of Luynes, he
+obtained a cardinal's hat, and a seat in the council. The moment he
+spoke, his genius predominated, and the monarch, with all his pride,
+bowed to the ascendency of intellect, and yielded, with a good grace,
+to a man whom it was impolitic to resist.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment, in 1622, the reins of empire were in the hands of a
+master, and the king himself, were it not for the splendor of his
+court, would have disappeared from the eye, both of statesmen and
+historians. The reign of anarchy, for a quarter of a century, at
+least, was over, and the way was prepared for the aggrandizement of
+the French monarchy. When Richelieu came into power, universal
+disorder prevailed. The finances were deranged, the Huguenots were
+troublesome, and the nobles were rebellious. Such was the internal
+state of France,&mdash;weakened, distracted, and anarchical. She had lost
+her position among the great powers, and Austria threatened to
+overturn the political relations of all the states of Europe. Austria,
+in the early part of the seventeenth century, was, unquestionably, the
+leading power in Christendom, and her ascendency boded no good to the
+liberties which men were beginning to assert.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>(p. 122)</span>
+
+<p>Three great objects animated the genius of Richelieu, and in the
+attainment of these he was successful. These were, the <span class="inline">Suppression of the Huguenots.</span> suppression of
+the Huguenots, as a powerful party, the humiliation of the great
+barons, and the reduction of the power of Austria. For these objects
+he perseveringly contended for twenty years; and his struggles and
+intrigues to secure these ends constitute the history of France during
+the reign of Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> And they affected not only France, but the
+whole continent. His policy was to preserve peace with England and
+Spain,&mdash;the hereditary enemies of France,&mdash;with Sweden, and with the
+Protestants of Germany, even while he suppressed their religion within
+his own realm. It was the true policy of England to prevent the ruin
+of the Huguenots in France, as before she had aided the Protestants in
+Holland. But, unfortunately, England was then ruled by James and
+Charles, and they were controlled by profligate ministers, who were
+the tools of the crafty cardinal. A feeble assistance was rendered by
+James, but it availed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>In order to annihilate the political power of the Huguenots,&mdash;for
+Richelieu cared more for this than for their religious opinions,&mdash;it
+was necessary that he should possess himself of the city of La
+Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay, a strong fortress, which had resisted,
+during the reign of Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, the whole power of the Catholics, and
+which continued to be the stronghold of the Huguenots. Here they could
+always retire and be safe, in times of danger. It was strongly
+fortified by sea, as well as by land; and only a vigorous blockade
+could exclude provisions and military stores from the people. But
+England was mistress of the ocean, and supplies from her would always
+relieve the besieged.</p>
+
+<p>After ineffectual but vigorous attempts to take the city by land,
+Richelieu determined to shut up its harbor, first by stakes, and then
+by a boom. Both of these measures failed. But the military genius of
+the cardinal was equal to his talents as a statesman. He remembered
+what Alexander did at the siege of Tyre. So, with a volume of Quintus
+Curtius in his hand, he projected and finished a mole, half a mile in
+length, across a gulf, into which the tide flowed. In some places, it
+was eight hundred and forty feet below the surface of the water, and
+sixty feet in breadth. At first, the besieged laughed at an attempt so
+gigantic and difficult. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>(p. 123)</span>But the work steadily progressed,
+and the city was finally cut off from communication with the sea. The
+besieged, wasted by famine, surrendered; the fortifications were
+destroyed, the town lost its independence, and the power of the
+Huguenots was broken forever. But no vengeance was taken on the heroic
+citizens, and they were even permitted to enjoy their religion.
+Fifteen thousand, however, perished at this memorable siege.</p>
+
+<p>The next object of Richelieu was the humiliation of Austria. But the
+detail of his military operations would be complicated and tedious,
+since no grand and decisive battles were fought by his generals, and
+no able commanders appeared. Turenne and Condé belonged to the next
+age. The military operations consisted in frontier skirmishes, idle
+sieges, and fitful expeditions, in which, however, the cardinal had
+the advantage, and by which he gained, since he could better afford to
+pay for them. War is always ruinously expensive, and that party
+generally is successful which can the longer furnish resources. It is
+a proof that religious bigotry did not mainly influence him, since he
+supported the Protestant party. All motives of a religious kind were
+absorbed in his prevailing passion to aggrandize the French monarchy.
+Had it not been for the intrigues and forces of Richelieu, the peace
+of Westphalia might not have been secured, and Austria might again
+have overturned the "Balance of Power."</p>
+
+<p>The third great aim of the minister, and the one which he most
+systematically pursued to the close of his life, was the <span class="inline">The Depression of the Great Nobles.</span> depression of
+the nobles, whose power was dangerously exercised. They had almost
+feudal privileges, were enormously wealthy, numerous, corrupt, and
+dissolute. His efforts to suppress their power raised up numerous
+conspiracies.</p>
+
+<p>Among the earliest was one supported by the queen mother and Gaston,
+Duke of Orleans, brother to the king, and presumptive heir to the
+throne. Connected with this conspiracy were the Dukes of Bourbon and
+Vendome, the Prince de Chalais, and several others of the highest
+rank. It was intended to assassinate the cardinal and seize the reins
+of government. But he got timely notice of the plot, informed the
+king, and guarded himself. The conspirators were too formidable to be
+punished in a body; so he dissembled and resolved to cut them off in
+detail. He moreover threatened <span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>(p. 124)</span>the king with resignation,
+and frightened him by predicting a civil war. In consequence, the king
+gave orders to arrest his brothers, the Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome,
+while the Prince of Chalais was executed. The Duke of Orleans, on the
+confession of Chalais, fled from the kingdom. The queen mother was
+arrested, Bassompierre was imprisoned in the Bastile, and the Duke of
+Guise sent on a pilgrimage to Rome. The powerful D'Épernon sued for
+pardon.</p>
+
+<p>Still Richelieu was not satisfied. He resolved to humble the
+parliament, because it had opposed an ordinance of the king declaring
+the partisans of the Duke of Orleans guilty of treason. It had rightly
+argued that such a condemnation could not be issued without a trial.
+"But," said the artful minister to the weak-minded king, "to refuse to
+verify a declaration which you yourself announced to the members of
+parliament, is to doubt your authority." An extraordinary council was
+convened, and the parliament, which was simply a court of judges, was
+summoned to the royal presence. They went in solemn procession,
+carrying with them the record which showed their refusal to register
+the edict. The king received them with stately pomp. They were
+required to kneel in his presence, and their decree was taken from the
+record and torn in pieces before their eyes, and the leading members
+were suspended and banished.</p>
+
+<p>The Court of Aids, by whom the money edicts were registered, also
+showed opposition. The members left the court when the next edict was
+to be registered. But they were suspended, until they humbly came to
+terms.</p>
+
+<p>"All the malcontents, the queen, the prince, the nobles, the
+parliament, and the Court of Aids hoped for the support of the people,
+and all were disappointed." And this is the reason why they failed and
+Richelieu triumphed. There never have been, among the French,
+disinterestedness and union in the cause of liberty, which never can
+be gained without perseverance and self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>The next usurpation of Richelieu was the erection of a new tribunal
+for trying state criminals, in which no record of its proceedings
+should be preserved, and the members of which should be selected by
+himself. This court was worse than that of the Star Chamber.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>(p. 125)</span>Richelieu showed a still more culpable disregard of the forms
+of justice in the trial of Marshal Marrillac, charged with crimes in
+the conduct of the army. He was brought before a commission, and not
+before his peers, condemned, and executed.</p>
+
+<p>In view of this judicial murder, the nobles, generally, were filled
+with indignation and alarm. They now saw that the minister aimed at
+the complete humiliation of their order, and therefore made another
+effort to resist the cardinal. At the head of this conspiracy was the
+Duke of Montmorency, admiral and constable of France, one of the most
+powerful nobles in the kingdom. He was governor of Provence, and
+deeply resented the insult offered to his rank in the condemnation of
+Marrillac. He moreover felt indignant that the king's brother should
+be driven into exile by the hostility of a priest. He therefore joined
+his forces with those of the Duke of Orleans, was defeated, tried, and
+executed for rebellion, against the entreaty and intercession of the
+most powerful families.</p>
+
+<p>The cardinal minister was now <span class="inline">Power of Richelieu.</span> triumphant over all his enemies. He had
+destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, extended the boundary
+of France, and decimated the nobles. He now turned his attention to
+the internal administration of the kingdom. He created a national
+navy, protected commerce and industry, rewarded genius, and formed the
+French Academy. He attained a greater pitch of greatness than any
+subject ever before or since enjoyed in his country, greater even than
+was possessed by Wolsey. Wolsey, powerful as he was, lived, like a
+Turkish vizier, in constant fear of his capricious master. But
+Richelieu controlled the king himself. Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> feared him, and
+felt that he could not reign without him. He did not love the
+cardinal, and was often tempted to dismiss him, but could never summon
+sufficient resolution. Richelieu was more powerful than the queen
+mother, the brothers of the king, the royal mistresses, or even all
+united, since he obtained an ascendency over all, doomed the queen
+mother to languish in exile at Cologne, and compelled the duke of
+Orleans to succumb to him. He was chief of three of the principal
+monastic orders, and possessed enormous wealth. He erected a palace as
+grand as Hampton Court, and appeared in public with great pomp and
+ceremony.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>(p. 126)</span>
+
+<p>But an end came to his greatness. In 1642, a mortal malady wasted him
+away; he summoned to his death bed his royal master; recommended
+Mazarin as his successor; and died like a man who <span class="inline">Character of Richelieu.</span> knew no remorse, in
+the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the eighteenth of his reign as
+minister. He was eloquent, but his words served only to disguise his
+sentiments; he was direct and frank in his speech, and yet a perfect
+master of the art of dissimulation; he could not be imposed upon, and
+yet was passionately fond of flattery, which he liked in such large
+doses that it seemed hyperbolical; he was not learned, yet appreciated
+learning in others, and magnificently rewarded it; he was fond of
+pleasure, and easily fascinated by women, and yet was cold, politic,
+implacable, and cruel. But he was a great statesman, and aimed to
+suppress anarchy and preserve law. In view of his labors to preserve
+order, we may almost excuse his severity. "Placed," says Montrésor, as
+quoted by Miss Pardoe, "at an equal distance between Louis <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, whose
+aim was to abolish feudality, and the national convention, whose
+attempt was to crush aristocracy, he appeared, like them, to have
+received a mission of blood from heaven." The high nobility, repulsed
+under Louis <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr> and Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, almost entirely succumbed under
+Richelieu, preparing, by its overthrow, the calm, unitarian, and
+despotic reign of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, who looked around him in vain for a
+great noble, and found only courtiers. The great rebellion, which, for
+nearly two centuries, agitated France, almost entirely disappeared
+under the ministry of the cardinal. The Guises, who had touched with
+their hand the sceptre of Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, the Condés, who had placed their
+foot on the steps of the throne of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, and Gaston, who had
+tried upon his brow the crown of Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr>,&mdash;all returned, at the
+voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into
+impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in that
+feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle which
+Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but for that
+of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, were not his
+enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he clung tenaciously by
+the side of a king, whom he compelled to live a melancholy, unhappy,
+and isolated life, whom he deprived successively of his friends, of
+his mistresses, and of his family, as a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>(p. 127)</span>tree is stripped of
+its leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it was because friends,
+mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of the expiring royalty,
+which had need of all its egotism to prevent it from perishing. For it
+was not intestinal struggles merely,&mdash;there was also foreign war,
+which had connected itself fatally with them. All those great nobles
+whom he decimated, all those princes of the blood whom he exiled, were
+inviting foreigners to France; and these foreigners, answering eagerly
+to the summons, were entering the country on three different
+sides,&mdash;the English by Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the
+Austrians by Artois.</p>
+
+<p>"He <span class="inline">Effects of Richelieu's Policy.</span> repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Ré, and by
+besieging La Rochelle; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new
+kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from
+its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing
+dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not
+uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and
+Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his
+hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom.
+Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a
+great general. And when La Rochelle fell before those measures to
+which Schomberg and Bassompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the
+king, 'Sire, I am no prophet, but I assure your majesty that if you
+will condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in
+the month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be on
+your return in the month of August.' And each of these prophecies he
+accomplished in its time and place, and in such wise that, from that
+moment, Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> vowed to follow forever the counsels of a man by
+which he had so well profited. Finally, he died, as Montesquieu
+asserts, after having made the monarch enact the secondary character
+in the monarchy, but the first in Europe; after having abased the
+king, but after having made his reign illustrious; and after having
+mowed down rebellion so close to the soil, that the descendants of
+those who had composed the league could only form the Fronde, as,
+after the reign of Napoleon, the successors of the La Vendée of '93
+could only execute the Vendée of '32."</p>
+
+<p>Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> did not long survive this greatest of ministers. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>(p. 128)</span>
+Naturally weak, he was still weaker by disease. He was reduced to skin
+and bone. In this state, he called a council, nominated his queen,
+Anne of Austria, regent, during the minority of his son Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>,
+then four years of age, and shortly after died, in 1643.</p>
+
+<p>Mazarin, the new minister, followed out the <span class="inline">Richelieu's Policy.</span> policy of Richelieu. The
+war with Austria and Spain was continued, which was closed, on the
+Spanish side, by the victory of Rocroi, in 1643, obtained by the
+Prince of Condé, and in which battle twenty-three thousand Frenchmen
+completely routed twenty-six thousand Spaniards, killing eight
+thousand, and taking six thousand prisoners&mdash;one of the bloodiest
+battles ever fought. The great Condé here obtained those laurels which
+subsequent disgrace could never take away. The war on the side of
+Germany was closed, in 1648, by the peace of Westphalia. Turenne first
+appeared in the latter campaign of this long war, but gained no signal
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Mazarin, a subtle and intriguing Italian, while he pursued
+the policy of Richelieu, had not his genius or success. He was soon
+involved in domestic troubles. The aristocracy rebelled. Had they been
+united, they would have succeeded; but their rivalries, jealousies,
+and squabbles divided their strength and distracted their councils.
+Their cause was lost, and Mazarin triumphed, more from their divisions
+than from his own strength.</p>
+
+<p>He first had to oppose a clique of young nobles, full of arrogance and
+self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They hoped to
+recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The chief of these
+were the Dukes of Beaufort, Épernon, and Guise. They made use, as
+their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confidential friend of the queen
+regent. And she demanded of the minister that posts of honor and power
+should be given to her friends, which would secure that independence
+which Richelieu had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to
+amuse her, but, she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with
+her, and a conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily
+suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of <span class="inline">Cardinal de Retz.</span> De Retz,
+coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a man of
+boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless discontent.
+To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe <span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>(p. 129)</span>a
+labyrinth. He succeeded, however, in keeping the country in perpetual
+turmoil, now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting
+insurrections among the nobles, and then, again, encouraging the
+parliaments in resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every
+movement was directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but
+committed no overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the
+celebrated Duchess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent
+for intrigue as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde&mdash;a civil
+war which ended only in the reëstablishment of the monarchy on a
+firmer foundation. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of
+urchins, who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the
+wits of the court called the insurgents <span class="italic" lang="fr">frondeurs</span>, or slingers,
+insinuating that their force was trifling, and their aim mischief.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy for six
+years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful nobles, and
+even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The people, too, were on
+the side of the rebels, since they were ground down by taxation, and
+hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. But the rebels took the
+side of the oppressed only for their private advantage, and the
+parliament itself lacked the perseverance and intrepidity necessary to
+secure its liberty. The civil war of the Fronde, though headed by
+discontented nobles, and animated by the intrigues of a turbulent
+ecclesiastic, was really the contest between the parliament and the
+arbitrary power of the government. And the insurrection would have
+been fearful and successful, had the people been firm or the nobles
+faithful to the cause they defended. But the English Revolution, then
+in progress, and in which a king had been executed, shocked the lovers
+of constitutional liberty in France, and reacted then, even as the
+French Revolution afterwards reacted on the English mind. Moreover,
+the excesses which the people perpetrated at Paris, alarmed the
+parliament and the nobles who were allied with it, while it urged on
+the ministers to desperate courses. <span class="inline">Prince of Condé.</span> The prince of Condé, whose
+victories had given him an immortality, dallied with both parties, as
+his interests served. Allied with the court, he could overpower the
+insurgents; but allied with the insurgents, he could control the
+court. Sometimes he sided with the minister <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>(p. 130)</span>and sometimes
+with the insurgents, but in neither case unless he exercised a power
+and enjoyed a remuneration dangerous in any government. Both parties
+were jealous of him, both feared him, both hated him, both insulted
+him, and both courted him. At one time, he headed the royal troops to
+attack Paris, which was generally in the hands of the people and of
+parliament; and then, at another, he fought like a tiger to defend
+himself in Paris against the royal troops. He had no sympathy with
+either the parliament or the people, while he fought for them; and he
+venerated the throne, while he rebelled against it. His name was Louis
+de Bourbon, and he was a prince of the blood. He contended against the
+crown only to wrest from it the ancient power of the great nobles; and
+to gain this object, he thought to make the parliament and the
+Parisian mob his tools. The parliament, sincerely devoted to liberty,
+thought to make the nobles its tools, and only leagued with them to
+secure their services. The crafty Mazarin quietly beheld these
+dissensions, and was sure of ultimate success, even though at one time
+banished to Cologne. And, like a reed, he was ever ready to bend to
+difficulties he could not control. But he stooped to conquer. He at
+last got the Prince of Condé, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the
+Duke of Longueville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of
+it, he said, "He has taken a good haul in the net; he has taken a
+lion, a fox, and a monkey." But the princes escaped from the net, and,
+leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other great
+nobles reached Paris, and were received with acclamations of joy by
+the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the ascendant. But
+the ascendency was no sooner gained than the victors quarrelled with
+themselves, and with the parliament, for whose cause they professed to
+contend. It was in their power, when united, to have deprived the
+queen regent of her authority, and to have established constitutional
+liberty in France. But they would not unite. There was no spirit of
+disinterestedness, nor of patriotism, nor public virtue, without which
+liberty is impossible, even though there were forces enough to batter
+down Mount Atlas. Condé, the victor, suffered himself to be again
+bribed by the court. He would not persevere in his alliance with
+either nobles or the parliament. He did not unite with the nobles
+because he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>(p. 131)</span>felt that he was a prince. He did not continue
+with the parliament, because he had no sympathy with freedom. The
+cause of the nobles was lost for want of mutual confidence; that of
+the parliament for lack of the spirit of perseverance. The parliament,
+at length, grew weary of war and of popular commotions, and submitted
+to the court. All parties hated and distrusted each other, more than
+they did the iron despotism of Mazarin. The power of insurgent nobles
+declined. De Retz, the arch intriguer, was driven from Paris. The
+Duchess de Longueville sought refuge in the vale of Port Royal; and,
+in the Jansenist doctrines, sought that happiness which earthly
+grandeur could not secure. Condé quitted Paris to join the Spanish
+armies. The rest of the rebellious nobles made humble submission. The
+people found they had nothing to gain from any dominant party, and
+resigned themselves to another long period of political and social
+slavery. The magistrates abandoned, in despair and disgust, their high
+claims to political rights, while the young king, on his bed of
+justice, decreed that parliament should no more presume to discuss or
+meddle with state affairs. The submissive parliament registered,
+without a murmur, the edict which gave a finishing stroke to its
+liberties. The Fronde war was a complete failure, because all parties
+usurped powers which did not belong to them, and were jealous of the
+rights of each other. The nobles wished to control the king, and the
+magistracy put itself forward to represent the commons, when the
+states general alone was the ancient and true representative of the
+nation, and the body to which it should have appealed. The Fronde
+rebellion was a failure, because it did not consult constitutional
+forms, because it formed unnatural alliances, and because it did not
+throw itself upon the force of immortal principles, but sought to
+support itself by mere physical strength rather than by moral power,
+which alone is the secret and the glory of all great internal changes.</p>
+
+<p>The return of <span class="inline">Power of Mazarin.</span> Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to restore
+the public finances; his second was to secure his personal
+aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had enjoyed,
+and reproved the king, and such a king as Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, as he would a
+schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>(p. 132)</span>married
+them into the first families of France; and amassed a fortune of two
+hundred millions of livres, the largest perhaps that any subject has
+secured in modern times. He even aspired to the popedom; but this
+greatest of all human dignities, he was not permitted to obtain. A
+fatal malady seized him, and the physicians told him he had not two
+months to live. Some days after, he was seen in his dressing-gown,
+among his pictures, of which he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed,
+"Must I quit all these? Look at that Correggio, this Venus of Titian,
+this incomparable deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I
+have loved so dearly, and that have cost me so much."</p>
+
+<p>The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with cards. <span class="inline">Death of Mazarin.</span> He
+expired in 1661; and no minister after him was intrusted with such
+great power. He died unlamented, even by his sovereign, whose throne
+he had preserved, and whose fortune he had repaired. He had great
+talents of conversation, was witty, artful, and polite. He completed
+the work which Richelieu began; and, at his death, his master was the
+most absolute monarch that ever reigned in France.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> et son Siècle. Miss Pardoe's History
+     of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>
+     Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Mémoires
+     de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Mémoires du Duc de Saint
+     Simon. Life of Cardinal de Retz, in which the Fronde war is
+     well traced. Memoir of the Duchess de Longueville.
+     Lacretelle's History of France. Rankin's History of France.
+     Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's History, in Lardner's
+     Cyclopedia. Rowring's History of the Huguenots. Lord Mahon's
+     Life of the Prince of Condé. The above works are the most
+     accessible to the American student.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>(p. 133)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE REIGNS OF JAMES <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> AND CHARLES <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious
+liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, there
+was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the same great
+ends. With the accession of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> a new era commences in English
+history, marked by the growing importance of the House of Commons, and
+their struggles for civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not
+been entirely silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members
+of them occasionally dared to assert those rights of which Englishmen
+are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing which
+pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the Tower any man
+who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects which she deemed that she
+and her ministers alone had the right to discuss. These forbidden
+subjects were those which pertained to the management of religion, to
+her particular courts, and to her succession to the crown. She never
+made an attack on what she conceived to be the constitution, but only
+zealously defended what she considered as her own rights. And she was
+ever sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had
+asserted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the
+appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to
+extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she showed
+great wisdom; so that, in spite of all her crimes and caprices, she
+ever retained the affections of the English people.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Accession of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></span> son of her rival Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne,
+(1603,) under the title of <span class="italic">James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></span>, and was the first of the Stuart
+kings. He had been king of Scotland under the title of <span class="italic">James <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></span>,
+and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly in
+consequence of the turbulence of the nobles, and the bigotry of the
+reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English inheritance,
+but was so poor that he could not begin his journey <span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>(p. 134)</span>until
+Cecil sent him the money. He was crowned, with great ceremony, in
+Westminster Abbey, on the 25th of June.</p>
+
+<p>The first acts of his reign were unpopular; and it was subsequently
+disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. To detail
+these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the events of his
+inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this History.
+Moreover, from this period, modern history becomes very complicated
+and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this work is, an
+allusion to the principal events.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">The Genius of the Reign of James.</span> genius of this reign is the contest between <span class="italic">royal prerogative and
+popular freedom</span>. The proceedings in parliament were characterized by
+a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, while the
+speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obstinate and stupid
+pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from
+their subjects in former ages of despotism and darkness. The boldness
+of the Commons and the bigotry of the king led to incessant
+disagreement and discontent; and, finally, under Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, to open
+rupture, revolution, and strife.</p>
+
+<p>The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of the
+most important and instructive chapters in the history of society and
+the young student cannot make himself too familiar with details, of
+which our limits forbid a description.</p>
+
+<p>The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed until
+after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffering, and
+strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the Stuart dynasty,
+great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to perceive the true
+interests and rights of the people, and a heart and a hand to defend
+them. No period and no nation have ever been more fertile in great men
+than England was from the accession of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> to the abdication of
+James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, a period of eighty-five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, Coke,
+Bacon, Cecil, Selden, Pym, Wentworth, Hollis, Leighton, Taylor,
+Baxter, Howe, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon,
+Burnet, Shaftesbury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a
+light down to our own times, and will continue to shine through all
+future ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took
+part, more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of
+the seventeenth century. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>(p. 135)</span>divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their
+little island the moral centre of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of
+James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, before the struggle between prerogative and liberty
+attracted the attention of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first was the <span class="inline">Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh.</span> conspiracy against the king, in which Lord
+Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh were engaged. We lament that so great a
+favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, so universal a
+genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, should have even
+been suspected of a treasonable project, and without the excuse of
+some traitors, that they wished to deliver their country from tyranny.
+But there is no perfection in man. Sir Walter was restless and
+ambitious, and had an eye mainly to his own advantage. His wit,
+gallantry, and chivalry were doubtless very pleasing qualities in a
+courtier, but are not the best qualities of a patriot. He was
+disappointed because he could not keep pace with Cecil in the favor of
+his sovereign, and because the king took away the monopolies he had
+enjoyed. Hence, in conjunction with other disappointed politicians, he
+was accused of an attempt to seize the king's person, to change the
+ministry, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against
+Raleigh appeared no less a person than the great Coke, who prosecuted
+him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and condemned
+to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear as the evidence
+of his ambition; and much must be attributed to party animosity.
+Though condemned, he was not executed; but lived to write many more
+books, and make many more voyages, to the great delight both of the
+cultivated and the adventurous. That there was a plot to seize the
+king is clear, and the conspirators were detected and executed.
+Raleigh was suspected of this, and perhaps was privy to it; but the
+proofs of his crime were not apparent, except to the judges, and to
+the attorney-general, Coke, who compared the different plots to
+Samson's foxes, joined in the tails, though their heads were
+separated.</p>
+
+<p>The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history of the
+kingdom was the <span class="inline">Gunpowder Plot.</span> Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and other
+disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the king, and
+the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>(p. 136)</span>the
+sympathies of James for their religion, the Catholics had expected
+toleration, at least. But when <span class="inline">Persecution of the Catholics.</span> persecution continued against them,
+some reckless and unprincipled men united in a design to blow up the
+parliament. Percy, a relation of the Earl of Northumberland, was
+concerned in the plot, and many of the other conspirators were men of
+good families and fortunes, but were implacable bigots. They hired a
+cellar, under the parliament house, which had been used for coals; and
+there they deposited thirty-one barrels of gunpowder, waiting several
+months for a favorable time to perpetrate one of the most horrid
+crimes ever projected. It was resolved that Guy Fawkes, one of the
+number, should set fire to the train. They were all ready, and the 5th
+of November, 1605, was at hand, the day to which parliament was
+prorogued; but Percy was anxious to save <span class="italic">his</span> kinsman from the
+impending ruin, Sir Everard Digby wished to warn some of <span class="italic">his</span>
+friends, and Tresham was resolved to give <span class="italic">his</span> brother-in-law, Lord
+Mounteagle, a caution. It seems that this peer received a letter so
+peculiar, that he carried it to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and
+the king detected or suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar
+was explored by the lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was
+found, with all the materials for striking a light, near the vault in
+which the coal and the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized,
+interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned; but the wretch would not
+reveal the names of his associates, although he gloried in the crime
+he was about to commit, and alleged, as his excuse, that violent
+diseases required desperate remedies, the maxim of the Jesuits. But
+most of the conspirators revealed their guilt by flight. They might
+have escaped, had they fled from the kingdom; but they hastened only
+into the country to collect their friends, and head an insurrection,
+which, of course, was easily suppressed. The leaders in this plot were
+captured and executed, and richly deserved their fate, although it was
+clear that they were infatuated. But in all crime there is
+infatuation. It was suspected that the Jesuits were at the bottom of
+the conspiracy; and the whole Catholic population suffered reproach
+from the blindness and folly of a few bigots, from whom no sect or
+party ever yet has been free. But there is no evidence that any of the
+Catholic clergy were even privy to the intended crime, which was known
+only to the absolute <span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>(p. 137)</span>plotters. Some Jesuits were indeed
+suspected, arrested, tortured, and executed; but no evidence of guilt
+was brought against them sufficient to convict them. But their
+acquittal was impossible in such a state of national alarm and horror.
+Nothing ever made a more lasting and profound impression on the
+English mind than this intended crime; and it strengthened the
+prejudices against the Catholics even more than the persecutions under
+Queen Mary. Had the crime been consummated, it would only have proved
+a blunder. It would have shocked and irritated the nation beyond all
+self-control; and it is probable that the whole Catholic population
+would have been assassinated, or hunted out, as victims for the
+scaffold, in every corner of England. It proved, however, a great
+misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever received in
+England. Thus God overrules all human wickedness. There was one person
+who suffered, in consequence of the excited suspicions of the nation,
+whose fate we cannot but compassionate; and this person was the Earl
+of Northumberland, who was sentenced to pay a fine of thirty thousand
+pounds, to be deprived of all his offices, and to be imprisoned in the
+Tower for life, and simply because he was the head of the Catholic
+party, and a promoter of toleration. Indeed, penal statutes against
+the Catholics were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic was permitted to
+appear at court, or live in London, or within ten miles of it, or
+remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his home, without
+especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to practise
+surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer of any
+court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator,
+executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child
+baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one
+hundred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was compelled
+to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every recusant was
+outlawed; his house might be broken open; his books and furniture
+destroyed; and his horses and arms taken from him. Such was the severe
+treatment with which the Catholics, even those who were good citizens,
+were treated by our fathers in England; and this persecution was
+defended by some of the greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which
+England has produced. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>(p. 138)</span>And yet some maintain that there has
+been no progress in society, except in material civilization!</p>
+
+<p>One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency
+which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and
+vacillating mind. Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr> and Elizabeth had their favorites; but
+they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey,
+Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great men, and worthy of the trust
+reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft,
+with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity,
+reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
+It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his
+secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and Coke was his chief justice.
+But <span class="inline">Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.</span> Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and
+were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early
+been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would
+make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the
+king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall.
+In presenting his lord's shield to the king, his horse fell and threw
+him at James's feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made.
+James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident,
+sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him
+Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been
+neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster
+than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so
+that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of
+the age." <span class="inline">Greatness and Fall of Somerset.</span> Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was
+knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as
+they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied
+with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends.
+He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, was created Viscount
+Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then
+Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as
+lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place as treasurer. Rochester, in
+effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created
+Earl of Somerset, in order that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>(p. 139)</span>he might marry the Countess
+of Essex, the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English
+court. She was daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of
+the old Duke of Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged
+to the first family in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age
+of thirteen, but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already
+enamored of the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she
+obtained a divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and
+through the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he
+delighted to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the
+ruin of all who opposed her wishes. But she proved a beautiful demon,
+a fascinating fury, as might be expected from such an unprincipled
+woman, although ennobled by "the blood of all the Howards." Her reign
+lasted, however, only during the ascendency of her husband. For a
+time, "glorious days were succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks
+and dancings had a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the
+spirit of the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly
+things." But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fashion,
+leaves. Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For
+the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in the
+Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess were
+tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, and,
+after a few years' imprisonment, retired to the country, with his
+lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the Lady Anna
+Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the first duke of
+Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who died on the scaffold,
+a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> The origin of the
+noble families of England is curious. Some few are descended from
+successful Norman chieftains, who came over with William the
+Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. Others are the
+descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, or warriors,
+obtained great position, power, and wealth, during former reigns. Many
+owe their greatness to the fact that they are the offspring of the
+illegitimate children of kings, or the descendants of the ignoble
+minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in the peerage on account of
+their great wealth; and a still smaller number for the eminent
+services they have rendered their country <span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>(p. 140)</span>like Wellington,
+Brougham, or Ellenborough. A vast majority can boast only the merit or
+the successful baseness of their ancestors. But all of them are
+interlinked by marriages, and therefore share together the glory or
+the shame of their progenitors, so far as glory and shame can be
+transmitted from father to son, independently of all individual virtue
+or vice.</p>
+
+<p>Carr was succeeded in the royal favor by <span class="inline">Duke of Buckingham.</span> Villiers, and he, more
+fortunate, ever retained the ascendency over the mind and heart of
+James, as well as of his son Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> George Villiers owed his
+fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, his
+Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. He
+became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy council,
+then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, lord high
+admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of Westminster,
+constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in eyre of the parks
+and forests. "The doting and gloating king" had taught Somerset Latin;
+he attempted to teach Buckingham divinity, and called him ever by the
+name of "Steenie." And never was there such a mixture of finery,
+effeminacy, insolence, and sycophancy in any royal minion before or
+since. Beau Brummell never equalled him in dress, Wolsey in
+magnificence, Mazarin in peculation, Walpole in corruption, Jeffries
+in insolence, or Norfolk in pride. He was the constant companion of
+the king, to whose vices he pandered, and through him the royal favor
+flowed. But no rewards, or favors, or greatness satisfied him; not so
+much because he was ambitious, as because, like a spoiled child, he
+did not appreciate the magnitude of the gifts which were bestowed on
+him. Nor did he ever know his place; but made love to the queen of
+France herself, when he was sent on an embassy. He trampled on the
+constitution, subverted the laws, ground down the people by taxes, and
+taught the king to disregard the affections of his subjects, and to
+view them as his slaves. But such a triumph of iniquity could not be
+endured; and Buckingham was finally assassinated, after he had gained
+an elevation higher than any English subject ever before attained,
+except Wolsey, and without the exercise of any qualities which
+entitled him to a higher position than a master of ceremonies at a
+fashionable ball. It is easy to conceive that such a minion should
+arrive at power <span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>(p. 141)</span>under such a monarch as James; but how can
+we understand that such a man as <span class="inline">Lord Bacon.</span> Lord Bacon, the chancellor, the
+philosopher, the statesman, the man of learning, genius, and wisdom,
+should have bowed down to the dust, in vile subserviency, to this
+infamous favorite of the king. Surely, what lessons of the frailty of
+human nature does the reign of James teach us! The most melancholy
+instance of all the singular cases of human inconsistency, at this
+time, is the conduct of the great Bacon himself, who reached the
+zenith of his power during this reign. It is not the receiving of a
+bribe, while exercising the highest judicial authority in the land, on
+which alone his shame rests, but his insolent conduct to his
+inferiors, his acquiescence in wrong, his base and unmanly sycophancy,
+his ingratitude to his friends and patrons, his intense selfishness
+and unscrupulous ambition while climbing to power, and, above all, his
+willingness to be the tool of a despot who trampled on the rights and
+liberties which God had given him to guard; and this in an age of
+light, of awakened intelligence, when even his crabbed rival Coke was
+seeking to explode the abuses of the Dark Ages. But "the difference
+between the soaring angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of
+the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the
+attorney-general, Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the
+Seals." As the author of the Novum Organum, as the pioneer of modern
+science, as the calm and patient investigator of nature's laws, as the
+miner and sapper of the old false systems of philosophy which enslaved
+the human mind, as the writer for future generations, he has received,
+as he has deserved, all the glory which admiring and grateful millions
+can bestow, of his own nation, and of all nations. No name in British
+annals is more illustrious than his, and none which is shaded with
+more lasting shame. Pope alone would have given him an immortality as
+the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." The only defence for the
+political baseness of Bacon&mdash;and this is insufficient&mdash;is, that all
+were base around him. The years when he was in power are among the
+darkest and most disgraceful in English history.</p>
+
+<p>Allusion has been made to the reign of favorites; but this was but a
+small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad and at home
+was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>(p. 142)</span>multiplied; the
+most grievous exactions were made; indefensible executions were
+ordered; the laws were perverted; justice was sold; and an ignominious
+war was closed by a still more ignominious peace. <span class="inline">Trial and Execution of Raleigh.</span> The execution of
+Raleigh was a disgrace to the king, the court, and the nation, because
+the manner of it was so cowardly and cruel. He had been convicted, in
+the early part of the reign, of treason, and committed to the Tower.
+There he languished twelve years, amusing himself by writing a
+universal history, and in seeking the elixir of life; for, in the
+mysteries of chemistry, and in the mazes of historical lore, as in the
+intrigues of courts, and dangers of camps, he was equally at home.</p>
+
+<p>He was released from his prison in order to take command of an
+adventurous expedition to Guiana in quest of gold. In a former voyage
+he had visited the banks of the Oronoco in quest of the city of Manoa,
+where precious stones and gold existed in exhaustless treasures. That
+El Dorado he could not find; but now, in prison, he proposed to
+Secretary Winwood an expedition to secure what he had before sought in
+vain. The king wavered a while between his cupidity and fear; for,
+while he longed for gold, as the traveller does for water on the
+desert of Sahara, he was afraid of giving offence to the Spanish
+ambassador. But his cupidity was the stronger feeling, and Raleigh was
+sent with fourteen ships to the coasts of South America. The
+expedition was in every respect unfortunate to Raleigh and to the
+king. The gallant commander lost his private fortune and a promising
+son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied and
+deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to meet a
+disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such times, failure
+is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for offences he never
+committed. The most glaring injustice, harshness, and sophistry were
+resorted to, even by Bacon; but still Raleigh triumphantly defended
+himself. But no innocence or eloquence could save him; and he was
+executed on the sentence which had been pronounced against him for
+treason fifteen years before. To such meanness and cowardice did his
+enemies resort to rid the world of a universal genius, whose crime&mdash;if
+crime he ever committed&mdash;had long been consigned to oblivion.</p>
+
+
+<p>But we cannot longer dwell on the lives of eminent individuals
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>(p. 143)</span>during the reign of James. However interesting may be the
+details of their fortunes, their history dwindles into insignificance
+when compared with the great public injuries which an infatuated
+monarch inflicted. Not cruel in his temper, not stained by personal
+crimes, quite learned in Greek and Latin, but weak and ignorant of his
+duties as a king, <span class="inline">Encroachments of James.</span> he was inclined to trespass on the rights of his
+subjects. As has been already remarked, the genius of his reign was
+the contest between prerogative and liberty. The Commons did not
+acquiesce in his measures, or yield to his wishes, as they did during
+the reign of Elizabeth. He had a notion that the duty of a king was to
+command, and that of the subject was to obey, in all things; that
+kings ruled by divine right, and were raised by the Almighty above all
+law. But such notions were not approved by a parliament which swarmed
+with Puritans, and who were not careful to conceal their views from
+the king. They insisted on their privileges as tenaciously as the king
+insisted on his prerogative, and often came into collision with him.
+And they instituted an inquiry into monopolies, and attacked the
+monstrous abuses of purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by
+which, among other things, the king became guardian to wards, and
+received the profits of their estates during their minority. These
+feudal claims, by which the king, in part, received his revenue, were
+every year becoming less valuable to the crown, and more offensive to
+the people. The king, at length, was willing to compound, and make a
+bargain with the Commons, by which he was to receive two hundred
+thousand pounds a year, instead of the privileges of wardship, and
+other feudal rights. But his necessities required additional grants,
+which the Commons were unwilling to bestow; and the king then resorted
+to the sale of monopolies and even peerages, sent the more turbulent
+of the Commons to prison, and frequently dissolved parliament. He was
+resolved to tax the people if supplies were not granted him, while the
+Commons maintained that no taxation could be allowed without their
+consent. Moreover, the Commons refused to grant such supplies as the
+king fancied he needed, unless certain grievances were redressed,
+among which was the High Commission Court, an arbitrary tribunal,
+which fined and imprisoned without appeal. But James, though pressed
+for money, stood firm to his notions <span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>(p. 144)</span>of prerogative, and
+supplied his most urgent necessities by illegal means. People were
+dragged to the Star Chamber, on all kinds of accusations, that they
+might be sentenced to pay enormous fines; new privileges and
+monopolies were invented, and new dignities created. Baronets, who are
+hereditary knights, were instituted, and baronetcies were sold for one
+thousand pounds each.</p>
+
+<p>But the monopolies which the king granted, in order to raise money,
+did not inflame the Commons so much as the projected marriage between
+the prince of Wales and the infanta of Spain. James flattered himself
+that this Spanish match, to arrange which he had sent Buckingham to
+the court of Madrid, would procure the restitution of the Palatinate
+to the elector, who had been driven from his throne. But the Commons
+thought differently. They, as well as the people generally, were
+indignant in view of the inactivity of the government in not sending
+aid to the distressed Protestants of Germany; and the loss of the
+Palatinate was regarded as a national calamity. They saw no good which
+would accrue from an alliance with the enemies and persecutors of
+these Protestants; but, on the other hand, much evil. As the
+constitutional guardians, therefore, of the public welfare and
+liberty, <span class="inline">Quarrel between James and Parliament.</span> they framed a remonstrance to the king, representing the
+overgrown power of Austria as dangerous to the liberties of Europe,
+and entreated his majesty to take up arms against Spain, which was
+allied with Austria, and by whose wealth Austrian armies were
+supported.</p>
+
+<p>James was inflamed with indignation at this remonstrance, which
+militated against all his maxims of government; and he forthwith wrote
+a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, commanding him to
+admonish the members "not to presume to meddle with matters of state
+which were beyond their capacity, and especially not to touch on his
+son's marriage." The Commons, not dismayed, and conscious of strength,
+sent up a new remonstrance in which they affirmed that they <span class="italic">were</span>
+entitled to interpose with their counsel in all matters of state, and
+that entire freedom of speech was their ancient and undoubted right,
+transmitted from their ancestors. The king, in reply, told the
+Commons, that "their remonstrance was more like a denunciation of war,
+than an address of dutiful subjects, and that their pretension to
+inquire into state <span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>(p. 145)</span>affairs was a plenipotence to which none
+of their ancestors, even during the weakest reigns, had ever dared to
+aspire." He farther insinuated that their privileges were derived from
+royal favor. On this, the Commons framed another protest,&mdash;that the
+liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are
+the ancient and undoubted birthright of Englishmen, and that every
+member has the right of freedom of speech. This protest they entered
+upon their journals, upon which James lost all temper, ordered the
+clerk to bring him the journals, erased the protestation with his own
+hand, in presence of the judges and the council, and then dissolved
+the parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing else of note occurred in this reign, except the prosecution of
+the Spanish match, which was so odious to the nation that Buckingham,
+to preserve his popularity, broke off the negotiations, and by a
+system of treachery and duplicity as hateful as were his original
+efforts to promote the match. War with Spain was the result of the
+insult offered to the infanta and the court. An alliance was now made
+with France, and Prince Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of
+Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> The Commons then granted abundant supplies for war, to
+recover the Palatinate; and liberty of conscience was granted by the
+monarch, on the demands of Richelieu, to the Catholics&mdash;so long and,
+perseveringly oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after, (March 27, 1625,) King James <span class="inline">Death of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></span> died at Theobalds, his
+favorite palace, from a disease produced by anxiety, gluttony, and
+sweet wines, after a reign in England of twenty-two years; and his
+son, Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, before the breath was out of his body, was proclaimed
+king in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>The course pursued by James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> was adopted by his son; and, as their
+reigns were memorable for the same struggle, we shall consider them
+together until revolution gave the victory to the advocates of
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> was twenty-five years of age when he began his reign. In a
+moral and social point of view he was a more respectable man than his
+father, but had the same absurd notions of the royal prerogative, the
+same contempt of the people, the same dislike of constitutional
+liberty, and the same resolution of maintaining the absolute power of
+the crown, at any cost. He was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>(p. 146)</span>moreover, perplexed by the
+same embarrassments, was involved in debt, had great necessities, and
+was dependent on the House of Commons for aid to prosecute his wars
+and support the dignity of the crown. But he did not consider the
+changing circumstances and spirit of the age, and the hostile and
+turbulent nature of his people. He increased, rather than diminished,
+the odious monopolies which irritated the nation during the reign of
+his father; he clung to all the old feudal privileges; he retained the
+detestable and frivolous Buckingham as his chief minister; and, when
+Buckingham was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and
+unscrupulous; he insisted on taxing the people without their consent,
+threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebellion. In
+all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every allowance
+for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man would have seen the
+rising storm, and might possibly have averted it. But Charles never
+dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury on his devoted head, and
+consigned him to the martyr's grave. We pity his fate, but lament
+still more his blindness. And so great was this blindness, that it
+almost seems as if Providence had marked him out to be a victim on the
+altar of human progress.</p>
+
+<p>With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most exciting
+period of English history, and a period to which historians have given
+more attention than to any other great historical era, the French
+Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe the leading events
+in this exciting age and reign would be, in this connection, absurd;
+and yet some notice of them cannot be avoided.</p>
+
+<p>For more than ten centuries, <span class="inline">The Struggle of Classes.</span> great struggles have been going on in
+society between the dominant orders and sects. The victories gained by
+the oppressed millions, over their different masters, constitute what
+is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of the people have
+occasionally arisen from orders to which they did not belong. When,
+then, any great order defended the cause of the people against the
+tyranny and selfishness of another order, then the people have
+advanced a step in civil and social freedom.</p>
+
+<p>When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, "the clergy sought,
+on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and the poor
+man had no other asylum than the churches, no other <span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>(p. 147)</span>
+protectors than the priests; and, as the priests offered food to the
+moral nature of man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the
+preponderance passed from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid of the
+church, royalty also rose above feudalism, and aided the popular
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to enslave the
+kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from humiliated nobles
+and from the people, became the dominant power in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>In these struggles between nobles and the clergy, and between the
+clergy and kings, <span class="inline">Rise of Popular Power.</span> the people had acquired political importance. They
+had obtained a knowledge of their rights and of their strength; and
+they were determined to maintain them. They liked not the tyranny of
+either nobles, priests, or kings; but they bent all their energies to
+suppress the power of the latter, since the two former had been
+already humiliated.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle of the people against royalty is preëminently the genius
+of the English Revolution. It is to be doubted whether any king could
+have resisted the storm of popular fury which hurled Charles from his
+throne. But no king could have managed worse than he, no king could be
+more unfortunately and unpropitiously placed; and his own imprudence
+and folly hastened the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, spirit, and
+popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived the difficulties
+and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate or generous effort to
+relieve him from them. Some of the more turbulent rejoiced in them.
+They knew that kings, like other men, were selfish, and that it was
+not natural for people to part with their privileges and power without
+a struggle, even though this power was injurious to the interests of
+society. In the Middle Ages, barons, bishops, and popes had fought
+desperately in the struggle of classes; and it was only from their
+necessities that either kings or people had obtained what they
+demanded. King Charles, no more than Pope Boniface <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr>, would
+surrender, as a boon to man, without compulsion, his supposed
+omnipotence.</p>
+
+<p>The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his father, and
+by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>(p. 148)</span>would
+not pay for. They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain
+his honor, the paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds,
+and the duties of tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was
+customary, but for a year. <span class="inline">Quarrel between the King and the Commons.</span> Nothing could be more provoking to a young
+king. Of course, the money was soon spent, and the king wanted more,
+and had a right to expect more. But, if the Commons granted what the
+king required, he would be made independent of them, and he would rule
+tyrannically, as the kings of England did before him. So they resolved
+not to grant necessary supplies to carry on the government, unless the
+king would part with the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those
+old feudal privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the
+people. Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in
+his age, would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil
+war was inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were
+resolved on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the
+Commons could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and,
+moreover, in case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he
+fancied that he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit
+of resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons
+were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the
+sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the
+Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to
+enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles
+of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and
+religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed
+that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them,
+they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their
+constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in
+debate. These notions of the people were <span class="italic">ideas</span>. On ideas all
+governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt
+they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of
+Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support
+given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could
+he do? What could Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> do one hundred and fifty years
+afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without
+the loyalty of the people, is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>(p. 149)</span>a phantom, a mockery, and a
+delusion, unless he have physical force to sustain him; and even then
+armies will rebel, if they feel they are not bound to obey, and if it
+is not for their interest to obey.</p>
+
+<p>Now Charles had neither <span class="italic">loyalty</span> nor <span class="italic">force</span> to hold him on his
+throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in
+speculations destroyed the former; the House of Commons would not
+grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant
+supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the people
+better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by his
+concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would not make
+the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal to arms.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles was not without friends, and some of his <span class="inline">The Counsellors of Charles.</span> advisers were men
+of sagacity and talent. It is true they did not fully appreciate the
+weakness of the king, or the strength of his enemies; but they saw his
+distress, and tried to remove it. They, very naturally in such an age,
+recommended violent courses&mdash;to grant new monopolies, to extort fines,
+to exercise all his feudal privileges, to pawn the crown jewels, even,
+in order to raise money; for money, at all events, he must have. They
+advised him to arrest turbulent and incendiary members of the Commons,
+to prorogue and dissolve parliaments, to raise forced loans, to impose
+new duties, to shut up ports, to levy fresh taxes, and to raise armies
+friendly to his cause. In short, they recommended unconstitutional
+measures&mdash;measures which both they and the king knew to be
+unconstitutional, but which they justified on the ground of necessity.
+And the king, in his perplexity, did what his ministers advised. But
+every person who was sent to the Tower, every new tax, every sentence
+of the Star Chamber, every seizure of property, every arbitrary
+command, every violation of the liberties of the people, raised up new
+enemies to the king, and inflamed the people with new discontents.</p>
+
+<p>At first the Commons felt that they could obtain what they wanted&mdash;a
+redress of grievances, if the king's favorite adviser and minister
+were removed. Besides, they all hated Buckingham&mdash;peers, commons, and
+people,&mdash;and all sought his downfall. He had no friends among the
+people, as Essex had in the time of Elizabeth. His extravagance, pomp,
+and insolence disgusted all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>(p. 150)</span>orders; and his reign seemed to
+be an insult to the nation. Even the people regarded him as an
+upstart, setting himself above the old nobility, and enriching himself
+by royal domains, worth two hundred eighty-four thousand three hundred
+and ninety-five pounds. So the Commons violently attacked his
+administration, and impeached him. But he was shielded by the king,
+and even appointed to command an expedition to relieve La Rochelle,
+then besieged by Richelieu. <span class="inline">Death of Buckingham &mdash; Petition of Right.</span> But he was stabbed by a religious fanatic,
+by the name of Felton, as he was about to embark at Portsmouth. His
+body was removed to London, and he was buried with great state in
+Westminster Abbey, much lamented by the king, who lost his early
+friend, one of the worst ministers, but not the worst man, which that
+age despised, (1628.)</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the indignant Commons persevered with their work. They
+passed what is called the "Petition of Right,"&mdash;a string of
+resolutions which asserted that no freeman ought to be detained in
+prison, without being brought to trial, and that no taxes could be
+lawfully levied, without consent of the Commons&mdash;the two great pillars
+of the English constitution, yet truths involved in political
+difficulty, especially in cases of rebellion. The personal liberty of
+the subject is a great point indeed; and the act of <span class="italic">habeas corpus</span>,
+passed in later times, is a great step in popular freedom; but, if
+never to be suspended, no government could guard against conspiracy in
+revolutionary times.</p>
+
+<p>The Petition of Right, however, obtained the king's assent, though
+unwillingly, grudgingly, and insincerely given; and the Commons,
+gratified for once, voted to the king supplies.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles had no notion of keeping his word, and soon resorted to
+unconstitutional measures, as before. But he felt the need of able
+counsellors. His "dear Steenie" was dead, and he knew not in whom to
+repose confidence.</p>
+
+<p>The demon of despotism raised up an agent in the person of <span class="inline">Earl of Strafford.</span> Thomas
+Wentworth, a man of wealth, talents, energy, and indomitable courage;
+a man who had, in the early part of his career, defended the cause of
+liberty; who had even suffered imprisonment sooner than contribute to
+an unlawful loan, and in whom the hopes of the liberal party were
+placed. But he was bribed. His patriotism was not equal to his
+ambition. Seduced by a peerage, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>(p. 151)</span>and by the love of power, he
+went over to the side of the king, and defended his arbitrary rule as
+zealously as he had before advocated the cause of constitutional
+liberty. He was created Viscount Wentworth, and afterwards earl of
+Strafford&mdash;the most prominent man of the royalist party, and the
+greatest traitor to the cause of liberty which England had ever known.
+His picture, as painted by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall
+of his descendant, Earl Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of what
+history represents him&mdash;a cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupulous tyrant,
+with an eye capable of reading the secrets of the soul, a brow
+lowering with care and thought, and a lip compressed with
+determination, and twisted into contempt of mankind. If Wentworth did
+not love his countrymen, he loved to rule over them: and he gained his
+end, and continued the prime minister of absolutism until an insulted
+nation rose in their might, and placed his head upon the block.</p>
+
+<p>Under the rule of this minister, whom every one feared, the Puritans
+every where fled, preferring the deserts of America, with freedom, to
+the fair lands of England, with liberty trodden under foot. The reigns
+of both James and Charles are memorable for the resistance and despair
+of this intrepid and religious sect, in which were enrolled some of
+the finest minds and most intelligent patriots of the country. Pym,
+Cromwell, Hazelrig, and even Hampden, are said to have actually
+embarked; but Providence detained them in England, they having a
+mission of blood to perform there. In another chapter, the Puritans,
+their struggles, and principles, will be more fully presented; and we
+therefore, in this connection, abstain from further notice. It may,
+however, be remarked, that they were the most inflexible enemies of
+the king, and were determined to give him and his minister no rest
+until all their ends were gained. They hated Archbishop Laud even more
+intensely than they hated Wentworth; and Laud, if possible, was a
+greater foe to religious and civil liberty. Strafford and Laud are
+generally coupled together in the description of the abuses of
+arbitrary power. The churchman, however, was honest and sincere, only
+his views were narrow and his temper irritable. His vices were those
+of the bigot&mdash;such as disgraced St. Dominic or Torquemada, but faults
+which he deemed excellencies. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>(p. 152)</span>He was an enthusiast in high
+churchism and toryism; and his zeal in defence of royal prerogative
+and the divine rights of bishops has won for him the panegyrics of his
+friends, as well as the curses of his enemies. For Strafford, too,
+there is admiration, but only for his talents, his courage, his
+strength&mdash;the qualities which one might see in Milton's Satan, or in
+Carlyle's picture gallery of heroes.</p>
+
+<p>While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and
+contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the Tower,
+fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new imposition
+called out the energies of a great patriot and a great man, John
+<span class="inline">John Hampden.</span> Hampden&mdash;a fit antagonist of the haughty Wentworth. This new exaction
+was a tax called <span class="italic">ship money</span>.</p>
+
+<p>It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General Noy, two
+subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and designed to
+extort money from the inland counties, as well as from the cities, for
+furnishing ships&mdash;a demand that Elizabeth did not make, in all her
+power, even when threatened by the Spanish Armada. Clarendon even
+admits that this tax was not for the support of the navy, "but for a
+spring and magazine which should have no bottom, and for an
+everlasting supply on all occasions." And this the nation completely
+understood, and resolved desperately to resist.</p>
+
+<p>Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share assessed on
+him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an illegal tax. He
+was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. Hampden appealed to a
+decision of the judges in regard to the legality of the tax, and the
+king permitted the question to be settled by the laws. The trial
+lasted thirteen days, but ended in the condemnation of Hampden, who
+had shown great moderation, as well as courage, and had won the favor
+of the people. It was shortly after this that Hampden, as some
+historians assert, resolved to leave England with his cousin Oliver
+Cromwell. But the king prevented the ships, in which they and other
+emigrants had embarked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new
+trials and new labors.</p>
+
+<p>About a month after Hampden's condemnation, an <span class="inline">Insurrection in Scotland.</span> insurrection broke out
+in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It <span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>(p. 153)</span>was
+produced by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the English
+liturgy on the Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterianism by
+Episcopacy. The revolutions in Scotland, from the time of Knox, had
+been popular; not produced by great men, but by the diffusion of great
+ideas. The people believed in the spiritual independence of their
+church, and not in the supremacy of a king. The instant, therefore,
+that the Episcopal worship was introduced, by authority, in the
+cathedral of Edinburgh, there was an insurrection, which rapidly
+spread through all parts of the country. An immense multitude came to
+Edinburgh to protest against the innovation, and crowded all the
+houses, streets, and halls of the city. The king ordered the
+petitioners home, without answering their complaints. They obeyed the
+injunction, but soon returned in greater numbers. An organization of
+resistance was made, and a provisional government appointed. All
+classes joined the insurgents, who, menaced, but united, at last bound
+themselves, by a solemn league and covenant, not to separate until
+their rights and liberties were secured. A vast majority of all the
+population of Scotland&mdash;gentlemen, clergy, citizens, and laborers,
+men, women, and children&mdash;assembled in the church, and swore fealty to
+the covenant. Force, of course, was necessary to reduce the rebels,
+and civil war commenced in Scotland. But war increased the necessities
+of the king, and he was compelled to make peace with the insurgent
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last
+parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without one,
+and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of the crown
+lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Imposts fallen into
+desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, royal forests extended
+beyond the limits they had in feudal times, fines past all endurance,
+confiscations without end, imprisonments, tortures, and
+executions,&mdash;all marked these eleven years. The sum for fines alone,
+in this period, amounted to more than two hundred thousand pounds. The
+forest of Rockingham was enlarged from six to sixty miles in circuit,
+and the earl of Salisbury was fined twenty thousand pounds for
+encroaching upon it. Individuals and companies had monopolies of salt,
+soap, coals, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer,
+distilled liquors, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>(p. 154)</span>herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth,
+rags, hops, gunpowder, and divers other articles, which, of course,
+deranged the whole trade of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand
+pounds, and had his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an
+offensive book; and his sufferings were not greater than what divers
+others experienced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty.</p>
+
+<p>At last, the king's necessities compelled him to summon another
+parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise money. His army
+clamored for pay; and he was overburdened with debts.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew its
+strength, and was determined now, <span class="inline">Long Parliament.</span> more than ever, to exercise it. It
+immediately took the power into its own hands, and from remonstrances
+and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities; from the
+denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample on
+the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irritated
+and threatened, and some of their number had been seized and
+imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, and was
+resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The struggle became
+one of desperation on both sides&mdash;a struggle for ascendency&mdash;and not
+for rights.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeachment of
+Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, where, as lord
+lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power and regal audacity; he
+had been summoned by his perplexed and desponding master to assist him
+by his counsels. Reluctantly he obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had
+scarcely arrived in London when the intrepid Pym accused him of high
+treason. The Lords accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister
+was committed to the Tower.</p>
+
+<p>The impeachment of Laud soon followed; but he was too sincere in his
+tyranny to understand why he should be committed. Nor was he feared,
+as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance of the parliament was
+especially directed. A secret committee, invested with immense powers,
+was commissioned to scrutinize his whole life, and his destruction was
+resolved upon. On the 22d of March his trial began, and lasted
+seventeen days, during which time, unaided, he defended himself
+against thirteen accusers, with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>(p. 155)</span>consummate ability. Indeed,
+he had studied his charges and despised his adversaries. Under
+ordinary circumstances, he would have been acquitted, for there was
+not sufficient evidence to convict him of high treason; but an
+unscrupulous and infuriated body of men were thirsting for his blood,
+and it was proposed to convict him by bill of attainder; that is, by
+act of parliament, on its own paramount authority, with or without the
+law. The bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence
+of the attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the Tower.</p>
+
+<p>Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister; had he been
+magnanimous, he would have stood by him to the last. But he had
+neither the power to save him, nor the will to make adequate
+sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and gave his
+consent to the execution of the main agent of all his aggressions on
+the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Strafford deserved his
+fate, although the manner of his execution was not according to law.</p>
+
+<p>A few months after the execution of Strafford, an event occurred which
+proved exceedingly unfortunate to the royal cause; and this was the
+<span class="inline">Rebellion of Ireland.</span> rebellion of Ireland, and the massacre of the Protestant population,
+caused, primarily, by the oppressive government of England, and the
+harsh and severe measures of the late lord lieutenant. In the course
+of a few weeks, the English and Scottish colonies seemed almost
+uprooted; one of the most frightful butcheries was committed that ever
+occurred. The Protestants exaggerated their loss; but it is probable
+that at least fifty thousand were massacred. The local government of
+Dublin was paralyzed. The English nation was filled with deadly and
+implacable hostility, not against the Irish merely, but against the
+Catholics every where. It was supposed that there was a general
+conspiracy among the Catholics to destroy the whole nation; and it was
+whispered that the queen herself had aided the revolted Irish. The
+most vigorous measures were adopted to raise money and troops for
+Ireland. The Commons took occasion of the general spirit of discontent
+and insurrection to prepare a grand remonstrance on the evils of the
+kingdom, which were traced to a "coalition of Papists, Arminian
+bishops and clergymen, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>(p. 156)</span>evil courtiers and counsellors."
+The Commons recited all the evils of the last sixteen years, and
+declared the necessity of taking away the root of them, which was the
+arbitrary power of the sovereign. The king, in reply, told the Commons
+that their remonstrance was unparliamentary; that he could not
+understand what they meant by a wicked party; that bishops were
+entitled to their votes in parliament; and that, as to the removal of
+evil counsellors, they must name whom they were. The remonstrance was
+printed and circulated by the Commons, which was of more effect than
+an army could have been.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were affairs rapidly reaching a crisis, when the attempt to seize
+five of the most refractory and able members of parliament consummated
+it. The members were Hollis, Hazelrig, Pym, Hampden, and Strode; and
+they were accused of high treason. This movement of the king was one
+of the greatest blunders and one of the most unconstitutional acts he
+ever committed. The Commons refused to surrender their members; and
+then the king went down to the house, with an armed force, to seize
+them. But Pym and others got intelligence of the design of Charles,
+and had time to withdraw before he arrived. "The baffled tyrant
+returned to Whitehall with his company of bravoes," while the city of
+London sheltered Hampden and his friends. The shops were shut, the
+streets were filled with crowds, and the greatest excitement
+prevailed. The friends of Charles, who were inclined to constitutional
+measures, were filled with shame. It was now feared that the king
+would not respect his word or the constitution, and, with all his
+promises, was still bent on tyrannical courses. All classes, but
+bigoted royalists, now felt that something must be done promptly, or
+that their liberties would be subverted.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was, and not till then, that the Commons openly defied him,
+while the king remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and
+bewildered, "feeling," says Clarendon, "the trouble and agony which
+usually attend generous minds upon their having committed errors;" or,
+as Macaulay says, "the despicable repentance which attends the
+bungling villain, who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that
+he has only committed a folly."</p>
+
+<p>In a few days, the king <span class="inline">Flight of the King from London.</span> fled from Whitehall, which he was never
+destined to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold. He
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>(p. 157)</span>went into the country to raise forces to control the
+parliament, and the parliament made vigorous measures to put itself
+and the kingdom in a state of resistance. On the 23d of April, the
+king, with three hundred horse, advanced to Hull, and were refused
+admission by the governor. This was tantamount to a declaration of
+war. It was so considered. Thirty-two Lords, and sixty members of the
+Commons departed for York to join the king. The parliament decreed an
+army, and civil war began.</p>
+
+<p>Before this can be traced we must consider the Puritans, which is
+necessary in order fully to appreciate the Revolution. The reign of
+Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> was now virtually ended, and that of the Parliament and
+Cromwell had begun.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Dissensions among the <span class="inline">Rise of the Puritans.</span> Protestants themselves did not occur until the
+reign of Elizabeth, and were first caused by difficulties about a
+clerical dress, which again led to the advocacy of simpler forms of
+worship, stricter rules of life, more definite forms of faith, and
+more democratic principles of government, both ecclesiastical and
+civil. The first promoters of these opinions were the foreign divines
+who came from Geneva, at the invitation of Cranmer, of whom Peter
+Martyr, Martin Bucer, John à Lasco, were the most distinguished. Some
+Englishmen, also, who had been travelling on the continent, brought
+with them the doctrines of Calvin. Among these was Hooper, who, on
+being nominated to the bishopric of Gloucester, refused to submit to
+the appointed form of consecration and admission. He objected to what
+he called the <span class="italic">Aaronical</span> habits&mdash;the square cap, tippet, and
+surplice, worn by bishops. But dissent became more marked and
+determined when the exiles returned to England, on the accession of
+Elizabeth, and who were for advancing the reformation according to
+their own standard. The queen and her advisers, generally, were
+content with King Edward's liturgy; but the majority of the exiles
+desired the simpler services of Geneva. The new bishops, most of whom
+had been their companions abroad, endeavored to soften them for the
+present, declaring that they would use all their influence at court to
+secure them indulgence. The queen herself connived at non-conformity,
+until her government was established, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>(p. 158)</span>but then firmly
+declared that she had fixed her standard, and insisted on her subjects
+conforming to it. The bishops, seeing this, changed their conduct,
+explained away their promises, and became severe towards their
+dissenting brethren.</p>
+
+<p>The standard of the queen was the Thirty-Nine Articles. She admitted
+that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith, but declared that
+individuals must interpret Scripture as expounded in the articles and
+formularies of the English church, in violation of the great principle
+of Protestantism, which even the Puritans themselves did not fully
+recognize&mdash;the right and the duty of every individual to interpret
+Scripture himself, whether his interpretation interfered with the
+Established Church or not.</p>
+
+<p>The first dissenters did not claim <span class="inline">Original Difficulties and Differences.</span> this right, but only urged that
+certain points, about which they felt scruples, should be left as
+matters indifferent. On all essential points, they, as well as the
+strictest conformists, believed in the necessity of a uniformity of
+public worship, and of using the sword of the magistrate in defence of
+their doctrines. The standard of conformity, according to the bishops,
+was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the
+Puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods.</p>
+
+<p>At first, many of the Puritans overcame their scruples so far as to
+comply with the required oath and accept livings in the Establishment.
+But they indulged in many irregularities, which, during the first year
+of the reign of Elizabeth, were winked at by the authorities. "Some
+performed," says an old author, "divine service in the chancel, others
+in the body of the church; some in a seat made in the church; some in
+a pulpit, with their faces to the people; some keeping precisely to
+the order of the book; some intermix psalms in metre; some say with a
+surplice, and others without one. The table stands in the body of the
+church in some places, in others it stands in the chancel; in some
+places the table stands altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in
+others in the middle of the chancel, north and south. Some administer
+the communion with surplice and cap, some with a surplice alone,
+others with none; some with chalice, others with a communion cup,
+others with a common cup; some with unleavened bread, and some with
+leavened; some receive kneeling, others standing, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>(p. 159)</span>others
+sitting; some baptize in a font, some in a basin; some sign with the
+sign of the cross, other sign not; some minister with a surplice,
+others without; some with a square cap, others with a round cap; some
+with a button cap, and some with a hat, some in scholar's clothes,
+some in common clothes."</p>
+
+<p>These differences in public worship, which, by many, were considered
+as indifferent matters, and by others were unduly magnified, seem to
+have constituted the chief peculiarity of the early Puritans. In
+regard to the queen's supremacy, the union of church and state, the
+necessity of supporting religion by law, and articles of theological
+belief, there was no disagreement. Most of the non-conformists were
+men of learning and piety, and among the ornaments of the church.</p>
+
+<p>The metropolitan bishop, at this time, was Parker, a great stickler
+for the forms of the church, and very intolerant in all his opinions.
+He and others of the bishops had been appointed as commissioners to
+investigate the causes of dissent, and to suspend all who refused to
+conform to the rubric of the church. Hence arose the famous Court of
+the Ecclesiastical Commission, so much abused during the reigns of
+James and Charles.</p>
+
+<p>Under the direction of Parker, great numbers were <span class="inline">Persecution during the Reign of Elizabeth.</span> suspended from their
+livings for non-conformity, and sent to wander in a state of
+destitution. Among these were some of the most learned men in the
+church. They had no means of defence or livelihood, and resorted to
+the press in order to vindicate their opinions. For this they were
+even more harshly dealt with; an order was issued from the Star
+Chamber, that no person should print a book against the queen's
+injunctions, upon the penalty of fines and imprisonment; and authority
+was given to church-wardens to search all suspected places where books
+might be concealed. Great multitudes suffered in consequence of these
+tyrannical laws.</p>
+
+<p>But the non-conformists were further molested. They were forbidden to
+assemble together to read the Scriptures and pray, but were required
+to attend regularly the churches of the Establishment, on penalty of
+heavy fines for neglect.</p>
+
+<p>At length, worried, disgusted, and irritated, they resolved upon
+setting up the Genevan service, and upon withdrawing entirely from the
+Church of England. The separation, once made, (1566,) <span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>(p. 160)</span>became
+wider and wider, and the Puritans soon after opposed the claims of
+bishops as a superior order of the clergy. They were opposed to the
+temporal dignities annexed to the episcopal office to the titles and
+office of archdeacons, deans, and chapters; to the jurisdiction of
+spiritual courts; to the promiscuous access of all persons to the
+communion; to the liturgy; to the prohibition, in the public service
+of prayer, by the clergyman himself; to the use of godfathers and
+godmothers; to the custom of confirmation; to the cathedral worship
+and organs; to pluralities and non-residency; to the observance of
+Lent and of the holy days; and to the appointment of ministers by the
+crown, bishops, or lay patrons, instead of election by the people.</p>
+
+<p>The schism was now complete, and had grown out of such small
+differences as refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, and to use the
+cross in baptism.</p>
+
+<p>In our times, the Puritans would have been permitted to worship God in
+their own way, but they were not thus allowed in the time of
+Elizabeth. Religious toleration was not then understood or practised;
+and it was the fault of the age, since the Puritans themselves, when
+they obtained the power, persecuted with great severity the Quakers
+and the Catholics. But, during the whole reign of Elizabeth,
+especially the life of Archbishop Parker, they were in a minority, and
+suffered&mdash;as minorities ever have suffered&mdash;all the miseries which
+unreasonable majorities could inflict.</p>
+
+<p>Archbishop <span class="inline">Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift.</span> Grindal, who succeeded Parker in 1575, recommended milder
+measures to the queen; but she had no charity for those who denied the
+supremacy of her royal conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Grindal was succeeded, in 1583, by Dr. Whitgift, the antagonist of the
+learned Dr. Cartwright, and he proved a ruler of the church according
+to her majesty's mind. He commenced a most violent crusade against the
+non-conformists, and was so harsh, cruel, and unreasonable, that
+Cecil&mdash;Lord Burleigh&mdash;was obliged to remonstrate, being much more
+enlightened than the prelate. "I have read over," said he, "your
+twenty-four articles, and I find them so curiously penned, that I
+think that the Spanish Inquisition used not so many questions to
+entrap the priests." Nevertheless fines, imprisonment, and the gibbet
+continued to do their work in the vain attempt to put down opinions,
+till within four or five <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>(p. 161)</span>years of the queen's death when
+there was a cessation of persecution.</p>
+
+<p>But the Scottish Solomon, as James was called, <span class="inline">Persecution under James.</span> renewed the severity
+which Elizabeth found it wise to remit. Hitherto, the Puritans had
+been chiefly Presbyterians; but now the Independents arose, who
+carried their views still further, even to wildness and radicalism.
+They were stricter Calvinists, and inclined to republican views of
+civil government. Consequently, they were still more odious than were
+the Presbyterians to an arbitrary government. They were now persecuted
+for their doctrines of faith, as well as for their forms of worship.
+The Church of England retained the thirty-nine articles; but many of
+her leading clergy sympathized with the views of Arminius, and among
+them was the primate himself. So strictly were Arminian doctrines
+cherished, that no person under a dean was permitted to discourse on
+predestination, election, reprobation, efficacy, or universality of
+God's grace. And the king himself would hear no doctrines preached,
+except those he had condemned at the synod of Dort. But this act was
+aimed against the Puritans, who, of all parties, were fond of
+preaching on what was called "the Five Points of Calvinism." But they
+paid dearly for their independence. James absolutely detested them,
+regarded them as a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth,
+and punished them with the greatest severity. Their theological
+doctrines, their notions of church government, and, above all, their
+spirit of democratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop
+Bancroft, who succeeded Whitgift in 1604, went beyond all his
+predecessors in bigotry, but had not their commanding intellects. His
+measures were so injudicious, so vexatious, so annoying, so severe,
+and so cruel, that the Puritans became, if possible, still more
+estranged. With the popular discontents, and with the progress of
+persecution, their numbers increased, both in Scotland and England.
+With the increase of Puritanism was also a corresponding change in the
+Church of England, since ceremony and forms increased almost to a
+revival of Catholicism. And this reaction towards Rome, favored by the
+court, incensed still more the Puritans, and led to language
+unnecessarily violent and abusive on their side. Their controversial
+tracts were pervaded with a spirit of bitterness and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>(p. 162)</span>treason
+which, in the opinion of James, fully justified the imprisonments,
+fines, and mutilations which his minister inflicted. The Puritans, in
+despair, <span class="inline">Puritans in Exile.</span> fled to Holland, and from thence to New England, to
+establish, amid its barren hills and desolate forests, that worship
+which alone they thought would be acceptable to God. Persecution
+elevated them, and none can deny that they were characterized by moral
+virtues and a spirit of liberty which no people ever before or since
+exhibited. Almost their only fault was intolerance respecting the
+opinions and pleasures of many good people who did not join their
+ranks.</p>
+
+<p>James's death did not remit their sufferings; but, by this time, they
+had so multiplied that they became a party too formidable to be
+crushed. The High Commission Court and the Star Chamber still filled
+the prisons and pillories with victims; but every sentence of these
+courts fanned the flame of discontent, and hastened the catastrophe
+which was rapidly approaching. The volcano, over whose fearful brink
+the royal family and the haughty hierarchy were standing, was now
+sending forth those frightful noises which indicated approaching
+convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>During the years that Charles dispensed with the parliaments, when
+Laud was both minister and archbishop, the persecution reached its
+height, and also popular discontent. During this period, the greatest
+emigration was made to New England, and even Hampden and Cromwell
+contemplated joining their brethren in America. Arianism and Popery
+advanced with Puritanism, and all parties prepared for the approaching
+contest. The advocates of royal usurpation became more unreasonable,
+the friends of popular liberty became more violent. Those who had the
+power, exercised it without reflection. The history of the times is
+simply this&mdash;despotism striving to put Puritanism and liberty beneath
+its feet, and Puritanism aiming to subvert the crown.</p>
+
+<p>But the greatest commotions were in Scotland, where the people were
+generally Presbyterians; and it was the zeal of Archbishop Laud in
+suppressing these, and attempting to change the religion of the land,
+which precipitated the ruin of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Ever since the time of Knox, Scotland had been the scene of violent
+<span class="inline">Troubles in Scotland.</span> religious animosities. In that country, the reformation, from the
+first, had been a popular movement. It was so impetuous, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>(p. 163)</span>and
+decided under the guidance of the uncompromising Knox, that even
+before the dethronement of Mary, it was complete. In the year 1592,
+through the influence of Andrew Melville, the Presbyterian government
+was fairly established, and King James is said to have thus expressed
+himself: "I praise God that I was born in the time of the light of the
+gospel, and in such a place as to be king of the purest kirk in the
+world." The Church of Scotland, however, had severe struggles from the
+period of its institution, 1560, to the year 1584, when the papal
+influence was finally destroyed by the expulsion of the earl of Arran
+from the councils of the young king. Nor did these struggles end even
+there. James, perceiving that Episcopacy was much more consonant with
+monarchy than Presbyterianism, attempted to remodel the Scottish
+church on the English basis, which attempt resulted in discontent and
+rebellion. James, however, succeeded in reducing to contempt the
+general assemblies of the Presbyterian church, and in confirming
+Archbishop Spotswood in the chief administration of ecclesiastical
+affairs, which, it must be confessed, were regulated with great
+prudence and moderation.</p>
+
+<p>When Charles came to the throne, he complained of the laxity of the
+Scotch primate, and sent him a set of rules by which he was to
+regulate his conduct. Charles also added new dignities to his see, and
+ordained that he, as primate, should take precedence over all the
+temporal lords, which irritated the proud Scotch nobility. He moreover
+contemplated the recovery of tithes and church lands for the benefit
+of the Episcopal government, and the imposition of a liturgy on the
+Scotch nation, a great majority of whom were Presbyterians. This was
+the darling scheme of Laud, who believed that there could scarcely be
+salvation out of his church, and which church he strove to make as
+much like the Catholic as possible, and yet maintain independence of
+the pope. But nothing was absolutely done towards changing the
+religion of Scotland until Charles came down to Edinburgh (1633) to be
+crowned, when a liturgy was prepared for the Scotch nation, subjected
+to the revision of Laud, but which was not submitted to or seen by,
+the General Assembly, or any convocation of ministers in Scotland.
+Nothing could be more ill timed or ill judged than this conflict with
+the religious prejudices of a people zealously <span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>(p. 164)</span>attached to
+their own forms of worship. The clergy united with the aristocracy,
+and both with the people, in denouncing the conduct of the king and
+his ministers as tyrannical and unjust. The canons, especially, which
+Laud had prepared, were, in the eyes of the Scotch, puerile and
+superstitious; they could not conceive why a Protestant prelate should
+make so much account of the position of the font or of the communion
+table, turned into an altar. Indeed, his liturgy was not much other
+than an English translation of the Roman Missal, and excited the
+detestation of all classes. Yet it was resolved to introduce it into
+the churches, and the day was fixed for its introduction, which was
+Easter Sunday, 1637. But such a ferment was produced, that the
+experiment was put off to Sunday, 23d of July. On that day, the
+archbishops and bishops, lords of session, and magistrates were all
+present, by command, in the Church of St. Giles. But no sooner had the
+dean opened the service book, and begun to read out of it, than the
+people, who had assembled in great crowds, began to fill the church
+with uproar. The bishop of Edinburgh, who was to preach, stepped into
+the pulpit, and attempted to appease the tumultuous people. But this
+increased the tumult, when an old woman, seizing a stool, hurled it at
+the bishop's head. Sticks, stones, and dirt followed the stool, with
+loud cries of "Down with the priest of Baal!" "A pape, a pape!"
+"Antichrist!" "Pull him down!" This was the beginning of the
+insurrection, which spread from city to village, until all Scotland
+was in arms, and Episcopacy, as an established religion, was
+subverted. In February, 1638, the covenant was drawn up in Edinburgh,
+and was subscribed to by all classes, in all parts of Scotland; and,
+in November, the General Assembly met in Glasgow, the first that had
+been called for twenty years, and Presbyterianism was reëstablished in
+the kingdom, if not legally, yet in reality.</p>
+
+<p>From the day on which the Convocation opened, until the conquest of
+the country by Cromwell, the Kirk reigned supreme, there being no
+power in the government, or in the country, able or disposed to resist
+or question its authority. This was the golden age of Presbyterianism,
+when the clergy enjoyed autocratic power &mdash;a sort of Druidical
+ascendency over the minds and consciences of the people, in affairs
+temporal as well as spiritual.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>(p. 165)</span>
+
+<p>Puritanism did not pervade the English, as it did the Scotch mind,
+<span class="inline">Peculiarities of Puritanism in England.</span>
+although it soon obtained an ascendency. Most of the great political
+chieftains who controlled the House of Commons, and who clamored for
+the death of Strafford and Laud, were Puritans. But they were not all
+Presbyterians. In England, after the flight of the king from
+Whitehall, the Independents attracted notice, and eventually seized
+the reins of government. Cromwell was an Independent.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between these two sects was chiefly in their views
+about government, civil and ecclesiastical. Both Presbyterians and
+Independents were rigid Calvinists, practised a severe morality, were
+opposed to gay amusements, disliked organs and ceremonies, strictly
+observed the Sabbath, and attached great importance to the close
+observance of the Mosaic ritual. The Presbyterians were not behind the
+Episcopalians in hatred of sects and a free press. They had their
+model of worship, and declared it to be of divine origin. They looked
+upon schism as the parent of licentiousness, insisted on entire
+uniformity, maintained the divine right of the clergy to the
+management of ecclesiastical affairs, and claimed the sword of the
+magistrate to punish schismatics and heretics. They believed in the
+union of church and state, but would give the clergy the ascendency
+they possessed in the Middle Ages. They did not desire the entire
+prostration of royal authority, but only aimed to limit and curtail
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The Independents wished a total disruption of church and state, and
+disliked synods almost as much as they did bishops. They believed that
+every congregation was a distinct church, and had a right to elect the
+pastor. They preferred the greatest variety of sects to the ascendency
+of any one, by means of the civil sword. They rejected all spiritual
+courts, and claimed the right of each church to reject, punish, or
+receive members. In politics, they wished a total overthrow of the
+government&mdash;monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy; and were averse to any
+peace which did not secure complete toleration of opinions, and the
+complete subversion of the established order of things.</p>
+
+<p>Between the Presbyterians and the Independents, therefore, <span class="inline">Conflicts among the Puritans.</span> there could
+not be any lasting sympathy or alliance. They only united to crush the
+common foe; and, when Charles was beheaded, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>(p. 166)</span>Cromwell
+installed in power, they turned their arms against each other.</p>
+
+<p>The great religious contest, after the rise of Cromwell, was not
+between the Puritans and the Episcopalians, but between the different
+sects of Puritans themselves. At first, the Independents harmonized
+with the Presbyterians. Their theological and ethical opinions were
+the same, and both cordially hated and despised the government of the
+Stuarts. But when the Presbyterians obtained the ascendency, the
+Independents were grieved and enraged to discover that religious
+toleration was stigmatized as the parent of all heresy and schism.
+While in power, the Presbyterians shackled the press, and their
+intolerance brought out John Milton's famous tract on the liberty of
+unlicensed printing&mdash;one of the most masterly arguments which the
+advocates of freedom have ever made. The idea that any dominant
+religious sect should be incorporated with the political power, was
+the fatal error of Presbyterianism, and raised up enemies against it,
+after the royal power was suppressed. Cromwell was persuaded that the
+cause of religious liberty would be lost unless Presbyterianism, as
+well as Episcopacy, was disconnected with the state; and hence one
+great reason of his assuming the dictatorship. And he granted a more
+extended toleration than had before been known in England, although it
+was not perfect. The Catholics and the Quakers were not partakers of
+the boon which he gave to his country; so hard is it for men to learn
+the rights of others, when they have power in their own hands.</p>
+
+<p>The Restoration was a victory over both the Independents and the
+general swarm of sectaries which an age of unparalleled religious
+excitement had produced. It is difficult to conceive of the intensity
+of the passions which inflamed all parties of religious disputants.
+<span class="inline">Character of the Puritans.</span> But if the Puritan contest developed fanatical zeal, it also brought
+out the highest qualities of mind and heart which any age has
+witnessed. With all the faults and weaknesses of the Puritans, there
+never lived a better class of men,&mdash;men of more elevated piety, more
+enlarged views, or greater disinterestedness, patriotism, and moral
+worth. They made sacrifices which our age can scarcely appreciate, and
+had difficulties to contend with which were unparalleled in the
+history of reform. They made blunders which approximated to crimes,
+but they made them in their inexperience <span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>(p. 167)</span>and zeal to promote
+the cause of religion and liberty. They were conscientious men&mdash;men
+who acted from the fear of God, and with a view to promote the highest
+welfare of future generations. They launched their bark boldly upon an
+unknown sea, and heroically endured its dangers and sufferings, with a
+view of conferring immortal blessings on their children and country.
+More prudent men would have avoided the perils of an unknown
+navigation; but, by such men, a great experiment for humanity would
+not have been tried. It may have failed, but the world has learned
+immortal wisdom from the failure. But the Puritans were not mere
+adventurers or martyrs. They have done something of lasting benefit to
+mankind, and they have done this by the power of faith, and by loyalty
+to their consciences, perverted as they were in some respects. The
+Puritans were not agreeable companions to the idle, luxurious, or
+frivolous; they were rigid ever, to austerity; their expressions
+degenerated into cant, and they were hostile to many innocent
+amusements. But these were peculiarities which furnished subjects of
+ridicule merely, and did not disgrace or degrade them. These were a
+small offset to their moral wisdom, their firm endurance, their
+elevation of sentiment, their love of liberty, and their fear of God.
+Such are the men whom Providence ordains to give impulse to society,
+and effect great and useful reforms.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">We now return to consider the changes which they attempted in
+government. The civil war, of which Cromwell was the hero, now claims
+our attention.</p>
+
+<p>The refusal of the governor of Hull to admit the king was virtually
+the declaration of war, for which both parties had vigorously
+prepared.</p>
+
+<p>The standard of the king was first raised in Nottingham, while the
+head-quarters of the parliamentarians were in London. The first action
+of any note was the battle of Edge Hill, (October 23, 1642,) but was
+undecisive. Indeed, both parties hesitated to plunge into desperate
+war, at least until, by skirmishings and military man&oelig;uvres, they
+were better prepared for it.</p>
+
+<p>The forces of the belligerents, at this period, were nearly equal
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>(p. 168)</span>but the parliamentarians had the ablest leaders. It was the
+misfortune of the king to have no man of commanding talents, as his
+counsellor, after the arrest of Strafford. Hyde, afterwards lord
+chancellor, and Earl of Clarendon, was the ablest of the royalist
+party. Falkland and Culpeper were also eminent men; but neither of
+them was the equal of Pym or <span class="inline">John Hampden.</span> Hampden.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was doubtless the ablest man in England at this time, and
+the only one who could have saved it from the evils which afterwards
+afflicted it. On him the hopes and affections of the nation centred.
+He was great in council and great in debate. He was the acknowledged
+leader of the House of Commons. He was eloquent, honest, unwearied,
+sagacious, and prudent. "Never had a man inspired a nation with
+greater confidence: the more moderate had faith in his wisdom; the
+more violent in his devoted patriotism; the more honest in his
+uprightness; the more intriguing in his talents." He spared neither
+his fortune nor his person, as soon as hostilities were inevitable. He
+subscribed two thousand pounds to the public cause, took a colonel's
+commission, and raised a regiment of infantry, so well known during
+the war for its green uniform, and the celebrated motto of its
+intrepid leader,&mdash;"<span class="italic">Vestigia nulla retrorsum</span>." He possessed the
+talents of a great statesman and a great general, and all the united
+qualities requisite for the crisis in which he appeared&mdash;"the valor
+and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the
+humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale,
+the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others could conquer; he alone
+could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who
+turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his
+watched the Scottish army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But
+it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had succeeded
+the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency,
+and burning for revenge; it was when the vices and ignorance, which
+the old tyranny had generated, threatened the new freedom with
+destruction, that England missed that sobriety, that self-command,
+that perfect soundness of judgment, that perfect rectitude of
+intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel,
+or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone."<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1" title="Link to Footnote 1"><span class="tiny">[1]</span></a></p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>(p. 169)</span>
+
+<p>This great man was removed by Providence from the scene of violence
+and faction at an early period of the contest. He was mortally wounded
+in one of those skirmishes in which the detachments of both armies had
+thus far engaged, and which made the campaigns of 1642-3 so undecided,
+so tedious, and so irritating&mdash;campaigns in which the generals of both
+armies reaped no laurels, and which created the necessity for a
+greater genius than had thus far appeared. <span class="inline">Oliver Cromwell.</span> That genius was Oliver
+Cromwell. At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of
+horse, and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. He
+was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hampden, and had
+secured the attention of the members in spite of his slovenly
+appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. Under his
+rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not perceived, except by
+two or three penetrating intellects; but they were shortly to appear,
+and to be developed, not in the House of Commons, but on the field of
+battle. The rise of Oliver Cromwell can scarcely be dated until the
+death of John Hampden; nor were the eyes of the nation fixed on him,
+as their deliverer, until some time after. The Earl of Essex was still
+the commander of the forces, while the Earl of Bedford, Lord
+Manchester, Lord Fairfax, Skippon, Sir William Waller, Leslie, and
+others held high posts. Cromwell was still a subordinate; but genius
+breaks through all obstacles, and overleaps all boundaries. The time
+had not yet come for the exercise of his great military talents. The
+period of negotiation had not fully passed, and the king, at his
+head-quarters at Oxford, "that seat of pure, unspotted loyalty," still
+hoped to amuse the parliament, gain time, and finally overwhelm its
+forces. Prince Rupert&mdash;brave, ardent, reckless, unprincipled&mdash;still
+ravaged the country without reaping any permanent advantage. The
+parliament was perplexed and the people were disappointed. On the
+whole, the king's forces were in the ascendant, and were augmenting;
+while plots and insurrections were constantly revealing to the
+parliamentarians the dangers which threatened them. Had not an able
+leader, at this crisis, appeared among the insurgents, or had an able
+general been given to Charles, it is probable that the king would have
+secured his ends; for popular enthusiasm <span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>(p. 170)</span>without the
+organization which a master spirit alone can form, soon burns itself
+out.</p>
+
+<p>The state of the contending parties, from the battle of Edge Hill, for
+nearly two years, was very singular and very complicated. The king
+remained at <span class="inline">The King at Oxford.</span> Oxford, distracted by opposing counsels, and perplexed by
+various difficulties. The head-quarters of his enemies, at London,
+were no less the seat of intrigues and party animosities. The
+Presbyterians were the most powerful, and were nearly as distrustful
+of the Independents as they were of the king, and feared a victory
+over the king nearly as much as they did a defeat by him, and the
+dissensions among the various sects and leaders were no secret in the
+royalist camp, and doubtless encouraged Charles in his endless
+intrigues and dissimulations. But he was not equal to decisive
+measures, and without them, in revolutionary times, any party must be
+ruined. While he was meditating and scheming, he heard the news of an
+alliance between Scotland and the parliament, in which the
+Presbyterian interest was in the ascendency. This was the first great
+blow he received since the commencement of the war, and the united
+forces of his enemies now resolved upon more vigorous measures.</p>
+
+<p>At the opening of the campaign, the parliament had five armies&mdash;that
+of the Scots, of twenty-one thousand; that of Essex, ten thousand five
+hundred; that of Waller, five thousand one hundred; that of
+Manchester, fourteen thousand; and that of Fairfax, five thousand five
+hundred&mdash;in all, about fifty-six thousand men, of whom the committee
+of the two kingdoms had the entire disposal. In May, Essex and Waller
+invested Oxford, while Fairfax, Manchester, and the Scots met under
+the walls of York. Thus these two great royalist cities were attacked
+at once by all the forces of parliament. Charles, invested by a
+stronger force, and being deprived of the assistance of the princes,
+Rupert and Maurice, his nephews, who were absent on their marauding
+expeditions, escaped from Oxford, and proceeded towards Exeter. In the
+mean time, he ordered Prince Rupert to advance to the relief of York,
+which was defended by the marquis of Newcastle. The united royalist
+army now amounted to twenty-six thousand men, with a numerous and well
+appointed cavalry; and this great force obliged the armies of the
+parliament to raise the siege of York. Had Rupert been contented
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>(p. 171)</span>with this success, and intrenched himself in the strongest
+city of the north of England, he and Newcastle might have maintained
+their ground; but Rupert, against the advice of Newcastle, resolved on
+an engagement with the parliamentary generals, who had retreated to
+Marston Moor, on the banks of the Ouse, five miles from the city.</p>
+
+<p>The next day after the relief of York was fought the famous battle of
+Marston Moor, (July 2, 1644,) the bloodiest in the war, which resulted
+in the entire discomfiture of the royalist forces, and the ruin of the
+royal interests at the north. York was captured in a few days. Rupert
+retreated to Lancashire to recruit his army, and Newcastle, disgusted
+with Rupert, and with the turn affairs had taken, withdrew beyond
+seas. The Scots soon stormed the town of Newcastle, and the whole
+north of England fell into the hands of the victors.</p>
+
+<p>This great battle was decided by the ability of Cromwell, now
+lieutenant-general in the army of the parliament. He had distinguished
+himself in all subordinate stations, in the field of battle, in
+raising forces, and in councils of war, for which he had been promoted
+to serve as second under the Earl of Manchester. But his remarkable
+military genius was not apparent to the parliament until the battle of
+Marston Moor, and on him the eyes of the nation now began to be
+centred. <span class="inline">Cromwell after the Battle.</span> He was now forty-five years of age, in the vigor of his
+manhood, burning with religious enthusiasm, and eager to deliver his
+country from the tyranny of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, and of all kings. He was an
+Independent and a radical, opposed to the Episcopalians, to the
+Presbyterians, to the Scots, to all moderate men, to all moderate
+measures, to all jurisdiction in matters of religion, and to all
+authority in political affairs, which did not directly emanate from
+the people, who were called upon to regulate themselves by their
+individual reason. <span class="inline">Enthusiasm of the Independents.</span> He was the idol of the Independent party, which now
+began to gain the ascendency in that stormy crisis. For three years,
+the Presbyterians had been in the ascendant, but had not realized the
+hopes or expectations of the enthusiastic advocates of freedom. By
+turns imperious and wavering, fanatical and moderate, they sought to
+curtail and humble the king, not to ruin him; to depress Episcopacy,
+but to establish another religion by the sword of the magistrate.
+Their <span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>(p. 172)</span>leaders were timid, insincere, and disunited; few
+among them had definite views respecting the future government of the
+realm: and they gradually lost the confidence of the nation. But the
+Independents reposed fearlessly on the greatness and grandeur of their
+abstract principles, and pronounced, without a scruple, those potent
+words which kindled a popular enthusiasm&mdash;equality of rights, the just
+distribution of property, and the removal of all abuses. Above all,
+they were enthusiasts in religion, as well as in liberty, and devoutly
+attached to the doctrines of Calvin. They abominated all pleasures and
+pursuits which diverted their minds from the contemplation of God, or
+the reality of a future state. Cromwell himself lived in the ecstasy
+of religious excitement. His language was the language of the Bible,
+and its solemn truths were not dogmas, but convictions to his ardent
+mind. In the ardor of his zeal and the frenzy of his hopes, he fondly
+fancied that the people of England were to rise in simultaneous
+confederation, shake off all the old shackles of priests and kings,
+and be governed in all their actions, by the principles of the Bible.
+A sort of Jewish theocracy was to be restored on earth, and he was to
+be the organ of the divine will, as was Joshua of old, when he led the
+Israelites against the pagan inhabitants of the promised land. Up to
+this time, no inconsistencies disgraced him. His prayers and his
+exhortations were in accordance with his actions, and the most
+scrutinizing malignity could attribute nothing to him but sincerity
+and ardor in the cause which he had so warmly espoused. As magistrate,
+as member of parliament, as farmer, or as general, he slighted no
+religious duties, and was devoted to the apparent interests of
+England. Such a man, so fervent, enthusiastic, honest, patriotic, and
+able, of course was pointed out as a future leader, especially when
+his great military talents were observed at Marston Moor. From the
+memorable 2d of July he became the most marked and influential man in
+England. Hampden had offered up his life as a martyr, and Pym, the
+great lawyer and statesman, had died from exhaustion. Essex had won no
+victory commensurate with the public expectations, and Waller lost his
+army by desertions and indecisive measures. Both Essex and Manchester,
+with their large estates, their aristocratic connections, and their
+Presbyterian sympathies, were afraid of treating the king too well.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>(p. 173)</span>The battle of Newbury, which shortly after was gained by the
+parliamentarians, was without decisive results, in consequence of the
+indecision of Manchester. The parliament and the nation looked for
+another leader, who would pursue his advantages, and adopt more
+vigorous measures. At this point, the Presbyterians would have made
+peace with the king, who still continued his insincere negotiations;
+but it was too late. The Independents had gained the ascendency, and
+their voice was for war&mdash;no more dallying, no more treaties, no more
+half measures, but uncompromising war. It was plain that either the
+king or the Independents must be the absolute rulers of England.</p>
+
+<p>Then was passed (April 3, 1645) the famous Self-Denying Ordinance, by
+which all members of parliament were excluded from command in the
+army, an act designed to get rid of Essex and Manchester, and prepare
+the way for the elevation of Cromwell. Sir Thomas Fairfax was
+appointed to the supreme command, and Cromwell was despatched into the
+inland counties to raise recruits. But it was soon obvious that the
+army could do nothing without him, although it was remodelled and
+reënforced; and even Fairfax and his officers petitioned parliament
+that Cromwell might be appointed lieutenant-general again, and
+commander-in-chief of the horse; which request was granted, and
+Cromwell rejoined the army, of which he was its hope and idol.</p>
+
+<p>He joined it in time to win the most decisive battle of the war, the
+<span class="inline">Battle of Naseby.</span> battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645. The forces of both armies were nearly
+balanced, and the royalists were commanded by the king in person,
+assisted by his ablest generals. But the rout of the king's forces was
+complete, his fortunes were prostrated, and he was driven, with the
+remnants of his army, from one part of the kingdom to the other, while
+the victorious parliamentarians were filled with exultation and joy.
+Cromwell, however, was modest and composed, and ascribed the victory
+to the God of battles, whose servant, he fancied, he preëminently was.</p>
+
+<p>The parliamentary army continued <span class="inline">Success of the Parliamentary Army.</span> its successes. Montrose gained the
+battle of Alford; Bridgewater surrendered to Fairfax; Glasgow and
+Edinburgh surrendered to Montrose; Prince Rupert was driven from
+Bristol, and, as the king thought, most disgracefully, which
+misfortune gave new joy to the parliament, and caused <span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>(p. 174)</span>new
+thanksgivings from Cromwell, who gained the victory. From Bristol, the
+army turned southward, and encountered what royalist force there was
+in that quarter, stormed Bridgewater, drove the royalist generals into
+Cornwall, took Winchester, battered down Basing House, rich in
+provisions, ammunition, and silver plate, and completely prostrated
+all the hopes of the king in the south of England. Charles fled from
+Oxford, secretly, to join the Scottish army.</p>
+
+<p>By the 24th of June, 1646, all the garrisons of England and Wales,
+except those in the north, were in the hands of the parliament. In
+July, the parliament sent their final propositions to the king at
+Newcastle, which were extremely humiliating, and which he rejected.
+Negotiations were then entered into between the parliament and the
+Scots, which were long protracted, but which finally ended in an
+agreement, by the Scots, to surrender the king to the parliament, for
+the payment of their dues. They accordingly marched home with an
+instalment of two hundred thousand pounds, and the king was given up,
+not to the Independents, but to the Commissioners of parliament, in
+which body the Presbyterian interest predominated.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, (January, 1647,) Cromwell, rather than the king, was
+in danger of losing his head. The Presbyterians, who did not wish to
+abolish royalty, but establish uniformity with their mode of worship,
+began to be extremely jealous of the Independents, who were bent on
+more complete toleration of opinions, and who aimed at a total
+overthrow of many of the old institutions of the country. So soon as
+the king was humbled, and in their hands, it was proposed to disband
+the army which had gloriously finished the war, and which was chiefly
+composed of the Independents, and to create a new one on a
+Presbyterian model. The excuse was, that the contest was ended, while,
+indeed, the royalists were rather dispersed and humbled, than subdued.
+It was voted that, in the reduced army, no one should have, except
+Fairfax, a higher rank than colonel, a measure aimed directly at
+Cromwell, now both feared and distrusted by the Presbyterians. But the
+army refused to be disbanded without payment of its arrears, and,
+moreover, marched upon London, in spite of the vote of the parliament
+that it should not come within twenty-five miles. Several irritating
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>(p. 175)</span>resolutions were passed by the parliament, which only had
+the effect of uniting the army more strongly together, in resistance
+against parliament, as well as against the king. The Lords and Commons
+then voted that the king should be brought nearer London, and new
+negotiations opened with him, which were prevented from being carried
+into effect by the seizure of the king at Holmby House, by Cornet
+Joyce, with a strong party of horse belonging to Whalley's regiment,
+probably at the instigation of Cromwell and Ireton. His majesty was
+now in the hands of the army, his worst enemy, and, though treated
+with respect and deference, was really guarded closely, and watched by
+the Independent generals. The same day, Cromwell left London in haste,
+and joined the army, knowing full well that he was in imminent danger
+of arrest. He was cordially received, and forthwith the army resolved
+not to disband until all the national grievances were redressed, thus
+setting itself up virtually against all the constituted authorities.
+Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and Hammond, with other high officers, then
+waited on the king, and protested that they had nothing to do with the
+seizure of his person, and even invited him to return to Holmby House.
+But the king never liked the Presbyterians, and was willing to remain
+with the army instead, especially since he was permitted to have
+Episcopal chaplains, and to see whomsoever he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>The generals of the army were not content with the <span class="inline">Seizure of the King.</span> seizure of his
+majesty's person, but now caused eleven of the most obnoxious of the
+Presbyterian leaders of parliament to be accused, upon which they hid
+themselves, while the army advanced towards London. The parliament, at
+first, made a show of resistance, but soon abandoned its course, and
+now voted that the army should be treated with more respect and care.
+It was evident now to all persons where the seat of power rested.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the king was removed from Newmarket to Kingston,
+from Hatfield to Woburn Abbey, and thence to Windsor Castle, which was
+the scene of new intrigues and negotiations on his part, and on the
+part of parliament, and even on the part of Cromwell. This was the
+last chance the king had. Had he cordially sided now with either the
+Presbyterians or the Independents, his subsequent misfortunes might
+have been averted. But he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>(p. 176)</span>hated both parties, and trifled
+with both, and hoped to conquer both. He was unable to see the crisis
+of his affairs, or to adapt himself to it. He was incapable of fair
+dealing with any party. His duplicity and dissimulation were fully
+made known to Cromwell and Ireton by a letter of the king to his wife,
+which they intercepted; and they made up their minds to more decided
+courses. The king was more closely guarded; the army marched to the
+immediate vicinity of London; a committee of safety was named, and
+parliament was intimidated into the passing of a resolution, by which
+the city of London and the Tower were intrusted to Fairfax and
+Cromwell. The Presbyterian party was forever depressed, its leading
+members fled to France, and the army had every thing after its own
+way. Parliament still was ostensibly the supreme power in the land;
+but it was entirely controlled by the Independent leaders and
+generals.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Triumph of the Independents.</span> victorious Independents then made their celebrated proposals to
+the king, as the Presbyterians had done before them; only the
+conditions which the former imposed were more liberal, and would have
+granted to the king powers almost as great as are now exercised by the
+sovereign. But he would not accept them, and continued to play his
+game of kingcraft.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after, the king contrived to escape from Windsor to the Isle
+of Wight, with the connivance of Cromwell. At Carisbrook Castle, where
+he quartered himself, he was more closely guarded than before. Seeing
+this, he renewed his negotiations with the Scots, and attempted to
+escape. But escape was impossible. He was now in the hands of men who
+aimed at his life. A strong party in the army, called the <span class="italic">Levellers</span>,
+openly advocated his execution, and the establishment of a republic;
+and parliament itself resolved to have no further treaty with him. His
+only hope was now from the Scots, and they prepared to rescue him.</p>
+
+<p>Although the government of the country was now virtually in the hands
+of the Independents and of the army, the state of affairs was
+extremely critical, and none other than Cromwell could have extricated
+the dominant party from the difficulties. In one quarter was an
+imprisoned and intriguing king in league with the Scots, while the
+royalist party was waiting for the first reverse to rise up again with
+new strength in various parts of the land. Indeed, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>(p. 177)</span>there
+were several insurrections, which required all the vigor of Cromwell
+to suppress. The city of London, which held the purse-strings, was at
+heart Presbyterian, and was extremely dissatisfied with the course
+affairs were taking. Then, again, there was a large, headstrong,
+levelling, mutineer party in the army, which clamored for violent
+courses, which at that time would have ruined every thing. Finally,
+the Scotch parliament had voted to raise a force of forty thousand
+men, to invade England and rescue the king. Cromwell, before he could
+settle the peace of the country, must overcome all these difficulties.
+Who, but he, could have triumphed over so many obstacles, and such
+apparent anarchy?</p>
+
+<p>The first thing Cromwell did was to restore order in England; and
+therefore he obtained leave to march against the rebels, who had
+arisen in various parts of the country. Scarcely were these subdued,
+before he heard of the advance of the Scottish army, under the Duke of
+Hamilton. A second civil war now commenced, and all parties witnessed
+the result with fearful anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The army of Hamilton was not as large as he had hoped. Still he had
+fifteen thousand men, and crossed the borders, while Cromwell was
+besieging Pembroke, in a distant part of the kingdom. But Pembroke
+soon surrendered; and Cromwell advanced, by rapid marches, against the
+Scottish army, more than twice as large as his own. The hostile forces
+met in Lancashire. Hamilton was successively defeated at Preston,
+Wigan, and Warrington. Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter,
+August 25, 1648, and his invading army was completely annihilated.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell then resolved to <span class="inline">Cromwell Invades Scotland.</span> invade, in his turn, Scotland itself, and,
+by a series of military actions, to give to the army a still greater
+ascendency. He was welcomed at Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle, the
+head of an opposing faction, and was styled "the Preserver of
+Scotland." That country was indeed rent with most unhappy divisions,
+which Lieutenant-General Cromwell remedied in the best way he could;
+and then he rapidly retraced his steps, to compose greater
+difficulties at home. In his absence, the Presbyterians had rallied,
+and were again negotiating with the king on the Isle of Wight, while
+Cromwell was openly denounced in the House of Lords as ambitious,
+treacherous, and perfidious. Fairfax, his superior in command, but
+inferior in influence, was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>(p. 178)</span>subduing the rebel royalists, who
+made a firm resistance at Colchester, and all the various parties were
+sending their remonstrances to parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Among these was a remarkable one from the regiments of Ireton,
+Ingoldsby, Fleetwood, Whalley, and Overton, which imputed to
+parliament the neglect of the affairs of the realm, called upon it to
+proclaim the sovereignty of the people and the election of a supreme
+magistrate, and threatened to take matters into their own hands. This
+was in November, 1646; but, long before this, a republican government
+was contemplated, although the leaders of the army had not joined in
+with the hue and cry which the fanatical Levellers had made.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the storm which the petition from the army had raised,
+the news arrived that the king had been <span class="inline">Seizure of the King a Second Time.</span> seized a second time, and had
+been carried a prisoner to Hurst Castle, on the coast opposite the
+island, where he was closely confined by command of the army.
+Parliament was justly indignant, and the debate relative to peace was
+resumed with redoubled earnestness. It is probable that, at this
+crisis, so irritated was parliament against the army, peace would have
+been made with the king, and the Independent party suppressed, had not
+most decisive measures been taken by the army. A rupture between the
+parliament and the army was inevitable. But Cromwell and the army
+chiefs had resolved upon their courses. The mighty stream of
+revolution could no longer be checked. Twenty thousand men had vowed
+that parliament should be purged. On the morning of December 6,
+Colonel Pride and Colonel Rich, with troops, surrounded the House of
+Commons; and, as the members were going into the house, the most
+obnoxious were seized and sent to prison, among whom were Primrose,
+who had lost his ears in his contest against the crown, Waller,
+Harley, Walker, and various other men, who had distinguished
+themselves as advocates of constitutional liberty. None now remained
+in the House of Commons but some forty Independents, who were the
+tools of the army, and who voted to Cromwell their hearty thanks. "The
+minority had now become a majority,"&mdash;which is not unusual in
+revolutionary times,&mdash;and proceeded to the work, in good earnest,
+which he had long contemplated.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>(p. 179)</span>
+
+<p>This was the <span class="inline">Trial of the King.</span>
+trial of the king, whose apartments at Whitehall were now
+occupied by his victorious general, and whose treasures were now
+lavished on his triumphant soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th of December, 1648, in the middle of the night, the
+drawbridge of the Castle of Hurst was lowered, and a troop of horse
+entered the yard. Two days after, the king was removed to Windsor. On
+the 23d, the Commons voted that he should be brought to trial. On the
+20th of January, Charles Stuart, King of England, was brought before
+the Court of High Commission, in Westminster Hall, and placed at the
+bar, to be tried by this self-constituted body for his life. In the
+indictment, he was charged with being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer.
+To such an indictment, and before such a body, the dignified but
+unfortunate successor of William the Conqueror demurred. He refused to
+acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. But the solemn mockery of
+the trial proceeded nevertheless, and on the 27th, sentence of death
+was pronounced upon the prisoner&mdash;that prisoner the King of England, a
+few years before the absolute ruler of the state. On January 30, the
+bloody sentence was executed, and the soul of the murdered king
+ascended to that God who pardons those who put their trust in him, in
+spite of all their mistakes, errors, and delusions. The career of
+Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> is the most melancholy in English history. That he was
+tyrannical, that he disregarded the laws by which he swore to rule,
+that he was narrow, and bigoted, that he was deceitful in his
+promises, that he was bent on overturning the liberties of England,
+and did not comprehend the wants and circumstances of his times, can
+scarcely be questioned. But that he was sincere in his religion,
+upright in his private life, of respectable talents, and good
+intentions, must also be admitted. His execution, or rather his
+martyrdom, made a deep and melancholy impression in all Christian
+countries, and was the great blunder which the republicans made&mdash;a
+blunder which Hampden would have avoided. His death, however, removed
+from England a most dangerous intriguer, and, for a while, cemented
+the power of Cromwell and his party, who now had undisputed ascendency
+in the government of the realm. Charles's exactions and tyranny
+provoked the resistance of parliament, and the indignation of the
+people, then intensely excited in discussing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>(p. 180)</span>the abstract
+principles of civil and religious liberty. The resistance of
+parliament created the necessity of an army, and the indignation of
+the people filled it with enthusiasts. The army flushed with success,
+forgot its relations and duties, and usurped the government it had
+destroyed, and a military dictatorship, the almost inevitable result
+of revolution, though under the name of a republic, succeeded to the
+despotism of the Stuart kings. This republic, therefore, next claims
+attention.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;The standard Histories of England. Guizot's
+     History of the English Revolution. Clarendon's History of
+     the Rebellion. Forster's Life of the Statesmen of the
+     Commonwealth. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     Essays. Lives of Bacon, Raleigh, Strafford, Laud, Hampden,
+     and Cromwell. These works furnish all the common
+     information. Few American students have the opportunity to
+     investigate Thurlow's State Papers, or Rushworth,
+     Whitelocke, Dugdale, or Mrs. Hutchinson.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>(p. 181)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.</h4>
+
+
+<p>On <span class="inline">The Protectorate.</span> the day of the king's execution, January 30, 1649, the House of
+Commons&mdash;being but the shadow of a House of Commons, yet ostensibly
+the supreme authority in England&mdash;passed an act prohibiting the
+proclamation of the Prince of Wales, or any other person, to be king
+of England. On the 6th of February, the House of Peers was decreed
+useless and dangerous, and was also dispensed with. On the next day,
+royalty was formally abolished. The supreme executive power was vested
+in a council of state of forty members, the president of which was
+Bradshaw, the relative and friend of Milton, who employed his immortal
+genius in advocating the new government. The army remained under the
+command of Fairfax and Cromwell; the navy was controlled by a board of
+admiralty, headed by Sir Harry Vane. A greater toleration of religion
+was proclaimed than had ever been known before, much to the annoyance
+of the Presbyterians, who were additionally vexed that the state was
+separated entirely from the church.</p>
+
+<p>The Independents pursued their victory with considerable moderation,
+and only the Duke of Hamilton, and Lords Holland and Capel, were
+executed for treason, while a few others were shut up in the Tower.
+Never was so mighty a revolution accomplished with so little
+bloodshed. But it required all the wisdom and vigor of Fairfax and
+Cromwell to repress the ultra radical spirit which had crept into
+several detachments of the army, and to baffle the movements which the
+Scots were making in favor of Charles Stuart, who had already been
+proclaimed king by the parliament of Scotland, and in Ireland by the
+Marquis of Ormond.</p>
+
+<p>The insurrection in Ireland first required the notice of the new
+English government. Cromwell accepted the conduct of the war, and the
+office of lord lieutenant. Dublin and Derry were the only places which
+held out for the parliament. All other parts of the country were in a
+state of insurrection. On the 15th of August, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>(p. 182)</span>Cromwell and
+his son-in-law, Ireton, landed near Dublin with an army of six
+thousand foot and three thousand horse only; but it was an army of
+Ironsides and Titans. In six months, the complete reconquest of the
+country was effected. The policy of the conqueror was severe and
+questionable; but it was successful. In the hope of bringing the war
+to a speedy termination, Cromwell proceeded in such a way as to bring
+terror to his name, and curses on his memory. <span class="inline">Storming of Drogheda and Wexford.</span> Drogheda and Wexford
+were not only taken by storm, but nearly the whole garrison, of more
+than five thousand men, were barbarously put to the sword. The Irish
+quailed before such a victor, and town after town hastened to make
+peace. Cromwell's excuse for his undeniable cruelties was, the
+necessity of the case, of which we may reasonably suppose him to be a
+judge. Scotland was in array, and English affairs, scarcely settled,
+demanded his presence in London. An imperfect conquest, on the
+principles of Rousseau's philanthropy, did not suit the taste or the
+notions of Cromwell. If he had consumed a few more months than he
+actually employed, either in treaty-making with a deceitful though
+oppressed people, or in battles on the principles of the military
+science then in vogue, the cause of Independency would have been lost;
+and that cause, associated with that of liberty, in the eyes of
+Cromwell, was of more value than the whole Irish nation, or any other
+nation. Cromwell was a devotee to a cause. Principles, with him, were
+every thing; men were nothing in comparison. To advance the principles
+for which he fought, he scrupled to use no means or instruments. In
+this he may have erred. But this policy was the secret of his success.
+We cannot justify his cruelties in war, because it is hard to justify
+the war itself. But if we acknowledge its necessity, we should
+remember that such a master of war as was Cromwell knew his
+circumstances better than we do or can know. To his immortal glory it
+can be said that he never inflicted cruelty when he deemed it
+unnecessary; that he never fought for the love of fighting; and that
+he stopped fighting when the cause for which he fought was won. And
+this is more than can be said of most conquerors, even of those imbued
+with sentimental horror of bloodshed. Our world is full of cant.
+Cromwell's language sometimes sounds like it, especially when he
+speaks of the "hand of the Lord" in "these mighty changes," who
+"breaketh the enemies of his church in pieces."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>(p. 183)</span>When the conquest of Ireland was completed, Cromwell hastened
+to London to receive the thanks of parliament and the acclamations of
+the people; and then he hurried to Scotland to do battle with the
+Scots, who had made a treaty with the king, and were resolved to
+establish Presbyterianism and royalty. Cromwell now superseded
+Fairfax, and was created captain-general of the forces of the
+commonwealth. Cromwell passed the borders, reached Edinburgh without
+molestation, and then advanced on the Scotch army of twenty-seven
+thousand men, under Lesley, at Dunbar, where was fought a most
+desperate battle, but which Cromwell gained with marvellous
+intrepidity and skill. Three thousand men were killed, and ten
+thousand taken prisoners, and the hopes of the Scots blasted. The
+lord-general made a halt, and the whole army sang the one hundred and
+seventeenth psalm, and then advanced upon the capital, which opened
+its gates. Glasgow followed the example; the whole south of Scotland
+submitted; while the king fled towards the Highlands, but soon
+rallied, and even took the bold resolution of marching into England,
+while Cromwell was besieging Perth. Charles reached Worcester before
+he was overtaken, established himself with sixteen thousand men, but
+was attacked by Cromwell, was defeated, and with difficulty fled. He
+reached France, however, and quietly rested until he was brought back
+by General Monk.</p>
+
+<p>With the <span class="inline">Battle of Worcester.</span> battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, which Cromwell called
+his "crowning mercy," ended his military life. From that day to the
+time when be became protector, the most noticeable point in his
+history is his conduct towards the parliament. And this conduct is the
+most objectionable part of his life and character; for in this he
+violated the very principles he originally professed, and committed
+the same usurpations which he condemned in Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> Here he was not
+true to himself or his cause. Here he laid himself open to the censure
+of all posterity; and although he had great excuses, and his course
+has many palliations, still it would seem a mockery of all moral
+distinctions not to condemn in him what we would condemn in another,
+or what Cromwell himself condemned in the murdered king. It is true he
+did not, at once, turn usurper, not until circumstances seemed to
+warrant the usurpation&mdash;the utter impossibility of governing England,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>(p. 184)</span>except by exercising the rights and privileges of an
+absolute monarch. On the principles of expediency, he has been
+vindicated, and will be vindicated, so long as his cause is advocated
+by partisan historians, or expediency itself is advocated as a rule of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of Worcester, Cromwell lost, in a measure, his
+democratic sympathies, and naturally, in view of the great excesses of
+the party with which he had been identified. That he desired the
+<span class="inline">Policy of Cromwell.</span> public good we cannot reasonably doubt; and he adapted himself to
+those circumstances which seemed to advance it, and which a spirit of
+wild democratic license assuredly did not. So far as it contributed to
+overturn the throne of the Stuarts, and the whole system of public
+abuses, civil and ecclesiastical, Cromwell favored it. But no further.
+When it seemed subversive of law and order, the grand ends of all
+civil governments, then he opposed it. And in this he showed that he
+was much more conservative in his spirit than has often been supposed;
+and, in this conservatism he resembled Luther and other great
+reformers, who were not unreflecting incendiaries, as is sometimes
+thought&mdash;men who destroy, but do not reconstruct. Luther, at heart,
+was a conservative, and never sought a change to which he was not led
+by strong inward tempests&mdash;forced to make it by the voice of his
+conscience, which he ever obeyed, and loyalty to which so remarkably
+characterized the early reformers, and no class of men more than the
+Puritans. Cromwell abhorred the government of Charles, because it was
+not a government which respected justice, and which set at defiance
+the higher laws of God. It was not because Charles violated the
+constitution, it was because he violated truth and equity, and the
+nation's good, that he opposed him. Cromwell usurped his prerogatives,
+and violated the English constitution; but he did not transgress those
+great primal principles of truth, for which constitutions are made. He
+looked beyond constitutions to abstract laws of justice; and it never
+can be laid to his charge that he slighted these, or proved a weak or
+wicked ruler. He quarrelled with parliament, because the parliament
+wished to perpetuate its existence unlawfully and meanly, and was
+moreover unwilling and unable to cope with many difficulties which
+constantly arose. It may be supposed that Cromwell may thus have
+thought: "I will not support the parliament, for it will not maintain
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>(p. 185)</span>law; it will not legislate wisely or beneficently; it seeks
+its own, not the nation's good. And therefore I take away its
+existence, and rule myself; for I have the fear of God before my eyes,
+and am determined to rule by his laws, and to advance his glory."
+Deluded he was; blinded by ambition he may have been but he sought to
+elevate his country; and his efforts in her behalf are appreciated and
+praised by the very men who are most severe on his undoubted
+usurpation.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the Long Parliament was purged, at the instigation of
+Cromwell, and had become the <span class="inline">The Rump Parliament.</span> Rump Parliament, as it was derisively
+called, it appointed a committee to take into consideration the time
+when their powers should cease. But the battle of Worcester was fought
+before any thing was done, except to determine that future parliaments
+should consist of four hundred members, and that the existing members
+should be returned, in the next parliament, for the places they then
+represented. At length, in December, 1651, it was decided, through the
+urgent entreaties of Cromwell, but only by a small majority, that the
+present parliament should <span class="inline">Dispersion of the Parliament.</span> cease in November, 1654. Thus it was obvious
+to Cromwell that the parliament, reduced as it was, and composed of
+Independents, was jealous of him, and also was aiming to perpetuate
+its own existence, against all the principles of a representative
+government. Such are men, so greedy of power themselves, so censorious
+in regard to the violation of justice by others, so blind to the
+violation of justice by themselves. Cromwell was not the man to permit
+the usurpation of power by a body of forty or sixty Independents,
+however willing he was to assume it himself. Beside, the Rump
+Parliament was inefficient, and did not consult the interests of the
+country. There was general complaint. But none complained more
+bitterly than Cromwell himself. Meeting Whitelock, who then held the
+great seal, he said that the "army was beginning to have a strange
+distaste against them; that their pride, and ambition, and
+self-seeking; their engrossing all places of honor and profit to
+themselves and their friends; their daily breaking into new and
+violent parties; their delays of business, and design to perpetuate
+themselves, and continue the power in their own hands; their meddling
+in private matters between party and party, their injustice and
+partiality; the scandalous lives of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>(p. 186)</span>some of them, do give
+too much ground for people to open their mouths against them; and
+unless there be some power to check them, it will be impossible to
+prevent our ruin." These things Whitelock admitted, but did not see
+how they could be removed since both he and Cromwell held their
+commissions from this same parliament, which was the supreme
+authority. But Cromwell thought there was nothing to hope, and every
+thing to fear, from such a body of men; that they would destroy what
+the Lord had done. "We all forget God," said he, "and God will forget
+us. He will give us up to confusion, and these men will help it on, if
+left to themselves." Then he asked the great lawyer and chancellor,
+"What if a man should take upon himself to be king?"&mdash;evidently having
+in view the regal power. But Whitelock presented such powerful reasons
+against it, that Cromwell gave up the idea, though he was resolved to
+destroy the parliament. He then held repeated conferences with the
+officers of the army, who sympathized with him, and who supported him.
+At last, while parliament was about to pass an obnoxious bill,
+Cromwell hurried to the House, taking with him a file of musketeers,
+having resolved what he would do. These he left in the lobby, and,
+taking his seat, listened a while to the discussion, and then rose,
+and addressed the House. Waxing warm, he told them, in violent
+language, "that they were deniers of justice, were oppressive, profane
+men, were planning to bring in Presbyterians, and would lose no time
+in destroying the cause they had deserted." Sir Harry Vane and Sir
+Peter Wentworth rose to remonstrate, but Cromwell, leaving his seat,
+walked up and down the floor, with his hat on, reproached the
+different members, who again remonstrated. But Cromwell, raising his
+voice, exclaimed, "You are no parliament. Get you gone. Give way to
+honester men." Then, stamping with his feet, the door opened, and the
+musketeers entered, and the members were dispersed, after giving vent
+to their feelings in the language of reproach. Most of them wore
+swords, but none offered resistance to the man they feared, and tamely
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was the constitution utterly subverted, and parliament, as well
+as the throne, destroyed. Cromwell published, the next day, a
+vindication of his conduct, setting forth the incapacity, selfishness
+and corruption of the parliament, in which were some of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>(p. 187)</span>
+best men England ever had, including Sir Harry Vane, Algernon Sydney,
+and Sir Peter Wentworth.</p>
+
+<p>His next step was to order the continuance of all the courts of
+justice, as before, and summon a new parliament, the members of which
+were nominated by himself and his council of officers. The army, with
+Cromwell at the head, was now the supreme authority.</p>
+
+<p>The new parliament, composed of one hundred and twenty persons,
+assembled on the 4th of July, when Cromwell explained the reason of
+his conduct, and set forth the mercies of the Lord to England. This
+parliament was not constitutional, since it was not elected by the
+people of England, but by Cromwell, and therefore would be likely to
+be his tool. But had the elections been left free, the Presbyterians
+would have been returned as the largest party, and they would have
+ruined the cause which Cromwell and the Independents sought to
+support. In revolutions, there cannot be pursued half measures.
+Revolutions are the contest between parties. The strongest party gains
+the ascendency, and keeps it if it can&mdash;never by old, constituted
+laws. In the English Revolution the Independents gained this
+ascendency by their valor, enthusiasm, and wisdom. And their great
+representative ruled in their name.</p>
+
+<p>The new members of parliament reappointed the old Council of State, at
+the head of which was Cromwell, abolished the High Court of Chancery,
+nominated commissioners to preside in courts of justice, and proceeded
+to other sweeping changes, which alarmed their great nominator, who
+induced them to dissolve themselves and surrender their trust into his
+hands, under the title of <span class="inline">Cromwell Assumes the Protectorship.</span> Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland. On the 16th of December, he was installed in his great
+office, with considerable pomp, in the Court of Chancery, and the new
+constitution was read, which invested him with all the powers of a
+king. It, however, ordained that he should rule with the aid of a
+parliament, which should have all the functions and powers of the old
+parliaments, should be assembled within five months, should last three
+years, and should consist of four hundred and sixty members. It
+provided for the maintenance of the army and navy, of which the
+protector was the head, and decided that the great officers of state
+should be chosen by approbation of parliament. Religious toleration
+was proclaimed, and provision made for the support of the clergy.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>(p. 188)</span>
+
+<p>Thus was the constitution of the nation changed, and a republic
+substituted for a monarchy, at the head of which was the ablest man of
+his age. And there was need of all his abilities. England then was
+engaged in <span class="inline">The Dutch War.</span> war with the Dutch, and the internal state of the nation
+demanded the attention of a vigorous mind and a still more vigorous
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch war was prosecuted with great vigor, and was signalized by
+the naval victories of Blake, Dean, and Monk over the celebrated Van
+Tromp and De Ruyter, the Dutch admirals. The war was caused by the
+commercial jealousies of the two nations, and by the unwillingness of
+the Prince of Orange, who had married a daughter of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, to
+acknowledge the ambassador of the new English republic. But the
+superiority which the English sailors evinced, soon taught the Dutch
+how dangerous it was to provoke a nation which should be its ally on
+all grounds of national policy, and peace was therefore honorably
+secured after a most successful war.</p>
+
+<p>The war being ended, the protector had more leisure to attend to
+business at home. Sir Matthew Hale was made chief justice, and
+Thurloe, secretary of state; disorganizers were punished; an
+insurrection in Scotland was quelled by General Monk; and order and
+law were restored.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the new parliament, the first which had been freely elected
+for fourteen years, soon manifested a spirit of opposition to
+Cromwell, deferred to vote him supplies, and annoyed him all in its
+power. Still he permitted the members to discuss trifling subjects and
+waste their time for five months; but, at the earliest time the new
+constitution would allow, he summoned them to the Painted Chamber,
+made them a long speech, reminded them of their neglect in attending
+to the interests of the nation, while disputing about abstract
+questions, even while it was beset with dangers and difficulties, and
+then dissolved them, (January 22, 1656.)</p>
+
+<p>For the next eighteen months, he ruled <span class="inline">Cromwell Rules without a Parliament.</span> without a parliament and found
+no difficulty in raising supplies, and supporting his now unlimited
+power. During this time, he suppressed a dangerous insurrection in
+England itself, and carried on a successful and brilliant war against
+Spain, a power which he hated with all the capacity of hatred of which
+his nation has shown itself occasionally so capable. In the naval war
+with Spain, Blake was again the hero. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>(p. 189)</span>During the contest the
+rich island of Jamaica was conquered from the Spanish, a possession
+which England has ever since greatly valued.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by his successes, Cromwell now called a third parliament,
+which he opened the 17th of September, 1656, after ejecting one
+hundred of the members, on account of their political sentiments. The
+new House voted for the prosecution of the Spanish war, granted ample
+supplies, and offered to Cromwell the title of king. But his council
+violently opposed it, and Cromwell found it expedient to relinquish
+this object of his heart. But his protectorate was continued to him,
+and he was empowered to nominate his successor.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time, however, the spirit of the new parliament was
+manifested, not only by violent opposition to the protector, but in
+acts which would, if carried out, have subverted the government again,
+and have plunged England in anarchy. It was plain that the protector
+could not rule with a real representation of the nation. So he
+dissolved it; and thus ended the last effort of Cromwell to rule with
+a parliament; or, as his advocates say, to restore the constitution of
+his country. It was plain that there was too much party animosity and
+party ambition to permit the protector, shackled by the law, to carry
+out his designs of order and good government. Self-preservation
+compelled him to be suspicious and despotic, and also to prohibit the
+exercise of the Catholic worship, and to curtail the religious rights
+of the Quakers, Socinians, and Jews. The continual plottings and
+political disaffections of these parties forced him to rule on a
+system to which he was not at first inclined. England was not yet
+prepared for the civil and religious liberty at which the advocates of
+revolution had at first aimed.</p>
+
+<p>So Cromwell now resolved to rule alone. And he ruled well. His armies
+were victorious on the continent, and England was respected abroad,
+and prospered at home. The most able and upright men were appointed to
+office. The chairs of the universities were filled with illustrious
+scholars, and the bench adorned with learned and honest judges. He
+defended the great interests of Protestantism on the Continent, and
+formed alliances which contributed to the political and commercial
+greatness of his country. He generously assisted the persecuted
+Protestants in the valleys of Piedmont, and refused to make treaties
+with hostile <span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>(p. 190)</span>powers unless the religious liberties of the
+Protestants were respected. He lived at Hampton Court, the old palace
+of Cardinal Wolsey, in simple and sober dignity; nor was debauchery or
+riot seen at his court. He lived simply and unostentatiously, and to
+the last preserved the form, and perhaps the spirit, of his early
+piety. He surrounded himself with learned men, and patronized poets
+and scholars. Milton was his familiar guest, and the youthful Dryden
+was not excluded from his table. An outward morality, at least, was
+generally observed, and the strictest discipline was kept at his
+court.</p>
+
+<p>Had Cromwell's life been prolonged to threescore and ten, the history
+of England might have been different for the next two hundred years.
+But such was not his fortune. Providence removed him from the scene of
+his conflicts and his heroism not long after the dissolution of his
+last parliament. The death of a favorite daughter preyed upon his
+mind, and the cares of government undermined his constitution. He died
+on the 3d of September, 1658, the anniversary of his great battles of
+Worcester and Dunbar, in the sixtieth year of his age.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three nights before he died, he was heard to ejaculate the
+following prayer, in the anticipation of his speedy departure; "Lord,
+though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with
+thee, through thy grace; and I may, I will come to thee, for thy
+people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to
+do them good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high
+value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. Lord,
+however Thou disposest of me, continue and go on to do good to them.
+Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and,
+with the work of reformation, go on to deliver them, and make the name
+of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy
+instrument to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to
+trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And
+pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake.
+And give me a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>Thus closed the career of Oliver Cromwell, the most remarkable man in
+the list of England's heroes. His motives and his honesty have often
+been impeached, and sometimes by the most <span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>(p. 191)</span>excellent and
+discriminating, but oftener by heated partisans, who had no sympathy
+with his reforms or opinions. His genius, however, has never been
+questioned, nor his extraordinary talent, for governing a nation in
+the most eventful period of its history. And there is a large class,
+and that class an increasing one, not confined to Independents or
+republicans, who look upon him as one habitually governed by a stern
+sense of duty, as a man who feared God and regarded justice, as a man
+sincerely devoted to the best interests of his country, and deserving
+of the highest praises of all enlightened critics. No man has ever
+been more extravagantly eulogized, or been the subject of more
+unsparing abuse and more cordial detestation. Some are incapable of
+viewing him in any other light than as a profound hypocrite and
+ambitious despot, while others see in him nothing but the saint and
+unspotted ruler. He had his defects; for human nature, in all
+instances, is weak; but in spite of these, and of many and great
+inconsistencies, from which no sophistry can clear him, his great and
+varied excellences will ever entitle him to the rank accorded to him
+by such writers as Vaughan and Carlyle.</p>
+
+<p>With the death of Cromwell virtually ended the republic. "Puritanism
+without its king, is kingless, anarchic, falls into dislocation,
+staggers, and plunges into even deeper anarchy." His son Richard,
+according to his will, was proclaimed protector in his stead. But his
+reign was short. Petitions poured in from every quarter for the
+restoration of parliament. It was restored, and also <span class="inline">Regal Government Restored.</span> with it royalty
+itself. General Monk advanced with his army from Scotland, and
+quartered in London. In May, 1660, Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was proclaimed king at
+the gates of Westminster Hall. The experiment of a republic had been
+tried, and failed. Puritanism veiled its face. It was no longer the
+spirit of the nation. A great reaction commenced. Royalty, with new
+but disguised despotism, resumed its sway.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Carlyle's, Dr. Vaughan's, and D'Aubigné's Life
+     of Cromwell. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     History of England. Godwin's Commonwealth. The common
+     histories of England. Milton's prose writings may be
+     profitably read in this connection, and the various reviews
+     and essays which have of late been written, on the character
+     of Cromwell.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>(p. 192)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE REIGN OF CHARLES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>Few events in English history have ever been hailed with greater
+popular enthusiasm than the <span class="inline">The Restoration.</span> restoration of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> On the 25th of
+May, 1660, he landed near Dover, with his two brothers, the Dukes of
+York and Gloucester. On the 29th of May, he made his triumphal entry
+into London. It was his birthday, he was thirty years of age, and in
+the full maturity of manly beauty, while his gracious manners and
+captivating speech made him the favorite of the people, as well as of
+the old nobility. The season was full of charms, and the spirits of
+all classes were buoyant with hope. Every thing conspired to give a
+glow to the popular enthusiasm. A long line of illustrious monarchs
+was restored. The hateful fires of religious fanaticism were
+apparently extinguished. An accomplished sovereign, disciplined in the
+school of adversity, of brilliant talents, amiable temper, fascinating
+manners, and singular experiences, had returned to the throne of his
+ancestors, and had sworn to rule by the laws, to forget old offences,
+and promote liberty of conscience. No longer should there be a
+government of soldiers, nor the rule of a man hostile to those
+pleasures and opinions which had ever been dear to the English people.
+With the return of the exiled prince, should also return joy, peace,
+and prosperity. For seventeen years, there had been violent political
+and social animosities, war, tyranny, social restraints, and religious
+fanaticism. But order and law were now to be reëstablished, and the
+reign of cant and hypocrisy was now to end. Justice and mercy were to
+meet together in the person of a king who was represented to have all
+the virtues and none of the vices of his station and his times. <span class="inline">Great Public Rejoicings.</span> So
+people reasoned and felt, of all classes and conditions. And why
+should they not rejoice in the restoration of such blessings? The ways
+were strewn with flowers, the bells sent forth a merry peal, the
+streets were hung with tapestries; while aldermen with their heavy
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>(p. 193)</span>chains, nobles in their robes of pomp, ladies with their
+silks and satins, and waving handkerchiefs, filling all the balconies
+and windows; musicians, dancers, and exulting crowds,&mdash;all welcomed
+the return of Charles. Never was there so great a jubilee in London;
+and never did monarch receive such addresses of flattery and loyalty.
+"Dread monarch," said the Earl of Manchester, in the House of Lords,
+"I offer no flattering titles. You are the desire of three kingdoms,
+the strength and stay of the tribes of the people." "Most royal
+sovereign," said one of the deputations, "the hearts of all are filled
+with veneration for you, confidence in you, longings for you. All
+degrees, and ages, and sexes, high, low, rich and poor, men, women,
+and children, join in sending up to Heaven one prayer, 'Long live King
+Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>;' so that the English air is not susceptible of any other
+sound, bells, bonfires, peals of ordnance, shouts, and acclamations of
+the people bear no other moral; nor can his majesty conceive with what
+joy, what cheerfulness, what lettings out of the soul, what
+expressions of transported minds, a stupendous concourse of people
+attended the proclamation of their most potent, most mighty, and most
+undoubted king." Such was the adulatory language addressed by the
+English people to the son of the king they had murdered, and to a man
+noted for every frivolity and vice that could degrade a sovereign.
+What are we to think of that public joy, and public sycophancy, after
+so many years of hard fighting for civil and religious liberty? For
+what were the battles of Naseby and Worcester? For what the Solemn
+League and Covenant? For what the trial and execution of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>?
+For what the elevation of Cromwell? Alas! for what were all the
+experiments and sufferings of twenty years, the breaking up of old and
+mighty customs, and twenty years of blood, usurpation, and change?
+What were the benefits of the Revolution? Or, had it no benefits? How
+happened it that a whole nation should simultaneously rise and expel
+their monarch from a throne which his ancestors had enjoyed for six
+hundred years, and then, in so short a time, have elevated to this old
+throne, which was supposed to be subverted forever, the son of their
+insulted, humiliated, and murdered king? and this without bloodshed,
+with every demonstration of national rejoicings, and with every
+external mark of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>(p. 194)</span>repentance for their past conduct. Charles,
+too, was restored without any of those limitations by which the nation
+sought to curtail the power of his father. The nation surrendered to
+him more absolute power than the most ambitious kings, since the reign
+of John, had ever claimed,&mdash;more than he ever dared to expect. How
+shall we explain these things? And what is the moral which they teach?</p>
+
+<p>One fact is obvious,&mdash;that a <span class="inline">Reaction to Revolutionary Principles.</span> great reaction had taken place in the
+national mind as to revolutionary principles. It is evident that a
+great disgust for the government of Cromwell had succeeded the
+antipathy to the royal government of Charles. All classes as ardently
+desired the restoration, as they had before favored the rebellion.
+Even the old parliamentarians hailed the return of Charles,
+notwithstanding it was admitted that the protectorate was a vigorous
+administration; that law and order were enforced; that religious
+liberty was proclaimed; that the rights of conscience were respected;
+that literature and science were encouraged; that the morals of the
+people were purified; that the ordinances of religion were observed;
+that vice and folly were discouraged; that justice was ably
+administered; that peace and plenty were enjoyed; that prosperity
+attended the English arms abroad; and that the nation was as much
+respected abroad as it was prosperous at home. These things were
+admitted by the very people who rejoiced in the restoration. And yet,
+in spite of all these substantial blessings, the reign of Cromwell was
+odious. Why was this?</p>
+
+<p>It can only be explained on the supposition that there were
+<span class="italic">unendurable evils</span> connected with the administration of Cromwell,
+which more than balanced the benefits he conferred; or, that
+expectations were held out by Charles of national benefits greater
+than those conferred by the republic; or, that the nation had so
+retrograded in elevation of sentiment as to be unable to appreciate
+the excellences of Cromwell's administration.</p>
+
+<p>There is much to support all of these suppositions. In regard to the
+evils connected with the republic, it is certain that a large standing
+army was supported, and was necessary to uphold the government of the
+protector, in order to give to it efficiency and character. This army
+was expensive, and the people felt the burden. They always complain
+under taxation, whether necessary <span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>(p. 195)</span>or not. Taxes ever make
+any government unpopular, and made the administration of Cromwell
+especially so. And the army showed the existence of a military
+despotism, which, however imperatively called for, or rendered
+unavoidable by revolution, was still a hateful fact. The English never
+have liked the principle of a military despotism. And it was a bitter
+reflection to feel that so much blood and treasure had been expended
+to get rid of the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts, only to introduce a
+still more expensive and arbitrary government, under the name of a
+republic. Moreover, the eyes of the people were opened to the moral
+corruptions incident to the support of a large army, without which the
+power of Cromwell would have been unsubstantial. He may originally
+have desired to establish his power on a civil basis, rather than a
+military one; but his desires were not realized. The parliaments which
+he assembled were unpractical and disorderly. He was forced to rule
+without them. But the nation could not forget this great insult to
+their liberties, and to those privileges which had ever been dear to
+them. The preponderance of the civil power has, for several centuries,
+characterized the government; and no blessings were sufficiently great
+to balance the evil, in the eye of an Englishman, of the preponderance
+of a military government, neither the excellence of Cromwell's life,
+nor the glory and greatness to which he raised the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Again, much was expected of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and there was much in his
+character and early administration to produce <span class="inline">Excellences in Charles's Government.</span> content. His manners
+were agreeable. He had no personal antipathies or jealousies. He
+selected, at first, the wisest and best of all parties to be his
+counsellors and ministers. He seemed to forget old offences. He was
+fond of pleasure; was good-natured and affable. He summoned a free
+parliament. His interests were made to appear identical with those of
+the people. He promised to rule by the laws. He did not openly
+infringe on the constitution. And he restored, what has ever been so
+dear to the great body of the nation, the Episcopal Church in all its
+beauty and grandeur, while he did not recommence the persecution of
+Puritans until some time had elapsed from his restoration. Above all,
+he disbanded the army, which was always distasteful to the
+people,&mdash;odious, onerous, and oppressive. The civil power again
+triumphed over that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>(p. 196)</span>of the military, and circumstances
+existed which rendered the subversion of liberty very difficult. Many
+adverse events transpired during his unfortunate and disgraceful
+reign; but these, in the early part of it, had not, of course, been
+anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>There is also force in the third supposition, that the nation had
+retrograded in moral elevation. All writers speak of a strong reaction
+to the religious fervor of the early revolutionists. The moral
+influence of the army had proved destructive to the habits and
+sentiments of the people. A strong love of pleasure and demoralizing
+amusements existed, when Charles was recalled. A general laxity of
+morals was lamented by the wisest and best of the nation. The
+religious convictions of enthusiasts survived their sympathies.
+Hypocrisy and cant succeeded fervor and honesty. Infidelity lurked in
+many a bosom in which devotional ardor had once warmly burned.
+Distrust of all philanthropy and all human virtue was as marked, as
+faith in the same previously had been. The ordinances of religion
+became irksome, and it was remembered with bitterness that the
+Puritans, in the days of their ascendency, had cruelly proscribed the
+most favorite pleasures and time-honored festivals of old England. But
+the love of them returned with redoubled vigor. May-poles,
+wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing,
+betting, rope-dancing, romping under the mistletoe on Christmas,
+eating boars' heads, attending the theatres, health-drinking,&mdash;all
+these old-fashioned ways, in which the English sought merriment, were
+restored. The evil was chiefly in the excess to which these pleasures
+were carried; and every thing, which bore any resemblance to the
+Puritans, was ridiculed and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not
+love Puritanism, or any thing pertaining to it, after the deep
+religious excitement had passed away. The people were ashamed of
+prayer-meetings, of speaking through their noses, of wearing their
+hair straight, of having their garments cut primly, of calling their
+children by the name of Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Obadiah, &amp;c.; and, in
+short, of all customs and opinions peculiar to the Extreme Puritans.
+So general was the disgust of Puritanism, so eager were all to indulge
+in the pleasures that had been forbidden under the reign of Cromwell,
+so sick were they of the very name of republicanism, that <span class="inline">Failure of the Puritan Experiment.</span> Puritanism
+may be said to have proved, in England, a signal failure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>(p. 197)</span>Such were some of the reasons of popular acclamation on the
+restoration of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and which we cannot consider entirely
+without force. A state of mind existed in England as favorable to the
+encroachments of royalty, as, twenty years before, it had been
+unfavorable.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was not a high-minded, or honest, or patriotic king; and
+therefore we might naturally expect the growth of absolutism during
+his reign. The progress of absolutism is, indeed, one of its features.
+This, for a time, demands our notice.</p>
+
+<p>On the restoration of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, his subjects made no particular
+stipulations respecting their liberties, which were incautiously
+intrusted to his hands. But, at first, he did not seem inclined to
+grasp at greater powers than what the constitution allowed him. He had
+the right to appoint the great officers of state, the privilege of
+veto on legislative enactments, the control of the army and navy, the
+regulation of all foreign intercourse, and the right of making peace
+and war. But the constitution did not allow him to rule without a
+parliament, or to raise taxes without its consent. The parliament
+might grant or withhold supplies at pleasure, and all money bills
+originated and were discussed in the House of Commons alone. These
+were the great principles of the English constitution, which Charles
+swore to maintain.</p>
+
+<p>The first form in which the encroaching temper of the king was
+manifested was, in causing the <span class="inline">Repeal of the Triennial Bill.</span> Triennial Bill to be repealed. This was
+indeed done by the parliament, but through the royal influence. This
+bill was not that a parliament should be assembled every three years,
+but that the interval between one session and another should not
+exceed that period. But this wise law, which had passed by acclamation
+during the reign of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, and for which even Clarendon had
+voted, was regarded by Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> as subversive of the liberty of his
+crown; and a supple, degenerate and sycophantic parliament gratified
+his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time was passed the Corporation Act, which enjoined all
+magistrates, and persons of trust in corporations, to swear that they
+believed it unlawful, under any pretence whatever to take arms against
+the king. The Presbyterians refused to take this oath; and they were
+therefore excluded from offices of dignity and trust. The act bore
+hard upon all bodies of Dissenters and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>(p. 198)</span>Roman Catholics, the
+former of whom were most cruelly persecuted in this reign.</p>
+
+<p>The next most noticeable effort of Charles to extend his power
+independently of the law, was his <span class="inline">Secret Alliance with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></span> secret alliance with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> This
+was not known to the nation, and even but to few of his ministers, and
+was the most disgraceful act of his reign. For the miserable stipend
+of two hundred thousand pounds a year, he was ready to compromise the
+interests of the kingdom, and make himself the slave of the most
+ambitious sovereign in Europe. He became a pensioner of France, and
+yet did not feel his disgrace. Clarendon, attached as he was to
+monarchy, and to the house of Stuart, could not join him in his base
+intrigues; and therefore lost, as was to be expected, the royal favor.
+He had been the companion and counsellor of Charles in the days of his
+exile; he had attempted to enkindle in his mind the desire of great
+deeds and virtues; he had faithfully served him as chancellor and
+prime minister; he was impartial and incorruptible; he was as much
+attached to Episcopacy, as he was to monarchy; he had even advised
+Charles to rule without a parliament; and yet he was disgraced because
+he would not comply with all the wishes of his unscrupulous master.
+But Clarendon was, nevertheless, unpopular with the nation. He had
+advised Charles to sell Dunkirk, the proudest trophy of the
+Revolution, and had built for himself a splendid palace, on the site
+of the present Clarendon Hotel, in Albemarle Street, which the people
+called <span class="italic">Dunkirk House</span>. He was proud, ostentatious, and dictatorial,
+and was bitterly hostile to all democratic influences. He was too good
+for one party, and not good enough for the other, and therefore fell
+to the ground; but he retired, if not with dignity, at least with
+safety. He retreated to the Continent, and there wrote his celebrated
+history of the Great Rebellion, a partial and bitter history, yet a
+valuable record of the great events of the age of revolution which he
+had witnessed and detested.</p>
+
+<p>Charles received the bribe of two hundred thousand pounds from the
+French king, with the hope of being made independent of his
+parliament, and with the condition of assisting Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> in his
+aggressive wars on the liberties of Europe, especially those of
+Holland. He was, at heart an absolutist, and rejoiced in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>(p. 199)</span>
+victories of the "Grand Monarch." But this supply was scarcely
+sufficient even for his pleasures, much less to support the ordinary
+pomp of a monarchy, and the civil and military powers of the state. So
+he had to resort to other means.</p>
+
+<p>It happened, fortunately for his encroachments, but unfortunately for
+the nation, that the English parliament, at that period, was more
+<span class="inline">Venality and Sycophancy of Parliament.</span> corrupt, venal, base, and sycophantic than at any period under the
+Tudor kings, or at any subsequent period under the Hanoverian princes.
+The House of Commons made no indignant resistance; it sent up but few
+spirited remonstrances; but tamely acquiesced in the measures of
+Charles and his ministers. Its members were bought and sold with
+unblushing facility, and even were corrupted by the agents of the
+French king. One member received six thousand pounds for his vote.
+Twenty-nine of the members received from five hundred to twelve
+hundred pounds a year. Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> attempted to rule by opposition to
+the parliament; Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> by corrupting it. Hence it was nearly
+silent in view of his arbitrary spirit, his repeated encroachments,
+and his worthless public character.</p>
+
+<p>Among his worst acts was his shutting up the Exchequer, where the
+bankers and merchants had been in the habit of depositing money on the
+security of the funds, receiving a large interest of from eight to ten
+per cent. By closing the Exchequer, the bankers, unable to draw out
+their money, stopped payment; and a universal panic was the
+consequence, during which many great failures happened. By this base
+violation of the public faith, Charles obtained one million three
+hundred thousand pounds. But it undermined his popularity more than
+any of his acts, since he touched the pockets of the people. The
+odium, however, fell chiefly on his ministers, especially those who
+received the name of the <span class="italic">Cabal</span>, from the fact that the initials of
+their names spelt that odious term of reproach, not unmerited in their
+case.</p>
+
+<p>These five ministers were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and
+Lauderdale, and they were the great instruments of his tyranny. None
+of them had the talents or audacity of Strafford, or the narrowness
+and bigotry of Laud; but their counsels were injurious to the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Clifford and Arlington were tolerably respectable but indifferent
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>(p. 200)</span>to the glory and shame of their country; while Buckingham,
+Ashley, and Lauderdale were profligate, unprincipled, and dishonest to
+a great degree. They aided Charles to corrupt the parliament and
+deceive the nation. They removed all restraints on his will, and
+pandered to his depraved tastes. It was by their suggestion that the
+king shut up the Exchequer. They also favored <span class="inline">Restrictions on the Press.</span> restrictions on the
+press.</p>
+
+<p>These restrictions were another abomination in the reign of Charles,
+but one ever peculiar to a despotic government. No book could be
+printed out of London, York, or the Universities. But these were not
+made wholly with a view of shackling the mind, but to prevent those
+libels and lampoons which made the government ridiculous in the eyes
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing caused more popular indignation, during this reign, than the
+Forfeiture of the Corporation of the City of London. The power of the
+democracy resided, at this time, with the corporations, and as long as
+they were actuated by the spirit of liberty, there was no prospect of
+obtaining a parliament entirely subservient to the king. It was
+determined to take away their charters; and the infamous Judge
+Jeffreys was found a most subservient tool of royalty in undermining
+the liberties of the country. The corporation of London, however,
+received back its charter, after having yielded to the king the right
+of conferring the appointments of mayor, recorder, and sheriffs.</p>
+
+<p>Among other infringements on the constitution was the fining of jurors
+when they refused to act according to the direction of the judges.
+Juries were constantly intimidated, and their privileges were
+abridged. A new parliament, moreover, was not convoked after three
+years had elapsed from the dissolution of the old one, which
+infringement was the more reprehensible, since the king had nothing to
+fear from the new House of Commons, the members of which vied with
+each other in a base compliancy with the royal will.</p>
+
+<p>But their sycophancy was nothing compared with what the bishops and
+clergy of the Established Church generally evinced. Absolute
+non-resistance was inculcated from the pulpits, and the doctrine
+ridiculed that power emanated from the people. The divine rights of
+kings, and the divine ordination of absolute power <span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>(p. 201)</span>were the
+themes of divines, while Oxford proclaimed doctrines worthy of Mariana
+and the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>Thus various influences contributed to make Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> absolute in
+England&mdash;the Courts of Justice, the Parliaments, the Universities, and
+the Church of England. Had he been as ambitious as he was fond of
+pleasure, as capable of ruling as he was capable of telling stories at
+the dinner table, he would, like Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, have reared an absolute
+throne in England. But he was too easy, too careless, too fond of
+pleasure to concentrate his thoughts on devising means to enslave his
+subjects.</p>
+
+<p>It must not, however, be supposed that all his subjects were
+indifferent to his encroachments, in spite of the great reaction which
+had succeeded to liberal sentiments. Before he died, the spirit of
+resistance was beginning to be seen, and some checks to royal power
+were imposed by parliament itself. The <span class="inline">Habeas Corpus Act.</span> Habeas Corpus Act, the most
+important since the declaration of Magna Charta, was passed, and
+through the influence of one of his former ministers, Ashley, now
+become Earl of Shaftesbury, who took the popular side, after having
+served all sides, but always with a view of advancing his own
+interests, a man of great versatility of genius, of great sagacity,
+and of varied learning. Had Charles continued much longer on the
+throne, it cannot be doubted that the nation would have been finally
+aroused to resist his spirit of encroachment, for the principles of
+liberty had not been proclaimed in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was a tyrant, and one of the worst kings that ever sat on
+the English throne. His leading defect was want of earnestness of
+character, which made him indifferent to the welfare of his country.
+England, during his reign, was reduced to comparative insignificance
+in the eyes of foreigners, and was neither feared nor respected. Her
+king was neither a powerful friend nor an implacable enemy, and left
+the Continental Powers to pursue their own ends unmolested and
+unrebuked. Most of the administrations of the English kings are
+interlinked with the whole system of European politics. But the reign
+of Charles is chiefly interesting in relation to the domestic history
+of England. This history is chiefly the cabals of ministers, the
+intrigues of the court, the pleasures and follies of the king, the
+attacks he made <span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>(p. 202)</span>on the constitution without any direct
+warfare with his parliament and the system of religious persecution,
+which was most intolerant.</p>
+
+<p>The king was at heart a Catholic; and yet the persecution of the
+Catholics is one of the most signal events of the times. We can
+scarcely conceive, in this age, of the spirit of distrust and fear
+which pervaded the national mind in reference to the Catholics. Every
+calumny was believed. Every trifling offence was exaggerated, and by
+nearly all classes in the community, by the Episcopalians, as well as
+by the Presbyterians and the Independents.</p>
+
+<p>The most memorable of all the delusions and slanders of the times was
+produced by the perjuries of an unprincipled wretch called <span class="inline">Titus Oates.</span> Titus
+Oates, who took advantage of the general infatuation to advance his
+individual interests. Like an artful politician, he had only to appeal
+to a dominant passion or prejudice, and he was sure of making his
+fortune. Like a cunning, popular orator, he had only to inflame the
+passions of the people, and he would pass as a genius and a prophet.
+Few are so abstractedly and coldly intellectual as not to be mainly
+governed by their tastes or passions. Even men of strong intellect
+have frequently strong prejudices, and one has only to make himself
+master of these, in order to lead those who are infinitely their
+superiors. There is no proof that all who persecuted the Catholics in
+Charles's time were either weak or ignorant. But there is evidence of
+unbounded animosity, a traditional hatred, not much diminished since
+the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes. The whole nation was ready to
+believe any thing against the Catholics, and especially against their
+church, which was supposed to be persecuting and diabolical in all its
+principles and in all its practice. In this state of the popular mind,
+Oates made his hideous revelations.</p>
+
+<p>He was a broken-down clergyman of the Established Church, and had lost
+caste for disgraceful irregularities. But he professed to hate the
+Catholics, and such a virtue secured him friends. Among these was the
+Rev. Dr. Tonge, a man very weak, very credulous, and full of fears
+respecting the intrigues of the Catholics but honest in his fears.
+Oates went to this clergyman, and a plan was concerted between them,
+by which Oates should get a knowledge of the supposed intrigues of the
+Church of Rome. He professed himself a Catholic, went to the
+Continent, and entered a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>(p. 203)</span>Catholic seminary, but was soon
+discharged for his scandalous irregularities. But he had been a
+Catholic long enough for his purposes. He returned to London, and
+revealed his <span class="inline">Oates's Revelations.</span> pretended discoveries, among which he declared that the
+Jesuits had undertaken to restore the Catholic religion in England by
+force; that they were resolved to take the king's life, and had
+actually offered a bribe of fifteen thousand pounds to the queen's
+physician; that they had planned to burn London, and to set fire to
+all the shipping in the Thames; that they were plotting to make a
+general massacre of the Protestants; that a French army was about to
+invade England; and that all the horrors of St. Bartholomew were to be
+again acted over! Ridiculous as were these assertions, they were
+believed, and without a particle of evidence; so great was the
+national infatuation. The king and the Duke of York both pronounced
+the whole matter a forgery, and laughed at the credulity of the
+people, but had not sufficient generosity to prevent the triumph of
+the libellers. But Oates's testimony was not enough to convict any
+one, the law requiring two witnesses. But, in such a corrupt age,
+false witnesses could easily be procured. An infamous wretch, by the
+name of Bedloe, was bribed, a man who had been imprisoned in Newgate
+for swindling. Others equally unscrupulous were soon added to the list
+of informers, and no calumnies, however gross and absurd, prevented
+the people from believing them.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that a man, by the name of Coleman, was suspected of
+intrigues. His papers were searched, and some passages in them,
+unfortunately, seemed to confirm the statements of Oates. To impartial
+eyes, these papers simply indicated a desire and a hope that the
+Catholic religion would be reëstablished, in view of the predilections
+of Charles and James, and the general posture of affairs, just as some
+enthusiastic Jesuit missionary in the valley of the Mississippi may be
+supposed to write to his superior that America is on the eve of
+conversion to Catholicism.</p>
+
+<p>But the general ferment was still more increased by the disappearance
+of an eminent justice of the peace, who had taken the depositions of
+Oates against Coleman. Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey was found dead, and
+with every mark of violence, in a field near London, and was probably
+murdered by some fanatical persons in the communion of the Church of
+Rome. But if so, the murder <span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>(p. 204)</span>was a great blunder. It was
+worse than a crime. The whole community were mad with rage and fear.
+<span class="inline">Penal Laws against Catholics.</span> The old penal laws were strictly enforced against the Catholics. The
+jails were filled with victims. London wore the appearance of a
+besieged city. The houses of the Catholics were every where searched,
+and two thousand of them imprisoned. Posts were planted in the street,
+that chains might be thrown across them on the first alarm. The
+military, the train bands, and the volunteers were called out. Forty
+thousand men were kept under guard during the night. Numerous patrols
+paraded the streets. The gates of the Palace were closed, and the
+guards of the city were doubled. Oates was pronounced to be the savior
+of his country, lodged at Whitehall and pensioned with twelve hundred
+pounds a year.</p>
+
+<p>Then flowed more innocent blood than had been shed for a long period.
+Catholics who were noble, and Catholics who were obscure, were alike
+judicially murdered; and the courts of justice, instead of being
+places of refuge, were disgraced by the foulest abominations. Every
+day new witnesses were produced of crimes which never happened, and
+new victims were offered up to appease the wrath of a prejudiced
+people. Among these victims of popular frenzy was the Earl of
+Stafford, a venerable and venerated nobleman of sixty-nine years of
+age, against whom sufficient evidence was not found to convict him;
+and whose only crime was in being at the head of the Catholic party.
+Yet he was found guilty by the House of Peers, fifty-five out of
+eighty-six having voted for his execution. He died on the scaffold,
+but with the greatest serenity, forgiving his persecutors, and
+compassionating their delusions. A future generation, during the reign
+of George <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, however, reversed his attainder, and did justice to his
+memory, and restored his descendants to their rank and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>If no other illustrious victims suffered, persecution was nevertheless
+directed into other channels. Parliament passed an act that no person
+should sit in either House, unless he had previously taken the oath of
+<span class="inline">Persecution of Dissenters.</span> allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration that the
+worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled
+from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, from receiving any
+legacy, and from acting as executors or administrators of estates.
+This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole <span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>(p. 205)</span>Catholic
+population, had repeatedly miscarried, but, under influence of the
+panic which Oates and his confederates created, was now triumphantly
+passed. Charles himself gave his royal assent because he was afraid to
+stem the torrent of popular infatuation. And the English nation
+permitted one hundred and thirty years to elapse before the civil
+disabilities of the Catholics were removed, and then only by the most
+strenuous exertions of such a statesman as Sir Robert Peel.</p>
+
+<p>It is some satisfaction to know that justice at last overtook the
+chief authors of this diabolical infatuation. During the reign of
+James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, Oates and others were punished as they deserved. Oates's
+credit gradually passed away. He was fined, imprisoned, and whipped at
+the pillory until life itself had nearly fled. He died unlamented and
+detested, leaving behind him, to all posterity an infamous notoriety.</p>
+
+<p>But the sufferings of the Catholics, during this reign, were more than
+exceeded by the sufferings of Dissenters, who were cruelly persecuted.
+All the various sects of the Protestants were odious and ridiculous in
+the eyes of the king. They were regarded as hostile in their
+sympathies, and treasonable in their designs. They were fined,
+imprisoned, mutilated, and whipped. An Act of Uniformity was passed,
+which restored the old penal laws of Elizabeth, and which subjected
+all to their penalty who did not use the Book of Common Prayer, and
+adhere strictly to the ritual of the Church of England. The
+oligarchical power of the bishops was restored, and two thousand
+ministers were driven from their livings, and compelled to seek a
+precarious support. Many other acts of flagrant injustice were passed
+by a subservient parliament, and cruelly carried into execution by
+unfeeling judges. But the religious persecution of dissenters was not
+consummated until the reign of James under whose favor or direction
+the inhuman Jeffreys inflicted the most atrocious crimes which have
+ever been committed under the sanction of the law. But these will be
+more appropriately noticed under the reign of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Charles was
+not so cruel in his temper, or bigoted in his sentiments, as his
+brother James. He was rather a Gallio than a persecutor. He would
+permit any thing rather than suffer himself to be interrupted in his
+pleasures. He was governed by his favorites and his women. He had not
+sufficient <span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>(p. 206)</span>moral elevation to be earnest in any thing, even
+to be a bigot in religion. He vacillated between the infidelity of
+Hobbes and the superstitions of Rome. He lived a scoffer, and died a
+Catholic. His temper was easy, but so easy as not to prevent the
+persecution and ruin of his best supporters, when they had become
+odious to the nation. If he was incapable of enmity, he was also
+incapable of friendship. If he hated no one with long-continued
+malignity, it was only because it was too much trouble to hate
+perseveringly. But he loved with no more constancy than he hated. He
+had no patriotism, and no appreciation of moral excellence. He would
+rather see half of the merchants of London ruined, and half of the
+Dissenters immured in gloomy prisons, than lose two hours of
+inglorious dalliance with one of his numerous concubines. A more
+contemptible prince never sat on the English throne, or one whose
+whole reign was disgraced by a more constant succession of political
+blunders and social crimes. And yet he never fully lost his
+popularity, nor was his reign felt to be as burdensome as was that of
+the protector, Cromwell, thus showing how little the moral excellence
+of rulers is ordinarily appreciated or valued by a wilful or blinded
+generation. We love not the rebukers of our sins, or the opposers of
+our pleasures. We love those who prophesy smooth things, and "cry
+peace, when there is no peace." Such is man in his weakness and his
+degeneracy; and only an omnipotent power can change this ordinary
+temper of the devotees to pleasure and inglorious gains.</p>
+
+<p>Among the saddest events during the reign of Charles, were the
+<span class="inline">Execution of Russell and Sydney.</span> executions of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney. They were concerned,
+with a few other great men, in a conspiracy, which had for its object
+the restoration of greater liberty. They contemplated an insurrection,
+known by the name of the <span class="italic">Rye House Plot</span>; but it was discovered, and
+Russell and Sydney became martyrs. The former was the son of the Earl
+of Bedford, and the latter was the brother of the Earl of Leicester.
+Russell was a devoted Churchman, of pure morals, and greatly beloved
+by the people. Sydney was a strenuous republican, and was opposed to
+any particular form of church government. He thought that religion
+should be like a divine philosophy in the mind, and had great
+veneration for the doctrines of Plato. Nothing could save <span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>(p. 207)</span>
+these illustrious men. The Duke of York and Jeffreys declared that, if
+they were not executed, there would be no safety for themselves. They
+both suffered with great intrepidity, and the friends of liberty have
+ever since cherished their memory with peculiar fondness.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Macaulay, in his recent History, has presented the <span class="inline">Manners and Customs of England.</span> manners and
+customs of England during the disgraceful reign of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> It is
+impossible, in this brief survey, to allude to all those customs; but
+we direct particularly the attention of readers to them, as described
+in his third chapter, from which it would appear, that a most manifest
+and most glorious progress has been made since that period in all the
+arts of civilization, both useful and ornamental. In those times,
+travelling was difficult and slow, from the badness of the roads and
+the imperfections of the carriages. Highwaymen were secreted along the
+thoroughfares, and, in mounted troops, defied the law, and distressed
+the whole travelling community. The transmission of letters by post
+was tardy and unfrequent, and the scandal of coffee-houses supplied
+the greatest want and the greatest luxury of modern times, the
+newspaper. There was great scarcity of books in the country places,
+and the only press in England north of the Trent seems to have been at
+York. Literature was but feebly cultivated by country squires or
+country parsons, and female education was disgracefully neglected. Few
+rich men had libraries as large or valuable as are now common to
+shopkeepers and mechanics; while the literary stores of a lady of the
+manor were confined chiefly to the prayer-book and the receipt-book.
+And those works which were produced or read were disgraced by
+licentious ribaldry, which had succeeded religious austerity. The
+drama was the only department of literature which compensated authors,
+and this was scandalous in the extreme. We cannot turn over the pages
+of one of the popular dramatists of the age without being shocked by
+the most culpable indecency. <span class="inline">Milton &mdash; Dryden.</span> Even Dryden was no exception to the rule;
+and his poetry, some of which is the most beautiful in the language,
+can hardly be put into the hands of the young without danger of
+corrupting them. Poets and all literary men lived by the bounty of the
+rich and great, and prospered only as they pandered to depraved
+passions. Many, of great intellectual excellence, died from want and
+mortification; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>(p. 208)</span>so that the poverty and distress of literary
+men became proverbial, and all worldly-wise people shunned contact
+with them as expensive and degrading. They were hunted from cocklofts
+to cellars by the minions of the law, and the foulest jails were often
+their only resting-place. The restoration of Charles proved
+unfortunate to one great and immortal genius, whom no temptations
+could assail, and no rewards could bribe. He "possessed his soul in
+patience," and "soared above the Aonian mount," amid general levity
+and profligacy. Had he written for a pure, classic, and learned age,
+he could not have written with greater moral beauty. But he lived when
+no moral excellence was appreciated, and his claims on the gratitude
+of the world are beyond all estimation, when we remember that he wrote
+with the full consciousness, like the great Bacon, that his works
+would only be valued or read by future generations. Milton was,
+indeed, unmolested; but he was sadly neglected in his blindness and in
+his greatness. But, like all the great teachers of the world, he was
+sustained by something higher than earthly applause, and labored, like
+an immortal artist, from the love which his labor excited,&mdash;labored to
+realize the work of art which his imagination had conceived, as well
+as to propagate ideas and sentiments which should tend to elevate
+mankind. Dryden was his contemporary, but obtained a greater homage,
+not because he was more worthy, but because he adapted his genius to
+the taste of a frivolous and corrupt people. He afterwards wrote more
+unexceptionably, composed lyrics instead of farces, and satires
+instead of plays. In his latter days, he could afford to write in a
+purer style; and, as he became independent, he reared the
+superstructure of his glorious fame. But Dryden spent the best parts
+of his life as a panderer to the vices of the town, and was an idol
+chiefly, in Wills's Coffee House, of lampooners, and idlers, and
+scandal-mongers. Nor were there many people, in the church or in the
+state, sufficiently influential and noble to stem the torrent. The
+city clergy were the most respectable, and the pulpits of London were
+occupied with twelve men who afterwards became bishops, and who are
+among the great ornaments of the sacred literature of their country.
+Sherlock, Tillotson, Wake, Collier, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
+Fowler, Sharp, Tennison, and Beveridge made the Established Church
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>(p. 209)</span>respected in the town; but the country clergy, as a whole,
+were ignorant and depressed. Not one living in fifty enabled the
+incumbent to bring up a family comfortably or respectably. The
+clergyman was disdained even by the county attorney, was hardly
+tolerated at the table of his patron, and could scarcely marry beyond
+the rank of a cook or housekeeper. And his poverty and bondage
+continued so long that, in the times of Swift, the parson was a byword
+and a jest among the various servants in the households of the great.
+Still there were eminent clergymen amid the general depression of
+their order, both in and out of the Established Church. Besides the
+London preachers were many connected with the Universities and
+Cathedrals; and there were some distinguished Dissenters, among whom
+Baxter, Howe, and Alleine if there were no others, would alone have
+made the name of Puritan respectable.</p>
+
+<p>The saddest fact, in connection with the internal history of England,
+at this time, was the <span class="inline">Condition of the People.</span> condition of the people. They had small wages,
+and many privations. They had no social rank, and were disgraced by
+many vices. They were ignorant and brutal. The wages of laborers only
+averaged four shillings a week, while those of mechanics were not
+equal to what some ordinarily earn, in this country and in these
+times, in a single day. Both peasants, and artisans were not only ill
+paid, but ill used, and they died, miserably and prematurely, from
+famine and disease. Nor did sympathy exist for the misfortunes of the
+poor. There were no institutions of public philanthropy. Jails were
+unvisited by the ministers of mercy, and the abodes of poverty were
+left by a careless generation to be dens of infamy and crime. Such was
+England two hundred years ago; and there is no delusion more
+unwarranted by sober facts than that which supposes that those former
+times were better than our own, in any thing which abridges the labors
+or alleviates the miseries of mankind. "It is now the fashion to place
+the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of
+comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman;
+when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of
+which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster
+in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential
+lanes of our towns; and when men died <span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>(p. 210)</span>faster in the lanes of
+our towns than they now die on the coast of Guinea. But we too shall,
+in our turn, be outstripped, and, in our turn, envied. There is
+constant improvement, as there also is constant discontent; and future
+generations may talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as a time when
+England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together
+by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the
+poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Of all the works which have yet appeared,
+     respecting this interesting epoch, the new History of
+     Macaulay is the most brilliant and instructive. Indeed, the
+     student scarcely needs any other history, in spite of
+     Macaulay's Whig doctrines. He may sacrifice something to
+     effect; and he may give us pictures, instead of philosophy;
+     but, nevertheless, his book has transcendent merit, and will
+     be read, by all classes, so long as English history is
+     prized. Mackintosh's fragment, on the same period, is more
+     philosophical, and possesses very great merits. Lingard's
+     History is very valuable on this reign, and should be
+     consulted. Hume, also, will never cease to please. Burnet is
+     a prejudiced historian, but his work is an authority. The
+     lives of Milton, Dryden, and Clarendon should also be read
+     in this connection. Hallam has but treated the
+     constitutional history of these times. See also Temple's
+     Works; the Life of William Lord Russell; Rapin's History.
+     Pepys, Dalrymple, Rymeri F&oelig;dera, the Commons' Journal,
+     and the Howell State Trials are not easily accessible, and
+     not necessary, except to the historian.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>(p. 211)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>REIGN OF JAMES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> died on the 6th of February, 1685, and his brother, the
+Duke of York, <span class="inline">Accession of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></span> ascended his throne, without opposition, under the title
+of <span class="italic">James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></span> As is usual with princes, on their accession, he made
+many promises of ruling by the laws, and of defending the liberties of
+the nation. And he commenced his administration under good auspices.
+The country was at peace, he was not unpopular, and all classes and
+parties readily acquiesced in his government.</p>
+
+<p>He retained all the great officers who had served under his brother
+that he could trust; and Rochester became prime minister, Sunderland
+kept possession of the Seals, and Godolphin was made lord chamberlain.
+He did not dismiss Halifax, Ormond, or Guildford, although he disliked
+and distrusted them, but abridged their powers, and mortified them by
+neglect.</p>
+
+<p>The Commons voted him one million two hundred thousand pounds, and the
+Scottish parliament added twenty-five thousand pounds more, and the
+Customs for life. But this sum he did not deem sufficient for his
+wants, and therefore, like his brother, applied for aid to Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>,
+and consented to become his pensioner and vassal, and for the paltry
+sum of two hundred thousand pounds. James received the money with
+tears of gratitude, hoping by this infamous pension to rule the nation
+without a parliament. It was not, of course, known to the nation, or
+even to his ministers, generally.</p>
+
+<p>He was scarcely crowned before England was invaded by the Duke of
+Monmouth, natural son of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and Scotland by the Duke of
+Argyle, with a view of ejecting James from the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Both these noblemen were exiles in Holland, and both were justly
+obnoxious to the government for their treasonable intentions and acts.
+Argyle was loath to engage in an enterprise so desperate as the
+conquest of England; but he was an enthusiast, was at the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>(p. 212)</span>
+head of the most powerful of the Scottish clans, the Campbells, and he
+hoped for a general rising throughout Scotland, to put down what was
+regarded as idolatry, and to strike a blow for liberty and the Kirk.</p>
+
+<p>Having concerted his measures with Monmouth, he set sail from Holland,
+the 2d of May, 1685, in spite of all the efforts of the English
+minister, and landed at Kirkwall, one of the Orkney Islands. But his
+objects were well known, and the whole militia of the land were put
+under arms to resist him. He, however, collected a force of two
+thousand five hundred Highlanders, and marched towards Glasgow; but he
+was miserably betrayed and deserted. His forces were dispersed, and he
+himself was seized while attempting to escape in disguise, brought to
+Edinburgh, and beheaded. His followers were treated with great
+harshness, but the rebellion was completely suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Monmouth had agreed to sail in six days from the departure of Argyle;
+but he lingered at Brussels, loath to part from a beautiful mistress,
+the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. It was a month before he set sail from
+the Texel, with about eighty officers and one hundred and fifty
+followers&mdash;a small force to overturn the throne. But he relied on his
+popularity with the people, and on a false and exaggerated account of
+the unpopularity of James. <span class="inline">Monmouth Lands in England.</span> He landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, about
+the middle of June, and forthwith issued a flaming proclamation,
+inviting all to join his standard, as a deliverer from the cruel
+despotism of a Catholic prince, whom he accused of every crime&mdash;of the
+burning of London, of the Popish Plot, of the condemnation of Russell
+and Sydney, of poisoning the late king, and of infringements on the
+constitution. In this declaration, falsehood was mingled with truth,
+but well adapted to inflame the passions of the people. He was
+supported by many who firmly believed that his mother, Lucy Walters,
+was the lawful wife of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> He, of course, claimed the English
+throne, but professed to waive his rights until they should be settled
+by a parliament. The adventurer grossly misunderstood the temper of
+the people, and the extent to which his claims were recognized. He was
+unprovided with money, with generals, and with troops. He collected a
+few regiments from the common people, and advanced to Somersetshire.
+At Taunton his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>(p. 213)</span>reception was flattering. All classes
+welcomed him as a deliverer from Heaven, and the poor rent the air
+with acclamations and shouts. His path was strewed with flowers, and
+the windows were crowded with ladies, who waved their handkerchiefs,
+and even waited upon him with a large deputation. Twenty-six lovely
+maidens presented the handsome son of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> with standards and a
+Bible, which he kissed, and promised to defend.</p>
+
+<p>But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of Albemarle&mdash;the
+son of General Monk, who restored Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>&mdash;advanced against him
+with the militia of the country, and Monmouth was supported only by
+the vulgar, the weak, and the credulous. Not a single nobleman joined
+his standard, and but few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders.
+He lost time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who
+followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of England,
+where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. But all men of
+station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged and dismayed, he
+reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture Bristol, then the second
+city in the kingdom. He was again disappointed. He was forced, from
+unexpected calamities, to abandon the enterprise. He then turned his
+eye to Wilts; but when he arrived at the borders of the county, he
+found that none of the bodies on which he had calculated had made
+their appearance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which
+ended favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton,
+natural son of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, distinguished himself against his half
+brother; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridgewater.
+Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at <span class="inline">Battle of Sedgemoor.</span> Sedgemoor. Here
+was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal to the rebels, "the last
+deserving the name of <span class="italic">battle</span>, that has been fought on English
+ground." Monmouth, when all was lost, fled from the field, and
+hastened to the British Channel, hoping to gain the Continent. He was
+found near the New Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and
+fatigue. He was sent, under a strong guard, to Ringwood; and all that
+was left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he
+clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He
+abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>(p. 214)</span>who never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a
+friend, when even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from
+a man he both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, lodged
+in the Tower, and <span class="inline">Death of Monmouth.</span> executed in a bungling manner by "Jack Ketch"&mdash;the
+name given for several centuries to the public executioner. He was
+buried under St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower, where reposed the
+headless bodies of so many noted saints and political martyrs&mdash;the
+great Somerset, and the still greater Northumberland, the two Earls of
+Essex, and the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and other great men who figured
+in the reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors.</p>
+
+<p>Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most signal
+vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. No mercy was
+shown, on the part of government, to any party or person.</p>
+
+<p>Of the agents of James in punishing all concerned in the rebellion,
+there were two, preëminently, whose names are consigned to an infamous
+immortality. The records of English history contain no two names so
+loathsome and hateful as Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffreys.</p>
+
+<p>The former was left, by Feversham, in command of the royal forces at
+Bridgewater, after the battle of Sedgemoor. He had already gained an
+unenviable notoriety, as governor of Tangier, where he displayed the
+worst vices of a tyrant and a sensualist; and his regiment had
+imitated him in his disgraceful brutality. But this leader and these
+troops were now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. One hundred
+captives were put to death during the week which succeeded the battle.
+His irregular butcheries, however, were not according to the taste of
+the king. A more systematic slaughter, under the sanctions of the law,
+was devised, and Jeffreys was sent into the Western Circuit, to try
+the numerous persons who were immured in the jails of the western
+counties.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench,
+was not deficient in talent, but was constitutionally the victim of
+violent passions. He first attracted notice as an insolent barrister
+at the Old Bailey Court, who had a rare tact in cross-examining
+criminals and browbeating witnesses. According to Macaulay, "impudence
+and ferocity sat upon his brow, while all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>(p. 215)</span>tenderness for the
+feelings of others, all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were
+obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the
+rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The
+profusion of his maledictions could hardly be rivalled in the Fish
+Market or Bear Garden. His yell of fury sounded, as one who often
+heard it said, like the thunder of the judgment day. He early became
+common serjeant, and then recorder of London. As soon as he obtained
+all the city could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass
+and his tongue of venom to the court." He was just the man whom
+Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> wanted as a tool. He was made chief justice of the highest
+court of criminal law in the realm, and discharged its duties entirely
+to the satisfaction of a king resolved on the subjection of the
+English nation. His violence, at all times, was frightful; but when he
+was drunk, it was terrific: and he was generally intoxicated. His
+first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sydney. On the death
+of Charles, he obtained from James a peerage, and a seat in the
+Cabinet, a signal mark of royal approbation. In prospect of yet
+greater honors, he was ready to do whatever James required. James
+wished the most summary vengeance inflicted on the rebels, and
+Jeffreys, with his tiger ferocity, was ready to execute his will.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more memorable than those "bloody assizes" which he held in
+those counties through which Monmouth had passed. Nothing is
+remembered with more execration. Nothing ever equalled the <span class="inline">Brutality of Jeffreys.</span> brutal
+cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar
+violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and
+I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of
+villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting
+Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the
+rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were accused, to be hanged or
+burned; and the excess of his barbarities called forth pity and
+indignation even from devoted loyalists. He boasted that he had hanged
+more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest.
+On a single circuit, he hanged three hundred and fifty; some of these
+were people of great worth, and many of them were innocent; while many
+whom he spared from an ignominious death, were sentenced <span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>(p. 216)</span>to
+the most cruel punishments&mdash;to the lash of the pillory, to
+imprisonment in the foulest jails, to mutilation, to banishment, and
+to heavy fines.</p>
+
+<p>King James watched the conduct of the inhuman Jeffreys with delight,
+and rewarded him with the Great Seal. The Old Bailey lawyer had now
+climbed to the greatest height to which a subject could aspire. He was
+Lord Chancellor of England&mdash;the confidential friend and agent of the
+king, and his unscrupulous instrument in imposing the yoke of bondage
+on an insulted nation.</p>
+
+<p>At this period, the condition of the Puritans was deplorable. At no
+previous time was <span class="inline">Persecution of the Dissenters.</span> persecution more inveterate, not even under the
+administration of Laud and Strafford. The persecution commenced soon
+after the restoration of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and increased in malignity until
+the elevation of Jeffreys to the chancellorship. The sufferings of no
+class of sectaries bore any proportion to theirs. They found it
+difficult to meet together for prayer or exhortation even in the
+smallest assemblies. Their ministers were introduced in disguise.
+Their houses were searched. They were fined, imprisoned, and banished.
+Among the ministers who were deprived of their livings, were Gilpin,
+Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who
+still, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, enjoy a
+wide-spread reputation as standard writers on theological subjects.
+These great lights of the seventeenth century were doomed to privation
+and poverty, with thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been
+educated at the Universities, and were among the best men in the
+kingdom. All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated
+them more than Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> and James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Under their sanction,
+complying parliaments passed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty.
+The laws which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were
+reënacted and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two
+thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to
+conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Conventicle Act
+ordained that if any person, above sixteen years of age, should be
+present at any religious meeting, in any other manner than allowed by
+the Church of England, he should suffer three months' imprisonment, or
+pay a fine of five pounds, that six months imprisonment and ten pounds
+fine should <span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>(p. 217)</span>be inflicted as a penalty for the second
+offence, and banishment for the third. Married women taken at
+"conventicles," were sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is
+calculated that twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy
+prisons, and that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during
+their imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the
+jails, added to cruel treatment.</p>
+
+<p>Among the illustrious men who suffered most unjustly, was Richard
+Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He was minister at
+Kidderminster, where he was content to labor in an humble sphere,
+having refused a bishopric. He had written one hundred and forty-five
+distinct treatises, in two hundred volumes, which were characterized
+for learning and talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor
+commanding virtues could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys;
+and, in fifteen years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings
+drew tears from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friendship he had been
+honored. "But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of judges,
+was cruelly insulted by the worst." When he wished to plead his cause,
+the drunken chief justice replied, "O Richard, Richard, thou art an
+old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a
+cart, every one of which is as full of sedition as an egg is full of
+meat. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of
+the brotherhood in corners, and a doctor of divinity at your elbow;
+but, by the grace of God, I will crush you all."</p>
+
+<p>Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential or
+learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the Baptists,
+and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius&mdash;the most
+successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. The Pilgrim's
+Progress is the most popular religious work ever published, full of
+genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of the Calvinistic
+theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. This book shows
+the triumph of genius over learning, and the people's appreciation of
+exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate tinker, a travelling
+preacher, who spent the best part of his life between the houses of
+the poor and the county jails, the object of reproach and ignominy,
+now, however, takes a proud place, in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>(p. 218)</span>the world's
+estimation, with the master minds of all nations&mdash;with Dante,
+Shakspeare, and Milton. He has arisen above the prejudices of the
+great and fashionable; and the learned and aristocratic Southey has
+sought to be the biographer of his sorrows and the expounder of his
+visions. The proud bishops who disdained him, the haughty judges who
+condemned him, are now chiefly known as his persecutors, while he
+continues to be more honored and extolled with every succeeding
+generation.</p>
+
+<p>Another illustrious victim of religious persecution in that age,
+illustrious in our eyes, but ignoble in the eyes of his
+contemporaries, was <span class="inline">George Fox.</span> George Fox, the founder of the sect of the
+Quakers. He, like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education.
+Like him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own
+soul&mdash;from inward experiences&mdash;from religious contemplations. He was a
+man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual action.
+His first studies were the mysteries of theology&mdash;the great questions
+respecting duty and destiny; and these agitated his earnest mind
+almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought consolation from the
+clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his soul. Like an old
+Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfrequented solitudes, where he
+gave loose to his imagination, and where celestial beings came to
+comfort him. He despised alike the reasonings of philosophers, the
+dogmas of divines, and the disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose
+above all their prejudices, and sought light and truth from original
+sources. His peace was based on the conviction that God's Holy Spirit
+spoke directly to his soul; and this was above reason, above
+authority, a surer guide than any outward or written revelation. While
+this divine voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with
+them, for they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the
+Scriptures were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and
+literally to be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his
+life, nor to save a world, because he was directly commanded to
+abstain from swearing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of
+expediency, and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him
+assured him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all
+tribulations. He believed in the power of justice to protect itself,
+and reposed on the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an
+omnipotent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>(p. 219)</span>weapon. He disdained force to accomplish
+important ends, and sought no control over government, except by
+intelligence. He believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis
+of all great and permanent revolutions; these he was ever ready to
+declare; these were sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms;
+these would be revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all forms
+and pompous ceremonials in the worship of God, for they seemed useless
+and idolatrous. God was a Spirit, and to be worshipped in spirit and
+in truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of
+prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected
+to splendid places for the worship of God, and dispensed with
+steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless,
+being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but
+to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the
+Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all
+titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
+Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the
+Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too,
+would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he
+fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the
+church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity
+and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar
+star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar
+genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty
+and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of
+conceit and spiritual pride&mdash;the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in
+all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the
+notion of special divine illumination?</p>
+
+<p>No <span class="inline">Persecution of the Quakers.</span> wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at
+nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They
+shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men
+attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical
+theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties
+attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor
+their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism
+could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
+They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>(p. 220)</span>and lacerated without
+mercy. But they endured their afflictions with patience, and never
+lost their faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they
+belonged to the humbler classes, although some men illustrious for
+birth and wealth joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential
+of whom was William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and
+protector, and the glorious founder and legislator of one of the most
+flourishing and virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation,
+settled in the wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were
+true to their enlightened principles, and who were saved from the
+murderous tomahawk of the Indian, when all other settlements were
+scenes of cruelty and vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with
+fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges
+and the bishops were ready to coöperate with his ministers in imposing
+a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment
+they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even
+judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools.</p>
+
+<p>His power, to all appearance, was consolidated; and he now began,
+without disguise, to advance the two great objects which were dearest
+to his heart&mdash;the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the
+imposition of a <span class="inline">Despotic Power of James.</span> despotic yoke. He wished to be, like Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, a
+despotic and absolute prince; and, to secure this end, he was ready to
+violate the constitution of his country. The three inglorious years of
+his reign were a succession of encroachments and usurpations.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue without
+an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary power, the
+court procured addresses from public bodies, in which the king was
+thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs and excise.</p>
+
+<p>In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under the
+last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted bodies.
+So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all who were
+imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired universal
+toleration, this act would merit our highest praises; but it was soon
+evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>(p. 221)</span>
+expense of all the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee to
+the Church of Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he could but
+advance the interests of a party, to which nearly the whole nation was
+bitterly opposed. Roman Catholics were proscribed by the laws. The
+Test Act excluded from civil and military office all who dissented
+from the Established Church. The laws were unjust, but still they were
+the laws which James had sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed
+them, and kept his faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in
+good time have been modified.</p>
+
+<p>But James would not wait for constitutional measures. He resolved to
+<span class="inline">Favor Extended to Catholics.</span> elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the
+church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great
+majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics
+to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential
+advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal
+nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy
+Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure
+the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from
+office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was
+turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre
+of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He
+united with Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was
+sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When
+opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or
+dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.</p>
+
+<p>Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even
+in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power&mdash;a
+prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly
+defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all
+offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic
+body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and
+tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were
+compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been
+infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly
+illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held
+office <span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>(p. 222)</span>during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these
+times, for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so
+requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers
+accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
+As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the
+constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy
+counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted
+to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ
+Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a
+notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been
+done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who
+was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a
+sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to
+restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy
+the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a
+tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated <span class="inline">High Commission Court.</span> High
+Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great
+object of the revolutionists who brought Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> to the block&mdash;the
+most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The
+members of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try
+all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions,
+notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents&mdash;Jeffreys,
+the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester;
+the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President;
+and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned
+Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not
+suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do
+so by the king&mdash;a man who had committed no crime, but simply
+discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his
+spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to
+two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous
+clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray
+their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two
+greatest corporations in the land,&mdash;the Universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge,&mdash;institutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in
+their crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>(p. 223)</span>with these great bodies, because they would not approve of
+his measures to overturn the church with which they were connected,
+and which it was their duty and interest to uphold. The king had
+commanded Cambridge to bestow the degree of master of arts on a
+Benedictine monk, which was against the laws of the University and of
+parliament. The University refused to act against the law, and, in
+consequence, the vice-chancellor and the senate, which consisted of
+doctors and masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission.
+The vice-chancellor, Pechell, was deprived of his office and
+emoluments, which were of the nature of freehold property. But this
+was not the worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on
+imposing a Roman Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen
+College, one of the richest and most venerable of the University of
+Oxford, against even the friendly remonstrances of his best friends,
+even of his Catholic counsellors, and not only against the advice of
+his friends, but against all the laws of the land and of the rights of
+the University; for the proposed president, Farmer, was a Catholic,
+and was not a fellow of the college, and therefore especially
+disqualified. He was also a man of depraved morals. The fellows
+refused to elect Farmer, and chose John Hough instead. They were
+accordingly cited to the infamous court of which Jeffreys was the
+presiding and controlling genius. Their election was set aside, but
+Farmer was not confirmed, being too vile even for Jeffreys to sustain.</p>
+
+<p>The king was exceedingly enraged at the <span class="inline">Quarrel with the Universities.</span> opposition he received from
+the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he summoned
+the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them to obey him in the
+matter of a president. They still held out in opposition, and the
+king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to resort to bolder
+measures. A special commission was instituted. Hough was forcibly
+ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, against the voice of all
+the fellows but two. But the blinded king was not yet content. The
+fellows were expelled from the University by a royal edict, and the
+high commissioner pronounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever
+holding any church preferment.</p>
+
+<p>But these severities were blunders, and produced a different effect
+from what was anticipated. The nation was indignant; the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>(p. 224)</span>
+Universities lost all reverence; the clergy, in a body, were
+alienated; and the whole aristocracy were filled with defiance.</p>
+
+<p>But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all
+opposition; and, now that the fellows of <span class="inline">Magdalen College.</span> Magdalen College were
+expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one day
+twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman Catholic
+bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to the
+extremities of the kingdom; and bitter resentment took the place of
+former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old friends even, as a
+tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. And, indeed, he seemed
+like one completely infatuated, bent on the ruin of that church which
+even James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> and the other Stuart kings regarded as the surest and
+firmest pillar of the throne.</p>
+
+<p>The bishops of the English Church had in times past, as well as the
+Universities, inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience; and
+oppression must be very grievous indeed which would induce them to
+oppose the royal will. But James had completely alienated them, and
+they, reluctantly, at last, threw themselves into the ranks of
+opposition. Had they remained true to him, he might still have held
+his sceptre; but it was impossible that any body of men could longer
+bear his injustice and tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>From motives as impossible to fathom, as it is difficult to account
+for the actions of a madman, he ordered that the Declaration of
+Indulgence, an unconstitutional act, should be read publicly from all
+the pulpits in the kingdom. The London clergy, the most respectable
+and influential in the realm, made up their minds to disregard the
+order, and the bishops sustained them in their refusal. The <span class="inline">Prosecution of the Seven Bishops.</span> archbishop
+and six bishops accordingly signed a petition to the king, which
+embodied the views of the London clergy. It was presented to the
+tyrant, by the prelates in a body, at his palace. He chose to consider
+it as a treasonable and libellous act&mdash;as nothing short of rebellion.
+The conduct of the prelates was generally and enthusiastically
+approved by the nation, and especially by the Dissenters, who now
+united with the members of the Established Church. James had recently
+courted the Dissenters, not wishing to oppose too many enemies at a
+time. He had conferred on them many indulgences, and had elevated some
+of them to high positions, with the hope that they would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>(p. 225)</span>
+unite with him in breaking down the Establishment. But while some of
+the more fanatical were gained over, the great body were not so easily
+deceived. They knew well enough that, after crushing the Church of
+England, he would crush them. And they hated Catholicism and tyranny
+more than they did Episcopacy, in spite of their many persecutions.
+Some of the more eminent of the Dissenters took a noble stand, and
+their conduct was fully appreciated by the Established clergy. For the
+first time, since the accession of Elizabeth, the Dissenters and the
+Episcopalians treated each other with that courtesy and forbearance
+which enlightened charity demands. The fear of a common enemy united
+them. But time, also, had, at length, removed many of their mutual
+asperities.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could exceed the vexation of James when he found that not only
+the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were
+sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have
+yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a
+bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most
+clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the
+bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most
+interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried at the
+Court of the King's Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were
+employed as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted
+to by the servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a
+verdict of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts
+and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, whom the
+king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe London, partook of the
+enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All classes were united in
+expressions of joy that the tyrant for once was baffled. The king was
+indeed signally defeated; but his defeat did not teach him wisdom. It
+only made him the more resolved to crush the liberties of the Church,
+and the liberties of the nation. But it also arrayed against him all
+classes and all parties of Protestants, who now began to form
+alliances, and devise measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the
+very courts which James had instituted to crush liberty proved
+refractory. Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his
+resignation as <span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>(p. 226)</span>one of the Lord Commissioners. The very
+meanness of his spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection
+peculiarly alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble.
+The Court of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the
+Established Church, especially when its odious character was loudly
+denounced by all classes in the kingdom&mdash;even by some of the agents of
+tyranny itself. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parliament was
+necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free parliament it was
+impossible to obtain. <span class="inline">Tyranny and Infatuation of James.</span> He resolved to bring together, by corruption and
+intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent
+distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a parliament,
+and might be willing to register any edict he proposed. And,
+accordingly, every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, was made
+to understand that he must support the throne or lose his office. He
+set himself vigorously to pack a parliament. A committee of seven
+privy counsellors sat at Whitehall for the purpose of regulating the
+municipal corporations. Father Petre was made a privy councillor.
+Committees, after the model of the one at Whitehall, were established
+in all parts of the realm. The lord lieutenants received written
+orders to go down to their respective counties, and superintend the
+work of corruption and fraud. But half of them refused to perform the
+ignominious work, and were immediately dismissed from their posts,
+which were posts of great honor and consideration. Among these were
+the great Earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Pembroke, Rutland,
+Bridgewater, Thanet, Northampton, Abingdon, and Gainsborough, whose
+families were of high antiquity, wealth, and political influence. Nor
+could those nobles, who consented to conform to the wishes and orders
+of the king, make any progress in their counties, on account of the
+general opposition of the gentry. The county squires, as a body, stood
+out in fierce resistance. They refused to send up any men to
+parliament who would vote away the liberties and interests of the
+nation. The justices and deputy lieutenants declared that they would
+sustain, at all hazard, the Protestant religion. And these persons
+were not odious republicans, but zealous royalists, now firmly united
+and resolved to oppose unlawful acts, though commanded by the king.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>(p. 227)</span>James and his ministers next resolved to take away the power
+of the municipal corporations. The boroughs were required to surrender
+their charters. But a great majority firmly refused to part with their
+privileges. They were prosecuted and intimidated, but still they held
+out. Oxford, by a vote of eighty to two, voted to defend its
+franchises. Other towns did the same. Meanwhile, all the public
+departments were subjected to a strict inquisition, and all, who would
+not support the policy of the king, were turned out of office, and
+among them were some who had been heretofore the zealous servants of
+the crown.</p>
+
+<p>It was now full time for the <span class="inline">Organized Opposition.</span> organization of a powerful confederacy
+against the king. It was obvious, to men of all parties, and all
+ranks, that he meditated the complete subversion of English liberties.
+The fundamental laws of the kingdom had been systematically violated.
+The power of dispensing with acts of parliament had been strained, so
+that the king had usurped nearly all legislative authority. The courts
+of justice had been filled with unscrupulous judges, who were ready to
+obey all the king's injunctions, whether legal or illegal. Roman
+Catholics had been elevated to places of dignity in the Established
+Church. An infamous and tyrannical Court of High Commission had been
+created; persons, who could not legally set foot in England, had been
+placed at the head of colleges, and had taken their seat at the royal
+council-board. Lord lieutenants of counties, and other servants of the
+crown, had been dismissed for refusing to obey illegal commands; the
+franchises of almost every borough had been invaded; the courts of
+justice were venal and corrupt; an army of Irish Catholics, whom the
+nation abhorred, had been brought over to England; even the sacred
+right of petition was disregarded, and respectful petitioners were
+treated as criminals; and a free parliament was prevented from
+assembling.</p>
+
+<p>Under such circumstances, and in view of these unquestioned facts, a
+great conspiracy was set on foot to dethrone the king and overturn the
+hateful dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>Among the conspirators were some of the English nobles, the chief of
+whom was the Earl of Devonshire, and one of the leaders of the Whig
+party. Shrewsbury and Danby also joined them, the latter nobleman
+having been one of the most zealous advocates of the doctrine of
+passive obedience which many of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>(p. 228)</span>High Churchmen and
+Tories had defended in the reign of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> It was under his
+administration, as prime minister, that a law had been proposed to
+parliament to exclude all persons from office who refused to take an
+oath, declaring that they thought resistance in all cases unlawful.
+Compton, the Bishop of London, who had been insolently treated by the
+court, joined the conspirators, whose designs were communicated to the
+Prince of Orange by Edward Russell and Henry Sydney, brothers of those
+two great political martyrs who had been executed in the last reign.
+The Prince of Orange, who had married a daughter of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, agreed
+to invade England with a well-appointed army.</p>
+
+<p>William of <span class="inline">William, Prince of Orange.</span> Orange was doubtless the greatest statesman and warrior of
+his age, and one of the ablest men who ever wore a crown. He was at
+the head of the great Protestant party in Europe, and was the
+inveterate foe of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> When a youth, his country had been
+invaded by Louis, and desolated and abandoned to pillage and cruelty.
+It was amid unexampled calamities, when the population were every
+where flying before triumphant armies, and the dikes of Holland had
+been opened for the ravages of the sea in order to avoid the more
+cruel ravages of war, that William was called to be at the head of
+affairs. He had scarcely emerged from boyhood; but his boyhood was
+passed in scenes of danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents
+were most precociously developed. His tastes were warlike; but he was
+a warrior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military
+glory, but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure
+the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambitious
+monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating principle of his
+existence; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly the policy and
+enterprises of the French king, even to the disadvantage of his native
+country and the country which adopted him.</p>
+
+<p>William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which the
+discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the
+Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of
+the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had long been
+fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny of James. He was a
+sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising genius, and a consummate
+statesman. But he delayed taking any <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>(p. 229)</span>decisive measures until
+affairs were ripe for his projects&mdash;until the misgovernment and
+encroachments of James drove the nation to the borders of frenzy. He
+then obtained the consent of the States General for the meditated
+invasion of England, and made immense preparations, which, however,
+were carefully concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did
+not escape, however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>,
+who remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and
+offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not
+believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a
+spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence.
+Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of
+William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, and
+supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend of the
+Prince of Orange. Then he made haste to fit out a fleet; and thirty
+ships of the line were put under the command of Lord Dartmouth. An
+army of forty thousand men&mdash;the largest that any king of England had
+ever commanded&mdash;was also sent to the seaboard; a force more than
+sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, the king made great concessions. He abolished the
+Court of High Commission. He restored the charter of the city of
+London. He permitted the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen
+College, to make any reforms he pleased. He would not, however, part
+with an iota of his dispensing power, and still hoped to rout William,
+and change the religion of his country. <span class="inline">Critical Condition of James.</span> But all his concessions were
+too late. Whigs and Tories, Dissenters and Churchmen, were ready to
+welcome their Dutch deliverer. Nor had James any friends on whom he
+could rely. His prime minister, Sunderland, was in treaty with the
+conspirators, and waiting to betray him. Churchill, who held one of
+the highest commissions in the army, and who was under great
+obligations to the king, was ready to join the standard of William.
+Jeffreys, the lord chancellor, was indeed true in his allegiance, but
+his crimes were past all forgiveness by the nation; and even had he
+rebelled,&mdash;and he was base enough to do so,&mdash;his services would have
+been spurned by William and all his adherents.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of October, 1688, the armament of William put to sea; but
+the ships had scarcely gained half the distance to England <span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>(p. 230)</span>
+when they were dispersed and driven back to Holland by a violent
+tempest. The hopes of James revived; but they were soon dissipated.
+The fleet of William, on the 1st of November, again put to sea. It was
+composed of more than six hundred vessels, five hundred of which were
+men of war, and they were favored by auspicious gales. The same winds
+which favored the Dutch ships retarded the fleet of Dartmouth. On the
+5th of November, <span class="inline">Invasion of England by William.</span> the troops of William disembarked at Brixham, near
+Torbay in Devonshire, without opposition. On the 6th, he advanced to
+Newton Abbot, and, on the 9th, reached Exeter. He was cordially
+received, and magnificently entertained. He and his
+lieutenant-general, Marshal Schomberg, one of the greatest commanders
+in Europe, entered Exeter together in the grand military procession,
+which was like a Roman triumph. Near him also was Bentinck, his
+intimate friend and counsellor, the founder of a great ducal family.
+The procession marched to the splendid Cathedral, the <span class="italic">Te Deum</span> was
+sung, and Burnet preached a sermon.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far all things had been favorable, and William was fairly
+established on English ground. Still his affairs were precarious, and
+James's condition not utterly hopeless or desperate. In spite of the
+unpopularity of the king, his numerous encroachments, and his
+disaffected army, the enterprise of William was hazardous. He was an
+invader, and the slightest repulse would have been dangerous to his
+interests. James was yet a king, and had the control of the army, the
+navy, and the treasury. He was a legitimate king, whose claims were
+undisputed. And he was the father of a son, and that son,
+notwithstanding the efforts of the Protestants to represent him as a
+false heir, was indeed the Prince of Wales. William had no claim to
+the throne so long as that prince was living. Nor had the nobles and
+gentry flocked to his standard as he had anticipated. It was nearly a
+week before a single person of rank or consequence joined him.
+Devonshire was in Derbyshire, and Churchill had still the confidence
+of his sovereign. The forces of the king were greatly superior to his
+own. And James had it in his power to make concessions which would
+have satisfied a great part of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>But William had not miscalculated. He had profoundly studied the
+character of James, and the temper of the English. He knew <span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>(p. 231)</span>
+that a fatal blindness and obstinacy had been sent upon him, and that
+he never would relinquish his darling scheme of changing the religion
+of the nation; and he knew that the nation would never acquiesce in
+that change; that Popery was hateful in their sight. He also trusted
+to his own good sword, and to fortunate circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>And he was not long doomed to suspense, which is generally so
+difficult to bear. In a few days, Lord Cornbury, colonel of a
+regiment, and son of the Earl of Clarendon, and therefore a relative
+of James himself, deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined him
+in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer that
+ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, who commanded
+at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at the prince's disposal,
+with the fortress which he was intrusted to guard. His army swelled in
+numbers and importance. Devonshire raised the standard of rebellion at
+Chatsworth. London was in a ferment. James was with his army at
+Salisbury, but gave the order to retreat, not daring to face the
+greatest captain in Europe. <span class="inline">Flight of the King.</span> Soon after, he sent away the queen and the
+Prince of Wales to France, and made preparations for his own
+ignominious flight&mdash;the very thing his enemies desired, for his life
+was in no danger, and his affairs even then might have been
+compromised, in spite of the rapid defection of his friends, and the
+advance of William, with daily augmenting forces, upon London. On the
+11th of December, the king fled from London, with the intention of
+embarking at Sheerness, and was detained by the fishermen of the
+coast; but, by an order from the Lords, was set at liberty, and
+returned to the capital. William, nearly at the same time, reached
+London, and took up his quarters at St. James's Palace. It is needless
+to add, that the population of the city were friendly to his cause,
+and that he was now virtually the king of England. It is a
+satisfaction also to add, that the most infamous instrument of royal
+tyranny was seized in the act of flight, at Wapping, in the mean
+disguise of a sailor. He was discovered by the horrible fierceness of
+his countenance. Jeffreys was committed to the Tower; and the Tower
+screened him from a worse calamity, for the mob would have torn him in
+pieces. Catholic priests were also arrested, and their chapels and
+houses destroyed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>(p. 232)</span>Meanwhile parliament assembled and deliberated on the state
+of affairs. Many propositions were made and rejected. The king fled a
+second time, and the throne was declared vacant. But the crown was not
+immediately offered to the Prince of Orange, although addresses were
+made to him as a national benefactor. Many were in favor of a regency.
+Another party was for placing the Princess Mary on the throne, and
+giving to William, during her life, the title of king, and such a
+share of the administration as she chose to give him.</p>
+
+<p>But William had risked every thing for a throne, and nothing less than
+the crown of England would now content him. He gave the convention to
+understand that, much as he esteemed his wife, he would never accept a
+subordinate and precarious place in her government; "that he would not
+submit to be tied to the apron-strings of the best of wives;" that,
+unless he were offered the crown for life, he should return to
+Holland.</p>
+
+<p>It was accordingly settled by parliament that he should hold the regal
+dignity conjointly with his wife, but that the whole power of the
+government should be placed in his hands. And the Princess Mary
+willingly acceded, being devoted to her husband, and unambitious for
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was consummated the <span class="inline">Consummation of the Revolution.</span> English Revolution of 1688, bloodless, but
+glorious. A tyrant was ejected from an absolute throne, and a noble
+and magnanimous prince reigned in his stead, after having taken an
+oath to observe the laws of the realm&mdash;an oath which he never
+violated. Of all revolutions, this proved the most beneficent. It
+closed the long struggle of one hundred and fifty years. Royal
+prerogative bowed before the will of the people, and true religious
+and civil liberty commenced its reign. The Prince of Orange was called
+to the throne by the voice of the nation, as set forth in an
+instrument known as the <span class="inline">Declaration of Rights.</span> Declaration of Rights. This celebrated act of
+settlement recapitulated the crimes and errors of James, and merely
+asserted the ancient rights and liberties of England&mdash;that the
+dispensing power had no legal existence; that no money could be raised
+without grant of parliament; and that no army could be kept up in time
+of peace without its consent; and it also asserted the right of
+petition, the right of electors to choose their representatives
+freely, the right of parliament <span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>(p. 233)</span>to freedom of debate, and
+the right of the nation to a pure and merciful administration of
+justice. No new rights were put forth, but simply the old ones were
+reëstablished. William accepted the crown on the conditions proposed,
+and swore to rule by the laws. "Not a single flower of the crown,"
+says Macaulay, "was touched. Not a single new right was given to the
+people. The Declaration of Rights, although it made nothing law which
+was not law before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious
+freedom to the Dissenters; of the law which secured the independence
+of judges; of the law which limited the duration of parliaments; of
+the law which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of
+juries; of the law which abolished the sacramental test; of the law
+which relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities; of the law
+which reformed the representative system; of every good law which has
+been passed during one hundred and sixty years; of every good law
+which may hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to
+promote the public weal, and satisfy the demands of public opinion."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's
+     Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution
+     of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James&mdash;a beautiful
+     fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History
+     of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's
+     Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of
+     William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the
+     condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of
+     England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge
+     Jeffreys.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>(p. 234)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>LOUIS <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+
+<p>We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of
+<span class="inline">Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></span> Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>&mdash;a man who filled a very large space in the history of
+Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign forms an
+epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to liberty or
+civilization, but because, for more than half a century, he was the
+central mover of European politics. His reign commemorates the triumph
+in France, of despotic principles, the complete suppression of popular
+interests, and almost the absorption of national interests in his own
+personal aggrandizement. It commemorates the ascendency of fashion,
+and the great refinement of material life. The camp and the court of
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> ingulphed all that is interesting in the history of France
+during the greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned
+seventy-two years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are
+supposed to have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His
+palaces consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed as
+a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights were
+dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, during
+his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the central
+orb around which every other light revolved, and to contribute to his
+glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most emphatically, the
+state. He was France. A man, therefore, who, in the eye of
+contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so powerful, and so absolute,
+claims a special notice. It is the province of history to record great
+influences, whether they come from the people, from great popular
+ideas, from literature and science, or from a single man. The lives of
+individuals are comparatively insignificant in the history of the
+United States; but the lives of such men as Cæsar, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon, furnish very great subjects for the pen of the philosophical
+historian, since great controlling influences emanated from them,
+rather than from the people whom they ruled.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>(p. 235)</span>
+
+<p>Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was not a great general, like Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, nor a great
+statesman, like William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, nor a philosopher, like Frederic the
+Great, nor a universal genius, like Napoleon; but his reign filled the
+eyes of contemporaries, and circumstances combined to make him the
+absolute master of a great empire. Moreover, he had sufficient talent
+and ambition to make use of fortunate opportunities, and of the
+<span class="inline">His Power and Resources.</span> resources of his kingdom, for his own aggrandizement. But France,
+nevertheless, was sacrificed. The French Revolution was as much the
+effect of his vanity and egotism, as his own power was the fruit of
+the policy of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. By their labors in the
+cause of absolutism, he came in possession of armies and treasures.
+But armies and treasures were expended in objects of vain ambition,
+for the gratification of selfish pleasures, for expensive pageants,
+and for gorgeous palaces. These finally embarrassed the nation, and
+ground it down to the earth by the load of taxation, and maddened it
+by the prospect of ruin, by the poverty and degradation of the people,
+and, at the same time, by the extravagance and insolence of an
+overbearing aristocracy. The aristocracy formed the glory and pride of
+the throne and both nobles and the throne fell, and great was the fall
+thereof.</p>
+
+<p>Our notice of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> begins, not with his birth, but at the time
+when he resolved to be his own prime minister, on the death of
+Cardinal Mazarin, (1661.)</p>
+
+<p>Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was then twenty-three years of age&mdash;frank, beautiful,
+imperious, and ambitious. His education had been neglected, but his
+pride and selfishness had been stimulated. During his minority, he had
+been straitened for money by the avaricious cardinal; but avaricious
+for his youthful master, since, at his death, besides his private
+fortune, which amounted to two hundred millions of livres, he left
+fifteen millions of livres, not specified in his will, which, of
+course, the king seized, and thus became the richest monarch of
+Europe. He was married, shortly before the death of Mazarin, to the
+Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, King of Spain. But,
+long before his marriage, he had become attached to Mary de Mancini,
+niece of Mazarin, who returned his love with passionate ardor. She
+afterwards married Prince Colonna, a Roman noble, and lived a most
+abandoned life.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>(p. 236)</span>The enormous wealth left by Cardinal Mazarin was, doubtless,
+one motive which induced Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, though only a young man of
+twenty-three, to be his own prime minister. Henceforth, to his death,
+all his ministers made their regular reports to him, and none were
+permitted to go beyond the limits which he prescribed to them.</p>
+
+<p>He accepted, at first, the ministers whom the dying cardinal had
+recommended. The most prominent of these were Le Tellier, De Lionne,
+and Fouquet. The last was intrusted with the public chest, who found
+the means to supply the dissipated young monarch with all the money he
+desired for the indulgence of his expensive tastes and ruinous
+pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>The thoughts and time of the king, from the death of Mazarin, for six
+or seven years, were chiefly occupied with his <span class="inline">Habits and Pleasures of Louis.</span> pleasures. It was then
+that the court of France was so debauched, splendid, and far-famed. It
+was during this time that the king was ruled by La Vallière, one of
+the most noted of all his favorites, a woman of considerable beauty
+and taste, and not so unprincipled as royal favorites generally have
+been. She was created a duchess, and her children were legitimatized,
+and also became dukes and princes. Of these the king was very fond,
+and his love for them survived the love for their unfortunate mother,
+who, though beautiful and affectionate, was not sufficiently
+intellectual to retain the affections with which she inspired the most
+selfish monarch of his age. She was supplanted in the king's
+affections by Madame de Montespan, an imperious beauty, whose
+extravagances and follies shocked and astonished even the most
+licentious court in Europe; and La Vallière, broken-hearted,
+disconsolate, and mortified, sought the shelter of a Carmelite
+convent, in which she dragged out thirty-six melancholy and dreary
+years, amid the most rigorous severities of self-inflicted penance, in
+the anxious hope of that heavenly mansion where her sins would be no
+longer remembered, and where the weary would be at rest.</p>
+
+<p>It was during these years of extravagance and pleasure that Versailles
+attracted the admiring gaze of Christendom, the most gorgeous palace
+which the world has seen since the fall of Babylon. Amid its gardens
+and groves, its parks and marble halls, did the modern Nebuchadnezzar
+revel in a pomp and grandeur <span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>(p. 237)</span>unparalleled in the history of
+Europe, surrounded by eminent prelates, poets, philosophers, and
+statesmen, and all that rank and beauty had ennobled throughout his
+vast dominions. Intoxicated by their united flatteries, by all the
+incense which sycophancy, carried to a science, could burn before him,
+he almost fancied himself a deity, and gave no bounds to his
+self-indulgence, his vanity, and his pride. Every thing was
+subordinate to his pleasure and his egotism&mdash;an egotism alike
+regardless of the tears of discarded favorites, and the groans of his
+overburdened subjects.</p>
+
+<p>But Louis, at last, palled with pleasure, was aroused from the
+festivities of Versailles by dreams of <span class="inline">His Military Ambition.</span> military ambition. He knew
+nothing of war, of its dangers, its reverses, or of its ruinous
+expenses; but he fancied it would be a beautiful sport for a wealthy
+and absolute monarch to engage in the costly game. He cast his eyes on
+Holland, a state extremely weak in land forces, and resolved to add it
+to the great kingdom over which he ruled.</p>
+
+<p>The only power capable of rendering effectual assistance to Holland,
+when menaced by Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, was England; but England was ruled by
+Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and all he cared for were his pleasures and independence
+from parliamentary control. The French king easily induced him to
+break his alliance with the Dutch by a timely bribe, while, at the
+same time, he insured the neutrality of Spain, by inflaming the
+hereditary prejudices of the Spanish court against the Low Countries.</p>
+
+<p>War, therefore, without even a decent pretence, and without
+provocation, was declared against Holland, with a view of annexing the
+Low Countries to France.</p>
+
+<p>Before the Dutch were able to prepare for resistance, Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>
+appeared on the banks of the Rhine with an army of one hundred and
+twenty thousand, marshalled by such able generals as Luxembourg,
+Condé, and Turenne. The king commanded in person, and with all the
+pomp of an ancient Persian monarch, surrounded with women and nobles.
+Without any adequate force to resist him, his march could not but be
+triumphant. He crossed the Rhine,&mdash;an exploit much celebrated, by his
+flatterers, though nothing at all extraordinary,&mdash;and, in the course
+of a few weeks, nearly all the United Provinces had surrendered to the
+royal victor. The reduction of Holland and Zealand alone was necessary
+to crown his enterprise <span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>(p. 238)</span>with complete success. But he wasted
+time in vain parade at Utrecht, where he held his court, and where his
+splendid army revelled in pleasure and pomp. Amsterdam alone, amid the
+general despondency and consternation which the French inundation
+produced, was true to herself, and to the liberties of Holland; and
+this was chiefly by means of the gallant efforts of the <span class="inline">William, Prince of Orange.</span> Prince of
+Orange.</p>
+
+<p>At this time, (1672,) he was twenty-two years of age, and had received
+an excellent education, and shown considerable military abilities. In
+consequence of his precocity of talent, his unquestioned patriotism,
+and the great services which his family had rendered to the state, he
+was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the republic, and
+was encouraged to aspire to the office of stadtholder, the highest in
+the commonwealth. And his power was much increased after the massacre
+of the De Witts&mdash;the innocent victims of popular jealousy, who, though
+patriotic and illustrious, inclined to a different policy than what
+the Orange party advocated. William advised the States to reject with
+scorn the humiliating terms of peace which Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> offered, and to
+make any sacrifice in defence of their very last ditch. The heroic
+spirit which animated his bosom he communicated to his countrymen, on
+the borders of despair, and in the prospect of national ruin; and so
+great was the popular enthusiasm, that preparations were made for
+fifty thousand families to fly to the Dutch possessions in the East
+Indies, and establish there a new empire, in case they were
+overwhelmed by their triumphant enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Never, in the history of war, were such energies put forth as by the
+Hollanders in the hour of their extremity. They opened their dikes,
+and overflowed their villages and their farms. They rallied around the
+standard of their heroic leader, who, with twenty-two thousand men,
+kept the vast armies of Condé and Turenne at bay. Providence, too,
+assisted men who were willing to help themselves. The fleets of their
+enemies were dispersed by storms, and their armies were driven back by
+the timely inundation.</p>
+
+<p>The heroism of William called forth universal admiration. Louis
+attempted to bribe him, and offered him the sovereignty of Holland,
+which offer he unhesitatingly rejected. He had seen the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>(p. 239)</span>
+lowest point in the depression of his country, and was confident of
+ultimate success.</p>
+
+<p>The resistance of Holland was unexpected, and Louis, wearied with the
+campaign, retired to Versailles, to be fed with the incense of his
+flatterers, and to publish the manifestoes of his glory and success.</p>
+
+<p>The states of Europe, jealous of the encroachments of Louis, at last
+resolved to come to the assistance of the struggling republic of
+Holland. Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> ingloriously sided with the great despot of
+Europe; but the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Brandenburg, and
+the King of Spain declared war against France. Moreover, the Dutch
+gained some signal naval battles. The celebrated admirals De Ruyter
+and Van Tromp redeemed the ancient glories of the Dutch flag. The
+French were nearly driven out of Holland; and Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, in spite of
+his secret treaties with Louis, was compelled to make peace with the
+little state which had hitherto defied him in the plenitude of his
+power.</p>
+
+<p>But the ambitious King of France was determined not to be baffled in
+his scheme, since he had all the mighty resources of his kingdom at
+his entire disposal, and was burning with the passion of military
+aggrandizement. <span class="inline">Second Invasion of Holland.</span> So he recommenced preparations for the conquest of
+Holland on a greater scale than ever, and assembled four immense
+armies. Condé led one against Flanders, and fought a bloody but
+indecisive battle with the Prince of Orange, in which twelve thousand
+men were killed on each side. Turenne commanded another on the side of
+Germany, and possessed himself of the Palatinate, gained several
+brilliant successes, but disgraced them by needless cruelties.
+Manheim, and numerous towns and villages, were burnt, and the country
+laid waste and desolate. The elector was so overcome with indignation,
+that he challenged the French general to single combat, which the
+great marshal declined.</p>
+
+<p>Louis himself headed a third army, and invaded Franche Comté, which he
+subdued in six weeks. The fourth army was sent to the frontiers of
+Roussillon, but effected nothing of importance.</p>
+
+<p>This <span class="inline">Dutch War.</span> great war was prosecuted for four years longer, in which the
+contending parties obtained various success. The only decisive effect
+of the contest was to reduce the strength of all the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>(p. 240)</span>
+contending powers. Some great battles were fought, but Holland still
+held out with inferior forces. Louis lost the great Turenne, who was
+killed on the eve of a battle with the celebrated Montecuculi, who
+commanded the German armies; but, in a succeeding campaign, this loss
+was compensated by the surrender of Valenciennes, by the victories of
+Luxembourg over the Prince of Orange, and by another treaty of peace
+with Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>At last, all the contending parties were exhausted, and Louis was
+willing to make terms of peace. He had not reduced Holland, but, on
+account of his vast resources, he had obtained considerable
+advantages. The treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, secured to him Franche
+Comté, which he had twice conquered, and several important cities and
+fortresses in Flanders. He considerably extended his dominions, in
+spite of a powerful confederacy, and only retreated from the field of
+triumph to meditate more gigantic enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>For nine years, Europe enjoyed a respite from the horrors of war,
+during which Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> acted like a universal monarch. During these
+nine years, he indulged in his passion of palace building, and
+surrounded himself with every pleasure which could intoxicate a mind
+on which, already, had been exhausted all the arts of flattery, and
+all the resources of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The man to whom Louis was most indebted for the means to prosecute his
+victories and build his palaces, was Colbert, minister of finance, who
+succeeded Fouquet. France was indebted to this able and patriotic
+minister for her richest manufactures of silks, laces, tapestries, and
+carpets, and for various internal improvements. He founded the Gobelin
+tapestries; erected the Royal Library, the colonnade of the Louvre,
+the Royal Observatory, the Hotel of the Invalids, and the palaces of
+the Tuileries, Vincennes, Meudon, and Versailles. He encouraged all
+forms of industry, and protected the Huguenots. But his great services
+were not fully appreciated by the king, and he was obnoxious to the
+nobility, who envied his eminence, and to the people, because he
+desired the prosperity of France more than the gratification of their
+pleasures. He was succeeded by Louvois, who long retained a great
+ascendency by obsequious attention to all the king's wishes.</p>
+
+<p>At this period, the reigning favorite at court was <span class="inline">Madame Montespan.</span> Madame de <span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>(p. 241)</span>
+Montespan&mdash;the most infamous and unprincipled, but most witty and
+brilliant of all the king's mistresses, and the haughtiest woman of
+her age. Her tastes were expensive, and her habits extravagant and
+luxurious. On her the sovereign showered diamonds and rubies. He could
+refuse her nothing. She received so much from him, that she could
+afford to endow a convent&mdash;the mere building of which cost one million
+eight hundred thousand livres. Her children were legitimatized, and
+declared princes of the blood. Through her the royal favors flowed.
+Ambassadors, ministers, and even prelates, paid their court to her. On
+her the reproofs of Bossuet fell without effect. Secure in her
+ascendency over the mind of Louis, she triumphed over his court, and
+insulted the nation. But, at last, he grew weary of her, although she
+remained at court eighteen years, and she was dismissed from
+Versailles, on a pension of a sum equal to six hundred thousand
+dollars a year. She lived twenty-two years after her exile from court,
+and in great splendor, sometimes hoping to regain the ascendency she
+had once enjoyed, and at others in those rigorous penances which her
+church inflicts as the expiation for sin. To the last, however, she
+was haughty and imperious, and kept up the vain etiquette of a court.
+Her husband, whom she had abandoned, and to whom, after her disgrace,
+she sought to be reconciled, never would hear her name mentioned; and
+the king, whom, for nearly twenty years, she had enthralled, heard of
+her death with indifference, as he was starting for a hunting
+excursion. "Ah, indeed," said Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, "so the marchioness is dead!
+I should have thought that she would have lasted longer. Are you
+ready, M. de la Rochefoucauld? I have no doubt that, after this last
+shower, the scent will lie well for the dogs. Let us be off at once."</p>
+
+<p>As the Marchioness de Montespan lost her power over the royal egotist,
+<span class="inline">Madame de Maintenon.</span> Madame de Maintenon gained hers. She was the wife of the poet Scarron,
+and was first known to the king as the governess of the children of
+Montespan. She was an estimable woman on the whole, very intellectual,
+very proper, very artful, and very ambitious. No person ever had so
+great an influence over Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> as she; and hers was the ascendency
+of a strong mind over a weak one. She endeavored to make peace at
+court, and to dissuade the king from those vices to which he had so
+long been <span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>(p. 242)</span>addicted. And she partially reclaimed him,
+although, while her counsels were still regarded, Louis was enslaved
+by Madame de Fontanges&mdash;a luxurious beauty, whom he made a duchess,
+and on whom he squandered the revenues of a province. But her reign
+was short. Mere physical charms must soon yield to the superior power
+of intellect and wit, and, after her death, the reign of Madame de
+Maintenon was complete. As the king could not live without her, and as
+she refused to follow the footsteps of her predecessors, the king made
+her his wife. And she was worthy of his choice; and her influence was,
+on the whole, good, although she befriended the Jesuits, and prompted
+the king to many acts of religious intolerance. It was chiefly through
+her influence, added to that of the Jesuits, that the king revoked the
+edict of Nantes, and its revocation was attended by great sufferings
+and privations among the persecuted Huguenots. He had, on ascending
+the throne, in 1643, confirmed the privileges of the Protestants; but,
+gradually, he worried them by exactions and restraints, and, finally,
+in 1685, by the revocation of the edict which Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> had passed, he
+withdrew his protection, and subjected them to a more bitter
+persecution than at any preceding period. All the Protestant ministers
+were banished, or sent to the galleys, and the children of Protestants
+were taken from their parents, and committed to the care of their
+nearest Catholic relations, or such persons as judges appointed. All
+the terrors of military execution, all the artifices of priestcraft,
+were put forth to make converts and such as relapsed were subjected to
+cruel torments. A twentieth part of them were executed, and the
+remainder hunted from place to place. By these cruelties, France was
+deprived of nearly six hundred thousand of the best people in the
+land&mdash;a great misfortune, since they contributed, in their dispersion
+and exile, to enrich, by their agriculture and manufactures, the
+countries to which they fled.</p>
+
+<p>From this period of his reign to his death, Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was a religious
+bigot, and the interests of the Roman Church, next to the triumph of
+absolutism, became the great desire of his life. He was punctual and
+rigid in the outward ceremonials of his religion, and professed to
+regret the follies and vices of his early life. Through the influence
+of his confessor, the Jesuit La Chaise, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>(p. 243)</span>his wife, Madame
+de Maintenon, he sent away Montespan from his court, and discouraged
+those gayeties for which it had once been distinguished. But he was
+always fond of ceremony of all kinds, and the etiquette of his court
+was most irksome and oppressive, and wearied Madame de Maintenon
+herself, and caused her to exclaim, in a letter to her brother, "Save
+those who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfortunate
+than those who envy them."</p>
+
+<p>The favorite minister of the king at this time was Louvois, a very
+able but extremely prodigal man, who plunged Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> into
+innumerable expenses, and encouraged his taste both for palaces and
+war. It was probably through his intrigues, in order to make himself
+necessary to the king, that a general war again broke out in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>In 1687 was formed the famous <span class="inline">League of Augsburg.</span> League of Augsburg, by which the leading
+princes of Europe united in a great confederacy to suppress the power
+and encroachments of the French king. Louvois intrigued to secure the
+election of the Cardinal de Furstemberg to the archbishopric of
+Cologne, in opposition to the interests of Bavaria, the natural ally
+of France, conscious that, by so doing, he must provoke hostilities.
+But this act was only the occasion, not the cause, of war. Louis had
+enraged the Protestant world by his persecution of the Huguenots. He
+had insulted even the pope himself by sending an ambassador to Rome,
+with guards and armed attendants equal to an army, in order to enforce
+some privileges which it was not for the interest or the dignity of
+the pope to grant; he had encouraged the invasion of Germany by the
+Turks; he had seized Strasburg, the capital of Alsace; he bombarded
+Genoa, because they sold powder to the Algerines, and compelled the
+doge to visit him as a suppliant; he laid siege to some cities which
+belonged to Spain; and he prepared to annex the Low Countries to his
+dominions. Indeed, he treated all other powers as if he were the
+absolute monarch of Europe, and fear and jealousy united them against
+them. Germany, Spain, and Holland, and afterwards England, Denmark,
+Sweden, and Savoy, coöperated together to crush the common enemy of
+European liberties.</p>
+
+<p>Louis made enormous exertions to resist this powerful confederacy.
+Four hundred thousand men were sent into the field, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>(p. 244)</span>divided
+into four armies. Two of these were sent into Flanders, one into
+Catalonia, and one into Germany, which laid waste the Palatinate with
+fire and sword. Louvois gave the order, and Louis sanctioned it, which
+was executed with such unsparing cruelty that all Europe was filled
+with indignation and defiance.</p>
+
+<p>The forces of Louis were immense, but those of the allies were
+greater. <span class="inline">Opposing Armies and Generals.</span> The Spaniards, Dutch, and English, had an army of fifty
+thousand men in Flanders, eleven thousand of whom were commanded by
+the Earl of Marlborough. The Germans sent three more armies into the
+field; one commanded by the Elector of Bavaria, on the Upper Rhine;
+another by the Duke of Lorraine, on the Middle Rhine; and a third by
+the Elector of Brandenburg, on the Lower Rhine; and these, in the
+first campaign, obtained signal successes. The next year, the Duke of
+Savoy joined the allies, whose army was commanded by Victor Amadeus;
+but he was beaten by Marshal Catinat, one of the most distinguished of
+the French generals. Luxembourg also was successful in Flanders, and
+gained the great battle of Charleroi over the Germans and Dutch: The
+combined fleet of the English and Dutch was also defeated by the
+French at the battle of Beachy Head. In the next campaign, Prince
+Eugene and the Duke of Schomberg distinguished themselves in checking
+the victorious career of Catinat; but nothing of importance was
+effected. The following spring, William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> and Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, the two
+great heads of the contending parties, took the field themselves; and
+Louis, with the aid of Luxembourg, took Namur, in spite of the efforts
+of William to succor it. Some other successes were gained by the
+French, and Louis retired to Versailles to celebrate the victories of
+his generals. The next campaign witnessed another splendid victory
+over William and the allies, by Luxembourg, at Neerwinden, when twelve
+thousand men were killed; and also another, by Catinat, at Marsaglia,
+in Italy, over the Duke of Savoy. The military glory of Louis was now
+at its height; but, in the campaign of 1694-95, he met with great
+reverses. Luxembourg, the greatest of his generals, died. The allies
+retook Huy and Namur, and the French king, exhausted by the long war,
+was forced to make peace. The treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, secured the
+tranquillity of Europe for four years&mdash;long enough only for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>(p. 245)</span>contending parties to recover their energies, and prepare
+for a more desperate contest. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, however, now acted on the
+defensive. The allied powers were resolved on his complete
+humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>War broke out again in 1701, and in consequence of the <span class="inline">War of the Spanish Succession.</span> accession of
+Philip <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, grandson of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, to the throne of Spain. This great
+war of the Spanish Succession, during which Marlborough so greatly
+distinguished himself, claims a few explanatory remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, King of Spain, and the last of the line of the Austrian
+princes, being without an heir, and about to die, selected as his
+successor Leopold of Bavaria, a boy five years of age, whose
+grandmother was Maria Theresa. But there were also two other
+claimants&mdash;the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, whose claim
+rested in being the grandson of Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>,
+and sister of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and the Emperor of Germany, whose mother
+was the daughter of Philip <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> The various European states looked
+with extreme jealousy on the claims of the Emperor of Germany and the
+Duke of Anjou, because they feared that the balance of power would be
+seriously disturbed if either an Austrian or a Bourbon prince became
+King of Spain. They, therefore, generally supported the claims of the
+Bavarian prince, especially England and Holland.</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince of Bavaria suddenly died, as it was supposed by poison,
+and Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> so successfully intrigued, that his grandson was
+nominated by the Spanish monarch as heir to his throne. This incensed
+Leopold <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> of Germany, and especially William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, who was resolved
+that the house of Bourbon should be no further aggrandized.</p>
+
+<p>On the accession of the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne, in 1701,
+a grand alliance was formed, headed by the Emperor of Germany and the
+King of England, to dethrone him. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> long hesitated between
+his ambition and the interests of his kingdom; but ambition triumphed.
+He well knew that he could only secure a crown to his grandson by a
+desperate contest with indignant Europe. Austria, Holland, Savoy, and
+England were arrayed against France. And this war of the Spanish
+Succession was the longest, the bloodiest, and the most disastrous war
+in which Louis <span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>(p. 246)</span>was ever engaged. It commenced the last year
+of the reign of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, and lasted thirteen years.</p>
+
+<p>The great hero of this war was doubtless the <span class="inline">Duke of Marlborough.</span> Duke of Marlborough,
+although Prince Eugene gained with him as imperishable glories as war
+can bestow. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, cannot be said to be
+one of those geniuses who have impressed their minds on nations and
+centuries; but he was a man who gave great lustre to the British name,
+and who attained to a higher pitch of military fame than any general
+whom England has produced since Oliver Cromwell, with the exception of
+Wellington.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in 1650, of respectable parents, and was page of honor to
+the Duke of York, afterwards James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> While a mere boy, his bent of
+mind was discernible, and he solicited and obtained from the duke an
+ensign's commission, and rapidly passed through the military grades of
+lieutenant, captain, major, and colonel. During the infamous alliance
+between Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> and Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, he served under Marshal Turenne,
+and learned from him the art of war. But he also distinguished himself
+as a diplomatic agent of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, in his intrigues with Holland
+and France. Before the accession of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, he was created a
+Scottish peer, by the title of Baron Churchill. He followed his royal
+patron in his various peregrinations, and, when he succeeded to the
+English throne, he was raised to an English peerage. But Marlborough
+deserted his patron on the landing of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, and was made a
+member of his Privy Council, and lord of the bed-chamber. Two days
+before the coronation of William, he was made Earl of Marlborough; but
+was not intrusted with as high military command as his genius and
+services merited, William being apparently jealous of his fame. On the
+accession of Anne, he was sent to the Continent with the supreme
+command of the English armies in the war with Louis about the Spanish
+Succession. His services in the campaign of 1702 secured a dukedom,
+and deservedly, for he contended against great obstacles&mdash;against the
+obstinacy and stupidity of the Dutch deputies; against the timidity of
+the English government at home; and against the veteran armies of
+Louis, led on by the celebrated Villars. But neither the campaigns of
+1702 or 1703 were marked by any decisive battles. In 1704 was fought
+the celebrated battle of Blenheim, by which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>(p. 247)</span>the French power
+was crippled, and the hopes of Louis prostrated.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1703 closed disastrously for the allies. Europe was
+never in greater peril. Bavaria united with France and Spain to crush
+Austria. The Austrians had only twenty thousand men, while the
+Bavarians had forty-five thousand men in the centre of Germany, and
+Marshal Tallard was posted, with forty-five thousand men, on the Upper
+Rhine. Marshal Villeroy opposed Marlborough in the Netherlands.</p>
+
+<p>But Marlborough conceived the bold project of marching his troops to
+the banks of the Danube, and there uniting with the Imperialists under
+Prince Eugene, to cut off the forces of the enemy before they could
+unite. So he left the Dutch to defend themselves against Villeroy,
+rapidly ascended the Rhine, before any of the enemy dreamed of his
+designs. From Mentz, he proceeded with forty thousand men to
+Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg to Donauworth, on the Danube, where
+his troops, which had effected a junction with the Austrians and
+Prussians, successfully engaged the Bavarians. But the Bavarians and
+the French also succeeded in uniting their forces; and both parties
+prepared for a desperate conflict. There were about eighty thousand
+men on each side. The French and Bavarians were strongly intrenched at
+the village of <span class="inline">Battle of Blenheim.</span> Blenheim; and Marlborough, against the advice of most
+of his generals, resolved to attack their fortified camp before it was
+reënforced by a large detachment of troops which Villeroy had sent. "I
+know the danger," said Marlborough; "but a battle is absolutely
+necessary." He was victorious. Forty thousand of the enemy were killed
+or taken prisoners; Tallard himself was taken, and every trophy was
+secured which marks a decisive victory. By his great victory, the
+Emperor of Austria was relieved from his fears, the Hungarians were
+overawed, Bavaria fell under the sway of the emperor, and the armies
+of Louis were dejected and discouraged. Marlborough marched back again
+to Holland without interruption, was made a prince of the empire, and
+received pensions and lands from the English government, which made
+him one of the richest and greatest of the English nobility. The
+palace of Blenheim was built, and he received the praises and plaudits
+of the civilized world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>(p. 248)</span>The French were hardly able to cope with Marlborough during
+the next campaign, but rallied in 1706, during which year the great
+battle of Ramillies was fought, and won by Marlborough. The conquest
+of Brabant, and the greater part of Spanish Flanders, resulted from
+this victory; and Louis, crippled and humiliated, made overtures of
+peace. Though equitable, they were rejected; the allies having
+resolved that no peace should be made with the house of Bourbon while
+a prince of that house continued to sit upon the throne of Spain.
+Louis appealed now, in his distress, to the national honor, sent his
+plate to the mint, and resolved, in his turn, to contend, to the last
+extremity, with his enemies, whom success had intoxicated.</p>
+
+<p>The English, not content with opposing Louis in the Netherlands and in
+Germany, sent their armies into Spain, also, who, united with the
+Austrians, overran the country, and nearly completed its conquest. One
+of the most gallant and memorable exploits of the war was the siege
+and capture of Barcelona by the Earl of Peterborough, the city having
+made one of the noblest and most desperate defences since the siege of
+Numantia.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Exertions and Necessities of Louis.</span> exertions of Louis were equal to his necessities; and, in 1707, he
+was able to send large armies into the field. None of his generals
+were able to resist the Duke of Marlborough, who gained new victories,
+and took important cities; but, in Spain, the English met with
+reverses. In 1708, Louis again offered terms of peace, which were
+again rejected. His country was impoverished, his resources were
+exhausted, and a famine carried away his subjects. He agreed to yield
+the whole Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria, without any
+equivalent; to cede to the emperor his conquests on the Rhine, and to
+the Dutch the great cities which Marlborough had taken; to acknowledge
+the Elector of Brandenburg as King of Prussia, and Anne as Queen of
+England; to remove the Pretender from his dominions; to acknowledge
+the succession of the house of Hanover; to restore every thing
+required by the Duke of Savoy; and agree to the cessions made to the
+King of Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>And yet these conditions, so honorable and advantageous to the allies,
+were rejected, chiefly through the influence of Marlborough, Eugene,
+and the pensionary Heinsius, who acted from entirely <span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>(p. 249)</span>selfish
+motives. Louis was not permitted to cherish the most remote hope of
+peace without surrendering the strongest cities of his dominions as
+pledges for the entire evacuation of the Spanish monarchy by his
+grandson. This he would not agree to. He threw himself, in his
+distress, upon the loyalty of his people. Their pride and honor were
+excited; and, in spite of all their misfortunes, they prepared to make
+new efforts. Again were the French defeated at the great battle of
+Malplaquet, when ninety thousand men contended on each side; and again
+did Louis sue for peace. Again were his overtures rejected, and again
+did he rally his exhausted nation. Some victories in Spain were
+obtained over the confederates; but the allies gradually were hemming
+him around, and the king-hunt was nearly up, when unexpected
+dissensions among the allies relieved him of his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>These dissensions were the struggles between the Whigs and Tories in
+England; the former maintaining that no peace should be made; the
+latter, that the war had been carried far enough, and was prolonged
+only to gratify the ambition of Marlborough. The great general, in
+consequence, lost popularity; and the Tories succeeded in securing a
+peace, just as Louis was on the verge of ruin. Another campaign, had
+the allies been united, would probably have enabled Marlborough to
+penetrate to Paris. That was his aim; that was the aim of his party.
+But the nation was weary of war, and at last made peace with Louis. By
+the <span class="inline">Treaty of Utrecht.</span> treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) Philip <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> resumed the throne of Spain,
+but was compelled to yield his rights to the crown of France in case
+of the death of a sickly infant, the great-grandson of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, who
+was heir apparent to the throne; but, in other respects, the terms
+were not more favorable than what Louis had offered in 1706, and very
+inadequate to the expenses of the war. The allies should have yielded
+to the overtures of Louis before, or should have persevered. But party
+spirit, and division in the English cabinet and parliament, prevented
+the consummation which the Whigs desired, and Louis was saved from
+further humiliation and losses.</p>
+
+<p>But his power was broken. He was no longer the autocrat of Europe, but
+a miserable old man, who had lived to see irreparable calamities
+indicted on his nation, and calamities in consequence <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>(p. 250)</span>of his
+ambition. His latter years were melancholy. He survived his son and
+his grandson. He saw himself an object of reproach, of ridicule, and
+of compassion. He sought the religious consolation of his church, but
+was the victim of miserable superstition, and a tool of the Jesuits.
+He was ruled by his wife, the widow of the poet Scarron, whom his
+children refused to honor. His last days were imbittered by
+disappointments and mortifications, disasters in war, and domestic
+afflictions. No man ever, for a while, enjoyed a prouder preëminence.
+No man ever drank deeper of the bitter cup of disappointed ambition
+and alienated affections. No man ever more fully realized the vanity
+of this world. None of the courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, he
+could trust, and all his experiences led to a disbelief in human
+virtue. He saw, with shame, that his palaces, his wars, and his
+pleasures, had consumed the resources of the nation, and had sowed the
+seeds of a fearful revolution. He lost his spirits; his temper became
+soured; mistrust and suspicion preyed upon his mind. His love of pomp
+survived all his other weaknesses, and his court, to the last, was
+most rigid in its wearisome formalities. But the pageantry of
+Versailles was a poor antidote to the sorrows which bowed his head to
+the ground, except on those great public occasions when his pride
+triumphed over his grief. <span class="inline">Last Days of Louis.</span> Every day, in his last years, something
+occurred to wound his vanity, and alienate him from all the world but
+Madame de Maintenon, the only being whom he fully trusted, and who did
+not deceive him. Indeed, the humiliated monarch was an object of pity
+as well as of reproach, and his death was a relief to himself, as well
+as to his family. He died in 1715, two years after the peace of
+Utrecht, not much regretted by the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> cannot be numbered among the monsters of the human race who
+have worn the purple of royalty. <span class="inline">His Character.</span> His chief and worst vice was egotism,
+which was born with him, which was cultivated by all the influences of
+his education, and by all the circumstances of his position. This
+absorbing egotism made him insensible to the miseries he inflicted,
+and cherished in his soul the notion that France was created for him
+alone. His mistresses, his friends, his wives, his children, his
+court, and the whole nation, were viewed only as the instruments of
+his pride and pleasure. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>(p. 251)</span>All his crimes and blunders
+proceeded from his extraordinary selfishness. If we could look on him
+without this moral taint, which corrupted and disgraced him, we should
+see an indulgent father and a generous friend. He attended zealously
+to the duties of his station, and sought not to shake off his
+responsibilities. He loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not
+forget the affairs of the realm. He rewarded literature, and
+appreciated merit. He honored the institutions of religion, and, in
+his latter days, was devoted to its duties, so far as he understood
+them. He has been foolishly panegyrized, and as foolishly censured.
+Still his reign was baneful, on the whole, especially to the interests
+of enlightened Christianity and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted
+Catholic, and sought to erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an
+absolute and universal throne. He failed; and instead of bequeathing
+to his successors the power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts,
+a distracted empire, and a discontented people. He bequeathed to
+France the revolution which hurled her monarch from his throne, but
+which was overruled for her ultimate good.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> et son Siècle. Voltaire's and Miss
+     Pardoe's Histories of the Reign of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> James's Life
+     of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> Mémoires du Duc de St. Simon. The Abbé
+     Millot's History. D'Anquetil's Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, sa Cour, et le
+     Régent. Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's and Rankin's
+     Histories of France. Lord Mahon's War of the Spanish
+     Succession. Temple's Memoirs. Coxe's Life of Marlborough.
+     Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Sévigné's Letters.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is
+     one of the most interesting ever written. It may have too
+     much gossip for what is called the "dignity of history;" but
+     that fault, if fault it be, has been made by Macaulay also,
+     and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by those most
+     incapable of appreciating philosophical history.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>(p. 252)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="17">XVII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>WILLIAM AND MARY.</h4>
+
+
+<p>From Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> we turn to consider the reign of his illustrious
+rival, <span class="inline">William and Mary.</span> William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, King of England, who enjoyed the throne
+conjointly with Mary, daughter of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>The early life and struggles of this heroic prince have been already
+alluded to, in the two previous chapters, and will not be further
+discussed. On the 12th day of February, 1689, he arrived at Whitehall,
+the favorite palace of the Stuart kings, and, on the 11th of April, he
+and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Their reign is chiefly memorable for the war with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, the
+rebellion in Ireland, fomented by the intrigues of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and for
+the discussion of several great questions pertaining to the liberties
+and the prosperity of the English nation, questions in relation to the
+civil list, the Place Bill, the Triennial Bill, the liberty of the
+press, a standing army, the responsibility of ministers, the veto of
+the crown, the administration of Ireland, the East India Company, the
+Bank of England, and the funded debt. These topics make the domestic
+history of the country, especially in a constitutional point of view,
+extremely important.</p>
+
+<p>The great struggle with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> has already received all the notice
+which the limits of this work will allow, in which it was made to
+appear that, if Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was the greater king, William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was the
+greater man; and, although his military enterprises were, in one
+sense, unsuccessful, since he did not triumph in splendid victories,
+still he opposed successfully what would have been, without his
+heroism, an overwhelming torrent of invasion and conquest, in
+consequence of vastly superior forces. The French king was eventually
+humbled, and the liberties of continental Europe were preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Under the wise, tolerant, and liberal administration of William, the
+British empire was preserved from disunion, and invaluable liberties
+and privileges were guaranteed.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>(p. 253)</span>
+
+<p>Scarcely was he seated on the throne, which his wife inherited from
+the proud descendants of the Norman Conqueror, when a <span class="inline">Irish Rebellion.</span> rebellion in
+Ireland broke out, and demanded his presence in that distracted and
+unfortunate country.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish people, being Roman Catholics, had sympathized with
+James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> in all his troubles, and were resolved to defend his cause
+against a Calvinistic king. In a short time after his establishment at
+St. Germain's, through the bounty of the French king, he began to
+intrigue with the disaffected Irish chieftains. The most noted of
+these was Tyrconnel, who contrived to deprive the Protestants of Lord
+Mountjoy, their most trusted and able leader, by sending him on a
+mission to James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, by whose influence he was confined, on his
+arrival at Paris, in the Bastile. Tyrconnel then proceeded to disarm
+the Protestants, and recruit the Catholic army, which was raised in
+two months to a force of forty thousand men, burning to revenge their
+past injuries, and recover their ancient possessions and privileges.
+James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was invited by the army to take possession of his throne. He
+accepted the invitation, and, early in 1689, made his triumphal entry
+into Dublin, and was received with a pomp and homage equal to his
+dignity. But James did not go to Ireland merely to enjoy the homage
+and plaudits of the Irish people, but to defend the last foothold
+which he retained as King of England, trusting that success in Ireland
+would eventually restore to him the throne of his ancestors. And he
+was cordially, but not powerfully, supported by the French king, who
+was at war with England, and who justly regarded Ireland as the most
+assailable part of the British empire.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish parliament, in the interest of James, passed an act of
+attainder against all Protestants who had assisted William, among whom
+were two archbishops, one duke, seventeen earls, eighteen barons, and
+eighty-three clergymen. By another act, Ireland was made independent
+of England. The Protestants were every where despoiled and insulted.</p>
+
+<p>But James was unequal to the task he had assumed, incapable either of
+preserving Ireland or retaking England. He was irresolute and
+undecided. He could not manage an Irish House of Commons any better
+than he could an English one. He debased the coin, and resorted to
+irritating measures to raise money.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>(p. 254)</span>At last he concluded to subdue the Protestants in Ulster, and
+advanced to lay siege to Londonderry, upon which depended the fate of
+the north of Ireland. It was bravely defended by the inhabitants, and
+finally relieved by the troops sent over from England under the
+command of Kirke&mdash;the same who inflicted the cruelties in the west of
+England under James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> But William wanted able officers, and he took
+them indiscriminately from all parties. Nine thousand people miserably
+perished by famine and disease in the town, before the siege was
+raised, one of the most memorable in the annals of war.</p>
+
+<p>Ulster was now safe, and the discomfiture of James was rapidly
+effected. Old Marshal Schomberg was sent into Ireland with sixteen
+thousand veteran troops, and, shortly after, William himself (June 14,
+1690) landed at Carrickfergus, near Belfast, with additional men, who
+swelled the Protestant army to forty thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The contending forces advanced to the conflict, and on the 1st of July
+was fought the battle of the Boyne, in which Schomberg was killed, but
+which resulted in the <span class="inline">King James in Ireland.</span> defeat of the troops of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> The
+discomfited king fled to Dublin, but quitted it as soon as he had
+entered it, and embarked hastily at Waterford for France, leaving the
+Earl of Tyrconnel to contend with vastly superior forces, and to make
+the best terms in his power.</p>
+
+<p>The country was speedily subdued, and all the important cities and
+fortresses, one after the other, surrendered to the king. Limerick
+held out the longest, and made an obstinate resistance, but finally
+yielded to the conqueror; and with its surrender terminated the final
+efforts of the old Irish inhabitants to regain the freedom which they
+had lost. Four thousand persons were outlawed, and their possessions
+confiscated. Indeed, at different times, the whole country has been
+confiscated, with the exception of the possessions of a few families
+of English blood. In the reign of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, the whole province of
+Ulster, containing three millions of acres, was divided among the new
+inhabitants. At the restoration, eight millions of acres, and, after
+the surrender of Limerick, one million more of acres, were
+confiscated. During the reign of William and Mary, the Catholic Irish
+were treated with extreme rigor, and Ireland became a field for
+place-hunters. All important or lucrative offices in the church, the
+state, and the army, were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>(p. 255)</span>filled with the needy dependants
+of the great Whig families. Injustice to the nation was constantly
+exercised, and penal laws were imposed by the English parliament, and
+in reference to matters which before came under the jurisdiction of
+the Irish parliament. But, with all these rigorous measures, Ireland
+was still ruled with more mildness than at any previous period in its
+history, and no great disturbance again occurred until the reign of
+George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>But the reign of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, however beneficial to the liberties of
+England and of Europe, was far from peaceful. Apart from his great
+struggle with the French king, his comfort and his composure of mind
+were continually disturbed by domestic embarrassments, arising from
+the jealousies between the Whigs and Tories, the intrigues of
+statesmen with the exiled family, and discussions in parliament in
+reference to those great questions which attended the settlement of
+the constitution. A bill was passed, called the <span class="italic">Place Bill</span>,
+excluding all officers of the crown from the House of Commons, which
+showed the jealousy of the people respecting royal encroachments. A
+law also was passed, called the <span class="italic">Triennial Bill</span>, which limited the
+duration of parliament to three years, but which, in a subsequent
+reign, was repealed, and one substituted which extended the duration
+of a parliament to seven years. An important bill was also passed
+which regulated trials in case of treason, in which the prisoner was
+furnished with a copy of the indictment, with the names and residences
+of jurors, with the privilege of peremptory challenge, and with full
+defence of counsel. This bill guaranteed new privileges and rights to
+prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>The great question pertaining to the <span class="inline">Freedom of the Press.</span> Liberty of the Press was
+discussed at this time&mdash;one of the most vital questions which affect
+the stability of government on the one side, and the liberties of the
+people on the other. So desirable have all governments deemed the
+control of the press by themselves, that parliament, when it abolished
+the Star Chamber, in the reign of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, still assumed its powers
+respecting the licensing of books. Various modifications were, from
+time to time, made in the laws pertaining to licensing books, until,
+in the reign of William, the liberty of the press was established
+nearly upon its present basis.</p>
+
+<p>William, in general, was in favor of those movements which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>(p. 256)</span>
+proved beneficial in after times, or which the wisdom of a subsequent
+age saw fit to adopt. Among these was the union of England and
+Scotland, which he recommended. Under his auspices, the affairs of the
+East India Company were considered and new charters granted; the Bank
+of England was erected; benevolent action for the suppression of vice
+and for the amelioration of the condition of the poor took place; the
+coinage was adjusted and financial experiments were made.</p>
+
+<p>The crown, on the whole, lost power during this reign, which was
+transferred to the House of Commons. The Commons acquired the complete
+control of the purse, which is considered paramount to all other
+authority. Prior to the Revolution, the supply for the public service
+was placed at the disposal of the sovereign, but the definite sum of
+seven hundred thousand pounds, yearly, was placed at the disposal of
+William, to defray the expense of the civil list and his other
+expenses, while the other contingent expenses of government, including
+those for the support of the army and navy, were annually appropriated
+by the Commons.</p>
+
+<p>The most important legislative act of this reign was the <span class="inline">Act of Settlement &mdash; Death of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></span>
+Act of Settlement, March 12, 1701, which provided that England should be
+freed from the obligation of engaging in any war for the defence of
+the foreign dominions of the king; that all succeeding kings must be
+of the communion of the Church of England; that no succeeding king
+should go out of the British dominions without consent of parliament;
+that no person in office, or pensioner, should be a member of the
+Commons; that the religious liberties of the people should be further
+secured; that the judges should hold office during good behavior, and
+have their salaries ascertained; and that the succession to the throne
+should be confined to Protestant princes.</p>
+
+<p>King William reigned in England thirteen years, with much ability, and
+sagacity, and prudence, and never attempted to subvert the
+constitution, for which his memory is dear to the English people. But
+most of his time, as king, was occupied in directing warlike
+operations on the Continent, and in which he showed a great jealousy
+of the genius of Marlborough, whose merits he nevertheless finally
+admitted. He died March 8, 1702, and was buried in the sepulchre of
+the kings of England.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>(p. 257)</span>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the animosity of different parties against
+William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, public opinion now generally awards to him, considering
+the difficulties with which he had to contend, the first place among
+the English kings. He had many enemies and many defects. The Jacobites
+hated him because "he upset their theory of the divine rights of
+kings; the High Churchmen because he was indifferent to the forms of
+church government; the Tories because he favored the Whigs; and the
+Republicans because he did not again try the hopeless experiment of a
+republic." <span class="inline">Character of William.</span> He was not a popular idol, in spite of his great services
+and great qualities, because he was cold, reserved, and unyielding;
+because he disdained to flatter, and loved his native better than his
+adopted country. But his faults were chiefly offences against good
+manners, and against the prejudices of the nation. He distrusted human
+nature, and disdained human sympathy. He was ambitious, and his
+ambition was allied with selfishness. He permitted the slaughter of
+the De Witts, and never gave Marlborough a command worthy of his
+talents. He had no taste for literature, wit, or the fine arts. His
+favorite tastes were hunting, gardening and upholstery. That he was,
+however, capable of friendship, is attested by his long and devoted
+attachment to Bentinck, whom he created Earl of Portland, and
+splendidly rewarded with rich and extensive manors in every part of
+the land. His reserve and coldness may in part be traced to his
+profound knowledge of mankind, whom he feared to trust. But if he was
+not beloved by the nation, he secured their eternal respect by being
+the first to solve the problem of constitutional monarchy, and by
+successfully ruling, at a very critical period, the Dutch, the
+English, the Scotch, and the Irish, who had all separate interests and
+jealousies; by yielding, when in possession of great power, to
+restraints he did not like; and by undermining the intrigues and power
+of so mighty an enemy of European liberties as Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> His heroism
+shone brilliantly in defeat and disaster, and his courage and exertion
+never flagged when all Europe desponded, and when he himself labored
+under all the pains and lassitude of protracted disease. He died
+serenely, but hiding from his attendants, as he did all his days, the
+profoundest impressions which agitated his earnest and heroic soul.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>(p. 258)</span>
+
+<p>Among the great men whom he encouraged and rewarded, may be mentioned
+the historian Burnet, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury, and Tillotson
+and Tennison, whom he elevated to archiepiscopal thrones. Dr. South
+and Dr. Bentley also adorned this age of eminent divines. The great
+poets of the period were Prior, Dryden, Swift, and Pope, who, however,
+are numbered more frequently among the wits of the reign of Anne.
+Robert Boyle distinguished himself for experiments in natural science,
+and zeal for Christian knowledge; and Christopher Wren for his genius
+in architectural art. But the two great lights of this reign were,
+doubtless, <span class="inline">Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke.</span> Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke, to whom the realm of
+natural and intellectual philosophy is more indebted than to any other
+men of genius from the time of Bacon. The discoveries of Newton are
+scarcely without a parallel, and he is generally regarded as the
+greatest mathematical intellect that England has produced. To him the
+world is indebted for the binomial theorem, discovered at the age of
+twenty-two; for the invention of fluxions; for the demonstration of
+the law of gravitation; and for the discovery of the different
+refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise on Optics and his
+<span class="italic">Principia</span>, in which he brought to light the new theory of the
+universe, place him at the head of modern philosophers&mdash;on a high
+vantage ground, to which none have been elevated, of his age, with the
+exception of Leibnitz and Galileo. But his greatest glory was his
+modesty, and the splendid tribute he rendered to the truths of
+Christianity, whose importance and sublime beauty he was ever most
+proud to acknowledge in an age of levity and indifference.</p>
+
+<p>John Locke is a name which almost exclusively belongs to the reign of
+William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, and he will also ever be honorably mentioned in the
+constellation of the very great geniuses and Christians of the world.
+His treatises on Religious Toleration are the most masterly ever
+written, while his Essay on the Human Understanding is a great system
+of truth, as complete, original, and logical, in the department of
+mental science, as was the system of Calvin in the realm of theology.
+Locke's Essay has had its enemies and detractors, and, while many
+eminent men have dissented from it, it nevertheless remains, one of
+the most enduring and proudest monuments of the immortal and
+ever-expanding intellect of man.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>(p. 259)</span>
+<p>On the death of William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, (1702,) the Princess <span class="inline">Anne.</span>
+Anne, daughter of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, peaceably ascended the throne. She was thirty-seven years
+of age, a woman of great weaknesses, and possessing but few
+interesting qualities. Nevertheless, her reign is radiant with the
+glory of military successes, and adorned with every grace of fancy,
+wit, and style in literature. The personal talent and exclusive
+ambition of William suppressed the national genius; but the incapacity
+of Anne gave scope for the commanding abilities of Marlborough in the
+field, and Godolphin in the cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>The memorable events connected with her reign of twelve years, were,
+the war of the Spanish succession, in which Marlborough humbled the
+pride of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>; the struggles of the Whigs and Tories; the union
+of Scotland with England; the discussion and settlement of great
+questions pertaining to the constitution, and the security of the
+Protestant religion; and the impulse which literature received from
+the constellation of learned men who were patronized by the
+government, and who filled an unusual place in public estimation.</p>
+
+<p>In a political point of view, this reign is but the continuation of
+the reign of William, since the same objects were pursued, the same
+policy was adopted, and the same great characters were intrusted with
+power. The animating object of William's life was the suppression of
+the power of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>; and this object was never lost sight of by
+the English government under the reign of Anne.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the great political event of the reign was the war of the
+Spanish succession, which, however, pertains to the reign of Louis as
+well as to that of Anne. It was during this war that the great battles
+of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet attested the genius of the
+greatest military commander that England had ever sent into the field.
+It was this war which exhausted the energies and resources of all the
+contending states of Europe, and created a necessity for many years of
+slumbering repose. It was this war which completed the humiliation of
+a monarch who aspired to the sovereignty of Europe, which preserved
+the balance of power, and secured the liberties of Europe. Yet it was
+a war which laid the foundation of the national debt, inflamed the
+English mind with a mad passion for military glory, which demoralized
+the nation, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>(p. 260)</span>and fostered those international jealousies and
+enmities which are still a subject of reproach to the two most
+powerful states of Europe. This war made England a more prominent
+actor on the arena of European strife, and perhaps contributed to her
+political aggrandizement. The greatness of the British empire begins
+to date from this period, although this greatness is more to be traced
+to colonial possessions, manufactures, and commercial wealth, than to
+the victories of Marlborough.</p>
+
+<p>It will ever remain an open question whether or not it was wise in the
+English nation to continue so long the struggle with Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> In a
+financial and material point of view, the war proved disastrous. But
+it is difficult to measure the real greatness of a country, and solid
+and enduring blessings, by pounds, shillings, and pence. All such
+calculations, however statistically startling, are erroneous and
+deceptive. The real strength of nations consists in loyalty,
+patriotism, and public spirit; and no sacrifices can be too great to
+secure these unbought blessings&mdash;"this cheap defence." If the
+victories of Marlborough secured these, gave dignity to the British
+name, and an honorable and lofty self-respect to the English people,
+they were not dearly purchased. But the settlement of these questions
+cannot be easily made.</p>
+
+<p>As to the remarkable genius of the great man who infused courage into
+the English mind, there can be no question. <span class="inline">The Duke of Marlborough.</span> Marlborough, in spite of
+his many faults, his selfishness and parsimony, his ambition and
+duplicity, will ever enjoy an enviable fame. He was not so great a
+moral hero as William, nor did he contend against such superior forces
+as the royal hero. But he was a great hero, nevertheless. His glory
+was reached by no sudden indulgence of fortune, by no fortunate
+movements, by no accidental circumstances. His fame was progressive.
+He never made a great mistake; he never lost the soundness of his
+judgment. No success unduly elated him, and no reverses discouraged
+him. He never forgot the interests of the nation in his own personal
+annoyances or enmities. He was magnanimously indulgent to those Dutch
+deputies who thwarted his measures, criticized his plans, and lectured
+him on the art of war. The glory of his country was the prevailing
+desire of his soul. He was as great in diplomacy and statesmanship as
+on the field of Blenheim. He ever sacrificed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>(p. 261)</span>his feelings as
+a victorious general to his duty as a subject. His sagacity was only
+equalled by his prudence and patience, and these contributed, as well
+as his personal bravery, to his splendid successes, which secured for
+him magnificent rewards&mdash;palaces and parks, peerages, and a nation's
+gratitude and praise.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a limit to all human glory. Marlborough was undermined by
+his political enemies, and he himself lost the confidence of the queen
+whom he had served, partly by his own imperious conduct, and partly
+from the overbearing insolence of his wife. From the height of popular
+favor, he descended to the depth of popular hatred. He was held up, by
+the sarcasm of the writers whom he despised, to derision and obloquy;
+was accused of insolence, cruelty, ambition, extortion, and avarice,
+discharged from his high offices, and obliged to seek safety by exile.
+He never regained the confidence of the nation, although, when he
+died, parliament decreed him a splendid funeral, and a grave in
+Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>In <span class="inline">Character of Marlborough.</span> private life, he was amiable and kind; was patient under
+contradiction, and placid in manners; had great self-possession, and
+extraordinary dignity. His person was beautiful, and his address
+commanding. He was feared as a general, but loved as a man. He never
+lost his affections for his home, and loved to idolatry his imperious
+wife, his equal, if not superior, in the knowledge of human nature.
+These qualities as a man, a general, and a statesman, in spite of his
+defects, have immortalized his name, and he will, for a long time to
+come, be called, and called with justice, the <span class="italic">great</span> Duke of
+Marlborough.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely less than he, was Lord Godolphin, the able prime minister of
+Anne, with whom Marlborough was united by family ties, by friendship,
+by official relations, and by interest. He was a Tory by profession,
+but a Whig in his policy. He rose with Marlborough, and fell with him,
+being an unflinching advocate for the prosecution of the war to the
+utmost limits, for which his government was distasteful to the Tories.
+His life was not stainless; but, in an age of corruption, he ably
+administered the treasury department, and had control of unbounded
+wealth, without becoming rich&mdash;the highest praise which can ever be
+awarded to a minister of finance. It was only through the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>(p. 262)</span>
+coöperation of this sagacious and far-sighted statesman that
+Marlborough himself was enabled to prosecute his brilliant military
+career.</p>
+
+<p>It was during his administration that party animosity was at its
+height&mdash;the great struggle which has been going on, in England, for
+nearly two hundred years, between the <span class="inline">Whigs and Tories.</span> Whigs and Tories. These names
+originated in the reign of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and were terms of reproach.
+The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to
+the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of
+the <span class="italic">Whigs</span>; and the country party pretended to find a resemblance
+between the courtiers and the Popish banditti of Ireland, to whom the
+appellation of <span class="italic">Tory</span> was affixed. The High Church party and the
+advocates of absolutism belonged to the Tories; the more liberal party
+and the advocates of constitutional reform, to the Whigs. The former
+were conservative, the latter professed a sympathy with improvements.
+But the leaders of both parties were among the greatest nobles in the
+realm, and probably cared less for any great innovation than they did
+for themselves. These two great parties, in the progress of society,
+have changed their views, and the opinions once held by the Whigs were
+afterwards adopted by the Tories. On the whole, the Whigs were in
+advance in liberality of mind, and in enlightened plans of government.
+But both parties, in England, have ever been aristocratic, and both
+have felt nearly an equal disgust of popular influences. Charles and
+James sympathized with the Tories more than with the Whigs; but
+William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was supported by the Whigs, who had the ascendency in his
+reign. Queen Anne was a Tory, as was to be expected from a princess of
+the house of Stuart; but, in the early part of her reign, was obliged
+to yield to the supremacy of the Whigs. The advocates for war were
+Whigs, and those who desired peace were Tories. The Whigs looked to
+the future glory of the country; the Tories, to the expenses which war
+created. The Tories at last got the ascendency, and expelled
+Godolphin, Marlborough, and Sunderland from power.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Tory leaders, Harley, (Earl of Oxford,) St. John, (Lord
+Bolingbroke,) the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Ormond, the Earl
+of Rochester, and Lord Dartmouth, were the most prominent, but this
+Tory party was itself divided, in consequence <span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>(p. 263)</span>of jealousies
+between the chiefs, the intrigues of Harley, and the measureless
+ambition of Bolingbroke. Under the ascendency of the Tories the treaty
+of Utrecht was made, now generally condemned by historians of both
+Whig and Tory politics. It was disproportioned to the success of the
+war, although it secured the ends of the grand alliance.</p>
+
+<p>One of the causes which led to the overthrow of the Whigs was the
+impeachment and trial of <span class="inline">Dr. Henry Sacheverell.</span> Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an event which excited
+intense interest at the time, and, though insignificant in itself,
+touched some vital principles of the constitution.</p>
+
+<p>This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation for
+learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, an
+outrageous Whig; but, finding his services disregarded, he became a
+violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and scurrilous
+rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the valuable
+living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his railings against
+the late king and the revolution at last attracted the notice of
+government; and for two sermons which he printed, and in which he
+inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive obedience,
+consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused the great
+principle of religious toleration, he was formally impeached. All
+England was excited by the trial. The queen herself privately
+attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted for his loyalty, and
+persecuted for defending his church. The finest orators and lawyers of
+the day put forth all their energies. Bishop Atterbury wrote for
+Sacheverell his defence, which was endorsed by a conclave of High
+Church divines. The result of the trial was the condemnation of the
+doctor, and with it the fall of his adversaries. He was suspended for
+three years, but his defeat was a triumph. He was received, in college
+halls and private mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the
+reverence of a saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The
+great body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles,
+took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers developed
+some great principles&mdash;led to the assertion of the doctrines of
+toleration; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of the state and
+church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be curbed and
+suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264"></a>(p. 264)</span>opposing the
+bigoted Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justified the
+revolution, and upheld the conquest by William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> And their speeches
+are upon record, that they asserted the great principles of civil and
+religious liberty, in the face of all the authority, dignity, and
+wisdom of the realm. It is true they lost as a party, on account of
+the bigotry of the times; but they furnished another pillar to uphold
+the constitution, and adduced new and powerful arguments in support of
+constitutional liberty. The country gained, if they, as a party, lost;
+and though Sacheverell was lauded by his church, his conviction was a
+triumph to the friends of freedom. Good resulted in many other ways.
+Political leaders learned moral wisdom; they saw the folly of
+persecuting men for libels, when such men had the sympathy of the
+people; that such persecutions were undignified, and that, while they
+gained their end, they lost more by victory than by defeat. The trial
+of Sacheverell, while it brought to view more clearly some great
+constitutional truths, also more effectually advanced the liberty of
+the press; for, surely, restriction on the press is a worse evil, than
+the violence and vituperation of occasional libels.</p>
+
+<p>The great domestic event of this reign was doubtless the <span class="inline">Union of Scotland and England.</span> union of
+Scotland and England; a consummation of lasting peace between the two
+countries, which William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> had proposed. Nothing could be more
+beneficent for both the countries; and the only wonder is, that it was
+not done before, when James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> ascended the English throne; and
+nothing then, perhaps, prevented it, but the bitter jealousy which had
+so long existed between these countries; a jealousy, dislike, and
+prejudice which have hardly yet passed away.</p>
+
+<p>Scotland, until the reign of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, was theoretically and
+practically independent of England, but was not so fortunately placed,
+as the latter country, for the development of energies. The country
+was smaller, more barren, and less cultivated. The people were less
+civilized; and had less influence on the political welfare of the
+state. The aristocracy were more powerful, and were more jealous of
+royal authority. There were constant feuds and jealousies between
+dominant classes, which checked the growth in political importance,
+wealth, and civilization. But the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265"></a>(p. 265)</span>people were more generally
+imbued with the ultra principles of the Reformation, were more
+religious, and cherished a peculiar attachment to the Presbyterian
+form of church government, and a peculiar hatred of every thing which
+resembled Roman Catholicism. They were, moreover, distinguished for
+patriotism, and had great jealousy of English influences.</p>
+
+<p>James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was the legitimate King of Scotland, as well as of England;
+but he soon acquired a greater love for England, than he retained for
+his native country; and England being the greater country, the
+interests of Scotland were frequently sacrificed to those of England.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Anne, as the daughter of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, was also the legitimate
+sovereign of Scotland; and, on her decease, the Scotch were not bound
+to acknowledge the Elector of Hanover as their legitimate king.</p>
+
+<p>Many ardent and patriotic Scotchmen, including the <span class="inline">Duke of Hamilton.</span> Duke of Hamilton
+and Fletcher of Saltoun, deemed it a favorable time to assert, on the
+death of Queen Anne, their national independence, since the English
+government was neither just nor generous to the lesser country.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, there were many obstacles to a permanent
+union, and it was more bitterly opposed in Scotland than in England.
+The more patriotic desired complete independence. Many were jealous of
+the superior prosperity of England. The people in the Highlands and
+the north of Scotland were Jacobinical in their principles, and were
+attached to the Stuart dynasty. The Presbyterians feared the influence
+of English Episcopacy, and Scottish peers deprecated a servile
+dependence on the parliament of England.</p>
+
+<p>But the English government, on the whole, much as it hated Scotch
+Presbyterianism and Scotch influence, desired a union, in order to
+secure the peaceful succession of the house of Hanover, for the north
+of Scotland was favorable to the Stuarts, and without a union, English
+liberties would be endangered by Jacobinical intrigues. English
+statesmen felt this, and used every measure to secure this end.</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch were overreached. Force, bribery, and corruption were
+resorted to. The Duke of Hamilton proved a traitor, and the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266"></a>(p. 266)</span>
+union was effected&mdash;a union exceedingly important to the peace of both
+countries, but especially desirable to England. Important concessions
+were made by the English, to which they were driven only by fear. They
+might have ruled Scotland as they did Ireland, but for the intrepidity
+and firmness of the Scotch, who while negotiations were pending,
+passed the famous Act of Security, by which the Scottish parliament
+decreed the succession in Scotland, on the death of the queen, open
+and elective; the independence and power of parliaments; freedom in
+trade and commerce; and the liberty of Scotland to engage or not in
+the English continental wars. The English parliament retaliated,
+indeed, by an act restricting the trade of Scotland, and declaring
+Scotchmen aliens throughout the English dominions. But the conflicts
+between the Whigs and Tories induced government to repeal the act; and
+the commissioners for the union secured their end.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed, in the famous treaty they at last effected, that the
+two kingdoms of England and Scotland be united into one, by the name
+of <span class="italic">Great Britain</span>.</p>
+
+<p>That the succession to the United Kingdom shall remain to the Princess
+Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being
+Protestants; and that all Papists, and persons marrying Papists, shall
+be excluded from, and be forever incapable of inheriting, the crown of
+Great Britain;</p>
+
+<p>That the whole people of Great Britain shall be represented by one
+parliament, in which sixteen peers and forty-five commoners, chosen
+for Scotland, should sit and vote;</p>
+
+<p>That the subjects of the United Kingdom shall enjoy an entire freedom
+and intercourse of trade and navigation, and reciprocal communication
+of all other rights, privileges, and advantages belonging to the
+subjects of either kingdom;</p>
+
+<p>That the laws, in regard to public rights and civil government, shall
+be the same in both countries, but that no alteration shall be made in
+the laws respecting private rights, unless for the evident utility of
+the subjects residing in Scotland;</p>
+
+<p>That the Court of Session, and all other courts of judicature in
+Scotland, remain as before the union, subject, however, to such
+regulations as may be made by the parliament of Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267"></a>(p. 267)</span>Beside these permanent regulations, a sum of three hundred
+and ninety-eight thousand pounds was granted to Scotland, as an
+equivalent to the augmentation of the customs and excise.</p>
+
+<p>By this treaty, the Scotch became identified with the English in
+interest. They lost their independence; but they gained security and
+peace; and rose in wealth and consequence. The nation moreover, was
+burdened by the growth of the national debt. The advantage was mutual,
+but England gained the greater advantage by shifting a portion of her
+burdens on Scotland, by securing the hardy people of that noble
+country to fight her battles, and by converting a nation of enemies
+into a nation of friends.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to glance at those illustrious men who adorned the
+literature of England in this brilliant age, celebrated for political
+as well as literary writings.</p>
+
+<p>Of these, Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Bentley, Warburton, Arbuthnot,
+Gay, Pope, Tickell, Halifax, Parnell, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Steele,
+and Berkeley, were the most distinguished. Dryden belonged to the
+preceding age; to the period of license and gayety&mdash;the greatest but
+most immoral of all the great poets of England, from the time of
+Milton to that of Pope.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Wits of Queen Anne's Reign.</span> wits of Queen Anne's reign were political writers as well as
+poets, and their services were sought for and paid by the great
+statesmen of the times, chiefly of the Tory party. Marlborough
+neglected the poets, and they contributed to undermine his power.</p>
+
+<p>Of these wits the most distinguished and respectable was Addison, born
+1672. He was well educated, and distinguished himself at Oxford, and
+was a fellow of Magdalen College. His early verses, which would now be
+pronounced very inferior, however attracted the notice of Dryden, then
+the great autocrat of letters, and the oracle of the literary clubs.
+At the age of twenty-seven, Addison was provided with a pension from
+the Whig government, and set out on his travels. He was afterwards
+made secretary to Lord Halifax, and elected a member of the House of
+Commons, but was never able to make a speech. He, however, made up for
+his failure as an orator by his power as a writer, being a perfect
+master of elegant satire. He was also charming in private
+conversation, and his society was much sought by eminent statesmen,
+scholars, and noblemen. In 1708, he became secretary for Ireland, and,
+while <span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268"></a>(p. 268)</span>he resided at Dublin, wrote those delightful papers on
+which his fame chiefly rests. Not as the author of Rosamond, nor of
+Latin verses, nor of the treatise on Medals, nor of Letters from
+Italy, nor of the tragedy of Cato, would he now be known to us. His
+glory is derived from the Tatler and Spectator&mdash;an entirely new
+species of writing in his age, original, simple, and beautiful, but
+chiefly marked for polished and elegant satire against the follies and
+bad taste of his age. Moreover, his numbers of the Spectator are
+distinguished for elevation of sentiment, and moral purity, without
+harshness, and without misanthropy. He wrote three sevenths of that
+immortal production, and on every variety of subject, without any
+attempt to be eloquent or <span class="italic">intense</span>, without pedantry and without
+affectation. The success of the work was immense, and every one who
+could afford it, had it served on the breakfast table with the tea and
+toast. It was the general subject of conversation in all polite
+circles, and did much to improve the taste and reform the morals of
+the age. There was nothing which he so severely ridiculed as the show
+of learning without the reality, coxcombry in conversation,
+extravagance in dress, female flirts and butterflies, gay and
+fashionable women, and all false modesty and affectation. But he
+blamed without bitterness, and reformed without exhortation, while he
+exalted what was simple, and painted in most beautiful colors the
+virtues of contentment, simplicity, sincerity, and cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>His latter days were imbittered by party animosity, and the malignant
+stings of literary rivals. Nor was he happy in his domestic life,
+having married a proud countess, who did not appreciate his genius. He
+also became addicted to intemperate habits. Still he was ever honored
+and respected, and, when he died, was buried in Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Addison in fame, and superior in genius, was <span class="inline">Swift.</span> Swift, born in
+Ireland, in 1677, educated at Dublin, and patronized by Sir William
+Temple. He was rewarded, finally, with the deanery of St. Patrick's.
+He was very useful to his party by his political writings; but his
+fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and his Gulliver's Travels, marked
+and disgraced by his savage sarcasm on woman, and his vilification of
+human nature. He was a great master of venomous satire. He spared
+neither friends <span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269"></a>(p. 269)</span>nor enemies. He was ambitious, misanthropic
+and selfish. His treatment of woman was disgraceful and heartless in
+the extreme. But he was witty, learned, and natural. He was never
+known to laugh, while he convulsed the circles into which he was
+thrown. He was rough to his servants, insolent to inferiors, and
+sycophantic to men of rank. His distinguishing power was his unsparing
+and unscrupulous sarcasm and his invective was as dreadful as the
+personal ridicule of Voltaire. As a poet he was respectable, and as a
+writer he was original. He was indifferent to literary fame, and never
+attempted any higher style of composition than that in which he could
+excel. His last days were miserable, and he lingered a long while in
+hopeless and melancholy idiocy.</p>
+
+<p>Pope <span class="inline">Pope &mdash; Bolingbroke &mdash; Gay &mdash; Prior.</span> properly belongs to a succeeding age, though his first writings
+attracted considerable attention during the life of Addison, who first
+raised him from obscurity. He is the greatest, after Dryden, of all
+the second class poets of his country. His Rape of the Lock, the most
+original of his poems, established his fame. But his greatest works
+were the translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Dunciad, and his
+Essay on Man. He was well paid for his labors, and lived in a
+beautiful villa at Twickenham, the friend of Bolingbroke, and the
+greatest literary star of his age. But he was bitter and satirical,
+irritable, parsimonious, and vain. As a versifier, he has never been
+equalled. He died in 1744, in the Romish faith, beloved but by few,
+and disliked by the world generally.</p>
+
+<p>Bolingbroke <span class="inline">Writers of the Age of Queen Anne.</span> was not a poet, but a man of vast genius, a great
+statesman, and a great writer on history and political philosophy, a
+man of most fascinating manners and conversation, brilliant, witty,
+and learned, but unprincipled and intriguing, the great leader of the
+Tory party. Gay, as a poet, was respectable, but poor, unfortunate, a
+hanger on of great people, and miserably paid for his sycophancy. His
+fame rests on his Fables and his Beggar's Opera. Prior first made
+himself distinguished by his satire called A City Mouse and a Country
+Mouse, aimed against Dryden. He was well rewarded by government, and
+was sent as minister to Paris. Like most of the wits of his time, he
+was convivial, and not always particular in the choice of his
+associates. Humor was the natural turn of his mind. Steele was editor
+of the Spectator <span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270"></a>(p. 270)</span>and wrote some excellent papers, although
+vastly inferior to Addison's. He is the father of the periodical
+essay, was a man of fashion and pleasure, and had great experience in
+the follies and vanities of the world. It is doubtful whether the
+writings of the great men who adorned the age of Anne will ever regain
+the ascendency they once enjoyed, since they have all been surpassed
+in succeeding times. They had not the fire, enthusiasm, or genius
+which satisfies the wants of the present generation. As poets, they
+had no greatness of fancy; and as philosophers, they were cold and
+superficial. Nor did they write for the people, but for the great,
+with whom they sought to associate, by whose praises they were
+consoled, and by whose bread they were sustained. They wrote for a
+class, and that class alone, that chiefly seeks to avoid ridicule and
+abstain from absurdity, that never attempts the sublime, and never
+sinks to the ridiculous; a class keen of observation, fond of the
+satirical, and indifferent to all institutions and enterprises which
+have for their object the elevation of the masses, or the triumph of
+the abstract principles of truth and justice.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Lord Mahon's History of England, which
+     commences with the peace of Utrecht, is one of the most
+     useful and interesting works which have lately appeared.
+     Smollett's continuation of Hume should be consulted,
+     although the author was greater as a novelist than as an
+     historian. Burnet's history on this period is a standard.
+     Hallam should be read in reference to all constitutional
+     questions. Coxe's Life of Marlborough throws great light on
+     the period, and is very valuable. Macaulay's work will, of
+     course, be read. See, also, Bolingbroke's Letters, and the
+     Duke of Berwick's Memoirs. A chapter in the Pictorial
+     History is very good as to literary history and the progress
+     of the arts and sciences. See, also, Johnson's Lives of the
+     Poets; Nichols's Life of Addison; Scott's Life of Swift;
+     Macaulay's Essay on Addison; and the Spectator and Tatler.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271"></a>(p. 271)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.</h4>
+
+
+<p>While Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was prosecuting his schemes of aggrandizement, and
+William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was opposing those schemes; while Villeroy, Villars,
+Marlborough, and Eugene were contending, at the head of great armies,
+for their respective masters; a new power was arising at the north,
+destined soon to become prominent among the great empires of the
+world. The political importance of Russia was not appreciated at the
+close of the seventeenth century, until the great resources of the
+country were brought to the view of Europe by the extraordinary genius
+of Peter the Great.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Early History of Russia.</span> history of Russia, before the reign of this great prince, has not
+excited much interest, and is not particularly eventful or important.
+The Russians are descended from the ancient Sclavonic race, supposed
+to be much inferior to the Germanic or Teutonic tribes, to whom most
+of the civilized nations of Europe trace their origin.</p>
+
+<p>The first great event in Russian history is the nominal conversion of
+a powerful king to Christianity, in the tenth century, named Vladimir,
+whose reign was a mixture of cruelty, licentiousness, and heroism.
+Seeing the necessity of some generally recognized religion, he sent
+ten of his most distinguished men into all the various countries then
+known, to examine their religious systems. Being semi-barbarians, they
+were disposed to recommend that form which had the most imposing
+ceremonial, and appealed most forcibly to the senses. The
+commissioners came to Mecca, but soon left with contempt, since
+Mohammedanism then made too great demands upon the powers of
+self-control, and prohibited the use of many things to which the
+barbarians were attached. They were no better pleased with the
+Manichean philosophy, which then extensively prevailed in the East;
+for this involved the settlement of abstract ideas, for which
+barbarians had no relish. They disliked Roman Catholicism, on account
+of the arrogant claims of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272"></a>(p. 272)</span>pope. Judaism was spurned,
+because it had no country, and its professors were scattered over the
+face of the earth. But the lofty minarets of St. Sophia, and the
+extravagant magnificence of the Greek worship, filled the
+commissioners with admiration; and they easily induced Vladimir to
+adopt the forms of the Greek Church; which has ever since been the
+established religion of Russia. But Christianity, in its corrupted
+form, failed to destroy, and scarcely alleviated, the traits of
+barbarous life. Old superstitions and vices prevailed; nor were the
+Russian territories on an equality with the Gothic kingdoms of Europe,
+in manners, arts learning, laws, or piety.</p>
+
+<p>When Genghis Khan, with his Tartar hordes, overran the world Russia
+was subdued, and <span class="inline">The Tartar Conquest.</span> Tartar princes took possession of the throne of the
+ancient czars. But the Russian princes, in the thirteenth century,
+recovered their ancient power. Alexander Nevsky performed exploits of
+great brilliancy; gained important victories over Danes, Swedes,
+Lithuanians, and Teutonic knights; and greatly enlarged the boundaries
+of his kingdom. In the fourteenth century, Moscow became a powerful
+city, to which was transferred the seat of government, which before
+was Novgorod. Under the successor of Ivan Kalita, the manners, laws,
+and institutions of the Russians became fixed, and the absolute power
+of the czars was established. Under Ivan <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, who ascended the
+Muscovite throne in 1462, the Tartar rule was exterminated, and the
+various provinces and principalities, of which Russia was composed,
+were brought under a central government. The Kremlin, with its mighty
+towers and imposing minarets, arose in all the grandeur of Eastern art
+and barbaric strength. The mines of the country were worked, the roads
+cleared of banditti, and a code of laws established. The veil which
+concealed Russia from the rest of Europe was rent. An army of three
+hundred thousand men was enlisted, Siberia was discovered, the
+printing press introduced, and civilization commenced. But the czar
+was, nevertheless, a brutal tyrant and an abandoned libertine, who
+massacred his son, executed his nobles, and destroyed his cities.</p>
+
+<p>His successors were disgraced by every crime which degrades humanity;
+and the whole population remained in rudeness and barbarism,
+superstition and ignorance. The clergy wielded enormous <span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name="page273"></a>(p. 273)</span>
+power; which, however, was rendered subservient to the interests of
+absolutism.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Russia, when Peter, the son of Alexis Michaelovitz, <span class="inline">Accession of Peter the Great.</span> ascended
+the throne, in 1682&mdash;a boy, ten years of age. He early exhibited great
+sagacity and talent, but was addicted to gross pleasures. These,
+strangely, did not enervate him, or prevent him from making
+considerable attainments. But he was most distinguished for a military
+spirit, which was treated with contempt by the Regent Sophia, daughter
+of Alexis by a first marriage. As soon, however, as her eyes were open
+to his varied studies and his ambitious spirit, she became jealous,
+and attempted to secure his assassination. In this she failed, and the
+youthful sovereign reigned supreme in Moscow, at the age of seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner did he assume the reins of empire, than his genius blazed
+forth with singular brilliancy, and the rapid development of his
+powers was a subject of universal wonder. Full of courage and energy,
+he found nothing too arduous for him to undertake; and he soon
+conceived the vast project of changing the whole system of his
+government, and reforming the manners of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>He first directed his attention to the art of war, and resolved to
+increase the military strength of his empire. With the aid of Le Fort,
+a Swiss adventurer, and Gordon, a Scotch officer, he instituted,
+gradually, a standing army of twenty thousand men, officered, armed,
+and disciplined after the European model; cut off the long beards of
+the soldiers, took away their robes, and changed their Asiatic dress.</p>
+
+<p>He then conceived the idea of a navy, which may be traced to his love
+of sailing in a boat, which he had learned to navigate himself. He
+studied assiduously the art of ship-building, and soon laid the
+foundation of a navy.</p>
+
+<p>His enterprising and innovating spirit created, as it was to be
+expected, considerable disaffection among the partisans of the old
+<span class="italic">régime</span>&mdash;the old officers of the army, and the nobles, stripped of
+many of their privileges. A rebellion was the consequence; which,
+however, was soon suppressed, and the conspirators were executed with
+unsparing cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>He then came to the singular resolution of visiting foreign <span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name="page274"></a>(p. 274)</span>
+countries, in order to acquire useful information, both in respect to
+the arts of government and the arts of civilization. Many amusing
+incidents are recorded of him in his travels. He journeyed incognito;
+clambered up the sides of ships, ascended the rigging, and descended
+into the hold; he hired himself out as a workman in Holland, lived on
+the wretched stipend which he earned as a ship-carpenter, and mastered
+all the details of ship-building. From Holland he went to England,
+where he was received with great honor by William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>; studied the
+state of manufactures and trades, and sought to gain knowledge on all
+common subjects. From England he went to Austria, intending to go
+afterwards to Italy; but he was compelled to return home, on account
+of a rebellion of the old military guard, called the <span class="italic">Strelitz</span>, who
+were peculiarly disaffected. But he easily suppressed the discontents,
+and punished the old soldiers with unsparing rigor. He even executed
+thirty with his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>He then turned himself, in good earnest, to the work of <span class="inline">Peter's Reforms.</span> reform. His
+passions were military, and he longed to conquer kingdoms and cities.
+But he saw no probability of success, unless he could first civilize
+his subjects, and teach the soldiers the great improvements in the art
+of war. In order to conquer, he resolved first to reform his nation.
+His desires were selfish, but happened to be directed into channels
+which benefited his country. Like Napoleon, his ruling passion was
+that of the aggrandizement of himself and nation. But Providence
+designed that his passions should be made subservient to the welfare
+of his race. It is to his glory that he had enlargement of mind
+sufficient to perceive the true sources of national prosperity. To
+secure this, therefore, became the aim of his life. He became a
+reformer; but a reformer, like Hildebrand, of the despotic school.</p>
+
+<p>The first object of all despots is the improvement of the military
+force. To effect this, he abolished the old privileges of the
+soldiers, disbanded them, and drafted them into the new regiments,
+which he had organized on the European plan.</p>
+
+<p>He found more difficulty in changing the dress of the people, who,
+generally, wore the long Asiatic robe, and the Tartar beard; and such
+was the opposition made by the people, that he was obliged to
+compromise the matter, and compelled all who would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name="page275"></a>(p. 275)</span>wear
+beards and robes to pay a heavy tax, except priests and peasants:
+having granted the indulgence to priests on account of the ceremonial
+of their worship, and to peasants in order to render their costume
+ignominious.</p>
+
+<p>His next important measure was the toleration of all religions, and
+all sects, with the exception of the Jesuits, whom he hated and
+feared. He caused the Bible to be translated into the Sclavonic
+language; founded a school for the marine, and also institutions for
+the encouragement of literature and art. He abolished the old and
+odious laws of marriage, by which women had no liberty in the choice
+of husbands. He suppressed all useless monasteries; taxed the clergy
+as well as the laity; humiliated the patriarch, and assumed many of
+his powers. He improved the administration of justice, mitigated laws
+in relation to woman, and raised her social rank. He established
+post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous police, hospitals and
+almshouses. He humbled the nobility, and abolished many of their
+privileges; for which the people honored him, and looked upon him as
+their benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>Having organized his army, and effected social reforms, he turned his
+attention to war and national aggrandizement.</p>
+
+<p>His first war was with Sweden, then the most powerful of the northern
+states, and ruled by <span class="inline">His War with Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></span> Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr>, who, at the age of eighteen, had
+just ascended the throne. The <span class="italic">cause</span> of the war was the desire of
+aggrandizement on the part of the czar; the <span class="italic">pretence</span> was, the
+restitution of some lands which Sweden had obtained from Denmark and
+Poland. Taking advantage of the defenceless state of
+Sweden,&mdash;attacked, at that time, by Denmark on the one side, and by
+Poland on the other,&mdash;Peter invaded the territories of Charles with an
+army of sixty thousand men, and laid siege to Narva. The Swedish
+forces were only twenty thousand; but they were veterans, and they
+were headed by a hero. Notwithstanding the great disproportion between
+the contending parties, the Russians were defeated, although attacked
+in their intrenchments, and all the artillery fell into the hands of
+the Swedes. The victory at Narva settled the fame of <span class="inline">Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></span> Charles, but
+intoxicated his mind, and led to a presumptuous self-confidence; while
+the defeat of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make
+still greater exertions&mdash;one of the numerous instances, so often seen
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276"></a>(p. 276)</span>in human life, where defeat is better than victory. But the
+czar was conscious of his strength, and also of his weakness. He knew
+he had unlimited resources, but that his troops were inexperienced;
+and he made up his mind for disasters at the beginning, in the hope of
+victory in the end. "I know very well," said he, "that the Swedes will
+have the advantage over us for a considerable time; but they will
+teach us, at length, to beat them." The Swede, on the other hand, was
+intoxicated with victory, and acquired that fatal presumption which
+finally proved disastrous to himself and to his country. He despised
+his adversary; while Peter, without overrating his victorious enemy,
+was led to put forth new energies, and develop the great resources of
+his nation. He was sure of final success; and he who can be sustained
+by the consciousness of ultimate triumph, can ever afford to wait. It
+is the spirit which sustains the martyr. It constitutes the
+distinguishing element of enthusiasm and exalted heroism.</p>
+
+<p>But Peter not only made new military preparations, but prosecuted his
+schemes of internal improvement, and projected, after his unfortunate
+defeat at Narva, the union, by a canal, of the Baltic and Caspian
+Seas. About this time, he introduced into Russia flocks of Saxony
+sheep, erected linen and paper manufactories, built hospitals, and
+invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, to settle in his kingdom.
+But Charles thought only of war and glory, and did not reconstruct or
+reproduce. He pursued his military career by invading Poland, then
+ruled by the Elector of Saxony; while Peter turned his attention to
+the organization of new armies, melting bells into cannon,
+constructing fleets, and attending to all the complicated cares of a
+mighty nation with the most minute assiduity. He drew plans of
+fortresses, projected military reforms, and inspired his soldiers with
+his own enthusiasm. And his energy and perseverance were soon
+rewarded. He captured Marianburgh, a strong city on the confines of
+Livonia and Ingria, and among the captives was a young peasant girl,
+who eventually became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels
+Peter was much indebted for his great success.</p>
+
+<p>She was the daughter of a poor woman of Livonia; lost her mother at
+the age of three years; and, at that early age, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name="page277"></a>(p. 277)</span>attracted
+the notice of the parish clerk, a Lutheran clergyman: was brought up
+with his own daughters, and married a young sergeant of the army, who
+was killed in the capture of the city. She interested the Russian
+general, by her intense grief and great beauty; was taken into his
+family, and, soon after, won the favor of Prince Menzikoff, the prime
+minister of the czar; became mistress of his palace; there beheld
+Peter himself, captivated him, and was married to him,&mdash;at first
+privately, and afterwards publicly. Her rise, from so obscure a
+position, in a distant country town, to be the wife of the absolute
+monarch of an empire of thirty-three millions of people, is the most
+extraordinary in the history of the world. When she enslaved the czar
+by the power of her charms, she was only seventeen years of age; two
+years after the foundations of St. Petersburg were laid.</p>
+
+<p>The building of this <span class="inline">Building of St. Petersburg.</span> great northern capital was as extraordinary as
+the other great acts of this monarch. Amid the marshes, at the mouth
+of the Neva, a rival city to the ancient metropolis of the empire
+arose in five months. But one hundred thousand people perished during
+the first year, in consequence of the severity of their labors, and
+the pestilential air of the place. The new city was an object of as
+great disgust to the nobles of Russia and the inhabitants of the older
+cities, as it was the delight and pride of the czar, who made it the
+capital of his vast dominions. And the city was scarcely built, before
+its great commercial advantages were appreciated; and vessels from all
+parts of the world, freighted with the various treasures of its
+different kingdoms and countries, appeared in the harbor of Cronstadt.</p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> looked with contempt on the Herculean labors of his rival
+to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked "that the czar might
+amuse himself as he saw fit in building a city, but that he should
+soon take it from him, and set fire to his wooden house;" a bombastic
+boast, which, like most boasting, came most signally to nought.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, success now turned in favor of Peter, whose forces had been
+constantly increasing, while those of Charles had been decreasing.
+<span class="inline">New War with Sweden.</span> City after city fell into the hands of Peter, and whole <span class="pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278"></a>(p. 278)</span>
+provinces were conquered from Sweden. Soon all Ingria was added to the
+empire of the czar, the government of which was intrusted to
+Menzikoff, a man of extraordinary abilities raised from obscurity, as
+a seller of pies in the streets of Moscow to be a prince of the
+empire. His elevation was a great mortification to the old and proud
+nobility. But Peter not only endeavored to reward and appropriate
+merit, but to humble the old aristocracy, who were averse to his
+improvements. And Peter was as cold and haughty to them, as he was
+free and companionable with his meanest soldiers. All great despots
+are indifferent to grades of rank, when their own elevation is above
+envy or the reach of ambition. The reward of merit by the czar, if it
+alienated the affections of his nobles, increased the veneration and
+enthusiasm of the people, who are, after all, the great permanent
+foundation on which absolute power rests; illustrated by the empire of
+the popes, as well as the despotism of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>While Peter contended, with various success, with the armies of
+Sweden, he succeeded in embroiling Sweden in a war with Poland, and in
+diverting Charles from the invasion of Russia. Had Charles, at first,
+and perseveringly, concentrated all his strength in an invasion of
+Russia, he might have changed the politics of Europe. But he was
+induced to invade Poland, and soon drove the luxurious and cowardly
+monarch from his capital and throne, and then turned towards Russia,
+to play the part of Alexander. But he did not find a Darius in the
+czar, who was ready to meet him, at the head of immense armies.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian forces amounted to one hundred thousand men; the Swedish
+to eighty thousand, and they were veterans. Peter did not venture to
+risk the fate of his empire, by a pitched battle, with such an army of
+victorious troops. So he attempted a stratagem, and succeeded. He
+decoyed the Swedes into a barren and wasted territory; and Charles,
+instead of marching to Moscow, as he ought to have done, followed his
+expected prey where he could get no provisions for his men, or forage
+for his horses. Exhausted by fatigue and famine, his troops drooped in
+the pursuit, and even suffered themselves to be diverted into still
+more barren sections. Under these circumstances, they were defeated in
+a disastrous battle. Charles, struck with madness, refused to retreat.
+Disasters <span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name="page279"></a>(p. 279)</span>multiplied. The victorious Russians hung upon his
+rear. The Cossacks cut off his stragglers. The army of eighty thousand
+melted away to twenty-five thousand. Still the infatuated Swede
+dreamed of victory, and expected to see the troops of his enemy
+desert. The winter set in with its northern severity, and reduced
+still further his famished troops. He lost time by marches and
+counter-marches, without guides, and in the midst of a hostile
+population. At last he reached Pultowa, a village on the banks of the
+Vorskla. Peter hastened to meet him, with an army of sixty thousand,
+and one of the bloodiest battles in the history of war was fought. The
+Swedes performed miracles of valor. But valor could do nothing against
+overwhelming strength. A disastrous defeat was the result, and
+Charles, with a few regiments, escaped to Turkey.</p>
+
+<p>Had the battle of Pultowa been decided differently; had Charles
+conquered instead of Peter, or had Peter lost his life, the empire of
+Russia would probably have been replunged into its original barbarism,
+and the balance of power, in Europe, been changed.</p>
+
+<p>But Providence, which ordained the civilization of Russia, also
+ordained that the triumphant czar should not be unduly aggrandized,
+and should himself learn lessons of humility. The Turks, in
+consequence of the intrigues of Charles, and their hereditary
+jealousy, <span class="inline">War with the Turks.</span> made war upon Peter, and advanced against him with an army
+of two hundred and fifty thousand men. His own army was composed of
+only forty thousand. He was also indiscreet, and soon found himself in
+the condition of Charles at Pultowa. On the banks of the Pruth, in
+Moldavia, he was surrounded by the whole Turkish force, and famine or
+surrender seemed inevitable. It was in this desperate and deplorable
+condition that he was rescued by the Czarina Catharine, by whose
+address a treaty was made with his victorious enemy, and Peter was
+allowed to retire with his army. Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> was indignant beyond
+measure with the Turkish general, for granting such easy conditions,
+when he had the czar in his power; and to his reproaches the vizier of
+the sultan replied, "I have a right to make peace or war; and our law
+commands us to grant peace to our enemies, when they implore our
+clemency." Charles replied with an insult; and, though a fugitive in
+the Turkish camp, he threw <span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name="page280"></a>(p. 280)</span>himself on a sofa, contemptuously
+cast his eye on all present, stretched out his leg, and entangled his
+spur in the vizier's robe; which insult the magnanimous Turk affected
+to consider an accident.</p>
+
+<p>After the defeat of Peter on the banks of the Pruth, he devoted
+himself with renewed energy to the improvement of his country. He
+embellished St. Petersburg, his new capital, with palaces, churches,
+and arsenals. He increased his army and navy, strengthened himself by
+new victories, and became gradually master of both sides of the Gulf
+of Finland, by which his vast empire was protected from invasion.</p>
+
+<p>He now reached the exalted height to which he had long aspired. He
+assumed the title of <span class="italic">emperor</span>, and his title was universally
+acknowledged. He then meditated a <span class="inline">Peter Makes a Second Tour.</span> second tour of Europe, with a view
+to study the political constitutions of the various states. Thirteen
+years had elapsed, since, as a young enthusiast, he had visited
+Amsterdam and London. He now travelled, a second time, with the
+additional glory of a great name, and in the full maturity of his
+mind. He visited Hamburg, Stockholm, Lubec, Amsterdam, and Paris. At
+this latter place he was much noticed. Wherever he went, his course
+was a triumphal procession. But he disdained flattery, and was wearied
+with pompous ceremonies. He could not be flattered out of his
+simplicity, or the zeal of acquiring useful knowledge. He visited all
+the works of art, and was particularly struck with the Gobelin
+tapestries and the tomb of Richelieu. "Great man," said he,
+apostrophizing his image, "I would give half of my kingdom to learn of
+thee how to govern the other half." His residence in Paris inspired
+all classes with profound respect; and from Paris he went to Berlin.
+There he found sympathy with Frederic William, whose tastes and
+character somewhat resembled his own; and from him he learned many
+useful notions in the art of government. But he was suddenly recalled
+from Berlin by the bad conduct of his son Alexis, who was the heir to
+his throne. He was tried, condemned, disgraced, humiliated, and
+disinherited. He probably would have been executed by his hard and
+rigorous father, had he not died in prison. He was hostile to his
+father's plans of reform, and indecently expressed a wish for his
+death. The conduct of Peter <span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" name="page281"></a>(p. 281)</span>towards him is generally
+considered harsh and unfeeling; but it has many palliations, if the
+good of his subjects and the peace of the realm are more to be desired
+than the life of an ignominious prince.</p>
+
+<p>Peter prosecuted his wars and his reforms. The treaty of Neustadt
+secured to Russia, after twenty years of unbroken war, a vast increase
+of territory, and placed her at the head of the northern powers. The
+emperor also enriched his country by opening new branches of trade,
+constructing canals, rewarding industry, suppressing gambling and
+mendicity, introducing iron and steel manufacture, building cities,
+and establishing a vigorous police.</p>
+
+<p>After having settled the finances and trade of his empire, subdued his
+enemies at home and abroad, and compelled all the nobles and clergy to
+swear fealty to the person whom he should select as his successor, he
+<span class="inline">Elevation of Catharine.</span> appointed his wife, Catharine; and she was solemnly crowned empress in
+1724, he himself, at her inauguration, walking on foot, as captain of
+her guard. He could not have made a better choice, as she was, in all
+substantial respects, worthy of the exalted position to which she was
+raised.</p>
+
+<p>In about a year after, he died, leaving behind him his principles and
+a mighty name. Other kings have been greater generals; but few have
+derived from war greater success. Some have commanded larger armies;
+but he created those which he commanded. Many have destroyed; but he
+reconstructed. He was a despot, but ruled for the benefit of his
+country. He was disgraced by violent passions, his cruelty was
+sanguinary, and his tastes were brutal; but his passions did not
+destroy his judgment, nor his appetites make him luxurious. He was
+incessantly active and vigilant, his prejudices were few, and his
+views tolerant and enlightened. He was only cruel when his authority
+was impeached. His best portraiture is in his acts. He found a country
+semi-barbarous, convulsed by disorders, a prey to petty tyrannies,
+weak from disunion, and trembling before powerful neighbors. He left
+it a first-class power, freed in a measure from its barbarous customs,
+improved in social life, in arts, in science, and, perhaps, in morals.
+He left a large and disciplined army, a considerable navy, and
+numerous institutions for the civilization of the people. He left
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name="page282"></a>(p. 282)</span>more&mdash;the moral effect of a great example, of a man in the
+possession of unbounded riches and power, making great personal
+sacrifices to improve himself in the art of governing for the welfare
+of the millions over whom he was called to rule. These virtues and
+these acts have justly won for him the title of Peter the <span class="italic">Great</span>&mdash;a
+title which the world has bestowed upon but few of the great heroes of
+ancient or modern times.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">The reign of Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> is intimately connected with that of Peter
+the Great; these monarchs being contemporaries and rivals, both
+reigning in northern countries of great extent and comparative
+barbarism. The reign of Peter was not so exclusively military as that
+of Charles, with whom war was a passion and a profession. The interest
+attached to Charles arises more from his eccentricities and brilliant
+military qualities, than from any extraordinary greatness of mind or
+heart. He was barbarous in his manners, and savage in his resentments;
+a stranger to the pleasures of society, obstinate, revengeful,
+unsympathetic, and indifferent to friendship and hatred. But he was
+brave, temperate, generous, intrepid in danger, and firm in
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Before his singular career can be presented, attention must be
+directed to the <span class="inline">Early History of Sweden.</span> country over which he reigned, and which will be
+noticed in connection with Denmark; these two countries forming a
+greater part of the ancient Scandinavia, from which our Teutonic
+ancestors migrated, the land of Odin, and Frea, and Thor, those
+half-fabulous deities, concerning whom there are still divided
+opinions; some supposing that they were heroes, and others,
+impersonations of virtues, or elements and wonders of nature. The
+mythology of Greece does not more fully abound with gods and
+goddesses, than that of the old Scandinavia with rude
+deities,&mdash;dwarfs, and elfs, and mountain spirits. It was in these
+northern regions that the Normans acquired their wild enthusiasm,
+their supernatural daring, and their magnificent superstitions. It was
+from these regions that the Saxons brought their love of liberty,
+their spirit of enterprise, and their restless passion for the sea.
+The ancient Scandinavians were heroic, adventurous, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name="page283"></a>(p. 283)</span>
+chivalrous robbers, holding their women in great respect, and
+profoundly reverential in their notions of a supreme power. They were
+poor in silver, in gold, in the fruits of the earth, in luxuries, and
+in palaces, but rich in poetic sentiments and in religious ideas.
+Their chief vices were those of gluttony and intemperance, and their
+great pleasures were those of hunting and gambling.</p>
+
+<p>Fabulous as are most of their legends as to descent, still Scandinavia
+was probably peopled with hardy races before authentic history
+commences. Under different names, and at different times, they invaded
+the Roman empire. In the fifth century, they had settled in its
+desolated provinces&mdash;the Saxons in England, the Goths in Spain and
+Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Burgundians in France, and the
+Lombards in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Among the most celebrated of these northern Teutonic nations were the
+pirates who invaded England and France, under the name of <span class="italic">Northmen</span>.
+They came from Denmark, and some of their chieftains won a great name
+in their generation, such as Harold, Canute, Sweyn, and Rollo.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity was probably <span class="inline">Introduction of Christianity.</span> planted in Sweden about the middle of the
+ninth century. St. Anscar, a Westphalian monk, was the first
+successful missionary, and he was made Archbishop of Hamburg, and
+primate of the north.</p>
+
+<p>The early history of the Swedes and Danes resembles that of England
+under the Saxon princes, and they were disgraced by the same great
+national vices. During the Middle Ages, no great character appeared
+worthy of especial notice. Some of the more powerful kings, such as
+Valdemar <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> and <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and Canute <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>, had quarrels with the Emperors of
+Germany, and invaded some provinces of their empire. Some of these
+princes were warriors, some cruel tyrants, none very powerful, and all
+characterized by the vices of their age&mdash;treachery, hypocrisy, murder,
+drunkenness, and brutal revenge.</p>
+
+<p>The most powerful of these kings was Christian <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, who founded the
+dynasty of Oldenburgh, and who united under his sway the kingdoms of
+Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. He reigned from 1448 to 1481; and in his
+family the crown of Sweden remained until the revolution effected by
+Gustavus Vasa, in 1525, and by which revolution Sweden was made
+independent of Denmark.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name="page284"></a>(p. 284)</span>
+
+<p>Gustavus Vasa <span class="inline">Gustavus Vasa.</span> was a nobleman descended from the ancient kings of
+Sweden, and who, from the oppression to which his country was
+subjected by Christian and the Archbishop of Upsal, was forced to seek
+refuge amid the forests of Dalecarlia. When Stockholm was pillaged and
+her noblest citizens massacred by the cruel tyrant of the country,
+Gustavus headed an insurrection, defeated the king's forces, and was
+made king himself by the Diet. He, perceiving that the Catholic clergy
+were opposed to the liberties and the great interests of his country,
+seized their fortresses and lands, became a convert to the doctrine of
+the reformers, and introduced Lutheranism into the kingdom, which has
+ever since been the established religion of Sweden. He was despotic in
+his government, but ruled for the good of his subjects, and was
+distinguished for many noble qualities.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated Gustavus Adolphus was his descendant, and was more
+absolute and powerful than even Gustavus Vasa. But he is chiefly
+memorable as the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, and as the
+greatest general of his age. Under his sway, Sweden was the most
+powerful of the northern kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by his daughter Christina, a woman of most
+extraordinary qualities; a woman of genius, of taste, and of culture;
+a woman who, at twenty-seven, became wearied of the world, and of the
+enjoyment of unlimited power, and who changed her religion, retired
+from her country, and abdicated her throne, that she might,
+unmolested, enjoy the elegant pleasures of Rome, and be solaced by the
+literature, religion, and art of that splendid capital. It was in the
+society of men of genius that she spent most of her time, and was the
+life of the most intellectual circle which then existed in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>She was succeeded by her cousin, who was elected King of Sweden, by
+the title of <span class="italic">Charles Gustavus <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></span>, and he was succeeded by Charles
+<abbr title="11">XI.</abbr>, the father of Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> was fifteen years of age when he came to the throne, in
+the year 1697, and found his country strong in resources, and his army
+the best disciplined in Europe. His territories were one third larger
+than those of France when ruled by Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, though not so thickly
+populated.</p>
+
+<p>The young monarch, at first, <span class="inline">Early Days of Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></span> gave but few indications of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285"></a>(p. 285)</span>
+remarkable qualities which afterwards distinguished him. He was idle,
+dissipated, haughty, and luxurious. When he came to the council
+chamber, he was absent and indifferent, and generally sat with both
+legs thrown across the table.</p>
+
+<p>But his lethargy and indifference did not last long. Three great
+monarchs had conspired to ruin him, and dismember his kingdom. These
+were the Czar Peter, Frederic <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> of Denmark, and Frederic Augustus,
+King of Poland, and also Elector of Saxony; and their hostile armies
+were on the point of invading his country.</p>
+
+<p>The greatness of the danger brought to light his great qualities. He
+vigorously prepared for war. His whole character changed. Quintus
+Curtius became his text-book, and Alexander his model. He spent no
+time in sports or magnificence. He clothed himself like a common
+soldier, whose hardships he resolved henceforth to share. He forswore
+the society and the influence of woman. He relinquished wine and all
+the pleasures of the table. Love of glory became his passion, and
+continued through life; and this ever afterwards made him insensible
+to reproach, danger, toil, fear, hunger, and pain. Never was a more
+complete change effected in a man's moral character; and never was an
+improved moral character consecrated to a worse end. He was not
+devoted to the true interests of his country, but to a selfish, base,
+and vain passion for military fame.</p>
+
+<p>But his conduct, at first, called forth universal admiration. His
+glorious and successful defence against enemies apparently
+overwhelming gave him a great military reputation, and secured for him
+the sympathies of Christendom. Had he died when he had repelled the
+Russian, the Danish, and the Polish armies, he would have secured as
+honorable an immortality as that of Gustavus Adolphus. But he was not
+permitted to die prematurely, as was his great ancestor. He lived long
+enough to become intoxicated with success, to make great political
+blunders, and to suffer the most fatal and mortifying misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>The commencement of his military career was beautifully heroic.
+"Gentlemen," said the young monarch of eighteen to his counsellors,
+when he meditated desperate resistance, "I am resolved never to begin
+an unjust war, and never to finish a just one but with the destruction
+of my enemies."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" name="page286"></a>(p. 286)</span>
+
+<p>In six weeks he finished, after he had begun, the Danish war having
+completely humbled his enemy, and succored his brother-in-law, the
+Duke of Holstein.</p>
+
+<p>His conflict with Peter has been presented, when with twenty thousand
+men he <span class="inline">Charles's Heroism.</span> attacked and defeated sixty thousand Russians in their
+intrenchments, took one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and killed
+eighteen thousand men. The victory of Narva astonished all Europe, and
+was the most brilliant which had then been gained in the annals of
+modern warfare.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was equally successful against Frederic Augustus. He routed
+his Saxon troops, and then resolved to dethrone him, as King of
+Poland. And he succeeded so far as to induce the Polish Diet to
+proclaim the throne vacant. Augustus was obliged to fly, and
+Stanislaus Leczinski was chosen king in his stead, at the nomination
+of the Swedish conqueror. The country was subjugated, and Frederic
+Augustus became a fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles was not satisfied with expelling him from Poland. He
+resolved to attack him also in Saxony itself. Saxony was then, next to
+Austria, the most powerful of the German states. Nevertheless, Saxony
+could not arrest the victorious career of Charles. The Saxons fled as
+he approached. He penetrated to the heart of the electorate, and the
+unfortunate Frederic Augustus was obliged to sue for peace, which was
+only granted on the most humiliating terms; which were, that the
+elector should acknowledge Stanislaus as king of Poland; that he
+should break all his treaties with Russia, and should deliver to the
+King of Sweden all the men who had deserted from his army. The humbled
+elector sought a personal interview with Charles, after he had signed
+the conditions of peace, with the hope of securing better terms. He
+found Charles in his jack boots, with a piece of black taffeta round
+his neck for a cravat, and clothed in a coarse blue coat with brass
+buttons. His conversation turned wholly on his jack boots; and this
+trifling subject was the only one on which he would deign to converse
+with one of the most accomplished monarchs of his age.</p>
+
+<p>Charles had now humbled and defeated all his enemies. He should now
+have returned to Sweden, and have cultivated the arts of peace. But
+peace and civilization were far from his thoughts. The subjugation of
+all the northern powers became the dream of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name="page287"></a>(p. 287)</span>his life. He
+invaded Russia, resolved on driving Peter from his throne.</p>
+
+<p>He was eminently successful in defensive war, and eminently
+<span class="inline">His Misfortunes.</span> unsuccessful in aggressive war. Providence benevolently but singularly
+comes to the aid of all his children in distress and despair. Men are
+gloriously strong in defending their rights; but weak, in all their
+strength, when they assail the rights of others. So signal is this
+fact, that it blazes upon all the pages of history, and is illustrated
+in common life as well as in the affairs of nations.</p>
+
+<p>When Charles turned as an assailant of the rights of his enemies, his
+unfortunate reverses commenced. At the head of forty-three thousand
+veterans, loaded with the spoils of Poland and Saxony, he commenced
+his march towards Russia. He had another army in Poland of twenty
+thousand, and another in Finland of fifteen thousand. With these he
+expected to dethrone the czar.</p>
+
+<p>His mistakes and infatuation have been noticed, and his final defeat
+at Pultowa, a village at the eastern extremity of the Ukraine. This
+battle was more decisive than that of Narva; for in the latter the
+career of Peter was only arrested, but in the former the strength of
+Charles was annihilated. And so would have been his hopes, had he been
+an ordinary man. But he was a madman, and still dreamed of victory,
+with only eighteen hundred men to follow his fortunes into Turkey,
+which country he succeeded in reaching.</p>
+
+<p>His conduct in Turkey was infamous and extraordinary. No reasonings
+can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. At first, he
+employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising schemes to embark
+the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier was flattered and
+assailed. He rejected every overture for his peaceable return. He
+lingered five years in endless intrigues and negotiations, in order to
+realize the great dream of his life&mdash;the dethronement of the czar. He
+lived recklessly on the bounty of the sultan, taking no hints that
+even imperial hospitality might be abused and exhausted. At last, his
+inflexible obstinacy and dangerous intrigues so disgusted his generous
+host, that he was urged to return, with the offer of a suitable
+escort, and a large sum of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name="page288"></a>(p. 288)</span>money. He accepted and spent the
+twelve hundred purses, and still refused to return. The displeasure of
+the Sultan Achmet was now fairly excited. It was resolved upon by the
+Porte that he should be removed by force, since he would not be
+persuaded. But Charles resisted the troops of the sultan who were
+ordered to remove him. With sixty servants he desperately defended
+himself against an army of janizaries, and killed twenty of them with
+his own hand; and it was not until completely overwhelmed and
+prostrated that he hurled his sword into the air. He was now a
+prisoner of war, and not a guest; but still he was treated with the
+courtesy and dignity due to a king, and conducted in a chariot covered
+with gold and scarlet to Adrianople. From thence he was removed to
+Demotica, where he renewed his intrigues, and zealously kept his bed,
+under pretence of sickness, for ten months.</p>
+
+<p>While he remained in captivity, Frederic Augustus recovered the crown
+of Poland, King Stanislaus was taken by the Turks, and Peter continued
+his conquest of Ingria, Livonia, and Finland, provinces belonging to
+Sweden. The King of Prussia also invaded Pomerania, and Frederic <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>
+of Denmark claimed Bremen, Holstein, and Scania. The Swedes were
+divested of all their conquests, and one hundred and fifty thousand of
+them became prisoners in foreign lands.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the reverses of a man who had resolved to play the part of
+Alexander, but who, so long as he contented himself with defending his
+country against superior forces, was successful, and won a fame so
+great, that his misfortunes could never reduce him to contempt.</p>
+
+<p>When all was lost, he signified to the Turkish vizier his desire to
+return to <span class="inline">Charles's Return to Sweden.</span> Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his master of
+so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his country impoverished,
+but not discouraged. The charm of his name was broken. His soldiers
+were as brave and devoted as ever, but his resources were exhausted.
+He succeeded, however, in raising thirty-five thousand men, in order
+to continue his desperate game of conquest, not of defence. Europe
+beheld the extraordinary spectacle of this infatuated hero passing, in
+the depth of a northern winter, over the frozen hills and ice-bound
+rocks of Norway, with his devoted army, in order to conquer that
+hyperborean region. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name="page289"></a>(p. 289)</span>So inured was he to cold and fatigue,
+that he slept in the open air on a bed of straw, covered only with his
+cloak, while his soldiers dropped down dead at their posts from cold.
+In the month of December, 1718, he commenced the siege of
+Fredericshall, a place of great strength and importance, but, having
+exposed himself unnecessarily, was killed by a ball from the fortress.
+Many, however, suppose that he was assassinated by his own officers
+who were wearied with endless war, from which they saw nothing but
+disaster to their exhausted country.</p>
+
+<p>His death <span class="inline">His Death.</span> was considered as a signal for the general cessation of
+arms; but Sweden never recovered from the mad enterprises of
+Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> It has never since been a first class power. The national
+finances were disordered, the population decimated, and the provinces
+dismembered. Peter the Great gained what his rival lost. We cannot but
+compassionate a nation that has the misfortune to be ruled by such an
+absolute and infatuated monarch as was Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> He did nothing for
+the civilization of his subjects, or to ameliorate the evils he
+caused. He was, like Alaric or Attila, a scourge of the Almighty, sent
+on earth for some mysterious purpose, to desolate and to destroy. But
+he died unlamented and unhonored. No great warrior in modern times has
+received so little sympathy from historians, since he was not exalted
+by any great moral qualities of affection or generosity, and
+unscrupulously sacrificed both friends and enemies to gratify a
+selfish and a depraved passion.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Voltaire's History of Russia, a very attractive
+     book, on account of its lively style. Voltaire's Life of
+     Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr>, also, is equally fascinating. There are
+     tolerable histories of both Russia and Sweden in Lardner's
+     Cabinet Cyclopedia; also in the Family Library. See, also, a
+     History of Russia and Sweden in the Universal History.
+     Russell's Modern Europe.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name="page290"></a>(p. 290)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="19">XIX.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>GEORGE <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Queen Anne died in 1714, soon after the famous treaty of Utrecht was
+made, and by which the war of the Spanish Succession was closed. She
+was succeeded by <span class="inline">Accession of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></span> George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, Elector of Hanover. He was grandson of
+Elizabeth, only daughter of James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, who had married Frederic, the
+King of Bohemia. He was fifty-four years of age when he ascended the
+English throne, and imperfectly understood the language of the nation
+whom he was called upon to govern.</p>
+
+<p>George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> was not a sovereign who materially affected the interests or
+destiny of England; nor was he one of those interesting characters
+that historians love to delineate. It is generally admitted that he
+was respectable, prudent, judicious, and moral; amiable in his temper,
+sincere in his intercourse, and simple in his habits,&mdash;qualities which
+command respect, but not those which dazzle the people. It is supposed
+that he tolerably understood the English Constitution, and was willing
+to be fettered by the restraints which the parliaments imposed. He
+supported the Whigs,&mdash;the dominant party of the time,&mdash;and sympathized
+with liberal principles, so far as a monarch can be supposed to
+advance the interests of the people, and the power of a class ever
+hostile to the prerogatives of royalty. He acquiesced in the rule of
+his ministers&mdash;just what was expected of him, and just what was wanted
+of him; and became&mdash;what every King of England, when popular, has
+since been&mdash;the gilded puppet of a powerful aristocracy. His social
+and constitutional influence was not, indeed, annihilated; he had the
+choice of ministers, and collected around his throne the great and
+proud, who looked to him as the fountain of all honor and dignity.
+But, still, from the accession of the house of Hanover the political
+history of England is a history of the acts of parliaments, and of
+those ministers who represented the dominant <span class="pagenum"><a id="page291" name="page291"></a>(p. 291)</span>parties of the
+nation. Few nobles were as great as some under the Tudor and Stuart
+princes; but the power of the aristocracy, as a class, was increased.
+From the time of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> to Queen Victoria, the ascendency of the
+parliaments has been most marked composed chiefly of nobles, great
+landed proprietors, and gigantic commercial monopolists. The people
+have not been, indeed, unheard or unrepresented; but, literally
+speaking, have had but a feeble influence, compared with the
+aristocracy. Parliaments and ministers, therefore, may be not unjustly
+said to be the representatives of the aristocracy&mdash;of the wise, the
+mighty, and the noble.</p>
+
+<p>When power passes from kings to nobles, then the acts of nobles
+constitute the genius of political history, as fully as the acts of
+kings constitute history when kings are absolute, and the acts of the
+people constitute history where the people are all-powerful.</p>
+
+<p>A notice, therefore, of that great minister who headed the Whig party
+of aristocrats, and who, as their organ, swayed the councils of
+England for nearly forty years, demands our attention. His political
+career commenced during the reign of Anne, and continued during the
+reign of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, and part of the reign of George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, as
+a man or as a king, dwindled into insignificance, when compared with
+his prime minister, <span class="inline">Sir Robert Walpole.</span> Sir Robert Walpole. And he is great, chiefly, as
+the representative of the Whigs; that is, of the dominant party of
+rich and great men who sat in parliament; a party of politicians who
+professed more liberal principles than the Tories, but who were
+equally aristocratic in the social sympathies, and powerful from
+aristocratic connections. What did the great Dukes of Devonshire or
+Bedford care for the poor people, who, politically, composed no part
+of the nation? But they were Whigs, and King George himself was a
+Whig.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Robert belonged to an ancient, wealthy, and honorable family; was
+born 1676, and received his first degree at King's College, Cambridge,
+in 1700. He entered parliament almost immediately after, became an
+active member, sat on several committees, and soon distinguished
+himself for his industry and ability. He was not eloquent, but
+acquired considerable skill as a debater. In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the
+prime minister of Anne, made him <span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name="page292"></a>(p. 292)</span>one of the council to
+Prince George of Denmark; in 1706, Marlborough selected him as
+secretary of war; in 1709, he was made treasurer of the navy; and in
+1710, he was the acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He lost
+office, however, when the Whigs lost power, in 1710; was subjected to
+cruel political persecution, and even impeached, and imprisoned in the
+Tower. This period is memorable for the intense bitterness and severe
+conflicts between the Whigs and Tories; not so much on account of
+difference of opinion on great political principles, as the struggle
+for the possession of place and power.</p>
+
+<p>On the accession of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, Walpole became paymaster of the forces,
+one of the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. Townshend was made
+secretary of state. The other great official dignitaries were the
+Lords Cowper, Marlborough, Wharton, Sunderland, Devonshire, Oxford, and
+Somerset; but Townshend and Walpole were the most influential. They
+impeached their great political enemies, Ormond and Bolingbroke, the
+most distinguished leaders of the Tory party. Bolingbroke, in genius
+and learning, had no equal in parliament, and was a rival of Walpole
+at Eton.</p>
+
+<p>The first event of importance, under the new ministry, was the
+invasion of Great Britain by the <span class="inline">The Pretender.</span> Pretender&mdash;the Prince James Frederic
+Edward Stuart, only son of James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> His early days were spent at St.
+Germain's, the palace which the dethroned monarch enjoyed by the
+hospitality of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> He was educated under influences entirely
+unfavorable to the recovery of his natural inheritance, and was a
+devotee to the pope and the interests of absolutism. But he had his
+adherents, who were called <span class="italic">Jacobites</span>, and who were chiefly to be
+found in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1705, an unsuccessful effort
+had been made to regain the throne of his father, but the disasters
+attending it prevented him from milking any renewed effort until the
+death of Anne.</p>
+
+<p>When she died, many discontented Tories fanned the spirit of
+rebellion; and Bishop Atterbury, a distinguished divine, advocated the
+claims of the Pretender. Scotland was ripe for revolt. Alarming riots
+took place in England. William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was burned in effigy at
+Smithfield. The Oxford students pulled down a Presbyterian
+meeting-house, and the sprig of oak was publicly displayed on the 29th
+of May. The Earl of Mar hurried into Scotland to fan the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name="page293"></a>(p. 293)</span>
+spirit of insurrection; while the gifted, brilliant, and banished
+Bolingbroke joined the standard of the chevalier. The venerable and
+popular Duke of Ormond also assisted him with his counsels.</p>
+
+<p>Advised by these great nobles, assisted by the King of France, and
+flattered by the Jacobite faction, the Pretender made preparations to
+recover his rights. His prospects were apparently better than were
+those of William, when he landed in England. The Earl of Mar was at
+the head of ten thousand men; but the chevalier was no general, and
+was unequal to his circumstances. When he landed in <span class="inline">Invasion of Scotland.</span> Scotland, he
+surrendered himself to melancholy and inaction. His sadness and
+pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band of followers. He retreated
+before inferior forces, and finally fled from the country which he had
+invaded. The French king was obliged to desert his cause, and the
+Pretender retreated to Italy, and died at the advanced age of
+seventy-nine, after witnessing the defeat of his son, Charles Edward,
+whose romantic career and misfortunes cannot now be mentioned. By the
+flight of the Pretender from Scotland, in 1715, the insurrection was
+easily suppressed, and the country was not molested by the intrigues
+of the Stuart princes for thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>The year which followed the invasion of Scotland was signalized by the
+passage of a great bill in parliament, which is one of the most
+important events in parliamentary history. In 1716, the famous
+Septennial Act, which prolonged parliament from three to seven years,
+was passed. So many evils, practically, resulted from frequent
+elections, that the Whigs resolved to make a change; and the change
+contributed greatly to the tranquillity of the country, and the
+establishment of the House of Brunswick. The duration of the English
+parliament has ever since, constitutionally, been extended to seven
+years, but the average duration of parliaments has been six years&mdash;the
+term of office of the senators of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>After the passage of the Septennial Act, the efforts of Walpole were
+directed to a reduction of the national debt. He was then secretary of
+the treasury. But before he could complete his financial reforms, he
+was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the
+influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of
+Sunderland, who had married a daughter <span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name="page294"></a>(p. 294)</span>of the Duke of
+Marlborough, was at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared
+to the Whigs by his steady attachment to their principles. He had
+expected, and probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the
+administration. When disappointed, he bent all his energies to
+undermine Townsend and Walpole, and succeeded for a while. But
+Walpole's opposition to the new administration was so powerful, that
+it did not last long. Sunderland had persuaded the king to renounce
+his constitutional prerogative of creating peers; and a bill, called
+the <span class="italic">Peerage Bill</span>, was proposed, which limited the House of Lords to
+its actual existing number, the tendency of which was to increase the
+power and rank of the existing peers, and to raise an eternal bar to
+the aspirations of all commoners to the peerage, and thus widen the
+gulf between the aristocracy and the people. Walpole presented these
+consequences so forcibly, and showed so clearly that the proposed bill
+would diminish the consequence of the landed gentry, and prove a grave
+to honorable merit, that the Commons were alarmed, and rejected the
+bill by a large and triumphant majority of two hundred and sixty-nine
+to one hundred and seventy-seven.</p>
+
+<p>The defeat of this bill, and the great financial embarrassments of the
+country, led to the restoration of Walpole to office. His genius was
+eminently financial, and his talents were precisely those which have
+ever since been required of a minister&mdash;those which characterized Sir
+Robert Peel and William Pitt. The great problem of any government is,
+how to raise money for its great necessities; and the more complicated
+the relations of society are, the more difficult becomes the problem.</p>
+
+<p>At that period, the English nation were intoxicated and led astray by
+one of those great commercial delusions which so often take place in
+all civilized countries. No mania ever was more marked, more
+universal, and more fatal than that of the South Sea Company. The
+<span class="inline">The South Sea Bubble.</span> bubble had turned the heads of politicians, merchants, and farmers;
+all classes, who had money to invest, took stock in the South Sea
+Company. The delusion, however, passed away; England was left on the
+brink of bankruptcy, and a master financier was demanded by the
+nation, to extricate it from the effects of folly and madness. All
+eyes looked to Sir Robert Walpole, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page295" name="page295"></a>(p. 295)</span>he did all that
+financial skill could do, to repair the evils which speculation and
+gambling had caused.</p>
+
+<p>The desire for sudden wealth is one of the most common passions of our
+nature, and has given rise to more delusions than religious
+fanaticism, or passion for military glory. The South Sea bubble was
+kindred to that of John Law, who was the author of the Mississippi
+Scheme, which nearly ruined France in the reign of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>, and
+which was encouraged by the Duke of Orleans, as a means of paying off
+the national debt.</p>
+
+<p>The wars of England had created a national debt, under the
+administration of Godolphin and Marlborough; but which was not so
+large but that hopes were entertained of redeeming it. Walpole
+proposed to pay it off by a sinking fund; but this idea, not very
+popular, was abandoned. It was then the custom for government to
+borrow of corporations, rather than of bankers, because the science of
+brokerage was not then understood, and because no individuals were
+sufficiently rich to aid materially an embarrassed administration. As
+a remuneration, companies were indulged with certain commercial
+advantages. As these advantages enabled companies to become rich, the
+nation always found it easy to borrow. During the war of the Spanish
+Succession, the prime minister, Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, in
+order to raise money, projected the <span class="inline">The South Sea Company.</span> South Sea Company. This was in
+1710, and the public debt was ten million pounds sterling, thought at
+that time to be insupportable. The interest on that debt was six per
+cent. In order to liquidate the debt, Oxford made the duties on wines,
+tobacco, India goods, silks, and a few other articles, permanent. And,
+to allure the public creditor, great advantages were given to the new
+company, and money was borrowed of it at five per cent. This gain of
+one per cent., by money borrowed from the company, was to constitute a
+sinking fund to pay the debt.</p>
+
+<p>But the necessities of the nation increased so rapidly, that a leading
+politician of the day, Sir John Blount, proposed that the South Sea
+Company should become the sole national creditor, and should loan to
+the government new sums, at an interest of four per cent. New
+monopolies were to be given to the company; and it, on the other hand,
+offered to give a bonus of three million pounds to the government. The
+Bank of England, jealous of the proposal, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name="page296"></a>(p. 296)</span>offered five
+millions. The directors of the company then bid seven millions for a
+charter, nearly enough to pay off the whole redeemable debt of the
+nation; which, however, could not be redeemed, so long as there were,
+in addition, irredeemable annuities to the amount of eight hundred
+thousand pounds yearly. It became, therefore, an object of the
+government to get rid, in the first place, of these irredeemable
+annuities; and this could be effected, if the national creditor could
+be induced to accept of shares in the South Sea Company, instead of
+his irredeemable annuities, or, as they are now variously called,
+consols, stocks, and national funds. The capital was not desired; only
+the interest on capital. So many monopolies and advantages were
+granted to the company, that the stock rose, and the national creditor
+was willing to part with his annuities for stock in the company. The
+offer was, therefore, accepted, and the government got rid of
+irredeemable annuities, and obtained seven millions besides, but
+became debtor to the company. A company which could apparently afford
+to pay so large a bonus to government for its charter, and loan such
+large sums as the nation needed, in addition, at four per cent., was
+supposed to be making most enormous profits. Its stock rose rapidly in
+value. The national creditor hastened to get rid of irredeemable
+annuities&mdash;a national stock which paid five per cent.&mdash;in order to buy
+shares which might pay ten per cent.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole, then paymaster of the forces, <span class="inline">Opposition of Walpole.</span> opposed the scheme of Blount
+with all his might, showed that the acceptance of the company's
+proposal would countenance stockjobbing, would divert industry from
+its customary channels, and would hold out a dangerous lure to the
+unsuspecting to part with real for imaginary property. He showed the
+misery and confusion which existed in France from the adoption of
+similar measures, and proved that the whole success of the scheme must
+depend on the rise of the company's stock; that, if there were no
+rise, the company could not afford the bonus, and would fail, and the
+obligation of the nation remain as before. But his reasonings were of
+no avail. All classes were infatuated. All people speculated in the
+South Sea stock. And, for a while, all people rejoiced; for, as long
+as the stock continued to rise, all people were gainers.</p>
+
+<p>And the stock rose rapidly. It soon reached three hundred per
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page297" name="page297"></a>(p. 297)</span>cent, above the original par value, and this in consequence
+of the promise of great dividends. All hastened to buy such lucrative
+property. The public creditor willingly gave up three hundred pounds
+of irredeemable stock for one hundred pounds of the company's stock.</p>
+
+<p>And this would have been well, had there been a moral certainty of the
+stockholder receiving a dividend of twenty per cent. But there was not
+this certainty, nor even a chance of it. Still, in consequence of the
+great dividends promised, even as high as fifty per cent., the stock
+gradually rose to one thousand per cent. Such was the general <span class="inline">Mania for Speculation.</span> mania.
+And such was the extent of it, that thirty-seven millions of pounds
+sterling were subscribed on the company's books.</p>
+
+<p>And the rage for speculation extended to all other kinds of property;
+and all sorts of companies were formed, some of the shares of which
+were at a premium of two thousand per cent. There were companies
+formed for fisheries, companies for making salt, for making oil, for
+smelting metals, for improving the breed of horses, for the planting
+of madder, for building ships against pirates, for the importation of
+jackasses, for fattening hogs, for wheels of perpetual motion, for
+insuring masters against losses from servants. There was one company
+for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but no one knew for
+what. The subscriber, by paying two guineas as a deposit, was to have
+one hundred pounds per annum for every hundred subscribed. It was
+declared, that, in a month, the particulars were to be laid open, and
+the remainder of the subscription money was then to be paid.
+Notwithstanding this barefaced, swindling scheme, two thousand pounds
+were received one morning as a deposit. The next day, the proprietor
+was not to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in order to stop these absurd speculations, and yet to monopolize
+all the gambling in the kingdom, the directors of the South Sea
+Company obtained an act from parliament, empowering them to prosecute
+all the various bubble companies that were projected. In a few days,
+all these bubbles burst. None were found to be buyers. Stock fell to
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>But the South Sea Company made a blunder. The moral effect of the
+<span class="inline">Bursting of the South Sea Bubble.</span> bursting of so many
+bubbles was to open the eyes of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298"></a>(p. 298)</span>
+nation to the greatest bubble of all. The credit of the South Sea
+Company declined. Stocks fell from one thousand per cent to two
+hundred in a few days. All wanted to sell, nobody to buy. Bankers and
+merchants failed, and nobles and country gentlemen became
+impoverished.</p>
+
+<p>In this general distress, Walpole was summoned to power, in older to
+extricate the nation, on the eve of bankruptcy. He proposed a plan,
+which was adopted, and which saved the credit of the nation. He
+ingrafted nine millions of the South Sea stock into the Bank of
+England, and nine millions more into the East India Company; and
+government gave up the seven millions of bonus which the company had
+promised.</p>
+
+<p>By this assistance, the company was able to fulfil its engagements,
+although all who purchased stock when it had arisen beyond one hundred
+per cent. of its original value, lost money. It is strange that the
+stock, after all, remained at a premium of one hundred per cent.; of
+course, the original proprietors gained one hundred per cent., and
+those who paid one hundred per cent. premium lost nothing. But these
+constituted a small fraction of the people who had speculated, and who
+paid from one hundred to nine hundred per cent. premium. Government,
+too, gained by reducing interest on irredeemable bonds from five to
+four per cent., although it lost the promised bonus of seven millions.</p>
+
+<p>The South Sea bubble did not destroy the rage for speculation,
+although it taught many useful truths&mdash;that national prosperity is not
+advanced by stockjobbing; that financiers, however great their genius,
+generally overreach themselves; that great dividends are connected
+with great risk; that circumstances beyond human control will defeat
+the best-laid plan; that it is better to repose upon the operation of
+the ordinary laws of trade; and that nothing but strict integrity and
+industry will succeed in the end. From the time of Sir Robert Walpole,
+money has seldom been worth, in England, over five per cent., and
+larger dividends on vested property have generally been succeeded by
+heavy losses, however plausible the promises and clear the statements
+of stockjobbers and speculators.</p>
+
+<p>After the explosion of the South Sea Company, Walpole became possessed
+of almost unlimited power. And one of the first objects <span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name="page299"></a>(p. 299)</span>to
+which he directed attention, after settling the finances, was the
+<span class="inline">Enlightened Policy of Walpole.</span> removal of petty restrictions on commerce. He abolished the export
+duties on one hundred and six articles of British manufacture, and
+allowed thirty-eight articles of raw material to be imported duty
+free. This regulation was made to facilitate trade with the colonies,
+and prevent them from manufacturing; and this regulation accomplished
+the end desired. Both England and the colonies were enriched. It was
+doubtless the true policy of British statesmen then, as now, to
+advance the commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural interests of
+Great Britain, rather than meddle with foreign wars, or seek glory on
+the field of battle. The principles of Sir Robert Walpole were
+essentially pacific; and under his administration, England made a
+great advance in substantial prosperity. In this policy he surpassed
+all the statesmen who preceded or succeeded him, and this constituted
+his glory and originality.</p>
+
+<p>But liberal and enlightened as was the general course of Walpole, he
+still made blunders, and showed occasional illiberality. He caused a
+fine of one hundred thousand pounds to be inflicted on the Catholics,
+on the plea that they were a disaffected body. He persecuted Bishop
+Atterbury, and permitted Bolingbroke, with his restless spirit of
+intrigue, to return to his country, and to be reinstated in his
+property and titles. He flattered the Duchess of Kendall, the mistress
+of the king, and stooped to all the arts of corruption and bribery.
+There never was a period of greater political corruption than during
+the administration of this minister. Sycophancy, meanness, and
+hypocrisy were resorted to by the statesmen of the age, who generally
+sought their own interests rather than the welfare of the nation.
+There were, however, exceptions. Townsend, the great rival and
+coadjutor of Walpole, retired from office with an unsullied fame for
+integrity and disinterestedness; and Walpole, while he bribed others,
+did not enrich himself.</p>
+
+<p>King George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> died on the 11th of June, 1727, suddenly, by apoplexy,
+and was succeeded by his son George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, a man who resembled his
+father in disposition and character, and was superior to him in
+knowledge of the English constitution, though both were inclined to
+steer the British bark by the Hanoverian rudder. Like his father, he
+was reserved, phlegmatic, cautious, sincere, fond of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name="page300"></a>(p. 300)</span>
+business, economical, and attached to Whig principles. He was
+fortunate in his wife, Queen Caroline, one of the most excellent women
+of the age, learned, religious, charitable, and sensible; the
+patroness of divines and scholars; fond of discussion on metaphysical
+subjects, and a correspondent of the distinguished Leibnitz.</p>
+
+<p>The new king disliked Walpole, but could not do without him, and
+therefore continued him in office. Indeed, the king had the sense to
+perceive that England was to be governed only by the man in whom the
+nation had confidence.</p>
+
+<p>In 1730, Walpole rechartered the <span class="inline">East India Company.</span> East India Company, the most gigantic
+monopoly in the history of nations. As early as 1599, an association
+had been formed in England for trade to the East Indies. This
+association was made in consequence of the Dutch and Portuguese
+settlements and enterprises, which aroused the commercial jealousy of
+England. The capital was sixty-eight thousand pounds. In 1600, Queen
+Elizabeth gave the company a royal charter. By this charter, the
+company obtained the right of purchasing land, without limit, in
+India, and the monopoly of the trade for fifteen years. But the
+company contended with many obstacles. The first voyage was made by
+four ships and one pinnace, having on board twenty-eight thousand
+pounds in bullion, and seven thousand pounds in merchandise, such as
+tin, cutlery, and glass.</p>
+
+<p>During the civil wars, the company's affairs were embarrassed, owing
+to the unsettled state of England. On the accession of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>,
+the company obtained a new charter, which not only confirmed the old
+privileges, but gave it the power of making peace and war with the
+native princes of India. The capital stock was increased to one
+million five hundred thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Much opposition was made by Bolingbroke and the Tories to the
+recharter of this institution; but the ministry carried their point,
+and a new charter was granted on the condition of the company paying
+to government two hundred thousand pounds, and reducing the interest
+of the government debts one per cent. per annum. By this time, the
+company, although it had not greatly enlarged its jurisdiction in
+India, had accumulated great wealth. Its powers and possessions will
+be more fully treated when the victories of Clive shall be presented.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301"></a>(p. 301)</span>About this time, the Duke of Newcastle came into the cabinet
+whose future administration will form the subject of a separate
+chapter.</p>
+
+<p>In 1730 also occurred the disagreement between Walpole and Lord
+Townsend, which ended in the <span class="inline">Resignation of Townsend.</span> resignation of the latter, a man whose
+impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with so cautious and
+non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. He passed the evening
+of his days in rural pursuits and agricultural experiments, keeping
+open house, devoting himself to his family and friends, never
+hankering after the power he had lost, never even revisiting London,
+and finding his richest solace in literature and simple agricultural
+pleasures&mdash;the pattern of a lofty and cultivated nobleman.</p>
+
+<p>The resignation of Townsend enabled Walpole to take more part in
+foreign negotiations; and he exerted his talents, like Fleury in
+France, to preserve the peace of Europe. The peace policy of Walpole
+entitles him to the gratitude of his country. More than any other man
+of his age, he apprehended the true glory and interests of nations.
+Had Walpole paid as much attention to the intellectual improvement of
+his countrymen, as he did to the refinements of material life and to
+physical progress, he would have merited still higher praises. But he
+despised learning, and neglected literary men. And they turned against
+him and his administration, and, by their sarcasm and invective, did
+much to undermine his power. Pope, Swift, and Gay might have lent him
+powerful aid by their satirical pen; but he passed them by with
+contemptuous indifference, and they gave to Bolingbroke what they
+withheld from Walpole.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the pacific policy of the minister, the most noticeable
+peculiarity of his administration was his zeal to improve the
+finances. He opposed speculations, and sought a permanent revenue from
+fixed principles. He regarded the national debt as a great burden, and
+strove to abolish it; and, when that was found to be impracticable,
+sought to prevent its further accumulation. He was not, indeed, always
+true to his policy; but he pursued it on the whole, consistently. He
+favored the agricultural interests, and was inclined to raise the
+necessary revenue by a tax on articles used, rather than by direct
+taxation on property or income, or articles <span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name="page302"></a>(p. 302)</span>imported. Hence
+he is the father of the excise scheme&mdash;a scheme still adopted in
+England, but which would be intolerable in this country. In this
+scheme, his grand object was to ease the landed proprietor, and to
+prevent smuggling, by making smuggling no object. But the opposition
+to the Excise Bill was so great that Sir Robert abandoned it; and this
+relinquishment of his favorite scheme is one of the most striking
+peculiarities of his administration. He never pushed matters to
+extremity. He ever yielded to popular clamor. He perceived that an
+armed force would be necessary in order to collect the excise, and
+preferred to yield his cherished measures to run the danger of
+incurring greater evils than financial embarrassments. His spirit of
+conciliation, often exercised in the plenitude of power, prolonged his
+reign. This policy was the result of immense experience and practical
+knowledge of human nature, of which he was a great master.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Robert was not allowed to pursue to the end his pacific, any
+more than his financial policy. <span class="inline">Unpopularity of Walpole.</span> The clamors of interested merchants,
+the violence of party spirit, and the dreams of heroic grandeur on the
+part of politicians, overcame the repugnance of the minister, and
+plunged England in a disastrous Spanish war; and a war soon succeeded
+by that of the Austrian Succession, in which Maria Theresa was the
+injured, and Frederic the Great the offending party. But this war,
+which was carried on chiefly during the subsequent administration,
+will be hereafter alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>Although Walpole was opposed by some of the ablest men in England&mdash;by
+Pulteney, Sir William Windham, and the Lords Chesterfield, Carteret,
+and Bolingbroke, his power was almost absolute from 1730 to 1740. His
+most powerful assistance was derived from Mr. Yorke, afterwards the
+Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, one of the greatest lawyers that England
+has produced.</p>
+
+<p>In 1740, his power began to <span class="inline">Decline of his Power.</span> decline, and rapidly waned. He lost a
+powerful friend and protector by the death of Queen Caroline, whose
+intercessions with the king were ever listened to with respectful
+consideration. But he had almost insurmountable obstacles to contend
+with&mdash;the distrust of the king, the bitter hatred of the Prince of
+Wales, the violent opposition of the leading statesmen in parliament,
+and universal envy. Moreover, he had grown careless and secure. He
+fancied that no one could <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name="page303"></a>(p. 303)</span>rule England but himself. But
+hatred, opposition, envy, and unsuccessful military operations, forced
+him from his place. No shipwrecked pilot ever clung to the rudder of a
+sinking ship with more desperate tenacity than did this once powerful
+minister to the helm of state. And he did not relinquish it until he
+was driven from it by the desertion of all his friends, and the
+general clamor of the people. The king, however, appreciated the value
+of his services, and created him Earl of Orford, a dignity which had
+been offered him before, but which, with self-controlling policy, he
+had unhesitatingly declined. Like Sir Robert Peel in later times, he
+did not wish to be buried in the House of Lords.</p>
+
+<p>His retirement (1742) amid the beeches and oaks of his country seat
+was irksome and insipid. He had no taste for history, or science, or
+elegant literature, or quiet pleasures. His tumultuous public life had
+engendered other tastes. "I wish," said he to a friend, "I took as
+much delight in reading as you do. It would alleviate my tedious
+hours." But the fallen minister, though uneasy and restless, was not
+bitter or severe. He retained his good humor to the last, and to the
+last discharged all the rites of an elegant hospitality. Said his
+enemy, Pope,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem10">
+  "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour<br>
+  Of social pleasure&mdash;ill exchanged for power;<br>
+  Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe,<br>
+  Smile without art, and win without a bribe."
+</p>
+
+<p>He had the habit of "laughing the heart's laugh," which it is only in
+the power of noble natures to exercise. His manners were winning, his
+conversation frank, and his ordinary intercourse divested of vanity
+and pomp. He had many warm personal friends, and did not enrich
+himself, as Marlborough did, while he enriched those who served him.
+He kept a public table at Houghton, to which all gentlemen in the
+country had free access. He was fond of hunting and country sports,
+and had more taste for pictures than for books. He was not what would
+be called a man of genius or erudition, but had a sound judgment,
+great sagacity, wonderful self-command, and undoubted patriotism. As a
+wise and successful ruler, he will long be held in respect, though he
+will never secure veneration.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name="page304"></a>(p. 304)</span>It was during the latter years of the administration of
+Walpole that England was electrified by the preaching of Whitefield
+and Wesley, and the sect of the Methodists arose, which has exercised
+a powerful influence on the morals, religion, and social life of
+England.</p>
+
+<p>John Wesley, <span class="inline">John Wesley.</span> who may rank with Augustine, Pelagius, Calvin, Arminius,
+or Jansen, as the founder of a sect, was demanded by the age in which
+he lived. Never, since the Reformation, was the state of religion so
+cold in England. The Established Church had triumphed over all her
+enemies. Puritanism had ceased to become offensive, and had even
+become respectable. The age of fox-hunting parsons had commenced, and
+the clergy were the dependants of great families, easy in their
+manners, and fond of the pleasures of the table. They were not
+expected to be very great scholars, or very grave companions. If they
+read the service with propriety, did not scandalize their cause by
+gross indulgences, and did not meddle with the two exciting subjects
+of all ages,&mdash;politics and religion,&mdash;they were sure of peace and
+plenty. But their churches were comparatively deserted, and infidel
+opinions had been long undermining respect for the institutions and
+ministers of religion. Swearing and drunkenness were fashionable vices
+among the higher classes, while low pleasures and lamentable ignorance
+characterized the people. The dissenting sects were more religious,
+but were formal and cold. Their ministers preached, too often, a mere
+technical divinity, or a lax system of ethics. The Independents were
+inclined to a frigid Arminianism, and the Presbyterians were passing
+through the change from ultra Calvinism to Arianism and Socinianism.</p>
+
+<p>The reformation was not destined to come from Dissenters, but from the
+bosom of the Established Church, a reformation which bore the same
+relation to Protestantism as that effected by St. Francis bore to
+Roman Catholicism in the thirteenth century; a reformation among the
+poorer classes, who did not wish to be separated from the Church
+Establishment.</p>
+
+<p>John Wesley belonged to a <span class="inline">Early Life of Wesley.</span> good family, his father being a respectable
+clergyman in a market town. He was born in 1703, was educated at
+Oxford, and for the church. At the age of twenty, he received orders
+from the Bishop of Oxford, and was, shortly after, chosen fellow of
+Lincoln College, and then Greek lecturer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305"></a>(p. 305)</span>While at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, who was also a
+fellow and a fine scholar, excited the ridicule of the University for
+the strictness of their lives, and their methodical way of living,
+which caused their companions to give them the name of <span class="italic">Methodists</span>.
+Two other young men joined them&mdash;James Hervey, author of the
+Meditations, and George Whitefield. The fraternity at length numbered
+fifteen young men, the members of which met frequently for religious
+purposes, visited prisons and the sick, fasted zealously on Wednesdays
+and Fridays, and bound themselves by rules, which, in many respects,
+resembled those which Ignatius Loyola imposed on his followers. The
+Imitation of Christ, by A Kempis, and Taylor's Holy Living, were their
+grand text-books, both of which were studied for their devotional
+spirit. But the Holy Living was the favorite book of Wesley, who did
+not fully approve of the rigid asceticism of the venerable mystic of
+the Middle Ages. The writings of William Law, also, had great
+influence on the mind of Wesley; but his religious views were not
+matured until after his return from Georgia, where he had labored as a
+missionary, under the auspices of Oglethorpe. The Moravians, whom he
+met with both in America and Germany, completed the work which Taylor
+had begun; and from their beautiful establishments he also learned
+many principles of that wonderful system of government which he so
+successfully introduced among his followers.</p>
+
+<p>Wesley continued his labors with earnestness; but these were also
+attended with some extravagances, which Dr. Potter, the worthy Bishop
+of London, and other Churchmen, could not understand. And though he
+preached with great popular acceptance, and gained wonderful eclat,
+though he was much noticed in society and even dined with the king at
+Hampton Court, and with the Prince of Wales at St. James's, still the
+churches were gradually shut against him. When Whitefield returned
+from Georgia, having succeeded Wesley as a missionary in that colony,
+and finding so much opposition from the dignitaries of the Church,
+although neither he nor Wesley had seceded from the Church; and, above
+all, excited by the popular favor he received,&mdash;for the churches would
+not hold half who flocked to hear him preach,&mdash;he resolved to address
+the people in the open air. The excitement he produced was
+unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled <span class="pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306"></a>(p. 306)</span>as many
+as twenty thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, drawn forth
+from their subterranean working places. But his eloquence had equal
+fascination for the people of London and the vicinity. In Moorfields,
+on Kennington Common, and on Blackheath, he sometimes drew a crowd of
+forty thousand people, all of whom could hear his voice. He could draw
+tears from Hume, and money from Dr. Franklin. He could convulse a
+congregation with terror, and then inspire them with the brightest
+hopes. He was a greater artist than Bossuet or Bourdaloue. He never
+lost his self-possession, or hesitated for appropriate language. But
+his great power was in his thorough earnestness, and almost inspired
+enthusiasm. No one doubted his sincerity, and all were impressed with
+the spirituality and reality of the great truths which he presented.
+And wonderful results followed from his preaching, and from that of
+his brethren. A great religious revival spread over England,
+especially among the middle and lower classes, the effects of which
+last to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Whitefield <span class="inline">Whitefield.</span> was not so learned, or intellectual as Wesley. He was not
+so great a genius. But he had more eloquence, and more warmth of
+disposition. Wesley was a system maker, a metaphysician, a logician.
+He was also profoundly versed in the knowledge of human nature, and
+curiously adapted his system to the wants and circumstances of that
+class of people over whom he had the greatest power. Both Wesley and
+Whitefield were demanded by their times, and only such men as they
+were could have succeeded. They were reproached for their
+extravagances, and for a zeal which was confounded with fanaticism;
+but, had they been more proper, more prudent, more yielding to the
+prejudices of the great, they would not have effected so much good for
+their country. So with Luther. Had he possessed a severer taste, had
+he been more of a gentleman, or more of a philosopher, or even more
+humble, he would not so signally have succeeded. Germany, and the
+circumstances of the age, required a rough, practical, bold, impetuous
+reformer to lead a movement against dignitaries and venerable
+corruptions. England, in the eighteenth century, needed a man to
+arouse the common people to a sense of their spiritual condition; a
+man who would not be trammelled by his church; who would not be
+governed by the principles of expediency; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307"></a>(p. 307)</span>who would trust in
+God, and labor under peculiar discouragement and self-denial.</p>
+
+<p>Wesley was like Luther in another respect. He quarrelled with those
+who would not conform to all his views, whether they had been friends
+or foes. He had been attracted by the Moravians. Their simplicity,
+fervor, and sedateness had won his regard. But when the Moravians
+maintained that there was delusion in those ravings which Wesley
+considered as the work of grace, when they asserted that sin would
+remain with even regenerated man until death, and that it was in vain
+to expect the purification of the soul by works of self-denial, Wesley
+opposed them, and slandered them. He also entered the lists against
+his friend and fellow-laborer, Whitefield. The latter did not agree
+with him respecting perfection, nor election, nor predestination; and,
+when this disagreement had become fixed, an alienation took place,
+succeeded by actual bitterness and hostility. Wesley, however, in his
+latter days, manifested greater charity and liberality, and was a
+model of patience and gentleness. He became finally reconciled to
+Whitefield, and the union continued until the death of the latter, at
+Newburyport, in 1770.</p>
+
+<p>The greatness of Wesley consisted in devising that wonderful church
+polity which still governs the powerful and numerous sect which he
+founded. It is from the system of the Methodists, rather than from
+their theological opinions, that their society spread so rapidly over
+Great Britain and America, and which numbered at his death,
+seventy-one thousand persons in England, and forty-eight thousand in
+this country.</p>
+
+<p>And yet <span class="inline">Institution of Wesley.</span> his institution was not wholly a matter of calculation, but
+was gradually developed as circumstances arose. When contributions
+were made towards building a meeting-house in Bristol, it was observed
+that most of the brethren were poor, and could afford but little. Then
+said one of the number, "Put eleven of the poorest with me, and if
+they give any thing, it is well. I will call on each of them weekly,
+and if they give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself."
+This suggested the idea of a system of supervision. In the course of
+the weekly calls, the persons who had undertaken for a class
+discovered some irregularities among those for whose contributions
+they were responsible, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name="page308"></a>(p. 308)</span>and reported them to Wesley. He saw,
+at once, the advantage to be derived from such an arrangement. It was
+what he had long desired. He called together the leaders, and desired
+that each should make a particular inquiry into the behavior of all
+under their respective supervision. They did so. The custom was
+embraced by the whole body, and became fundamental. But it was soon
+found to be inconvenient to visit each person separately in his own
+house weekly, and then it was determined that all the members of the
+class should assemble together weekly, when quarrels could be made up,
+and where they might be mutually profited by each other's prayers and
+exhortations. Thus the system of classes and class-leaders arose,
+which bears the same relation to the society at large that town
+meetings do to the state or general government in the American
+democracy&mdash;which, as it is known, constitute the genius of our
+political institutions.</p>
+
+<p>Itinerancy <span class="inline">Itinerancy.</span> also forms another great feature of Methodism; and this
+resulted from accident. But it is the prerogative and peculiarity of
+genius to take advantage of accidents and circumstances. It cannot
+create them. Wesley had no church; but, being an ordained clergyman of
+the Establishment, and a fellow of a college beside, he had the right
+to preach in any pulpit, and in any diocese. But the pulpits were
+closed against him, in consequence of his peculiarities; so he
+preached wherever he could collect a congregation. Itinerancy and
+popularity gave him notoriety, and flattered ambition, of which he was
+not wholly divested. He and his brethren wandered into every section
+of England, from the Northumbrian moorlands to the innermost depths of
+the Cornish mines, in the most tumultuous cities and in the most
+unfrequented hamlets.</p>
+
+<p>As he was the father of the sect, all appointments were made by him,
+and, as he deserved respect and influence, the same became unbounded.
+When power was vested to <span class="inline">Great Influence and Power of Wesley.</span> an unlimited extent in his hands, and when
+the society had become numerous and scattered over a great extent of
+territory, he divided England into circuits, and each circuit had a
+certain number of ministers appointed to it. But he held out no
+worldly rewards as lures. The conditions which he imposed were hard.
+The clergy were to labor with patience and assiduity on a mean
+pittance, with no hope of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name="page309"></a>(p. 309)</span>wealth or ease. Rewards were to be
+given them by no earthly judge. The only recompense for toil and
+hunger was that of the original apostles&mdash;the approval of their
+consciences and the favor of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>To prevent the overbearing intolerance and despotism of the people,
+the chapels were not owned by the congregation nor even vested in
+trustees, but placed at the absolute disposal of Mr. Wesley and the
+conference.</p>
+
+<p>If the rule of Wesley was not in accordance with democratic
+principles, still its perpetuation in the most zealous of democratic
+communities, and its escape, thus far, from the ordinary fate of all
+human institutions,&mdash;that of corruption and decay,&mdash;shows its
+remarkable wisdom, and also the great virtue of those who have
+administered the affairs of the society. It effected, especially in
+England,&mdash;what the Established Church and the various form of
+Dissenters could not do,&mdash;the religious renovation of the lower
+classes; it met their wants; it stimulated their enthusiasm. And while
+Methodism promoted union and piety among the people, especially those
+who were ignorant and poor, it did not undermine their loyalty or
+attachment to the political institutions of the country. Other
+Dissenters were often hostile to the government, and have been
+impatient under the evils which have afflicted England; but the
+Methodists, taught subordination to superiors and rulers, and have
+ever been patient, peaceful, and quiet.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Lord Mahon's History should be particularly
+     read; also Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole. Consult Smollett's and
+     Tindall's History of England, and Belsham's History of
+     George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Smyth's Lectures are very valuable on this period
+     of English history. See, also, Bolingbroke's State of
+     Parties; Burke's Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs; Lord
+     Chesterfield's Characters; and Cobbett's Parliamentary
+     Debates. Reminiscences by Horace Walpole. For additional
+     information respecting the South Sea scheme, see Anderson's
+     and Macpherson's Histories of Commerce, and Smyth's
+     Lectures. The lives of the Pretenders have been well written
+     by Ray and Jesse. Tytler's History of Scotland should be
+     consulted; and Waverley may be read with profit. The rise of
+     the Methodists, the great event of the reign of George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>,
+     has been generally neglected. Lord Mahon has, however,
+     written a valuable chapter. See also Wesley's Letters and
+     Diary, and Lives, by Southey and Moore.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name="page310"></a>(p. 310)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="20">XX.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.</h4>
+
+
+<p>During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, the English colonies
+in America, and the East India Company's settlements began to attract
+the attention of ministers, and became of considerable political
+importance. <span class="inline">Commercial Enterprise.</span> It is, therefore, time to consider the history of
+colonization, both in the East and West, and not only by the English,
+but by the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French.</p>
+
+<p>The first settlements in the new world by Europeans, and their
+conquests in the unknown regions of the old, were made chiefly in view
+of commercial advantages. The love of money, that root of all evil,
+was overruled by Providence in the discovery of new worlds, and the
+diffusion of European civilization in countries inhabited by savages,
+or worn-out Oriental races. But the mere ignoble love of gain was not
+the only motive which incited the Europeans to navigate unknown oceans
+and colonize new continents. There was also another, and this was the
+spirit of enterprise, which magically aroused the European mind in the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Marco Polo, when he visited the
+East; the Portuguese, when they doubled the Cape of Good Hope;
+Columbus, when he discovered America; and Magellan, when he entered
+the South Sea, were moved by curiosity and love of science, more than
+by love of gold. But the vast wealth, which the newly-discovered
+countries revealed, stimulated, in the breasts of the excited
+Europeans, the powerful passions of ambition and avarice; and the
+needy and grasping governments of Spain, Portugal, Holland, France,
+and England patronized adventurers to the new El Dorado, and furnished
+them with ships and stores, in the hope of receiving a share of the
+profits of their expedition. And they were not disappointed. Although
+many disasters happened to the early navigators, still country after
+country was added to the possessions of European kings, and vast sums
+of gold and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name="page311"></a>(p. 311)</span>silver were melted into European coin. No
+conquests were ever more sudden, and brilliant than those of Cortez
+and Pizarro, nor did wealth ever before so suddenly enrich the
+civilized world. But sudden and unlawful gains produced their natural
+fruit. All the worst evils which flow from extravagance, extortion,
+and pride prevailed in the old world and the new; and those advantages
+and possessions, which had been gained by enterprise, were turned into
+a curse, for no wealth can balance the vices of avarice, injustice,
+and cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>The most important of all the early settlements of America were made
+by the <span class="inline">Spanish Conquests and Settlements.</span> Spaniards. Their conquests were the most brilliant, and proved
+the most worthless. The spirit which led to their conquests and
+colonization was essentially that of avarice and ambition. It must,
+however, be admitted that religious zeal, in some instances, was the
+animating principle of the adventurers and of those that patronized
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The first colony was established in Hispaniola, or, as it was
+afterwards called, St. Domingo, a short time after the discovery of
+America by Columbus. The mines of the island were, at that period,
+very productive, and the aggressive Spaniards soon compelled the
+unhappy natives to labor in them, under their governor, Juan Ponce de
+Leon. But Hispaniola was not sufficiently large or productive to
+satisfy the cupidity of the governor, and Porto Rico was conquered and
+enslaved. Cuba also, in a few years, was added to the dominions of
+Spain.</p>
+
+<p>At length, the Spaniards, who had explored the coasts of the Main
+land, prepared to invade and conquer the populous territories of
+Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The people whom he governed had attained
+a considerable degree of civilization, having a regular government, a
+system of laws, and an established priesthood. They were not ignorant
+of the means of recording great events, and possessed considerable
+skill in many useful and ornamental arts. They were rich in gold and
+silver, and their cities were ornamented with palaces and gardens. But
+their riches were irresistible objects of desire to the European
+adventurers, and, therefore, proved their misfortune. The story of
+their conquest by Fernando Cortez need not here be told; familiarized
+as are all readers and students with the exquisite and artistic
+narrative <span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name="page312"></a>(p. 312)</span>of the great American historian, whose work and
+whose fame can only perish with the language itself.</p>
+
+<p>About ten years after the conquest of Mexico, Pizarro landed in Peru,
+which country was soon added to the dominions of Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> And the
+government of that country was even more oppressive and unjust than
+that of Mexico. All Indians between the ages of fifteen and fifty were
+compelled to work in the mines; and so dreadful was the forced labor,
+that four out of five of those who worked in them were supposed to
+perish annually. There was no limit to Spanish rapacity and cruelty,
+and it was exercised over all the other countries which were
+subdued&mdash;Chili, Florida, and the West India Islands.</p>
+
+<p>Enormous and unparalleled quantities of the precious metals were sent
+to Spain from the countries of the new world. But, from the first
+discovery of Peru and Mexico, the mother country declined in wealth
+and political importance. With the increase of gold, the price of
+labor and of provision, and of all articles of manufacturing industry,
+also increased, and nearly in the same ratio. The Spaniards were
+insensible to this truth, and, instead of cultivating the soil or
+engaging in manufactures, were contented with the gold which came from
+the colonies. This, for a while, enriched them; but it was soon
+scattered over all Christendom, and was exchanged for the necessities
+of life. Industry and art declined, and those countries alone were the
+gainers which produced those articles which Spain was obliged to
+purchase.</p>
+
+<p>Portugal soon rivalled Spain in the extent and richness of colonial
+possessions. <span class="inline">Portuguese Discoveries.</span> Brazil was discovered in 1501, and, in about half a
+century after, was colonized. The native Brazilians, inferior in
+civilization to the Mexicans and Peruvians, were still less able than
+they to resist the arms of the Europeans. They were gradually subdued,
+and their beautiful and fertile country came into possession of the
+victors. But the Portuguese also extended their empire in the East, as
+well as in the West. After the discovery of a passage round the Cape
+of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama, the early navigators sought simply to
+be enriched by commerce with the Indies. They found powerful rivals in
+the Arabs, who had heretofore monopolized the trade. In order to
+secure their commerce, and also to protect themselves against their
+rivals <span class="pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313"></a>(p. 313)</span>and enemies, the Portuguese, under the guidance of
+Albuquerque, procured a grant of land in India, from one of the native
+princes. Soon after, Goa was reduced, and became the seat of
+government; and territorial acquisition commenced, which, having been
+continued nearly three centuries by the various European powers, is
+still progressive. In about sixty years, the Portuguese had
+established a great empire in the East, which included the coasts and
+islands of the Persian Gulf, the whole Malabar and Coromandel coasts,
+the city of Malacca, and numerous islands of the Indian Ocean. They
+had effected a settlement in China, obtained a free trade with the
+empire of Japan, and received tribute from the rich Islands of Ceylon,
+Java, and Sumatra.</p>
+
+<p>The same moral effects happened to Portugal, from the possession of
+the Indies, that the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro produced on
+Spain. Goa was the most depraved spot in the world: and the vices
+which wealth engendered, wherever the Europeans formed a settlement,
+can now scarcely be believed. When Portugal fell under the dominion of
+Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, the ruin of her <span class="inline">Portuguese Settlements.</span> settlements commenced. They were
+supplanted by the Dutch, who were more moral, more united and
+enterprising, though they provoked, by their arrogance and injustice,
+the hostility of the Eastern princes.</p>
+
+<p>The conquests and settlements of the Dutch rapidly succeeded those of
+the Portuguese. In 1595, Cornelius Houtman sailed, with a
+well-provided fleet, for the land of gems and spices. A company was
+soon incorporated, in Holland, for managing the Indian trade.
+Settlements were first made in the Moluccas Islands, which soon
+extended to the possession of the Island of Java, and to the complete
+monopoly of the spice trade. The Dutch then gained possession of the
+Island of Ceylon, which they retained until it was wrested from them
+by the English. But their empire was only maintained at a vast expense
+of blood and treasure; nor were they any exception to the other
+European colonists and adventurers, in the indulgence of all those
+vices which degrade our nature.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the French nor the English made any important conquests in the
+East, when compared with those of the Portuguese and Dutch. Nor did
+their acquisitions in America equal those of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name="page314"></a>(p. 314)</span>the Spaniards.
+But they were more important in their ultimate results.</p>
+
+<p>English enterprise was manifested shortly <span class="inline">Early English Enterprise.</span> after the first voyage of
+Columbus. Henry <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr> was sufficiently enlightened, envious, and
+avaricious, to listen to the proposals of a Venetian, resident in
+Bristol, by the name of Cabot; and, in 1495, he commissioned him to
+sail under the banner of England, to take possession of any new
+countries he might discover. Accordingly, in about two years after,
+Cabot, with his second son, Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, in one of
+the king's ships, attended by four smaller vessels, equipped by the
+merchants of that enterprising city.</p>
+
+<p>Impressed with the idea of Columbus, and other early navigators, that
+the West India Islands were not far from the Indian continent, he
+concluded that, if he steered in a more northerly direction, he should
+reach India by a shorter course than that pursued by the great
+discoverer. Accordingly, sailing in that course, he discovered
+Newfoundland and Prince Edwards', and, soon after, the coast of North
+America, along which he sailed, from Labrador to Virginia. But,
+disappointed in not finding a westerly passage to India, he returned
+to England, without attempting, either by settlement or conquest, to
+gain a footing on the great continent which the English were the
+second to visit, of all the European nations.</p>
+
+<p>England was prevented, by various circumstances, from deriving
+immediate advantage from the discovery. The unsettled state of the
+country; the distractions arising from the civil wars, and afterwards
+from the Reformation; the poverty of the people, and the sordid nature
+of the king,&mdash;were unfavorable to settlements which promised no
+immediate advantage; and it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that
+any deliberate plans were made for the colonization of North America.
+The voyages of Frobisher and Drake had aroused a spirit of adventure,
+if they had not gratified the thirst for gold.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who felt an intense interest in the new world, was Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, a man of enlarged views and intrepid boldness. He
+secured from Elizabeth (1578) a liberal patent, and sailed, with a
+considerable body of adventurers, for the new world. But he took a too
+northerly direction, and his largest vessel was shipwrecked on the
+coast of Cape Breton. The enterprise <span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name="page315"></a>(p. 315)</span>from various causes,
+completely failed, and the intrepid navigator lost his life.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the times raised up, however, a greater genius, and a
+more accomplished adventurer, and no less a personage than <span class="inline">Sir Walter Raleigh.</span> Sir Walter
+Raleigh,&mdash;the favorite of the queen; one of the greatest scholars and
+the most elegant courtier of the age; a soldier, a philosopher, and a
+statesman. He obtained a patent, substantially the same as that which
+had been bestowed on Gilbert. In 1584, Raleigh despatched two small
+exploring vessels, under the command of Amidas and Barlow, which
+seasonably arrived off the coast of North Carolina. From the favorable
+report of the country and the people, a larger fleet, of seven ships,
+was despatched to America, commanded by Sir Richard Grenville. But he
+was diverted from his course by the prevailing passion for predatory
+enterprise, and hence only landed one hundred and eight men at
+Roanoke, (1585.) The government of this feeble band was intrusted to
+Captain Lane. But the passion for gold led to a misunderstanding with
+the natives. The colony became enfeebled and reduced, and the
+adventurers returned to England, (1586,) bringing with them some
+knowledge of the country, and also that singular weed, which rapidly
+enslaved the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and which soon became one
+of the great staple commodities in the trade of the civilized world.
+Modern science has proved it to be a poison, and modern philanthropy
+has lifted up its warning voice against the use of it. But when have
+men, in their degeneracy, been governed by their reason? What logic
+can break the power of habit, or counteract the seductive influences
+of those excitements which fill the mind with visionary hopes, and
+lull a tumultuous spirit into the repose of pleasant dreams and
+oblivious joys? Sir Walter Raleigh, to his shame or his misfortune,
+was among the first to patronize a custom which has proved more
+injurious to civilized nations than even the use of opium itself,
+because it is more universal and more insidious.</p>
+
+<p>But smoking was simply an amusement with him. He soon turned his
+thoughts to the reëstablishment of his colony. Even before the return
+of the company under Lane, Sir Richard Grenville had visited the
+Roanoke, with the necessary stores. But he arrived too late; the
+colony was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name="page316"></a>(p. 316)</span>But nothing could abate the zeal of the most enterprising
+genius of the age. In 1587, he despatched three more ships, under the
+command of Captain White, who founded the city of Raleigh. But no
+better success attended the new band of colonists. White sailed for
+England, to secure new supplies; and, when he returned, he found no
+traces of the colony he had planted; and no subsequent ingenuity or
+labor has been able to discover the slightest vestige.</p>
+
+<p>The patience of Raleigh was not wasted; but new objects occupied his
+mind, and he parted with his patent, which made him the proprietary of
+a great part of the Southern States. Nor were there any new attempts
+at colonization until 1606, in the reign of James.</p>
+
+<p>Through the influence of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a man of great wealth;
+Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England; Richard Hakluyt, the
+historian; Bartholomew Gosnold, the navigator, and John Smith, the
+enthusiastic adventurer,&mdash;King James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> granted a royal charter to two
+rival companies, for the colonization of America. The <span class="inline">London Company Incorporated.</span> first was
+composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, in and about London,
+who had an exclusive right to occupy regions from thirty-four to
+thirty-eight degrees of north latitude. The other company, composed of
+gentlemen and merchants in the west of England, had assigned to them
+the territory between forty-one and forty-five degrees. But only the
+first company succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>The territory, appropriated to the London or southern colony,
+preserved the name which had been bestowed upon it during the reign of
+Elizabeth,&mdash;Virginia. The colonists were authorized to transport, free
+of the custom-house, for the term of seven years, what arms and
+provisions they required; and their children were permitted to enjoy
+the same privileges and liberties, in the American settlements, that
+Englishmen had at home. They had the right to search for mines, to
+coin money, and, for twenty-one years, to impose duties, on vessels
+trading to their harbors, for the benefit of the colony. But, after
+this period, the duty was to be taken for the king, who also preserved
+a control over both the councils established for the government of the
+colony,&mdash;the one in England itself, and the other in Virginia; a
+control inconsistent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317"></a>(p. 317)</span>with those liberties which the
+colonists subsequently asserted and secured.</p>
+
+<p>The London Company promptly applied themselves to the settlement of
+their territories; and, on the 19th of December, 1606, a squadron of
+three small vessels set sail for the new world; and, on May 13, 1607,
+a company of one hundred and five men, without families, disembarked
+at <span class="inline">Hardships of the Virginia Colony.</span> Jamestown. This was the first permanent settlement in America by
+the English. But great misfortunes afflicted them. Before September,
+one half of the colonists had perished, and the other half were
+suffering from famine, dissension, and fear. The president, Wingfield,
+attempted to embezzle the public stores, and escape to the West
+Indies. He was supplanted in his command by Ratcliffe, a man without
+capacity. But a deliverer was raised up in the person of Captain John
+Smith, who extricated the suffering and discontented band from the
+evils which impended. He had been a traveller and a warrior; had
+visited France, Italy, and Egypt; fought in Holland and Hungary; was
+taken a prisoner of war in Wallachia, and sent as a slave to
+Constantinople. Removed to a fortress in the Crimea, and subjected to
+the hardest tasks, he yet contrived to escape, and, after many perils,
+reached his native country. But greater hardships and dangers awaited
+him in the new world, to which he was impelled by his adventurous
+curiosity. He was surprised and taken by a party of hostile Indians,
+when on a tour of exploration, and would have been murdered, had it
+not been for his remarkable presence of mind and singular sagacity,
+united with the intercession of the famous Pocahontas, daughter of a
+great Indian chief, from whom some of the best families in Virginia
+are descended. It would be pleasant to detail the romantic incidents
+of this brief captivity; but our limits forbid. Smith, when he
+returned to Jamestown, found his company reduced to forty men, and
+they were discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, they were a
+different class of men from those who colonized New England. They were
+gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, were
+greedy for gold, and had neither the fortitude nor the habits
+requisite for success. They were not accustomed to labor, at least
+with the axe and plough. Smith earnestly wrote to the council of the
+company in England, to send carpenters, husbandmen, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318"></a>(p. 318)</span>
+gardeners, fishermen, and blacksmiths, instead of "vagabond gentlemen
+and goldsmiths." But he had to organize a colony with such materials
+as avarice or adventurous curiosity had sent to America. And, in spite
+of dissensions and natural indolence, he succeeded in placing it on a
+firm foundation; surveyed the Chesapeake Bay to the Susquehannah, and
+explored the inlets of the majestic Potomac. But he was not permitted
+to complete the work which he had so beneficently begun. His
+administration was unacceptable to the company in England, who cared
+very little for the welfare of the infant colony, and only sought a
+profitable investment of their capital. They were disappointed that
+mines of gold and silver had not been discovered, and that they
+themselves had not become enriched. Even the substantial welfare of
+the colony displeased them; for this diverted attention from the
+pursuit of mineral wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The original patentees, therefore, sought to strengthen themselves by
+new associates and a <span class="inline">New Charter of the London Company.</span> new charter. And a new charter was accordingly
+granted to twenty-one peers, ninety-eight knights, and a great number
+of doctors, esquires, gentlemen, and merchants. The bounds of the
+colony were enlarged, the council and offices in Virginia abolished,
+and the company in England empowered to nominate all officers in the
+colony. Lord Delaware was appointed governor and captain-general of
+the company, and a squadron of nine ships, with five hundred emigrants
+were sent to Virginia. But these emigrants consisted, for the most
+part, of profligate young men, whom their aristocratic friends sent
+away to screen themselves from shame; broken down gentlemen, too lazy
+to work; and infamous dependants on powerful families. They threw the
+whole colony into confusion, and provoked, by their aggression and
+folly, the animosities of the Indians, whom Smith had appeased. The
+settlement at Jamestown was abandoned to famine and confusion, and
+would have been deserted had it not been for the timely arrival of
+Lord Delaware, with ample supplies and new recruits. His
+administration was wise and efficient, and he succeeded in restoring
+order, if he did not secure the wealth which was anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>In 1612, the company obtained a third patent, by which all the islands
+within three hundred leagues of the Virginia shore were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name="page319"></a>(p. 319)</span>
+granted to the patentees, and by which a portion of the power
+heretofore vested in the council was transferred to the whole company.
+The political rights of the colonists remained the same but they
+acquired gradually peace and tranquillity. Tobacco was extensively
+cultivated, and proved a more fruitful source of wealth than mines of
+silver or gold.</p>
+
+<p>The jealousy of arbitrary power, and impatience of liberty among the
+new settlers, induced the Governor of Virginia, in 1619, to reinstate
+them in the full possession of the rights of Englishmen; and he
+accordingly convoked a Provincial Assembly, the first ever held in
+America, which consisted of the governor, the council, and a number of
+burgesses, elected by the eleven existing boroughs of the colony. The
+deliberation and laws of this infant legislature were transmitted to
+England for approval; and so wise and judicious were these, that the
+company, soon after, approved and ratified the platform of what
+gradually ripened into the American representative system.</p>
+
+<p>The guarantee of political rights led to a <span class="inline">Rapid Colonization.</span> rapid colonization. "Men
+were now willing to regard Virginia as their home. They fell to
+building houses and planting corn." Women were induced to leave the
+parent country to become the wives of adventurous planters; and,
+during the space of three years, thirty-five hundred persons, of both
+sexes, found their way to Virginia. In the year 1620, a Dutch ship,
+from the coast of Guinea, arrived in James River, and landed twenty
+negroes for sale; and, as they were found more capable of enduring
+fatigue, in a southern climate, than the Europeans, they were
+continually imported, until a large proportion of the inhabitants of
+Virginia was composed of slaves. Thus was introduced, at this early
+period, that lasting system of injustice and cruelty which has proved
+already an immeasurable misfortune to the country, as well as a
+disgrace to the institutions of republican liberty, but which is
+lamented, in many instances, by no class with more sincerity than by
+those who live by the produce of slave labor itself.</p>
+
+<p>The succeeding year, which witnessed the importation of negroes,
+beheld the cultivation of tobacco, which before the introduction of
+cotton, was the great staple of southern produce.</p>
+
+<p>In 1622, the long-suppressed enmity of the Indians broke out in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name="page320"></a>(p. 320)</span>a
+savage attempt to murder the whole colony. A plot had been
+formed by which all the English settlements were to be attacked on the
+same day, and at the same hour. The conspiracy was betrayed by a
+friendly Indian, but not in time to prevent a fearful massacre of
+three hundred and forty-seven persons, among whom were some of the
+wealthiest and most respectable inhabitants. Then followed all the
+evils of an <span class="inline">Indian Warfare.</span> Indian war, and the settlements were reduced from eighty
+to eight plantations; and it was not until after a protracted struggle
+that the colonists regained their prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had hostilities with the Indians commenced, before
+dissensions among the company in England led to a quarrel with the
+king, and a final abrogation of their charter. The company was too
+large and too democratic. The members were dissatisfied that so little
+gain had been derived from the colony; and moreover they made their
+courts or convocations, when they assembled to discuss colonial
+matters, the scene of angry political debate. There was a court party
+and a country party, each inflamed with violent political animosities.
+The country party was the stronger, and soon excited the jealousy of
+the arbitrary monarch, who looked upon their meetings "as but a
+seminary to a seditious parliament." A royal board of commissioners
+were appointed to examine the affairs of the company, who reported
+unfavorably; and the king therefore ordered the company to surrender
+its charter. The company refused to obey an arbitrary mandate; but
+upon its refusal, the king ordered a writ of <span class="italic">quo warranto</span> to be
+issued, and the Court of the King's Bench decided, of course, in favor
+of the crown. The company was accordingly dissolved. But the
+dissolution, though arbitrary, operated beneficially on the colony. Of
+all cramping institutions, a sovereign company of merchants is the
+most so, since they seek simply commercial gain, without any reference
+to the political, moral, or social improvement of the people whom they
+seek to control.</p>
+
+<p>Before King James had completed his scheme for the government of the
+colony, he died; and Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> pursued the same arbitrary policy
+which his father contemplated. He instituted a government which
+combined the unlimited prerogative of an absolute prince with the
+narrow and selfish maxims of a mercantile <span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name="page321"></a>(p. 321)</span>corporation. He
+monopolized the profits of its trade, and empowered the new governor,
+whom he appointed, to exercise his authority with the most undisguised
+usurpation of those rights which the colonists had heretofore enjoyed.
+<span class="inline">Governor Harvey.</span> Harvey's disposition was congenial with the rapacious and cruel system
+which he pursued, and he acted more like the satrap of an Eastern
+prince than the representative of a constitutional monarch. The
+colonists remonstrated and complained; but their appeals to the mercy
+and justice of the king were disregarded, and Harvey continued his
+course of insolence and tyranny until that famous parliament was
+assembled which rebelled against the folly and government of Charles.
+In 1641, a new and upright governor, Sir William Berkeley, was sent to
+Virginia, and the old provincial liberties were restored. In the
+contest between the king and parliament Virginia espoused the royal
+cause. When the parliament had triumphed over the king, Virginia was
+made to feel the force of republican displeasure, and oppressive
+restrictions were placed upon the trade of the colony, which were the
+more provoking in view of the indulgence which the New England
+colonies received from the protector. A revolt ensued, and Sir William
+Berkeley was forced from his retirement, and made to assume the
+government of the rebellious province. Cromwell, fortunately for
+Virginia, but unfortunately for the world, died before the rebellion,
+could be suppressed; and when Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was restored, Virginia
+joyfully returned to her allegiance. The supremacy of the Church of
+England was established by law, stipends were allowed to her
+ministers, and no clergymen were permitted to exercise their functions
+but such as held to the supremacy of the Church of England.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was as <span class="inline">Arbitrary Policy of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></span> incapable as his father of pursuing a generous
+and just policy to the colonies; and parliament itself looked upon the
+colonies as a source of profit to the nation, rather than as a part of
+the nation. No sooner was Charles seated on the throne, than
+parliament imposed a duty of five per cent. on all merchandise
+exported from, or imported into, any of the dominions belonging to the
+crown; and the famous Navigation Act was passed, which ordained that
+no commodities should be imported into any of the British settlements
+but in vessels built in England <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name="page322"></a>(p. 322)</span>or in her colonies; and that
+no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo and some other articles
+produced in the colonies, should be shipped from them to any other
+country but England. As a compensation, the colonies were permitted
+the exclusive cultivation of tobacco. The parliament, soon after, in
+1663, passed additional restrictions; and, advancing, step by step,
+gradually subjected the colonies to a most oppressive dependence on
+the mother country, and even went so far as to regulate the trade of
+the several colonies with each other. This system of monopoly and
+exclusion, of course, produced indignation and disgust, and sowed the
+seeds of ultimate rebellion. Indian hostilities were added to
+provincial discontent, and even the horrors of civil war disturbed the
+prosperity of the colony. An ambitious and unprincipled adventurer, by
+the name of Bacon, succeeded in fomenting dissension, and in
+successfully resisting the power of the governor. Providence arrested
+the career of the rebel in the moment of his triumph; and his sickness
+and death fortunately dissipated the tempest which threatened to be
+fatal to the peace and welfare of Virginia. Berkeley, on the
+suppression of the rebellion, punished the offenders with a severity
+which ill accorded with his lenient and pacific character. His course
+did not please the government in England, and he was superseded by
+Colonel Jeffries. But he died before his successor arrived. A
+succession of governors administered the colony as their disposition
+prompted, some of whom were wise and able, and others tyrannical and
+rapacious.</p>
+
+<p>The English revolution of 1688 produced also a change in the
+administration of the colony. Its dependence on the personal character
+of the sovereign was abolished, and its chartered liberties were
+protected. The king continued to appoint the royal governor, and the
+parliament continued to oppress the trade of the colonists; but they,
+on the whole, enjoyed the rights of freemen, and rapidly advanced in
+wealth and prosperity. On the accession of William and Mary, the
+colony contained fifty thousand inhabitants and forty-eight parishes;
+and, in 1676, the customs on tobacco alone were collected in England
+to the amount of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. The
+people generally belonged to the Episcopal Church, and the clergy each
+received, in every parish, a house and glebe, together with sixteen
+thousand <span class="pagenum"><a id="page323" name="page323"></a>(p. 323)</span>pounds of tobacco. The people were characterized
+for hospitality and urbanity, but were reproached for the indolence
+which a residence in scattered villages, a hot climate, and negro
+slavery must almost inevitably lead to. Literature, that solace of the
+refined and luxurious in the European world, was but imperfectly
+cultivated; nor was religion, in its stern and lofty developments, the
+animating principle of life, as in the New England settlements. But
+the people of Virginia were richer, more cultivated, and more
+aristocratic than the Puritans, more refined in manners, and more
+pleasing as companions.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Settlement of New England.</span> settlements in New England were made by a very different class of
+men from those who colonized Virginia. They were not adventurers in
+quest of gain; they were not broken-down gentlemen of aristocratic
+connections; they were not the profligate and dissolute members of
+powerful families. They were Puritans, they belonged to the middle
+ranks of society; they were men of stern and lofty virtue, of
+invincible energy, and hard and iron wills; they detested both the
+civil and religious despotism of their times, and desired, above all
+worldly consideration, the liberty of worshipping God according to the
+dictates of their consciences. They were chiefly Independents and
+Calvinists, among whom religion was a life, and not a dogma. They
+sought savage wilds, not for gain, not for ease, not for
+aggrandizement, but for liberty of conscience; and, for the sake of
+that inestimable privilege, they were ready to forego all the comforts
+and elegances of civilized life, and cheerfully meet all the dangers
+and make all the sacrifices which a residence among savage Indians,
+and in a cold and inhospitable climate, necessarily incurred.</p>
+
+<p>The efforts at colonization attempted by the company in the west of
+England, to which allusion has been made, signally failed. God did not
+design that New England should be settled by a band of commercial
+adventurers. A colony was permanently planted at Plymouth, within the
+limits of the corporation, of forty persons, to whom James had granted
+enormous powers, and a belt of country from the fortieth to the
+forty-eighth degree of north latitude in width, and from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific in length.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of August, 1620, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, freighted
+with the first Puritan colony, set sail from Southampton. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page324" name="page324"></a>(p. 324)</span>It
+composed a band of religious and devoted men, with their wives and
+children, who had previously sought shelter in Holland for the
+enjoyment of their religious opinions. The smaller vessel, after a
+trial on the Atlantic, was found incompetent to the voyage, and was
+abandoned. The more timid were allowed to disembark at old Plymouth.
+One hundred and one resolute souls again set sail in the Mayflower,
+for the unknown wilderness, with all its countless dangers and
+miseries. No common worldly interest could have sustained their souls.
+The first adventurers embarked for Virginia, without women or
+children; but the Puritans made preparation for a permanent residence.
+Providence, against their design, guided their little vessel to the
+desolate shores of the most barren part of Massachusetts. On the 9th
+of November, it was <span class="inline">Arrival of the Mayflower.</span> safely moored in the harbor of Cape Cod. On the
+11th, the colonists solemnly bound themselves into a body politic, and
+chose John Carver for their governor. On the 11th of December, (O.
+S.,) after protracted perils and sufferings, this little company
+landed on Plymouth Rock. Before the opening spring, more than half the
+colony had perished from privation, fatigue, and suffering, among whom
+was the governor himself. In the autumn, their numbers were recruited;
+but all the miseries of famine remained. They lived together as a
+community; but, for three or four months together, they had no corn
+whatever. In the spring of 1623, each family planted for itself, and
+land was assigned to each person in perpetual fee. The needy and
+defenceless colonists were fortunately preserved from the hostility of
+the natives, since a famine had swept away the more dangerous of their
+savage neighbors; nor did hostilities commence for several years. God
+protected the Pilgrims, in their weakness, from the murderous
+tomahawk, and from the perils of the wilderness. They suffered, but
+they existed. Their numbers slowly increased, but they were all
+Puritans,&mdash;were just the men to colonize the land, and lay the
+foundation of a great empire. From the beginning, a strict democracy
+existed, and all enjoyed ample exemption from the trammels of
+arbitrary power. No king took cognizance of their existence, or
+imposed upon them a despotic governor. They appointed their own
+rulers, and those rulers governed in the fear of God. Township
+independence existed from the first; and this is the nursery and the
+genius of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page325" name="page325"></a>(p. 325)</span>American institutions. The Plymouth colony was a
+self-constituted democracy; but it was composed of Englishmen, who
+loved their native land, and, while they sought unrestrained freedom,
+did not disdain dependence on the mother country, and a proper
+connection with the English government. They could not obtain a royal
+charter from the king; but the Grand Council of Plymouth&mdash;a new
+company, to which James had given the privileges of the old
+one&mdash;granted all the privileges which the colonists desired. They were
+too insignificant to attract much attention from the government, or
+excite the jealousy of a great corporation.</p>
+
+<p>Unobtrusive and unfettered, the colony slowly spread. But wherever it
+spread, it took root. It was a tree which Providence planted for all
+generations. It was established upon a rock. It was a branch of the
+true church, which was destined to defy storms and changes, because
+its strength was in the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>But all parts of New England were not, at first, settled by Puritan
+Pilgrims, or from motives of religion merely. The council of Plymouth
+issued grants of domains to various adventurers, who were animated by
+the spirit of gain. John Mason received a patent for what is now the
+state of <span class="inline">Settlement of New Hampshire.</span> New Hampshire. Portsmouth and Dover had an existence as early
+as 1623. Gorges obtained a grant of the whole district between the
+Piscataqua and the Kennebec. Saco, in 1636, contained one hundred and
+fifty people. But the settlements in New Hampshire and Maine, having
+disappointed the expectations of the patentees in regard to emolument
+and profit, were not very flourishing.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, a new company of Puritans was formed for the
+settlement of the country around Boston. The company obtained a royal
+charter, (1629,) which constituted them a body politic, by the name of
+the <span class="italic">Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay</span>. It conferred on
+the colonists the rights of English subjects, although it did not
+technically concede freedom of religious worship, or the privilege of
+self-government. The main body of the colonists settled in Salem. They
+were a band of devout and lofty characters; Calvinists in their
+religious creed, and republicans in their political opinions. Strict
+independency was the basis and the genius of their church. It was
+self-constituted, and all its officers were elected by the members.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page326" name="page326"></a>(p. 326)</span>
+
+<p>The charter of the company had been granted to a corporation
+consisting chiefly of merchants resident in London, and was more
+liberal than could have been expected from so bigoted and zealous a
+king as Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> If it did not directly concede the rights of
+conscience, it seemed to be silent respecting them; and the colonists
+were left to the unrestricted enjoyment of their religious and civil
+liberties. The intolerance and rigor of Archbishop Laud caused this
+new colony to be rapidly settled; and, as many distinguished men
+desired to emigrate, they sought and secured, from the company in
+England, a transfer of all the powers of government to the actual
+settlers in America. By this singular transaction, the municipal
+rights and privileges of the colonists were established on a firm
+foundation.</p>
+
+<p>In 1630, not far from fifteen hundred persons, with Winthrop as their
+leader and governor, emigrated to the new world, and settled first in
+Charlestown, and afterwards in Boston. In accordance with the charter
+which gave them such unexpected privileges, a General Court was
+assembled, to settle the government. But the privilege of the elective
+franchise was given only to the members of the church, and each church
+was formed after the model of the one in Salem. It cannot be said that
+a strict democracy was established, since church membership was the
+condition of the full enjoyment of political rights. But if the
+<span class="inline">Constitution of the Colony.</span> constitution was somewhat aristocratic and exclusive, aristocracy was
+not based on wealth or intellect. The Calvinists of Massachusetts
+recognized a government of the elect,&mdash;a sort of theocracy, in which
+only the religious, or those who professed to be so, and were admitted
+to be so, had a right to rule. This was the notion of Cromwell
+himself, the great idol and representative of the Independents, who
+fancied that the government of England should be intrusted only to
+those who were capable of saving England, and were worthy to rule
+England. As his party constituted, in his eyes, this elect body, and
+was, in reality, the best party,&mdash;composed of men who feared God, and
+were willing to be ruled by his laws,&mdash;therefore his party, as he
+supposed, had a right to overturn thrones, and establish a new
+theocracy on earth.</p>
+
+<p>This notion was a delusion in England, and proved fatal to all those
+who were blinded by it. Not so in America. Amid the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page327" name="page327"></a>(p. 327)</span>unbroken
+forests of New England, a colony of men was planted who generally
+recognized the principles of Cromwell; and one of the best governments
+the world has seen controlled the turbulent, rewarded the upright, and
+protected the rights and property of all classes with almost paternal
+fidelity and justice. The colony, however,&mdash;such is the weakness of
+man, such the degeneracy of his nature,&mdash;was doomed to dissension.
+Bigotry, from which no communities or individuals are fully free,
+drove some of the best men from the limits of the colony. Roger
+Williams, a minister in Salem, and one of the most worthy and
+enlightened men of his age, sought shelter from the persecution of his
+brethren amid the wilds on Narragansett Bay. In June, 1636, the
+lawgiver of Rhode Island, with five companions, embarked in an Indian
+canoe, and, sailing down the river, landed near a spring, on a
+sheltered spot, which he called <span class="italic">Providence</span>. He was gradually joined
+by others, who sympathized with his tolerant spirit and enlightened
+views, and the colony of Rhode Island became an asylum for the
+persecuted for many years. And there were many such. <span class="inline">Doctrines of the Puritans.</span> The
+Puritans were too earnest to live in harmony with those who differed from them on
+great religious questions; and a difference of views must have been
+expected among men so intellectual, so acute, and so fearless in
+speculation. How could dissenters from prevailing opinions fail to
+arise?&mdash;mystics, fanatics, and heretics? The idea of special divine
+illumination&mdash;ever the prevailing source of fanaticism, in all ages
+and countries&mdash;led astray some; and the desire for greater spiritual
+liberty animated others. Anne Hutchinson adopted substantially the
+doctrine of George Fox, that the spirit of God illuminates believers,
+independently of his written word; and she communicated her views to
+many others, who became, like her, arrogant and conceited, in spite of
+their many excellent qualities. Harry Vane, the governor, was among
+the number. But there was no reasoning with fanatics, who fancied
+themselves especially inspired; and, as they disturbed the peace of
+the colony, the leaders were expelled. Vane himself returned to
+England, to mingle in scenes more congenial with his excellent but
+excitable temper. In England, this illustrious friend of Milton
+greatly distinguished himself for his efforts in the cause of liberty,
+and ever remained its consistent advocate; opposing equally the
+tyranny of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page328" name="page328"></a>(p. 328)</span>the king, and the encroachments of those who
+overturned his throne.</p>
+
+<p>Connecticut, though assigned to a company in England, was early
+colonized by a detachment of Pilgrims from Massachusetts. In 1635,
+settlements were made at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. The
+following year, the excellent and illustrious Hooker led a company of
+one hundred persons through the forests to the delightful banks of the
+Connecticut, whose rich alluvial soil promised an easier support than
+the hard and stony land in the vicinity of Boston. They were scarcely
+settled before the <span class="inline">Pequod War.</span> Pequod war commenced, which involved all the
+colonies in a desperate and bloody contest with the Indians. But the
+Pequods were no match for Europeans, especially without firearms; and,
+in 1637, the tribe was nearly annihilated. The energy and severity
+exercised by the colonists, fighting for their homes, struck awe in
+the minds of the savages; and it was long before they had the courage
+to rally a second time. The Puritans had the spirit of Cromwell, and
+never hesitated to act with intrepid boldness and courage, when the
+necessity was laid upon them. They were no advocates of half measures.
+Their subsequent security and growth are, in no slight degree, to be
+traced to these rigorous measures,&mdash;measures which, in these times,
+are sometimes denounced as too severe, but the wisdom of which can
+scarcely be questioned when the results are considered. All the great
+masters of war, and of war with barbarians, have pursued a policy of
+unmitigated severity; and when a temporizing or timid course has been
+adopted with men incapable of being governed by reason, and animated
+by savage passions, that course has failed.</p>
+
+<p>After the various colonies were well established in New England, and
+more than twenty thousand had emigrated from the mother country, they
+were no longer regarded with benevolent interest by the king or his
+ministers. The Grand Council of Plymouth surrendered its charter to
+the king, and a writ of <span class="italic">quo warranto</span> was issued against the
+Massachusetts colony. But the Puritans refused to surrender their
+charter, and prepared for resistance against the malignant scheme of
+Strafford and Laud. Before they could be carried into execution, the
+struggle between the king and the Long Parliament had commenced. The
+less resistance <span class="pagenum"><a id="page329" name="page329"></a>(p. 329)</span>was
+forgotten in the greater. The colonies
+escaped the vengeance of a bigoted government. When the parliament
+triumphed, they were especially favored, and gradually acquired wealth
+and power. <span class="inline">Union of the New England Colonies.</span> The
+different colonies formed a confederation to protect
+themselves against the Dutch and French on the one side, and the
+Indians on the other. And this happily continued for half a century,
+and was productive of very important results. But the several colonies
+continued to make laws for their own people, to repress anarchy, and
+favor the cause of religion and unity. They did not always exhibit a
+liberal and enlightened policy. They destroyed witches; persecuted the
+Baptists and Quakers, and excluded them from their settlements. But,
+with the exception of religious persecution, their legislation was
+wise, and their general conduct was virtuous. They encouraged schools,
+and founded the University of Cambridge. They preserved the various
+peculiarities of Puritanism in regard to amusements, to the observance
+of the Sabbath, and to antipathy to any thing which reminded them of
+Rome, or even of the Church of England. But Puritanism was not an
+odious crust, a form, a dogma. It was a life, a reality; and was not
+unfavorable to the development of the most beautiful virtues of
+charity and benevolence, in a certain sphere. It was not a mere
+traditional Puritanism, which clings with disgusting tenacity to a
+form, when the spirit of love has departed; but it was a harmonious
+development of living virtues, which sympathized with education, with
+freedom, and with progress; which united men together by the bond of
+Christian love, and incited them to deeds of active benevolence and
+intrepid moral heroism. Nor did the Puritan Pilgrims persecute those
+who did not harmonize with them in order to punish them, but simply to
+protect themselves, and to preserve in their midst, and in their
+original purity, those institutions and those rights, for the
+possession of which they left their beloved native land for a savage
+wilderness, with its countless perils and miseries. But their
+hardships and afflictions were not of long continuance. With energy,
+industry, frugality, and love, they soon obtained security, comfort,
+and health. And it is no vain and idle imagination which assigns to
+those years, which succeeded the successful planting of the colony,
+the period <span class="pagenum"><a id="page330" name="page330"></a>(p. 330)</span>of the greatest happiness and virtue which New
+England has ever enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>Equally fortunate with the Puritans were those interesting people who
+settled Pennsylvania. If the Quakers were persecuted in the mother
+country and in New England, they found a shelter on the banks of the
+Delaware. There they obtained and enjoyed that freedom of religious
+worship which had been denied to the great founder of the sect, and
+which had even been withheld from them by men who had struggled with
+them for the attainment of this exalted privilege.</p>
+
+<p>In 1677, the Quakers obtained a charter which recognized the principle
+of democratic equality in the settlements in West Jersey; and in 1680,
+<span class="inline">William Penn.</span> William Penn received from the king, who was indebted to his father, a
+grant of an extensive territory, which was called <span class="italic">Pennsylvania</span>, of
+which he was constituted absolute proprietary. He also received a
+liberal charter, and gave his people privileges and a code of laws
+which exceeded in liberality any that had as yet been bestowed on any
+community. In 1682 he landed at Newcastle, and, soon after, at his new
+city on the banks of the Delaware, under the shelter of a large,
+spreading elm, made his immortal treaty with the Indians. He
+proclaimed to the Indian, heretofore deemed a foe never to be
+appeased, the principles of love which animated Fox, and which "Mary
+Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk." "We meet," said the lawgiver, "on
+the broad pathway of good faith and good will. No advantage shall be
+taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not
+call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too
+severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship
+between me and you I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains
+might rust, or the felling tree might break. We are the same as if one
+man's body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and
+blood."</p>
+
+<p>Such were the sublime doctrines which the illustrious founder of
+Pennsylvania declared to the Indians, and which he made the basis of
+his government, and the rule of his intercourse with his own people
+and with savage tribes. These doctrines were already instilled into
+the minds of the settlers, and they also found a response in the souls
+of the Indians. The sons of the wilderness long <span class="pagenum"><a id="page331" name="page331"></a>(p. 331)</span>cherished
+the recollection of the covenant, and never forgot its principles.
+While all the other settlements of the Europeans were suffering from
+the hostility of the red man, Pennsylvania alone enjoyed repose. "Not
+a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian."</p>
+
+<p>William Penn, although the absolute proprietor of a tract of country
+which was nearly equal in extent to England, sought no revenue and no
+arbitrary power. He gave to the settlers the right to choose their own
+magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, and only reserved to
+himself the power to veto the bills of the council&mdash;the privilege
+which our democracies still allow to their governors.</p>
+
+<p>Such a colony as he instituted could not but prosper. Its rising
+glories were proclaimed in every country of Europe, and the needy and
+distressed of all countries sought this realized Utopia. In two years
+after Philadelphia was settled, it contained six hundred houses. Peace
+was uninterrupted, and the settlement spread more rapidly than in any
+other part of North America.</p>
+
+<p>New Jersey, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, were all
+colonized by the English, shortly after the settlement of Virginia and
+New England, either by emigration from England, or from the other
+colonies. But there was nothing in their early history sufficiently
+marked to warrant a more extended sketch. In general, the Southern
+States were colonized by men who had not the religious elevation of
+the Puritans, nor the living charity of the Quakers. But their
+characters improved by encountering the evils to which they were
+subjected, and they became gradually imbued with those principles
+which in after times secured independence and union.</p>
+
+<p>The settlement of <span class="inline">Settlement of New York.</span> New York, however, merits a passing notice, since it
+was colonized by emigrants from Holland, which was by far the most
+flourishing commercial state of Europe in the seventeenth century. The
+Hudson River had been discovered (1609) by an Englishman, whose name
+it bears, but who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
+The right of possession of the country around it was therefore claimed
+by the United Provinces, and an association of Dutch merchants fitted
+out a ship to trade with the Indians. In 1614, a rude fort was erected
+on Manhattan Island, and, the next year, the settlement at Albany
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page332" name="page332"></a>(p. 332)</span>commenced, chiefly with a view of trading with the Indians.
+In 1623, New Amsterdam, now New York, was built for the purpose of
+colonization, and extensive territories were appropriated by the Dutch
+for the rising colony. This appropriation involved them in constant
+contention with the English, as well as with the Indians; nor was
+there the enjoyment of political privileges by the people, as in the
+New England colonies. The settlements resembled lordships in the
+Netherlands, and every one who planted a colony of fifty souls,
+possessed the absolute property of the lands he colonized, and became
+<span class="italic">Patroon</span>, or Lord of the Manor. Very little attention was given to
+education, and the colonists were not permitted to make cotton,
+woollen, or linen cloth, for fear of injury to the monopolists of the
+Dutch manufactures. The province had no popular freedom, and no public
+spirit. The poor were numerous, and the people were disinclined to
+make proper provision for their own protection.</p>
+
+<p>But the colony of the <span class="inline">Conquest of New Netherlands.</span> New
+Netherlands was not destined to remain under
+the government of the Dutch West India Company. It was conquered by
+the English in 1664, and the conquerors promised security to the
+customs, the religion, the institutions, and the possessions of the
+Dutch; and this promise was observed. In 1673, the colony was
+reconquered, but finally, in 1674, was ceded to the English, and the
+brother of Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> resumed his possession and government of New
+York, and delegated his power to Colonel Nichols, who ruled with
+wisdom and humanity. But the old Dutch Governor Stuyvesant remained in
+the city over which he had so honorably presided, and prolonged the
+empire of Dutch manners, if not of Dutch arms. The banks of the Hudson
+continued also to be peopled by the countrymen of the original
+colonists, who long preserved the language, customs, and religion of
+Holland. New York, nevertheless, was a royal province, and the
+administration was frequently intrusted to rapacious, unprincipled,
+and arbitrary governors.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were the various states which border on the Atlantic Ocean
+colonized, in which English laws, institutions, and language were
+destined to be perpetuated. In 1688, the various colonies, of which
+there were twelve, contained about two hundred thousand inhabitants;
+and all of these were Protestants; all cherished the principles
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page333" name="page333"></a>(p. 333)</span>of civil and religious liberty, and sought, by industry,
+frugality and patience, to secure independence and prosperity. From
+that period to this, no nation has grown more rapidly; no one has ever
+developed more surprising energies; no one has ever enjoyed greater
+social, political, and religious privileges.</p>
+
+<p>But the shores of North America were not colonized merely by the
+English. On the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi another body
+of colonists arrived, and introduced customs and institutions equally
+foreign to those of the English and Spaniards. The French settlements
+in Canada and Louisiana are now to be considered.</p>
+
+<p>Within seven years from the discovery of the continent, the fisheries
+of Newfoundland were known to French adventurers. The <span class="inline">Discovery of the St. Lawrence.</span> St. Lawrence was
+explored in 1506, and plans of colonization were formed in 1518. In
+1534, James Cartier, a native of St. Malo, sailed up the River St.
+Lawrence; but the severity of the climate in winter prevented an
+immediate settlement. It was not until 1603 that any permanent
+colonization was commenced. Quebec was then selected by Samuel
+Champlain, the father of the French settlements in Canada, as the site
+for a fort. In 1604, a charter was given, by Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, to an eminent
+Calvinist, De Monts, which gave him the sovereignty of Acadia, a tract
+embraced between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north
+latitude. The Huguenot emigrants were to enjoy their religion, the
+monopoly of the fur trade, and the exclusive control of the soil. They
+arrived at Nova Scotia the same year, and settled in Port Royal.</p>
+
+<p>In 1608, Quebec was settled by Champlain, who aimed at the glory of
+founding a state; and in 1627 he succeeded in establishing the
+authority of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But
+Champlain was also a zealous Catholic, and esteemed the salvation of a
+soul more than the conquest of a kingdom. He therefore selected
+Franciscan monks to effect the conversion of the Indians. But they
+were soon supplanted by the Jesuits, who, patronized by the government
+in France, soon made the new world the scene of their strange
+activity.</p>
+
+<p>At no period and in no country were <span class="inline">Jesuit Missionaries.</span> Jesuit missionaries more untiring
+laborers than amid the forests of North America. With the crucifix in
+their hands, they wandered about with savage tribes, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page334" name="page334"></a>(p. 334)</span>and by
+unparalleled labors of charity and benevolence, sought to convert them
+to the Christianity of Rome. As early as 1635, a college and a
+hospital were founded, by munificent patrons in France, for the
+benefit of all the tribes of red men from the waters of Lake Superior
+to the shores of the Kennebec. In 1641 Montreal, intended as a general
+rendezvous for converted Indians was occupied, and soon became the
+most important station in Canada, next to the fortress of Quebec.
+Before Eliot had preached to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid
+missionaries of the Jesuits had explored the shores of Lake Superior,
+had penetrated to the Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the
+Chippeways, the Hurons, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks. Soon after,
+they approached the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, explored the
+sources of the Mississippi, examined its various tributary streams,
+and floated down its mighty waters to its mouth. The missionaries
+claimed the territories on the Gulf of Mexico for the king of France,
+and in 1684, Louisiana was colonized by Frenchmen. The indefatigable
+La Salle, after having explored the Mississippi, from the Falls of St.
+Anthony to the sea, was assassinated by one of his envious followers,
+but not until he had earned the immortal fame of being the father of
+western colonization.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were the North American settlements effected. In 1688, England
+possessed those colonies which border on the Atlantic Ocean, from
+Maine to Georgia. The French possessed Nova Scotia, Canada, Louisiana,
+and claimed the countries bordering on the Mississippi and its
+branches, from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and also the
+territories around the great lakes.</p>
+
+<p>A mutual jealousy, as was to be expected, sprung up between France and
+England respecting their colonial possessions. Both kingdoms aimed at
+the sovereignty of North America. The French were entitled, perhaps,
+by right of discovery, to the greater extent of territory; but their
+colonies were very unequal to those of the English in respect to
+numbers, and still more so in moral elevation and intellectual
+culture.</p>
+
+<p>But Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, then in the height of his power, meditated the
+complete subjection of the English settlements. The French allied
+themselves with the Indians, and savage wars were the result. The
+Mohawks and other tribes, encouraged by the French, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page335" name="page335"></a>(p. 335)</span>
+committed fearful massacres at Deerfield and Haverhill, and the
+English settlers were kept in a state of constant alarm and fear. By
+the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the colonists obtained peace and
+considerable accession of territory. In 1720, John Law proposed his
+celebrated financial scheme to the prince regent of France, and the
+Mississippi Company was chartered, and Louisiana colonized. Much
+profit was expected to be derived from this company. It will be seen,
+in another chapter, how miserably it failed. It was based on wrong
+foundations, and the project of deriving wealth from the colonies came
+to nought; nor did it result in a rapid colonization.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the English colonies advanced in <span class="inline">Prosperity of the English Colonies.</span> wealth, numbers, and
+political importance, and attracted the notice of the English
+government. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1711, was solicited to tax the
+colonies; but he nobly rejected the proposal. He encouraged trade to
+the utmost latitude, and tribute was only levied by means of
+consumption of British manufactures. But restrictions were
+subsequently imposed on colonial enterprise, which led to collisions
+between the colonies and the mother country. The Southern colonies
+were more favored than the Northern, but all of them were regarded
+with the view of promoting the peculiar interests of Great Britain.
+Other subjects of dispute also arose; but, nevertheless, the colonies,
+especially those of New England, made rapid strides. There was a
+general diffusion of knowledge, the laws were well observed, and the
+ministers of religion were an honor to their sacred calling. The earth
+was subdued, and replenished with a hardy and religious set of men.
+Sentiments of patriotism and independence were ardently cherished. The
+people were trained to protect themselves; and, in their town
+meetings, learned to discuss political questions, and to understand
+political rights. Some ecclesiastical controversies disturbed the
+peace of parishes and communities, but did not retard the general
+prosperity. Some great lights also appeared. David Brainerd performed
+labors of disinterestedness and enlightened piety, which have never
+been surpassed, and never equalled, even in zeal and activity, except
+by those of the earlier Jesuits. Jonathan Edwards stamped his genius
+on the whole character of New England theology, and won the highest
+honor as a metaphysician, even from European <span class="pagenum"><a id="page336" name="page336"></a>(p. 336)</span>admirers. His
+treatise on the Freedom of the Will has secured the praises of
+philosophers and divines of all sects and parties from Hume to
+Chalmers, and can "never be attentively perused without a sentiment of
+admiration at the strength and stretch of the human understanding."
+Benjamin Franklin also had arisen: he had not, at this early epoch,
+distinguished himself for philosophical discoveries; but he had
+attracted attention as the editor of a newspaper, in which he
+fearlessly defended freedom of speech and the great rights of the
+people. But greater than Franklin, greater than any hero which modern
+history has commemorated, was that young Virginia planter, who was
+then watching, with great solicitude, the interests and glory of his
+country, and preparing himself for the great conflicts which have
+given him immortality.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of the colonies, and their great importance in the eyes of
+the Europeans, had now provoked the jealousy of the two leading powers
+of Europe, and the colonial struggle between England and France began.</p>
+
+<p>The French claimed the <span class="inline">French Encroachments.</span> right of erecting a chain of fortresses along
+the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada with
+Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with the
+Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the American
+continent. But these designs were displeasing to the English
+colonists, who had already extended their settlements far into the
+interior. The English ministry was also indignant in view of these
+movements, by which the colonies were completely surrounded by
+military posts. England protested; but the French artfully protracted
+negotiations until the fortifications were completed.</p>
+
+<p>It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that George
+Washington, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by the colony of
+Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey through the trackless
+wilderness, attended but by one person, in no slight degree marked him
+out, and prepared him for his subsequently great career.</p>
+
+<p>While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the
+cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their
+encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page337" name="page337"></a>(p. 337)</span>hastened the rupture between the two countries. Orders were
+sent to the colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in
+Nova Scotia, and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then
+commenced that great war, which resulted in the loss of the French
+possessions in America. But this war was also allied with the contests
+which grew out of the Austrian Succession, and therefore will be
+presented in a separate chapter on the Pelham administration, during
+which the Seven Years' War, in the latter years of the reign of
+George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, commenced.</p>
+
+<p>But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed not
+merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those in the
+<span class="inline">European Settlements in the East.</span> East Indies; and these must be alluded to in order to form a general
+idea of European colonization, and of the causes which led to the
+mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to the great wars
+which desolated the various European nations.</p>
+
+<p>From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to those,
+therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the globe. Even to
+those old countries had European armies penetrated; even there
+European cupidity and enterprise were exercised.</p>
+
+<p>As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely
+extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located the
+East India Company's servants. The first English settlement of
+importance was on the Island of Java; but, in 1658, a grant of land
+was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where was erected
+the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island of Bombay was
+ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and appointed the
+capital of the British settlements in India. In 1698, the English had
+a settlement on the Hooghly, which afterwards became the metropolis of
+British power.</p>
+
+<p>But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also <span class="inline">French Settlements in India.</span> colonies in India
+for purposes of trade. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> established a company, in imitation
+of the English, which sought a settlement on the Hooghly. The French
+company also had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about
+eighty miles south of Madras, called Pondicherry, and had colonized
+two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of
+France and the Isle of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were
+controlled by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page338" name="page338"></a>(p. 338)</span>two presidencies, one on the Isle of France,
+and the other at Pondicherry.</p>
+
+<p>When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, these two
+French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior <span class="inline">La Bourdonnais and Dupleix.</span> genius,&mdash;La
+Bourdonnais and Dupleix,&mdash;both of them men of great experience in
+Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests of the company, so
+far as their own personal ambition would permit. When Commodore
+Burnet, with an English squadron, was sent into the Indian seas, La
+Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting out an expedition to oppose it, and
+even contemplated the capture of Madras. No decisive action was fought
+at sea; but the French governor succeeded in taking Madras. This
+success displeased the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to
+Dupleix, and complained of the aggression of his countrymen in
+attacking a place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame
+of La Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as
+being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling the
+conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own
+presidency.</p>
+
+<p>The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La Bourdonnais
+from following up the advantage of his victory, and he failed in his
+attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in consequence, returned to
+France, and died from the effects of an unjust imprisonment in the
+Bastile.</p>
+
+<p>Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the principal
+inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to
+escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a
+mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service,
+and soon found occasion to distinguish himself.</p>
+
+<p>But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of founding an
+Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the Carnatic. And
+India was in a state to favor his enterprises. The empire of the Great
+Mogul, whose capital was Delhi, was tottering from decay. It had been,
+in the sixteenth century, the most powerful empire in the world. The
+magnificence of his palaces astonished even Europeans accustomed to
+the splendor of Paris and Versailles. His viceroys ruled over
+provinces larger and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page339" name="page339"></a>(p. 339)</span>richer than either France or England.
+And even the lieutenants of these viceroys frequently aspired to
+independence.</p>
+
+<p>The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated the
+French, and befriended the English. On the death of the Viceroy of the
+Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix conceived his
+gigantic scheme of conquest. To the throne of this viceroy there were
+several claimants, two of whom applied to the French for assistance.
+This was what the Frenchman desired, and he allied himself with the
+pretenders. With the assistance of the French, Mirzappa Juy obtained
+the viceroyalty. Dupleix was splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted
+with the command of seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a
+present of two hundred thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession of the
+rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon invested by the
+French and Indian forces.</p>
+
+<p>To raise this siege, and turn the tide of French conquest, became the
+object of Clive, then twenty-five years of age. He represented to his
+superior the importance of this post, and also of striking a decisive
+blow. He suggested the plan of an attack on Arcot itself, the
+residence of the nabob. His project was approved, and he was placed at
+the head of a force of three hundred sepoys and two hundred
+Englishmen. The city was taken by surprise, and its capture induced
+the nabob to relinquish the siege of Trichinopoly in order to retake
+his capital. But Clive so intrenched his followers, that they
+successfully defended the place after exhibiting prodigies of valor.
+The fortune of war turned to the side of the gallant Englishman, and
+Dupleix, who was no general, retreated before the victors. Clive
+obtained the command of Fort St. David, an important fortress near
+Madras, and soon controlled the Carnatic.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, the settlements on the Hooghly were plundered by
+Suraj-w Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal. Bengal was the most fertile and
+populous province of the empire of the Great Mogul. It was watered by
+the Ganges, the sacred river of India, and its cities were
+surprisingly rich. Its capital was Moorshedabad, a city nearly as
+large as London; and here the young viceroy lived in luxury and
+effeminacy, and indulged in every species of cruelty <span class="pagenum"><a id="page340" name="page340"></a>(p. 340)</span>and
+folly. He hated the English of Calcutta, and longed to plunder them.
+He accordingly seized the infant city, and shut up one hundred and
+forty of the colonists in a dungeon of the fort, a room twenty feet by
+fourteen, with only two small windows; and in a few hours, one hundred
+and seventeen of the English died. The horrors of that night have been
+splendidly painted by Macaulay in his essay on Clive, and the place of
+torment, called the <span class="italic">Black Hole of Calcutta</span>, is synonymous with
+suffering and misery. Clive resolved to avenge this insult to his
+countrymen. An expedition was fitted out at Madras to punish the
+inhuman nabob, consisting of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen
+hundred sepoys. It was a small force, but proved sufficient. Calcutta
+was recovered and the army of the nabob was routed. Clive intrigued
+with the enemies of the despot in his own city; and, by means of
+unparalleled treachery, dissimulation, art, and violence, Suraj-w
+Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier, one of the conspirators, was
+made nabob in his place. In return for the services of Clive, the new
+viceroy splendidly rewarded him. A hundred boats conveyed the
+treasures of Bengal down the river to Calcutta. Clive himself, who had
+walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with diamonds and
+rubies, condescended to receive a present of three hundred thousand
+pounds. His moderation has been commended by his biographers in not
+asking for a million.</p>
+
+<p>The elevation of Meer Jaffier was, of course, displeasing to the
+imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone him.
+The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the English, and,
+with the powerful assistance of the Europeans, the forces of the
+successor of the great Aurungzebe were signally routed. But the great
+sums he was obliged to bestow on his allies, and the encroaching
+spirit which they manifested, changed his friendship into enmity. He
+plotted with the Dutch and the French to overturn the power of the
+English. Clive divined his object, and Meer Jaffier was deposed in his
+turn. The Viceroy of Bengal was but the tool of his English
+protectors, and British power was firmly planted in the centre of
+India. Calcutta became the capital of a great empire, and the East
+India Company, a mere assemblage of merchants and stockjobbers, by
+their system of perfidy, craft and violence, became the rulers and
+disposers of provinces <span class="pagenum"><a id="page341" name="page341"></a>(p. 341)</span>which Alexander had coveted in vain.
+The servants of this company made their fortunes, and untold wealth
+was transported to England. Clive obtained a fortune of forty thousand
+pounds a year, an Irish peerage, and a seat in the House of Commons.
+He became an object of popular idolatry, courted by ministers, and
+extolled by Pitt. He was several times appointed governor-general of
+the country he had conquered, and to him England is indebted for the
+foundation of her power in India. But his fame and fortune finally
+excited the jealousy of his countrymen, and he was made to bear the
+sins of the company which he had enriched. The malignity with which he
+was pursued, and the disease which he acquired in India, operated
+unfortunately on a temper naturally irritable; his reason became
+overpowered, and he died, in 1774, by his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>The subsequent career of Hastings, and final <span class="inline">Conquest of India.</span> conquest of India, form
+part of the political history of England itself, during those
+administrations which yet remain to be described. The colonization of
+America and the East Indies now became involved with the politics of
+rival statesmen; and its history can only be appreciated by
+considering those acts and principles which marked the career of the
+Newcastles and the Pitts. The administration of the Pelhams,
+therefore, next claims attention.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;The best histories pertaining to the conquests
+     of the Spaniards are undoubtedly those of Mr. Prescott.
+     Irving's Columbus should also be consulted. For the early
+     history of the North American colonies, the attention of
+     students is directed to Grahame's and Bancroft's Histories
+     of the United States. In regard to India, see Elphinstone's,
+     Gleig's, Ormes's, and Mills's Histories of India; Malcolm's
+     Life of Clive; and Macaulay's Essay on Clive. For the
+     contemporaneous history of Great Britain, the best works are
+     those of Tyndal, Smollett, Lord Mahon, and Belsham;
+     Russell's Modern Europe; the Pictorial History of England;
+     and the continuation of Mackintosh, in Lardner's Cabinet
+     Cyclopedia.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page342" name="page342"></a>(p. 342)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="21">XXI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE REIGN OF GEORGE <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>The English nation acquiesced in the government of Sir Robert Walpole
+for nearly thirty years&mdash;the longest administration in the annals of
+the country. And he was equal to the task, ruling, on the whole,
+beneficently, promoting peace, regulating the finances, and
+encouraging those great branches of industry which lie at the
+foundation of English wealth and power. But the intrigues of rival
+politicians, and the natural desire of change, which all parties feel
+after a long repose, plunged the nation into war, and forced the able
+minister to retire. The opposition, headed by the Prince of Wales,
+supported by such able statesmen as Bolingbroke, Carteret,
+Chesterfield, Pulteney, Windham, and Pitt, and sustained by the
+writings of those great literary geniuses whom Walpole disdained and
+neglected, compelled George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, at last, to part with a man who had
+conquered his narrow prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>But the Tories did not come into power on the retirement of Walpole.
+His old confederates remained at the head of affairs, and Carteret,
+afterwards Lord Granville, the most brilliant man of his age, became
+the leading minister. But even he, so great in debate, and so
+distinguished for varied attainments, did not long retain his place.
+None of the abuses which existed under the former administration were
+removed; and moreover the war which the nation had clamored for, had
+proved disastrous. He also had to bear the consequences of Walpole's
+temporizing policy which could no longer be averted.</p>
+
+<p>The new ministry was headed by Henry <span class="inline">The Pelhams.</span> Pelham, as first lord of the
+treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, and by the Duke of
+Newcastle, as principal secretary of state. These two men formed,
+also, a coalition with the leading members of both houses of
+parliament, Tories as well as Whigs; and, for the first time since the
+accession of the Stuarts, there was no opposition. This great
+coalition was called the "Broad Bottom," and comprehended <span class="pagenum"><a id="page343" name="page343"></a>(p. 343)</span>
+the Duke of Bedford, the Earls of Chesterfield and Harrington, Lords
+Lyttleton and Hardwicke, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr Doddington, Mr. Pitt,
+Mr. Fox, and Mr. Murray. The three latter statesmen were not then
+formidable.</p>
+
+<p>The Pelhams were descended from one of the oldest, proudest and
+richest families in England, and had an immense parliamentary
+influence from their aristocratic connections, their wealth, and their
+experience. They were not remarkable for genius so much as for
+sagacity, tact, and intrigue. They were extremely ambitious, and fond
+of place and power. They ruled England as the representatives of the
+aristocracy&mdash;the last administration which was able to defy the
+national will. After their fall, the people had a greater voice in the
+appointment of ministers. Pitt and Fox were commoners in a different
+sense from what Walpole was, and represented that class which has ever
+since ruled England,&mdash;not nobles, not the democracy, but a class
+between them, composed of the gentry, landed proprietors, lawyers,
+merchants, manufacturers, men of leisure, and their dependants.</p>
+
+<p>The administration of the Pelhams is chiefly memorable for the Scotch
+rebellion of 1745, and for the great European war which grew out of
+colonial and commercial ambition, and the encroachments of Frederic
+the Great.</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch rebellion was produced by the attempts of the young
+<span class="inline">The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart.</span> Pretender, Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, to regain the
+throne of his ancestors. His adventures have the interest of romance,
+and have generally excited popular sympathy. He was born at Rome in
+1720; served, at the age of fifteen, under the Duke of Berwick, in
+Spain, and, at the age of twenty, received overtures from some
+discontented people of Scotland to head an insurrection. There was, at
+this time, great public distress, and George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was exceedingly
+unpopular. The Jacobites were powerful, and thousands wished for a
+change, including many persons of rank and influence.</p>
+
+<p>With only seven followers, in a small vessel, he landed on one of the
+Western Islands, 18th of July, 1745. Even had the promises which had
+been made to him by France, or by people in Scotland, been fulfilled,
+his enterprise would have been most hazardous. But, without money,
+men, or arms, his hopes were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page344" name="page344"></a>(p. 344)</span>desperate. Still he cherished
+that presumptuous self-confidence which so often passes for bravery,
+and succeeded better than could have been anticipated. Several
+chieftains of the Highland clans joined his standard, and he had the
+faculty of gaining the hearts of his followers. At Borrodaile occurred
+his first interview with the chivalrous Donald Cameron of Lochiel, who
+was perfectly persuaded of the desperate character of his enterprise,
+but nevertheless aided it with generous self-devotion.</p>
+
+<p>The standard of Charles Edward was raised at Glenfinnan, on the 19th
+of August, and a little band of seven hundred adventurers and
+enthusiastic Highlanders resolved on the conquest of England! Never
+was devotion to an unfortunate cause more romantic and sincere. Never
+were energies more generously made, or more miserably directed. But
+the first gush of enthusiasm and bravery was attended with success,
+and the Pretender soon found himself at the head of fifteen hundred
+men, and on his way to Edinburgh, marching among people friendly to
+his cause, whom he endeared by every attention and gentlemanly
+artifice. The simple people of the north of Scotland were won by his
+smiles and courtesy, and were astonished at the exertions which the
+young prince made, and the fatigues he was able to endure.</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of September, Charles had reached Linlithgow, only sixteen
+miles from Edinburgh, where he was magnificently entertained in the
+ancient and favorite palace of the kings of Scotland. Two days after,
+he made his triumphal entry into the capital of his ancestors, the
+place being unprepared for resistance. Colonel Gardiner, with his
+regiment of dragoons, was faithful to his trust, and the magistrates
+of Edinburgh did all in their power to prevent the surrender of the
+city. But the great body of the citizens preferred to trust to the
+clemency of Charles, than run the risk of defence.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without military stores, or pecuniary resources, or powerful
+friends, simply by the power of persuasion, the Pretender, in the
+short space of two months from his landing in Scotland, <span class="inline">Surrender of Edinburgh.</span> quietly took
+possession of the most powerful city of the north. The Jacobites put
+no restraint to their idolatrous homage, and the ladies welcomed the
+young and handsome chevalier with extravagant <span class="pagenum"><a id="page345" name="page345"></a>(p. 345)</span>adulation.
+Even the Whigs pitied him, and permitted him to enjoy his brief hour
+of victory.</p>
+
+<p>At Edinburgh, Charles received considerable reënforcement, and took
+from the city one thousand stand of arms. He gave his followers but
+little time for repose, and soon advanced against the royal army
+commanded by Sir John Cope. The two armies met at Preston Pans, and
+were of nearly equal force. The attack was made by the invader, and
+was impetuous and unlooked for. Nothing could stand before the
+enthusiasm and valor of the Highlanders, and in five minutes the rout
+commenced, and a great slaughter of the regular army occurred. Among
+those who fell was the distinguished Colonel Gardiner, an old veteran,
+who refused to fly.</p>
+
+<p>Charles followed up <span class="inline">Success of the Pretender.</span> his victory with moderation, and soon was master
+of all Scotland. He indulged his taste for festivities, at Holyrood,
+for a while, and neglected no means to conciliate the Scotch. He
+flattered their prejudices, gave balls and banquets, made love to
+their most beautiful women, and denied no one access to his presence.
+Poets sang his praises, and women extolled his heroism and beauty. The
+light, the gay, the romantic, and the adventurous were on his side;
+but the substantial and wealthy classes were against him, for they
+knew he must be conquered in the end.</p>
+
+<p>Still his success had been remarkable, and for it he was indebted to
+the Highlanders, who did not wish to make him king of England, but
+only king of Scotland. But Charles deceived them. He wanted the
+sceptre of George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>; and when he commenced his march into England,
+their spirits flagged, and his cause became hopeless. There was one
+class of men who were inflexibly hostile to him&mdash;the Presbyterian
+ministers. They looked upon him, from the first, with coldness and
+harshness, and distrusted both his religion and sincerity. On them all
+his arts, and flattery, and graces were lost; and they represented the
+substantial part of the Scottish nation. It is extremely doubtful
+whether Charles could ever have held Edinburgh, even if English armies
+had not been sent against him.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles had played a desperate game from the beginning, for the
+small chance of winning a splendid prize. He, therefore, after resting
+his troops, and collecting all the force he could, turned <span class="pagenum"><a id="page346" name="page346"></a>(p. 346)</span>
+his face to England at the head of five thousand men, well armed and
+well clothed, but discontented and dispirited. They had never
+contemplated the invasion of England, but only the recovery of the
+ancient independence of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of November, the Pretender set foot upon English soil, and
+entered Carlisle in triumph. But his forces, instead of increasing,
+diminished, and no popular enthusiasm supported the courage of his
+troops. But he advanced towards the south, and reached Derby
+unmolested on the 4th of December. There he learned that the royal
+army, headed by the Duke of Cumberland, with twelve thousand veterans,
+was advancing rapidly against him.</p>
+
+<p>His followers clamored to return, and refused to advance another step.
+They now fully perceived that success was not only hopeless, but that
+victory would be of no advantage to them; that they would be
+sacrificed by a man who only aimed at the conquest of England.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was well aware of the desperate nature of the contest, but had
+<span class="inline">The Retreat of the Pretender.</span> no desire to retreat. His situation was not worse than what it had
+been when he landed on the Hebrides. Having penetrated to within one
+hundred and twenty miles of London, against the expectations of every
+one, why should he not persevere? Some unlooked-for success, some
+lucky incidents, might restore him to the throne of his grandfather.
+Besides, a French army of ten thousand was about to land in England.
+The Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in the country, was ready to
+declare in his favor. London was in commotion. A chance remained.</p>
+
+<p>But his followers thought only of their homes, and Charles was obliged
+to yield to an irresistible necessity. Like Richard C&oelig;ur de Lion
+after the surrender of Acre, he was compelled to return, without
+realizing the fruit of bravery and success. Like the lion-hearted
+king, pensive and sad, sullen and miserable, he gave the order to
+retreat. His spirits, hitherto buoyant and gladsome, now fell, and
+despondency and despair succeeded vivacity and hope. He abandoned
+himself to grief and vexation, lingered behind his retreating army,
+and was reckless of his men and of their welfare. And well he may have
+been depressed. The motto of Hampden, "<span class="italic">Vestigia nulla retrorsum</span>,"
+had also governed him. But others would not be animated by it, and he
+was ruined.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page347" name="page347"></a>(p. 347)</span>
+
+<p>But his miserable and dejected army succeeded in reaching their native
+soil, although pursued by the cavalry of two powerful armies, in the
+midst of a hostile population, and amid great sufferings from hunger
+and fatigue. On the 26th of December, he entered Glasgow, levied a
+contribution on the people, and prepared himself for his final battle.
+He retreated to the Highlands, and spent the winter in recruiting his
+troops, and in taking fortresses. On the 15th of April, 1746, he drew
+up his army on the moor of <span class="inline">Battle of Culloden.</span> Culloden, near Inverness, with the
+desperate resolution of attacking, with vastly inferior forces, the
+Duke of Cumberland, intrenched nine miles distant. The design was
+foolish and unfortunate. It was early discovered; and the fresh troops
+of the royal duke attacked the dispirited, scattered, and wearied
+followers of Charles Edward before they could form themselves in
+battle array. They defended themselves with valor. But what is valor
+against overwhelming force? The army of Charles was totally routed,
+and his hopes were blasted forever.</p>
+
+<p>The most horrid barbarities and cruelties were inflicted by the
+victors. The wounded were left to die. The castles of rebel chieftains
+were razed to the ground. Herds and flocks were driven away, and the
+people left to perish with hunger. Some of the captives were sent to
+Barbadoes, others were imprisoned, and many were shot. A reward of
+thirty thousand pounds was placed on the head of the Pretender; but he
+nevertheless escaped. After wandering a while as a fugitive,
+disguised, wearied, and miserable, hunted from fortress to fortress,
+and from island to island, he succeeded, by means of the unparalleled
+loyalty and fidelity of his few Highland followers, in securing a
+vessel, and in escaping to France. His adventures among the Western
+Islands, especially those which happened while wandering, in the
+disguise of a female servant, with Flora Macdonald, are highly
+romantic and wonderful. Equally wonderful is the fact that, of the
+many to whom his secret was intrusted, not one was disposed to betray
+him, even in view of so splendid a bribe as thirty thousand pounds.
+But this fact, though surprising, is not inconceivable. Had Washington
+been unfortunate in his contest with the mother country, and had he
+wandered as a fugitive amid the mountains of Vermont, would not many
+Americans have shielded him, even in view of a reward of one hundred
+thousand pounds?</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page348" name="page348"></a>(p. 348)</span>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Latter Days of the Pretender.</span> latter days of the Pretender were spent in Rome and Florence. He
+married a Polish princess, and assumed the title of <span class="italic">Duke of Albany</span>.
+He never relinquished the hope of securing the English crown, and
+always retained his politeness and grace of manner. But he became an
+object of pity, not merely from his poverty and misfortunes, but also
+from the vice of intemperance, which he acquired in Scotland. He died
+of apoplexy, in 1788, and left no legitimate issue. The last male heir
+of the house of Stuart was the Cardinal of York, who died in 1807, and
+who was buried in St. Peter's Cathedral; over whose mortal remains was
+erected a marble monument, by Canova, through the munificence of
+George <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, to whom the cardinal had left the crown jewels which
+James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> had carried with him to France. This monument bears the
+names of James <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, Charles <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, and Henry <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, kings of England;
+titles never admitted by the English. With the battle of Culloden
+expired the hopes of the Catholics and Jacobites to restore
+Catholicism and the Stuarts.</p>
+
+<p>The great European war, which was begun by Sir Robert Walpole, not
+long before his retirement, was another great event which happened
+during the administration of the Pelhams, and with which their
+administration was connected. The Spanish war was followed by the war
+of the Austrian Succession.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Theresa, <span class="inline">Maria Theresa.</span> Queen of Hungary, ascended the oldest and proudest
+throne of Europe,&mdash;that of Germany,&mdash;amid a host of claimants. The
+Elector of Bavaria laid claim to her hereditary dominions in Bohemia;
+the King of Sardinia made pretension to the duchy of Milan; while the
+Kings of Poland, Spain, France, and Prussia disputed with her her
+rights to the whole Austrian succession. Never were acts of gross
+injustice meditated with greater audacity. Just as the young and
+beautiful princess ascended the throne of Charlemagne, amid
+embarrassments and perplexities,&mdash;such as an exhausted treasury, a
+small army, a general scarcity, threatened hostilities with the Turks,
+and absolute war with France,&mdash;the new king of Prussia, Frederic,
+surnamed the Great, availing himself of her distresses, seized one of
+the finest provinces of her empire. The first notice which the queen
+had of the seizure of Silesia, was an insulting speech from the
+Prussian ambassador. "I come," said he, "with safety for the house of
+Austria on the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page349" name="page349"></a>(p. 349)</span>one hand, and the imperial crown for your
+royal highness on the other. The troops of my master are at the
+service of the queen, and cannot fail of being acceptable, at a time
+when she is in want of both. And as the king, my master, from the
+situation of his dominions, will be exposed to great danger from this
+alliance with the Queen of Hungary, it is hoped that, as an
+indemnification, the queen will not offer him less than the whole
+duchy of Silesia."</p>
+
+<p>The queen, of course, was indignant in view of this cool piece of
+villany, and prepared to resist. War with all the continental powers
+was the result. France joined the coalition to deprive the queen of
+her empire. Two French armies invaded Germany. The Elector of Bavaria
+marched, with a hostile army, to within eight miles of Vienna. The
+King of Prussia made himself master of Silesia. Abandoned by all her
+allies,&mdash;without an army, or ministers, or money,&mdash;the queen fled to
+Hungary, her hereditary dominions, and threw herself on the generosity
+of her subjects. She invoked the states of the Diet, and, clad in deep
+mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and a cimeter at
+her side, she traversed the hall in which her nobles were assembled,
+and addressed them, in the immortal language of Rome, respecting her
+wrongs and her distresses. Her faithful subjects responded to her
+call; and youth, beauty, and rank, in distress, obtained their natural
+triumph. "A thousand swords leaped from their scabbards," and the old
+hall rung with the cry, "We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa."
+Tears started from the eyes of the queen, whom misfortunes and insult
+could not bend, and called forth, even more than her words, the
+enthusiasm of her subjects.</p>
+
+<p>It was in defence of this injured and noble queen that the English
+parliament voted supplies and raised armies. This was the war which
+characterized the Pelham administration, and to which Walpole was
+opposed. But it will be further presented, when allusion is made to
+Frederic the Great.</p>
+
+<p>France no sooner formed an alliance with Prussia, against Austria,
+than the "balance of power" seemed to be disturbed. To restore this
+balance, and preserve Austria, was the aim of England. To the desire
+to preserve this power may be traced most of the wars of the
+eighteenth century. The idea of a balance of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page350" name="page350"></a>(p. 350)</span>power was the
+leading principle which animated all the diplomatic transactions of
+Europe for more than a century.</p>
+
+<p>By the treaty of Breslau, (1742,) Maria Theresa yielded up to Frederic
+the province of Silesia, and Europe might have remained at peace. But
+as England and France were both involved in the contest, their old
+spirit of rivalry returned; and, from auxiliaries, they became
+principals in the war, and soon renewed it. The theatre of strife was
+changed from Germany to Holland, and the arms of France were
+triumphant. The Duke of Cumberland was routed by Marshal Saxe at the
+great battle of Fontenoy; and this battle restored peace, for a while,
+to Germany. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, husband of Maria Theresa, was
+elected Emperor of Germany, and assumed the title of Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>But it was easier to restore tranquillity to Germany, than peace
+between England and France; both powers panting for military glory,
+and burning with mutual jealousy. The peace of Aix la Chapelle, in
+1748, was a truce rather than a treaty; and France and England soon
+found occasion to plunge into new hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>During the war of the Austrian Succession, hostilities had not been
+confined to the continent of Europe. As colonial jealousy was one of
+the animating principles of two of the leading powers in the contest,
+the warfare extended to the colonies themselves. A body of French,
+from Cape Breton, surprised the little English garrison of Canseau,
+destroyed the fort and fishery, and removed eighty men, as prisoners
+of war, to <span class="inline">Capture of Louisburg.</span> Louisburg&mdash;the strongest fortress, next to Quebec, in
+French America. These men were afterwards sent to Boston, on parole,
+and, while there, communicated to Governor Shirley the state of the
+fortress in which they had been confined. Shirley resolved to capture
+it, and the legislature of Massachusetts voted supplies for the
+expedition. All the New England colonies sent volunteers; and the
+united forces, of about four thousand men were put under the command
+of William Pepperell, a merchant at Kittery Point, near Portsmouth.
+The principal part of the forces was composed of fishermen; but they
+were Yankees. Amid the fogs of April, this little army, rich in
+expedients, set sail to take a fortress which five hundred men could
+defend against five thousand. But they were successful, aided by an
+English fleet; and, after a siege of three months, Louisburg <span class="pagenum"><a id="page351" name="page351"></a>(p. 351)</span>
+surrendered, (1745)&mdash;justly deemed the greatest achievement of the
+whole war.</p>
+
+<p>But the French did not relinquish their hopes of gaining an ascendency
+on the American continent, and prosecuted their labors of erecting on
+the Ohio their chain of fortifications, to connect Canada with
+Louisiana. The erection of these forts was no small cause of the
+breaking out of fresh hostilities. When the <span class="inline">Great Colonial Contest.</span> contest was renewed
+between Maria Theresa and Frederic the Great, and the famous Seven
+Years' War began, the English resolved to conquer all the French
+possessions in America.</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting, however, for directions from England, Governor
+Dinwiddie, of Virginia, raised a regiment of troops, of which George
+Washington was made lieutenant-colonel, and with which he marched
+across the wilderness to attack Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, at the
+junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers.</p>
+
+<p>That unsuccessful expedition was the commencement of the great
+colonial contest in which Canada was conquered. Early in 1755, General
+Braddock was sent to America to commence offensive operations. The
+colonies coöperated, and three expeditions were planned; one to attack
+Fort Du Quesne, a second to attack Fort Niagara, and a third to attack
+Crown Point. The first was to be composed of British troops, under
+Braddock, the second of American, under Governor Shirley, and the
+third of militia of the northern colonies.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition against Fort Du Quesne was a memorable failure.
+Braddock was a brave man, but unfitted for his work, Hyde Park having
+hitherto been the only field of his military operations. Moreover,
+with that presumption and audacity which then characterized his
+countrymen, he affected sovereign contempt for his American
+associates, and would listen to no advice. Unacquainted with Indian
+warfare, and ignorant of the country, he yet pressed towards the
+interior, until, within ten miles of Fort Du Quesne, he was surprised
+by a body of French and Indians, and taken in an ambuscade. Instant
+retreat might still have saved him; but he was too proud not to fight
+according to rule; and he fell mortally wounded. Washington was the
+only mounted officer that escaped being killed or wounded. By his
+prudent and skilful <span class="pagenum"><a id="page352" name="page352"></a>(p. 352)</span>management, he saved half of his men,
+who formed after the battle, and effected a retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The other two expeditions also failed, chiefly through want of union
+between the provincial governor and the provincial assemblies, and
+also from the moral effects of the defeat of Braddock. Moreover, the
+colonies perfectly understood that they were fighting, not for
+liberty, but for the glory and ambition of the mother country, and
+therefore did not exhibit the ardor they evinced in the revolutionary
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>But the failure of these expeditions contributed to make the ministry
+of the Duke of Newcastle unpopular. Other mistakes were also made in
+the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean
+excited popular clamor. The repeated disappointments and miscarriages,
+the delay of armaments, the neglect of opportunities, the absurd
+disposition of fleets, were numbered among the misfortunes which
+resulted from a weak and incapable ministry. Stronger men were
+demanded by the indignant voice of the nation, and the Duke of
+Newcastle, first lord of the treasury, since the death of his brother,
+was obliged to call Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge&mdash;the two most popular
+commoners of England&mdash;into the cabinet. But the new administration did
+not work harmoniously. It was an emblem of that image which
+Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a vision, with a head of gold, and legs of
+iron, and feet of clay. Pitt and Legge were obliged by their colleague
+to resign. But their removal incensed the whole nation, and so great
+was the clamor, that the king was compelled to reinstate the popular
+idols&mdash;the only men capable of managing affairs at that crisis. Pitt
+became secretary of state, and Legge chancellor of the exchequer. The
+Duke of Newcastle, after being at the head of administration ten
+years, was, reluctantly, compelled to resign. The Duke of Devonshire
+became nominally the premier, but Pitt was the ruling spirit in the
+cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Character of the Duke of Newcastle.</span> character of the Duke of Newcastle is thus sketched by Horace
+Walpole; "He had no pride, but infinite self-love. Jealousy was the
+great source of all his faults. There was no expense to which he was
+addicted but generosity. His houses, gardens, table, and equipage,
+swallowed immense sums, and the sums he owed were only exceeded by
+those he wasted. He loved <span class="pagenum"><a id="page353" name="page353"></a>(p. 353)</span>business immoderately, but was
+always doing it; he never did it. His speeches were copious in words,
+but empty and unmeaning, his professions extravagant, and his
+curiosity insatiable. He was a secretary of state without
+intelligence, a duke without money, a man of infinite intrigue without
+secrecy, and a minister hated by all parties, without being turned out
+by either." "All able men," adds Macaulay, "ridiculed him as a dunce,
+a driveller, a child who never knew his own mind an hour together; and
+yet he overreached them all."</p>
+
+<p>The Pelham administration cannot, on the whole, be called <span class="inline">Unpopularity of the Pelhams.</span> fortunate,
+nor, on the other hand, a disgraceful one. The Pelhams "showed
+themselves," says Smyth, "friendly to the principles of mild
+government." With all their faults, they were tolerant, peaceful,
+prudent; they had the merit of respecting public opinion; and though
+they were not fitted to advance the prosperity of their country by any
+exertions of political genius, they were not blind to such
+opportunities as fairly presented themselves. But they were not fitted
+for the stormy times in which they lived, and quietly yielded to the
+genius of a man whom they did not like, and whom the king absolutely
+hated. George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, against his will, was obliged to intrust the helm
+of state to the only man in the nation capable of holding it.</p>
+
+<p>The administration of William Pitt is emphatically the history of the
+civilized world, during a period of almost universal war. It was for
+his talents as a war minister that he was placed at the head of the
+government, and his policy, like that of his greater son, in a still
+more stormy epoch, was essentially warlike. In the eyes of his
+contemporaries, his administration was brilliant and successful, and
+he undoubtedly raised England to a high pitch of military glory; but
+glory, alas! most dearly purchased, since it led to the imposition of
+taxes beyond a parallel, and the vast increase of the national debt.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in 1708, of good family, his grandfather having been
+governor of Madras, and the purchaser of the celebrated diamond which
+bears his name, and which was sold to the regent of France for one
+hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. William Pitt was sent to
+Oxford at the age of seventeen, and at <span class="inline">Rise of William Pitt.</span> twenty-seven, became a member
+of parliament. From the first, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page354" name="page354"></a>(p. 354)</span>he was heard with attention,
+and, when years and experience had given him wisdom and power, his
+eloquence was overwhelming. No one ever equalled him in brilliant
+invective and scorching sarcasm. He had not the skill of Fox in
+debate, nor was he a great reasoner, like Murray; he did not talk
+philosophy, like Burke, nor was he master of details, like his son;
+but he had an air of sincerity, a vehemence of feeling, an intense
+enthusiasm, and a moral elevation of sentiment, which bore every thing
+away before him.</p>
+
+<p>When Walpole was driven from power, Pitt exerted his eloquence in
+behalf of the Pelham government. Being personally obnoxious to the
+king, he obtained no office. But he was not a man to be amused by
+promises long, and, as he would not render his indispensable services
+without a reward, he was made paymaster of the forces&mdash;a lucrative
+office, but one which did not give him a seat in the cabinet. This
+office he retained for eight years, which were years of peace. But
+when the horizon was overclouded by the death of Henry Pelham, in
+1754, and difficulties arose between France and England respecting
+North America and the East Indies; when disasters in war tarnished the
+glory of the British arms, and the Duke of Newcastle showed his
+incapacity to meet the national crisis, Pitt commenced a furious
+opposition. Of course he was dismissed from office. But the Duke of
+Newcastle could not do without him, and the king was obliged to call
+him into the cabinet as secretary of state, in 1756. But the
+administration did not work. The king opposed the views of Pitt, and
+he was compelled to resign. Then followed disasters and mistakes. The
+resignation of the Duke of Newcastle became an imperative necessity.
+Despondency and gloom hung over the nation, and he was left without
+efficient aid in the House of Commons. Nothing was left to the king
+but to call in the aid of the man he hated; and Pitt, as well as
+Legge, were again reinstated, the Duke of Devonshire remaining
+nominally at the head of the administration.</p>
+
+<p>But this administration only lasted five months, during which Admiral
+Byng was executed, and the Seven Years' War, of which Frederic of
+Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, Pitt and his
+colleague were again dismissed. But never was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page355" name="page355"></a>(p. 355)</span>popular
+resentment more fierce and terrible. Again was the king obliged to
+bend to the "great commoner." An arrangement was made, and a coalition
+formed. Pitt became secretary of state, and virtual premier, but the
+Duke of Newcastle came in as first lord of the treasury. But Pitt
+selected the cabinet. His brother-in-law, Lord Temple, was made keeper
+of the privy seal, and Lord Grenville was made treasurer of the navy;
+Fox became paymaster of the forces; the Duke of Bedford received the
+lord lieutenancy of Ireland; Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his age
+became lord chancellor; Legge, the ablest financier, was made
+chancellor of the exchequer. Murray, a little while before, had been
+elevated to the bench, as Lord Mansfield. There was scarcely an
+eminent man in the House of Commons who was not made a member of the
+administration. All the talent of the nation was laid at the feet of
+Pitt, and he had the supreme direction of the army and of foreign
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Then truly commenced the brilliant career of Pitt. He immediately
+prosecuted hostilities with great boldness, and on a gigantic scale.
+Immense armies were raised and sent to all parts of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But nothing raised the reputation of Pitt so highly as <span class="inline">Brilliant Military Successes.</span> military
+operations in America. He planned, immediately on his assumption of
+supreme power as virtual dictator of England, three great
+expeditions&mdash;one against Louisburg, a second against Ticonderoga, and
+a third against Fort Du Quesne. Two of these were attended with
+triumphant success, (1758.)</p>
+
+<p>Louisburg, which had been surrendered to France by the treaty of Aix
+la Chapelle, was reduced by General Amherst, though only with a force
+of fourteen thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>General Forbes marched, with eight thousand men, against Fort Du
+Quesne; but it was abandoned by the enemy before he reached it.</p>
+
+<p>Ticonderoga was not, however, taken, although the expedition was
+conducted by General Abercrombie, with a force of sixteen thousand
+men.</p>
+
+<p>Thus nearly the largest military force ever known at one time in
+America was employed nearly a century ago, by William Pitt, composed
+of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were regular
+troops.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page356" name="page356"></a>(p. 356)</span>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1759 was attended with <span class="inline">Military Successes in America.</span> greater results than even that
+of the preceding year. General Amherst succeeded Abercrombie, and the
+plan for the reduction of Canada was intrusted to him for execution.
+Three great expeditions were projected: one was to be commanded by
+General Wolfe, who had distinguished himself at the siege of
+Louisburg, and who had orders from the war secretary to ascend the St.
+Lawrence, escorted by the fleet, and lay siege to Quebec. The second
+army, of twelve thousand men, under General Amherst, was ordered to
+reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross Lake Champlain, and proceed
+along the River Richelieu to the banks of the St. Lawrence, join
+General Wolfe, and assist in the reduction of Quebec. The third army
+was sent to Fort Niagara, the most important post in French America,
+since it commanded the lakes, and overawed the whole country of the
+Six Nations. After the reduction of this fort, the army was ordered
+down the St. Lawrence to besiege Montreal.</p>
+
+<p>That this project was magnificent, and showed the comprehensive
+military genius of Pitt, cannot be doubted. But that it was easy of
+execution may well be questioned, when it is remembered that the
+navigation of the St. Lawrence was difficult and dangerous; that the
+fortifications and strength of Quebec were unrivalled in the new
+world; that the French troops between Montreal and Quebec numbered
+nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, too, by so great a
+general as Montcalm. Still all of these expeditions were successful.
+Quebec and Niagara were taken, and Crown Point and Ticonderoga were
+abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of Quebec,
+which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever performed,
+and which raised the English general to the very summit of military
+fame. He was disappointed in the expected coöperation of General
+Amherst, and he had to take one of the strongest fortresses in the
+world, defended by troops superior in number to his own. He succeeded
+in climbing the almost perpendicular rock on which the fortress was
+built, and in overcoming a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack,
+but lived long enough to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing
+could exceed the tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the
+fall of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page357" name="page357"></a>(p. 357)</span>Quebec was received; nothing could surpass the
+interest with which the distant expedition was viewed; and the
+depression of the French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English.
+Wolfe gained an immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in
+Westminster Abbey. But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial
+advantages which resulted from the conquest of Canada, which soon
+followed the reduction of Quebec. He became the nation's idol, and was
+left to prosecute the various wars in which England was engaged, in
+his own way.</p>
+
+<p>While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were wresting
+from the French nearly all their possessions in America, <span class="inline">Victories of Clive in India.</span> Clive was
+adding a new empire to the vast dominions of Great Britain. India was
+conquered, and the British power firmly planted in the East. Moreover,
+the English allies on the continent&mdash;the Prussians&mdash;obtained great
+victories, which will be alluded to in the chapter on Frederic the
+Great. On all sides the English were triumphant, and were intoxicated
+with joy. The stocks rose, and the bells rang almost an incessant peal
+for victories.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> died. He was
+a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, whose
+interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate, "He had
+neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive nor the
+qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been a bad son, and
+he made a worse father. Not one magnanimous action is recorded of him,
+but many meannesses. But his judgment was sound, his habits
+economical, and his spirit bold. These qualities prevented him from
+being despised, if they did not make him honored."</p>
+
+<p>His grandson, George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, entered upon his long reign, October, 1760,
+in the twenty-third year of his age, and was universally admitted to
+be the most powerful monarch in Christendom&mdash;or, rather, the monarch
+of the most powerful kingdom. He, or, rather, his ministers, resolved
+to prosecute the war with vigor, and parliament voted liberal
+supplies. The object of Pitt was the humiliation of both France and
+Austria, and also the protection of Prussia, struggling against almost
+overwhelming forces. He secured his object by administering to the
+nation those draughts of flattery and military glory which intoxicated
+the people.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page358" name="page358"></a>(p. 358)</span>
+
+<p>However sincere the motives and brilliant the genius of the minister,
+it was impossible that a practical nation should not awake from the
+delusion, which he so powerfully contributed to produce. People at
+last inquired "why England was to become a party in a dispute between
+two German powers, and why were the best English regiments fighting on
+the Maine?" What was it to the busy shopkeeper of London that the
+Tower guns were discharged, and the streets illuminated, if he were to
+be additionally taxed? Statesmen began to calculate the enormous sums
+which had been wasted in an expensive war, where nothing had been
+gained but glory. Besides, jealousies and enmities sprung up against
+Pitt. Some were offended by his haughtiness, and others were estranged
+by his withering invective. And his enemies were numerous and
+powerful. Even the cabinet ministers, who were his friends, turned
+against him. He wished to declare war against Spain, while the nation
+was bleeding at every pore. But the cabinet could not be persuaded of
+the necessity of the war, and Pitt, of course, <span class="inline">Resignation of Pitt.</span> resigned. But it was
+inevitable, and took place under his successor. Pitt left the helm of
+state with honor. He received a pension of three thousand pounds a
+year, and his wife was made a baroness.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first Tory
+minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His watchword
+was <span class="italic">prerogative</span>. The sovereign should no longer be a gilded puppet,
+but a real king&mdash;an impossible thing in England. But his schemes
+pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. Johnson; while his
+administration was assailed with a host of libels from Wilkes,
+Churchill, and other kindred firebrands.</p>
+
+<p>His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs railed at
+it then, and rail at it now; and Macaulay falls in with the
+lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should have
+been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England? The peace of
+Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the Island of St. John,
+and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisiana which lies east of the
+Mississippi, except New Orleans, should be ceded to Great Britain, and
+that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Spain
+should relinquish her claim to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland,
+should permit the English to cut <span class="pagenum"><a id="page359" name="page359"></a>(p. 359)</span>mahogany on the shores of
+Honduras Bay, and cede Florida and Minorca to Great Britain. In return
+for these things, the French were permitted to fish on the Banks of
+Newfoundland, and the Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle,
+and St. Lucia were restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Peace of Paris.</span> peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch; and we hence turn
+to survey the condition of France since the death of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, and
+also other continental powers.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham
+     Administration. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's
+     Essay on Chatham. Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's
+     Lectures on Modern History. Jesse's Memoirs of the
+     Pretenders. Graham's History of the United States, an
+     exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord
+     Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the
+     standard histories of England, at this period; also, the
+     continuation of Mackintosh, and the Pictorial History, are
+     valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Ray's History of
+     the Rebellion, Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, Lord
+     Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page360" name="page360"></a>(p. 360)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="22">XXII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>LOUIS <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>The reign of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> was one of the longest on record extending from
+1715 to 1774&mdash;the greater part of the eighteenth century. But he was a
+child, only five years of age, on the death of his great grandfather,
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>; and, even after he came to his majority, he was ruled by
+his ministers and his mistresses. He was not, like Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, the
+life and the centre of all great movements in his country. He was an
+automaton, a pageant; not because the constitution imposed checks on
+his power, but because he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore,
+performing no great part in history, is only to be alluded to, and
+attention should be mainly directed to his ministers.</p>
+
+<p>During the minority of the king, the reins of government were held by
+the Duke of Orleans, as <span class="inline">Regency of the Duke of Orleans.</span> regent, and who, in case of the king's death,
+would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> The
+administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly contemporaneous with
+that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most pressing subject which demanded
+the attention of the regent, was that of the finances. The late king
+had left a debt of one thousand millions of livres&mdash;an enormous sum in
+that age. To get rid of this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a
+bankruptcy. "This," said he, "would fall chiefly on the commercial and
+moneyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied; and would,
+moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning to
+the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illustrates
+the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, at that
+time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk of incurring
+the popular odium which such a measure would have produced, and he
+proposed calling together the States General. The regent duke,
+however, would not hear of that measure, and yet did not feel inclined
+to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. He therefore compromised the
+matter, and resolved to rob the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page361" name="page361"></a>(p. 361)</span>national creditor. He
+established a commission to verify the bills of the public creditors,
+and, if their accounts did not prove satisfactory, to cancel them
+entirely. Three hundred and fifty millions of livres&mdash;equal, probably,
+to three hundred millions of dollars in this age&mdash;were thus swept
+away. But it was resolved not only to refuse to pay just debts, but to
+make people repay the gains which they had made. Those who had loaned
+money to the state, or had farmed the revenues, were flung into
+prison, and threatened with confiscation of their goods, and even
+death,&mdash;treated as Jews were treated in the Dark Ages,&mdash;unless they
+redeemed themselves by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men
+suffer such a penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To
+this injustice and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to
+this, the coin was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two
+millions of livres were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these
+gains were not enough to satisfy a profligate government. There still
+continued a constant pressure. The national debt had increased even to
+fifteen hundred millions of livres, or almost seventy millions
+sterling&mdash;equivalent to what would now be equal to at least one
+thousand millions of dollars.</p>
+
+<p>To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the
+celebrated <span class="inline">John Law.</span> John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had
+established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a wonderful
+political economist.</p>
+
+<p>Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of the
+country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the precious
+metals.</p>
+
+<p>The regent, moreover, having great faith in Law's abilities, and in
+his wealth, converted his private bank into a royal one&mdash;made it, in
+short, the Bank of France. This bank was then allied with the two
+great commercial companies of the time&mdash;the East India and the
+Mississippi. Great privileges were bestowed on each. The latter had
+the exclusive monopoly of the trade with Louisiana, and all the
+countries on the Mississippi River, and also of the fur trade in
+Canada. Louisiana was then supposed to be rich in gold mines, and
+great delusions arose from the popular notion.</p>
+
+<p>The capital of this gigantic corporation was fixed at one hundred
+millions and Law, who was made director-general, aimed to make
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page362" name="page362"></a>(p. 362)</span>the notes of the <span class="inline">Mississippi Company.</span> company
+preferable to specie, which,
+however could lawfully be demanded for the notes. So it was settled
+that the shares of the company could only be purchased by the paper of
+the bank. As extravagant hopes of gain were cherished respecting the
+company, its shares were in great demand. And, as only Law's bank
+bills could purchase the shares, the gold and silver of the realm
+flowed into Law's bank. Law and the regent had, therefore, the
+fabrication of both shares and bank bills to an indefinite amount.</p>
+
+<p>The national creditor was also paid in the notes of the bank, and, as
+unbounded confidence existed, both in the genius of Law and in the
+profits of the Mississippi Company,&mdash;as the shares were constantly in
+demand, and were rising in value,&mdash;the creditor was satisfied. In a
+short time, one half of the national debt was transferred. Government
+owed the bank, and not the individuals and corporations from whom
+loans had been originally obtained. These individuals, instead of
+government scrip, had shares in the Mississippi Company.</p>
+
+<p>And all would have been well, had the company's shares been valuable,
+or had they retained their credit, or even had but a small part of the
+national debt been transferred. But the people did not know the real
+issues of the bank, and so long as new shares could be created and
+sold to pay the interest, the company's credit was good. For a while
+the delusion lasted. Law was regarded as a great national benefactor.
+His house was thronged with dukes and princes. He became
+controller-general of the finances&mdash;virtually prime minister. His fame
+extended far and wide. Honors were showered upon him from every
+quarter. He was elected a member of the French Academy. His schemes
+seemed to rain upon Paris a golden shower. He had freed the state from
+embarrassments, and he had, apparently, made every body rich, and no
+one poor. He was a deity, as beneficent as he was powerful. He became
+himself the richest man in Europe. Every body was intoxicated. The
+golden age had come. Paris was crowded with strangers from all parts
+of the world. Five hundred thousand strangers expended their fortunes,
+in hope of making greater ones. Twelve hundred new coaches were set up
+in the city. Lodgings could scarcely be had for money. The highest
+price was paid for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page363" name="page363"></a>(p. 363)</span>provisions. Widow ladies, clergymen, and
+noblemen deserted London to speculate in stocks at Paris. Nothing was
+seen but new equipages, new houses, new apparel, new furniture.
+Nothing was felt but universal exhilaration. Every man seemed to have
+made his fortune. The stocks rose every day. The higher they rose, the
+more new stock was created. At last, the shares of the company rose
+from one hundred to twelve hundred per cent., and three hundred
+millions were created, which were nominally worth, in 1719, three
+thousand six hundred millions of livres&mdash;one hundred and eighty times
+the amount of all the gold and silver in Europe at that time.</p>
+
+<p>In this public <span class="inline">Popular Delusion.</span> delusion, the directors were wise enough to convert
+<span class="italic">their</span> shares into silver and gold. A great part of the current coin
+in the kingdom was locked up in the houses or banks of a few
+stockjobbers and speculators.</p>
+
+<p>But the scarcity of gold and silver was felt, people's eyes were
+opened, and the bubble burst, but not until half of the national debt
+had been paid off by this swindling transaction.</p>
+
+<p>The nation was furious. A panic spread among all classes; the bank had
+no money with which to redeem its notes; the shares fell almost to
+nothing; and universal bankruptcy took place. Those who, a few days
+before, fancied themselves rich, now found themselves poor. Property
+of all kinds fell to less than its original value. Houses, horses,
+carriages, upholstery, every thing, declined in price. All were
+sellers, and few were purchasers.</p>
+
+<p>But popular execration and vengeance pursued the financier who had
+deceived the nation. He was forced to fly from Paris. His whole
+property was confiscated, and he was reduced to indigence and
+contempt. When his scheme was first suggested to the regent, he was
+worth three millions of livres. He had better remained a private
+banker.</p>
+
+<p>The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the nation
+against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was execrated, for his
+agency in the business had all the appearance of a fraud. But he was
+probably deluded with others, and hoped to free the country from its
+burdens. The great blunder was in the over-issue of notes when there
+was no money to redeem them.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could any management have prevented the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page364" name="page364"></a>(p. 364)</span>
+
+<p>It was <span class="inline">Fatal Effects of the Delusion.</span> not possible that the shares of the company should advance so
+greatly, and the public not perceive that they had advanced beyond
+their value; it was not possible, that, while paper money so vastly
+increased in quantity, the numerical prices of all other things should
+not increase also, and that foreigners who sold their manufactures to
+the French should not turn their paper into gold, and carry it out of
+the kingdom; it was not possible that the disappearance of the coin
+should not create alarm, notwithstanding the edicts of the regent, and
+the reasonings of Law; it was not possible that annuitants should not
+discover that their old incomes were now insufficient and less
+valuable, as the medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it
+was not possible that the small part of society which may be called
+the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden
+fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt
+of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which,
+after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the
+good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on
+these and other accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last
+preferred to paper notes, of whatever description or promise. These
+were inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of Law,
+and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change in public
+opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, secondly, the
+over-issue of money.</p>
+
+<p>By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, or
+greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight hundred
+millions of debts. The sufferings of the people, with such a
+government, did not, however, create great solicitude; the same old
+course of folly and extravagance was pursued by the court.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was there a change for the better when Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> attained his
+majority. His vices and follies exceeded all that had ever been
+displayed before. The support of his mistresses alone was enough to
+embarrass the nation. Their waste and extravagance almost exceeded
+belief. Who has not heard of the disgraceful and disgusting iniquities
+of Pompadour and Du Barry?</p>
+
+<p>The regency of the Duke of Orleans occupied the first eight years of
+the reign of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> The prime minister of the regent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page365" name="page365"></a>(p. 365)</span>was
+Dubois, at first his tutor, and afterwards Archbishop of Cambray. He
+was rewarded with a cardinal's hat for the service he rendered to the
+Jesuits in their quarrel with the Jansenists, but was a man of
+unprincipled character; a fit minister to a prince who pretended to be
+too intellectual to worship God, and who copied Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> only in his
+licentiousness.</p>
+
+<p>The first minister of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>, after he assumed himself the reins of
+government, was the Duke of Bourbon, lineal heir of the house of
+Condé, and first prince of the blood. But he was a man of no
+character, and his short administration was signalized by no important
+event.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Fleury succeeded the Duke of Bourbon as <span class="inline">Administration of Cardinal Fleury.</span> prime minister. He
+had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all the intrigues
+of the court; a man of great timidity, but also a man of great
+probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was intrusted with
+power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and his
+administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He projected,
+however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improvements in laws
+or finance. But he ruled despotically, and with good intentions, from
+1726 to 1743.</p>
+
+<p>The most considerable subject of interest connected with his peaceful
+administration, was the quarrel between the Jesuits and the
+Jansenists. Fleury took the side of the former, although he was never
+an active partisan; and he was induced to support the Jesuits for the
+sake of securing the cardinal's hat&mdash;the highest honor, next to that
+of the tiara, which could be conferred on an ecclesiastic. The Jesuits
+upheld the crumbling power of the popes, and the popes rewarded the
+advocates of that body of men, who were their ablest supporters.</p>
+
+<p>The Jansenist controversy is too important to be passed over with a
+mere allusion. It was the great event in the history of Catholic
+Europe during the seventeenth century. It involved principles of great
+theological, and even political interest.</p>
+
+<p>The Jansenist controversy grew out of the long-disputed questions
+pertaining to grace and free will&mdash;questions which were agitated with
+great spirit and acrimony in the seventeenth century as they had
+previously been centuries before by Augustine and Pelagius. The
+Jesuits had never agreed with the great oracle of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page366" name="page366"></a>(p. 366)</span>the
+Western church in his views on certain points, and it was their aim to
+show the absolute freedom of the human will&mdash;that it had a
+self-determining power, a perfect liberty to act or not to act.
+Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, had been a great defender of this ancient
+Pelagianism, and his views were opposed by the Dominicans, and the
+controversy was carried into all the universities of Europe. The
+Council of Trent was too wise to meddle with this difficult question;
+but angry theologians would not let it rest, and it was discussed with
+peculiar fervor in the Catholic University of Louvaine. Among the
+doctors who there distinguished themselves in reviving the great
+contest of the fifth and sixth centuries, were <span class="inline">Cornelius Jansen.</span> Cornelius Jansen of
+Holland, and Jean de Verger of Gascony. Both these doctors hated the
+Jesuits, and lamented the dangerous doctrines which they defended, and
+advocated the views of Augustine and the Calvinists. Jansen became
+professor of divinity in the university, and then Bishop of Ypres.
+After an uninterrupted study of twenty years, he produced his
+celebrated book called <span class="italic">Augustinus</span>, in which he set forth the
+servitude of the will, and the necessity of divine grace to break the
+bondage, which, however, he maintained, like Calvin, is imparted only
+to a few, and in pursuance of a decree existing in the divine mind
+before the creation of our species. But Jansen died before the book
+was finished, and two years elapsed before it was published, but, when
+published, it was the signal for a contest which distracted Europe for
+seventy years.</p>
+
+<p>While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and friend,
+De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot of the monastery
+of <span class="inline">St. Cyran &mdash; Arnauld &mdash; Le Maitre.</span> St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the centre of that gay city,
+a learned and ascetic hermitage. This was during the reign of
+Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr> His reputation, as a scholar and a saint, attracted the
+attention of Richelieu, and his services were solicited by that able
+minister. But neither rewards, nor flatteries, nor applause had power
+over the mind of St. Cyran, as he was now called. The cardinal hated
+and feared a man whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means
+to quarrel with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes.
+But there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to
+his studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an
+asceticism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page367" name="page367"></a>(p. 367)</span>which even his church did not require, and
+devoting all his thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin
+and Augustine, he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an
+inward change, that he made grace precede repentance. A man so serene
+in trial, so humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in ordinary
+life, and yet so distinguished for talents and erudition, could not
+help exciting admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among
+them was Arnauld D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne
+of Austria; Le Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in
+France; and Angelique Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was
+one of the most distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and
+still more noble by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had
+been made abbess of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years,
+and at that time was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of
+a Capuchin friar had turned her thoughts to the future world, and she
+closed the gates of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chevreuse,
+against all strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic duties which
+her church and age accounted most meritorious. She soon after made the
+acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued her mind with the principles
+of the Augustinian theology. When imprisoned at Vincennes, he was
+still the spiritual father of Port Royal. Amid this famous retreat
+were collected the greatest scholars and the greatest saints of the
+seventeenth century&mdash;Antoine Le Maitre, De Lericourt, Le Maitre de
+Saci, Antoine Arnauld, and Pascal himself. Le Maitre de Saci gave to
+the world the best translation of the Bible in French; Arnauld wrote
+one hundred volumes of controversy, and, among them, a noted satire on
+the Jesuits, which did them infinite harm; while Pascal, besides his
+wonderful mathematical attainments, and his various meditative works,
+is immortalized for his Provincial Letters, written in the purest
+French, and with matchless power and beauty. This work, directed
+against the Jesuits, is an inimitable model of elegant irony, and the
+most effective sarcasm probably ever elaborated by man. In the vale of
+Port Royal also dwelt Tillemont, the great ecclesiastical historian;
+Fontaine and Racine, who were controlled by the spirit of Arnauld, as
+well as the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Liancourt. There resided,
+under the name of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page368" name="page368"></a>(p. 368)</span><span class="italic">Le Merrier</span>, and in the humble occupation
+of a gardener, one of the proudest nobles of the French court; and
+there, too, dwelt the celebrated Duchess of Longueville, sister of the
+Prince of Condé, the life of the Fronde, the idol of the Parisian mob,
+and the once gay patroness of the proudest festivities.</p>
+
+<p>But it is the labors of these saints, scholars, and nobles to repress
+the dangerous influence of the Jesuits for which they were most
+distinguished. The Jansenists of <span class="inline">The Labors of the Port Royalists.</span> Port Royal did not deny the authority
+of the pope, nor the great institutions of the papacy. They sought
+chiefly, in their controversy with the Jesuits, to enforce the
+doctrines of Augustine respecting justification. But their efforts
+were not agreeable to the popes, nor to the doctors of the Sorbonne,
+who had no sympathy with their religious life, and detested their bold
+spirit of inquiry. The doctors of the Sorbonne, accordingly, extracted
+from the book of Jansen five propositions which they deemed heretical,
+and urged the pope to condemn them. The Port Royalists admitted that
+these five propositions were indefensible if they were declared
+heretical by the sovereign pontiff, but denied that they were actually
+to be found in the book of Jansen. They did not quarrel with the pope
+on grounds of faith. They recognized his infallibility in matters of
+religion, but not in matters of fact. The pope, not wishing to push
+things to extremity, which never was the policy of Rome, pretended to
+be satisfied. But the Jesuits would not let him rest, and insisted on
+the condemnation of the Jansenist opinions. The case was brought
+before a great council of French bishops and doctors, and Arnauld, the
+great champion of the Jansenists, was voted guilty of heresy for
+denying that the five propositions which the pope condemned were
+actually in the book of Jansen. The pope, moreover, was induced to
+issue a formula of an oath, to which all who wished to enjoy any
+office in the church were obliged to subscribe, and which affirmed
+that the five condemned propositions were actually to be found in
+Jansen's book. This act of the pope was justly regarded by the
+Jansenists as intolerably despotic, and many of the most respectable
+of the French clergy sided with them in opinion. All France now became
+interested in the controversy, and it soon led to great commotions.
+The Jansenists then contended that the pope might err in questions of
+fact, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page369" name="page369"></a>(p. 369)</span>that, therefore, they were not under an obligation
+to subscribe to the required oath. The Jesuits, on the other hand,
+maintained the pope's infallibility in matters of fact, as well as in
+doctrine; and, as they had the most powerful adherents, the Jansenists
+were bitterly persecuted. But, as twenty-two bishops were found to
+take their side, the matter was hushed up for a while. For ten years
+more, the Port Royalists had peace and protection, chiefly through the
+great influence of the Duchess of Longueville; but, on her death,
+persecution returned. Arnauld was obliged to fly to the Netherlands,
+and the beautiful abbey of Port Royal was despoiled of its lands and
+privileges. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> had ever hated its inmates, being ruled by
+Madame de Maintenon, who, in turn, was a tool of the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>But the demolition of the abbey, the spoliation of its lands, and the
+dispersion of those who sought its retreat, did not stop the
+controversy. Pascal continued it, and wrote his Provincial Letters,
+which had a wonderful effect in making the Jesuits both ridiculous and
+hateful. That book was the severest blow this body of ambitious and
+artful casuists ever received.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the Jansenist controversy merely a discussion of grace and
+free will. The <span class="inline">Principles of Jansenism.</span> principles of Jansenism, when carried out, tended to
+secure independence to the national church, and to free the
+consciences of men from the horrible power of their spiritual
+confessors. Jansenism was a timid protest against spiritual tyranny, a
+mild kind of Puritanism, which found sympathy with many people in
+France. The Parliament of Paris caught the spirit of freedom, and
+protected the Jansenists and those who sympathized with them. It so
+happened that a certain bishop published a charge to his clergy which
+was strongly imbued with the independent doctrines of the Jansenists.
+He was tried and condemned by a provincial council, and banished by
+the government. The Parliament of Paris, as the guardian of the law,
+took up the quarrel, and Cardinal Fleury was obliged to resort to a
+<span class="italic">Bed of Justice</span> in order to secure the registry of a decree. A Bed of
+Justice was the personal appearance of the sovereign in the supreme
+judicial tribunal of the nation, and his command to the members of it
+to obey his injunctions was the last resort of absolute power. The
+parliament, of course, obeyed, but protested the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page370" name="page370"></a>(p. 370)</span>next day,
+and drew up resolutions which declared the temporal power to be
+independent of the spiritual. It then proceeded to Meudon, one of the
+royal palaces, to lay its remonstrance before the king; and Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>,
+indignant and astonished, refused to see the members. The original
+controversy was forgotten, and the cause of the parliament, which was
+the cause of liberty, became the cause of the nation. The resistance
+of the parliament was technically unsuccessful, yet, nevertheless,
+sowed the seeds of popular discontent, and contributed to that great
+insurrection which finally overturned the throne.</p>
+
+<p>It may be asked how the Parliament of Paris <span class="inline">Functions of the Parliament.</span> became a judicial
+tribunal, rather than a legislative assembly, as in England. When the
+Justinian code was introduced into French jurisprudence, in the latter
+part of the Middle Ages, the old feudal and clerical judges&mdash;the
+barons and bishops&mdash;were incapable of expounding it, and a new class
+of men arose&mdash;the lawyers, whose exclusive business it was to study
+the laws. Being best acquainted with them, they entered upon the
+functions of judges, and the secular and clerical lords yielded to
+their opinions. The great barons, however, still continued to sit in
+the judicial tribunals, although ignorant of the new jurisprudence;
+and their decisions were directed by the opinions of the lawyers who
+had obtained a seat in their body, as is the case at present in the
+English House of Lords when it sits as a judicial body. The necessity
+of providing some permanent repository for the royal edicts, induced
+the kings of France to enroll them in the journals of the courts of
+parliament, being the highest judicial tribunal; and the members of
+these courts gradually availed themselves of this custom to dispute
+the legality of any edict which had not been thus registered. As the
+influence of the States General declined, the power of the parliament
+increased. The encroachments of the papacy first engaged its
+attention, and then the management of the finances by the ministers of
+Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> called forth remonstrances. During the war of the Fronde,
+the parliament absolutely refused to register the royal decrees. But
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was sufficiently powerful to suppress the spirit of
+independence, and accordingly entered the court, during the first
+years of his reign, with a whip in his hand, and compelled it to
+register his edicts. Nor did any <span class="pagenum"><a id="page371" name="page371"></a>(p. 371)</span>murmur afterwards escape
+the body, until, at the close of his reign the members opposed the
+<span class="inline">The Bull Unigenitus.</span> bull <span class="italic">Unigenitus</span>&mdash;that which condemned the Jansenists&mdash;as an
+infringement of the liberties of the Gallican Church. And no sooner
+had the great monarch died, than, contrary to his will, they vested
+the regency in the hands of the Duke of Orleans. Then freedom of
+expostulation respecting the ruinous schemes of Law induced him to
+banish them, and they only obtained their recall by degrading
+concessions. Their next opposition was during the administration of
+Fleury. The minister of finance made an attempt to inquire into the
+wealth of the clergy, which raised the jealousy of the order; and the
+clergy, in order to divert the attention of the court, revived the
+opposition of the parliament to the bull <span class="italic">Unigenitus</span>. It was resolved
+by the clergy to demand confessional notes from dying persons, and
+that these notes should be signed by priests adhering to the bull,
+before extreme unction should be given. The Archbishop of Paris, at
+the head of the French clergy, was opposed by the parliament, and this
+high judicial court imprisoned such of the clergy as refused to
+administer the sacraments. The king, under the guidance of Fleury,
+forbade the parliament to take cognizance of ecclesiastical
+proceedings, and to suspend its prosecutions. Instead of acquiescing,
+the parliament presented new remonstrances, and the members refused to
+attend to any other functions, and resolved that they could not obey
+this injunction without violating their consciences. They cited the
+Bishop of Orleans before their tribunal, and ordered all his writings,
+which denied the jurisdiction of the court, to be publicly burnt by
+the executioner. By aid of the military, the parliament enforced the
+administration of the sacraments, and became so interested in the
+controversy as to neglect other official duties. The king, indignant,
+again banished the members, with the exception of four, whom he
+imprisoned. And, in order not to impede the administration of justice,
+the king established another tribunal for the prosecution of civil
+suits. But the lawyers, sympathizing with the parliament, refused to
+plead before the new court. This resolute conduct, and other evils
+happening at the time, induced the king to yield, in order to
+conciliate the people, and the parliament was recalled. This was a
+popular triumph, and the archbishop was banished in his turn.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page372" name="page372"></a>(p. 372)</span>Shortly after, Cardinal Fleury died, and a new policy was
+adopted. The quarrel of the parliament and the clergy was forgotten in
+a still greater quarrel between the king and the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>The policy of Fleury, like that of Walpole, was pacific; and yet, like
+him, he was forced into a war against his own convictions. And success
+attended the arms of France, in the colonial struggle with England,
+until Pitt took the helm of state.</p>
+
+<p>Until the death of Fleury, in 1743, who administered affairs with
+wisdom, moderation, and incorruptible integrity, he was beloved, if he
+was not venerated. But after this event, a great change took place in
+his character and measures, and the reign of mistresses commenced, and
+to an extent unparalleled in the history of Europe. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>
+bestowed the revenue of the state on unworthy favorites, yet never
+allowed them to govern the nation; but Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> intrusted the most
+important state matters to their direction, and the profoundest state
+secrets to their keeping.</p>
+
+<p>Among these mistresses, <span class="inline">Madame de Pompadour.</span> Madame de Pompadour was the most noted; a
+woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambition was her
+master-passion, and her <span class="italic">boudoir</span> was the council chamber of the royal
+ministers. Most of the great men of France paid court to her, and to
+neglect her was social ruin. Even Voltaire praised her beauty, and
+Montesquieu flattered her intellect. And her extravagance was equal to
+her audacity. She insisted on drawing bills on the treasury without
+specifying the service. The comptroller-general was in despair, and
+the state was involved in inextricable embarrassments.</p>
+
+<p>It was through her influence that the Duke de Choiseul was made the
+successor of Fleury. He was not deficient in talent, but his
+administration proved unfortunate. Under his rule, Louis lost the
+Canadas, and France plunged into a contest with Frederic the Great.
+The Seven Years' War, which occurred during his administration, had
+made the age an epoch; but as this is to be considered in the chapter
+on Frederic <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, no notice of it will be taken in this connection.</p>
+
+<p>The most memorable event which arose out of the policy and conduct of
+Choiseul was the fall of the Jesuits.</p>
+
+<p>Their <span class="inline">The Jesuits.</span> arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull <span class="pagenum"><a id="page373" name="page373"></a>(p. 373)</span>
+<span class="italic">Unigenitus</span>, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists; and
+the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side.</p>
+
+<p>But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress of
+Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, the
+Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful of
+popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no man, and
+no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity with impunity; and
+destruction often comes from a source the least suspected, and
+apparently the least to be feared. Who could have supposed that the
+ruin of this powerful body, which had reigned so proudly in
+Christendom for a century; which had imposed its Briareus's arms on
+the necks of princes; which had its confessors in the courts of the
+most absolute monarchs; which, with its hundred eyes, had penetrated
+the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe; and which had succeeded in
+suppressing in so many places every insurrection of human
+intelligence, in spite of the fears of kings, the jealousy of the
+other monastic orders, and the inveterate animosity of philosophers
+and statesmen,&mdash;would receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman,
+who scandalized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated
+prince? But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because
+they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And she
+incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts to power,
+to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their ruin.</p>
+
+<p>In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible than in
+Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But the prime minister
+of Joseph <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, the Marquis of Pombal, a man of great energy, had been
+insulted by a lady of the highest rank, and he swore revenge. An
+opportunity was soon afforded. The king happened to be fired at and
+wounded in his palace by some unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the
+objects of the minister's vengeance&mdash;the Marchioness of Tavora, her
+husband, her family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance
+followed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons
+whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were <span class="inline">Exposure of the Jesuits.</span> expelled in the most
+summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul and Madame
+Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page374" name="page374"></a>(p. 374)</span>watched
+their opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the failure of La
+Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It must be borne in
+mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commercial enterprises, while
+they were officiating as missionaries. La Valette aimed to monopolize,
+for his order, the trade with the West Indies, which commercial
+ambition excited the jealousy of mercantile classes in France, and
+they threw difficulties in his way. And it so happened that some of
+his most valuable ships were taken and plundered by the English
+cruisers, which calamity, happening at a time of embarrassment, caused
+his bills to be protested, and his bankers to stop payment. They,
+indignant, accused the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud,
+and demanded repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they
+would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the brink
+of destruction? <span class="italic">"Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat."</span> The
+Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their
+order, which course would have been in accordance with their general
+policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of Paris, and the
+whole nation was interested in its result. It was decided by this
+supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were responsible for the
+debts of La Valette. But the commercial injury was weak in comparison
+with the moral. In the course of legal proceedings, the books and rule
+of the Jesuits were demanded&mdash;that mysterious rule which had never
+been exposed to the public eye, and which had been so carefully
+guarded. When this rule was produced, all minor questions vanished;
+mistresses, bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars,&mdash;all became
+insignificant, compared with those questions which affected the
+position and welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and
+"Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on
+every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages and
+conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. Nothing
+was talked about but "probability," "surrender of conscience," and
+"mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous of the absorbing
+interest with which every thing pertaining to the <span class="italic">régime</span> of the
+Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of the Jansenists, who
+had exposed it. "What," said Voltaire, "will it profit us to be
+delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given <span class="pagenum"><a id="page375" name="page375"></a>(p. 375)</span>up to the
+wolves?" But the philosopher had been among the first to raise the cry
+of alarm against the Jesuits, and it was no easy thing to allay the
+storm.</p>
+
+<p>The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently
+powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been their best
+friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He had been
+taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. He stood in
+fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so powerful and
+unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the prosecution would have
+been insurmountable, had it not been for the capriciousness of his
+temper, which more than balanced his superstitious fears. His minister
+and his mistress circumvented him. They represented that, as the
+parliament and the nation were both aroused against the Jesuits, his
+resistance would necessarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded
+so much as civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful
+necessity of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of
+his best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers.
+But he yielded with a moderation which did him honor. He would not
+consent to the <span class="inline">Their Expulsion from France.</span> expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been made to
+secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be written to
+Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. Choiseul
+himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the Jesuits would not
+hear of any retrenchment of their power or privileges. "Let us remain
+as we are, or let us exist no longer," was their reply. The
+parliament, the people, the minister, and the mistress renewed their
+clamors. The parliament decreed that the constitution of the society
+was an encroachment on the royal authority, and the king was obliged
+to yield. The members of the society were forbidden to wear the habit
+of the society, or to enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their
+colleges were closed, their order was dissolved, and they were
+expelled from the kingdom with rigor and severity, in spite of the
+wishes of the king and many entreaties and tears from the zealous
+advocates of Catholicism, and even of religious education.</p>
+
+<p>But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to be
+persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having secured their
+expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page376" name="page376"></a>(p. 376)</span>Pombal
+turned their attention to <span class="inline">Suppression in Spain.</span> Spain, and so successfully intrigued, so
+artfully wrought on the jealousy and fears of Charles <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, that this
+weak prince followed the example of Joseph <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> and Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> But the
+king and his minister D'Aranda, however, prosecuted their
+investigations with the utmost secrecy&mdash;did not even tell their allies
+of their movements. Of course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the
+king of Spain. But when his measures were completed, an edict was
+suddenly declared, decreeing the suppression of the order in the land
+of Inquisitions. The decree came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly
+executed. "On the same day, 2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in
+Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in America, and in all the islands
+belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the alcaldes of the towns opened
+their despatches from Madrid, by which they were ordered, on pain of
+the severest penalties, immediately to enter the establishments of the
+Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel them from their convents, and
+transport them, within twenty-four hours, to such places as were
+designated. Nor were the Jesuits permitted to carry away their money
+or their papers. Only a purse, a breviary, and some apparel were given
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so
+sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express
+prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any
+allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to
+maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or
+remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is
+religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to
+injustice and cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate craft.
+Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution.
+There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as
+martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of
+the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country
+they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery
+and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six
+months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable
+refuge on the Island of Corsica.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A <span class="pagenum"><a id="page377" name="page377"></a>(p. 377)</span>
+successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent
+on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope
+should be elected who would not favor their end. A <span class="inline">Pope Clement <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></span> cardinal was
+found,&mdash;Ganganelli,&mdash;who promised the ambassadors that, if elected
+pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to
+secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put
+forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would <span class="italic">protect
+them</span>. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the
+Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most
+unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force
+of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his
+father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired
+to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was,
+to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so
+long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was
+made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful
+struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and
+throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal
+infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with
+awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the
+allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the
+Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had
+ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of
+danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a
+cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,&mdash;any thing,&mdash;rather
+than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was
+obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to
+fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation,
+of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated,
+he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of
+his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest.
+It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was
+compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits
+forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he
+prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened
+assassination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his
+church, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page378" name="page378"></a>(p. 378)</span>if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings
+threatened secession from Rome, deposition&mdash;ten thousand calamities.
+His agony became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He
+decided to suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges
+were closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given
+to their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without
+organization, wealth, or power.</p>
+
+<p>Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising
+from table, felt an <span class="inline">Death of Ganganelli.</span> internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually
+he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his
+moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was
+doomed&mdash;that he was poisoned&mdash;that he must die. The fear of hell was
+now added to his other torments. "<span class="italic">Compulsus, feci, compulsus,
+feci!</span>"&mdash;"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and
+died&mdash;died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr>
+knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their
+wealth. Pope Clement <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound
+upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the
+penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not
+perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on
+earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the
+restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored;
+and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every
+corner of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and
+protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire.
+A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers
+had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter
+mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men
+who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the
+institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He
+perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with
+absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great,
+unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism.
+The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched
+Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of
+Prussia recognized in his latter days. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page379" name="page379"></a>(p. 379)</span>Nor would it have
+availed any thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of
+Frederic the Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and
+the noble of France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an
+overwhelming torrent. That devastating torrent was the French
+Revolution, whose awful swell was first perceived during the latter
+years of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with
+the egotism of a Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last
+during his time." Soon after this heartless speech was made, <span class="inline">Death of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></span> he was
+stricken with the small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and
+inglorious reign. He was deserted in his last hours, and his
+disgusting and loathsome remains were huddled into their last abode by
+the workmen of his palace.</p>
+
+<p>Before the reign of Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> can be described, it is necessary to
+glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the
+various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven
+Years' War&mdash;the great war of the eighteenth century, before the
+breaking out of the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;For a general view of the reign of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>,
+     see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The
+     scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and
+     Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the
+     king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in
+     the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist
+     Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's
+     History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and
+     Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port
+     Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably
+     treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the
+     lives of Fleury and Choiseul. For the manners of the court
+     of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>, the numerous memoirs and letters, which were
+     written during the period, must be consulted; the most
+     amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, are
+     too infamous to be named.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page380" name="page380"></a>(p. 380)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="23">XXIII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>FREDERIC THE GREAT.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> of <span class="inline">Frederic William.</span> Prussia has won a name which will be immortal on
+Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular character extorts
+our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion, admiration for his
+great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and disgust for his
+cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. He had no faith
+in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to mechanical
+agencies&mdash;to the power of armies&mdash;to the principle of fear. He was not
+indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war
+was alike his absorbing passion and his highest glory. Peter the Great
+was half a barbarian, and Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> half a madman; but Frederic was
+neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>
+plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>
+fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but
+Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, and the restless
+ambition of plundering what was not his own.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712&mdash;ten years after
+Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of his grandfather,
+Frederic <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> The fortunes of his family were made by his
+great-grandfather, called the <span class="italic">Great Elector</span>, of the house of
+Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he
+turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and
+universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited
+by his great-grandson. Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> resembled more his whimsical and
+tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a
+cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his
+ambassador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he
+gave a bounty of thirteen hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join
+his famous body-guard, a regiment of men who were each over six feet
+high. He would kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking
+on the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page381" name="page381"></a>(p. 381)</span>soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him
+Latin. But, abating his coarseness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he
+was a Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the
+institutions of religion, denounced all amusements as sinful, and read
+a sermon aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived his
+inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sympathy between
+father and son, and the father even hated the heir of his house and
+throne. The young prince was kept on bread and water; his most
+moderate wishes were disregarded; he was surrounded with spies; he was
+cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and abused as a monster and a heathen.
+The cruel treatment which the prince received induced him to fly; his
+flight was discovered; he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to
+death as a deserter and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by
+the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow
+reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to
+retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with
+books, billiards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with
+Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions.</p>
+
+<p>In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> <span class="inline">Accession of Frederic the Great.</span> mounted an absolute
+throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly disciplined
+army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and dreams of glory
+filled his ambitious soul.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggrandizement
+became the animating principle of his life.</p>
+
+<p>His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest
+provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen
+of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of Germany, whose
+succession was guaranteed by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction&mdash;a law
+which the Emperor Charles passed respecting his daughter's claim, and
+which claim was recognized by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by
+all the leading powers of Europe. Without a declaration of war,
+without complaints, without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from
+the mere lust of dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the
+depth of winter, when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons
+were defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of
+Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to his
+capital.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page382" name="page382"></a>(p. 382)</span>Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole
+civilized world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and assist the
+unfortunate queen, whose empire was threatened with complete
+dismemberment. Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was made. But,
+in two years, the war again broke out. To recover Silesia and to
+humble Frederic was the aim of Maria Theresa. She succeeded in
+securing the coöperation of Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony. No one
+doubted of the ruin of the house of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand
+men were arrayed to crush an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled
+king, who had trampled on all the laws of nations and all the
+principles of justice.</p>
+
+<p>The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces constitutes the
+celebrated <span class="inline">The Seven Years' War.</span> <span class="italic">Seven Years' War</span>&mdash;the most gigantic war which Europe had
+seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. This contest
+began during the latter years of George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and was connected with
+the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, during which Wolfe was
+killed and the Canadas were gained. This war called out all the
+energies of the elder Pitt, and placed Great Britain on the exalted
+height which it has since retained.</p>
+
+<p>Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his
+dangers; and his successful resistance to the armies which his own
+offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his claims to
+the epithet of <span class="italic">Great</span>. Although he provoked the war, his successful
+defence of his country placed him on the very highest pinnacle of
+military fame. He would gladly have been relieved from the contest,
+but it was inevitable; and when the tempest burst upon his head, he
+showed all the qualities of exalted heroism.</p>
+
+<p>Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But he himself
+had some great advantages. He was absolute master of his army, of his
+treasury, and of his territories. The lives and property of his
+subjects were at his disposal; his subjects were brave and loyal; he
+was popular with the people, and was sustained by the enthusiasm of
+the nation; his army was well disciplined; he had no sea-coast to
+defend, and he could concentrate all his forces upon any point he
+pleased, in a short time.</p>
+
+<p>His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded Saxony,
+at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize <span class="pagenum"><a id="page383" name="page383"></a>(p. 383)</span>the
+state papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the
+confederation. These were found and published, which showed that now,
+at least, he acted on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle was won by
+the Prussians. By the victory of Lowositz, Frederic was in a better
+condition to contend with Austria. By this he got possession of
+Saxony.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. Five
+hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred thousand. Near
+Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost twelve thousand men. He
+then invested Prague. General Daun, with a superior army, advanced to
+its relief. Another bloody battle was fought, and lost by the Prussian
+king. This seemed to be a fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of
+the war, he had received a check. The soldiers' confidence was
+weakened. Malevolent sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague
+was raised, and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same
+time, invaded Germany; and Frederic heard also of the death of his
+mother&mdash;the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he became
+haggard and miserable.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and secure
+that conquest&mdash;no very easy task. His dominions were now assailed by a
+French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His capital was in the hands of
+the Croatians, and he was opposed by superior Austrian forces. No
+wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and saw only the ruin of
+his house. On one thing, however, he was resolved&mdash;never to be taken
+alive. So he provided himself with poison, which he ever carried about
+his person.</p>
+
+<p>The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfortune and
+trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences in perplexity,
+difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but success is obtained
+only through struggle. Frederic's career is a splendid example of that
+heroism which rises above danger, and extricates a man from
+difficulties when his cause is desperate.</p>
+
+<p>The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two armies
+met at <span class="inline">Battle of Rossbach.</span> Rossbach. The number of the French was double that of the
+Prussians; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and were
+commanded by an abler general. The French, however <span class="pagenum"><a id="page384" name="page384"></a>(p. 384)</span>felt
+secure of victory; but they were defeated: seven thousand men were
+taken prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, parrots, hair
+powder, and pomatum. The victory of Rossbach won for Frederic a great
+name, and diffused universal joy among the English and Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had
+again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this province
+that he provoked the hostilities of Europe; and pride, as well as
+interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince
+Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, which
+numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array against him an
+army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the disparity of forces,
+and his desperate condition, he resolved to attack the enemy. His
+generals remonstrated; but the hero gave full permission to all to
+retire, if they pleased. None were found to shun the danger. Frederic,
+like Napoleon, had the talent of exciting the enthusiasm of his
+troops. He both encouraged and threatened them. He declared that any
+cavalry regiment which did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on
+the foe, should after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a
+garrison regiment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of
+December, the day of the ever-memorable battle of <span class="inline">Battle of Leuthen.</span> Leuthen, he selected
+an officer with fifty men as his body-guard. "I shall," said he,
+"expose myself much to-day; you are not to leave me for an instant: if
+I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon and tell
+the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and must be won."
+And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian general abandoned a
+strong position, because he deemed it beneath his dignity to contend
+with an inferior force in a fortified camp. His imprudence lost him
+the battle. According to Napoleon, it was a masterpiece on the part of
+the victor, and placed him in the first rank of generals. Twenty
+thousand Austrians were either killed or taken. Breslau opened its
+gates to the Prussians, and Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame
+filled the world. Pictures of him were hung in almost every house. The
+enthusiasm of Germany was not surpassed by that of England. London was
+illuminated; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian
+king to leave their country and join his army; an annual subsidy
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page385" name="page385"></a>(p. 385)</span>of seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government.
+The battle of Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals; out
+the battle of Rossbach, over the French, was attended by greater moral
+results. It showed, for the first time for several centuries, that the
+Germans were really a great people, and were a match for the French,
+hitherto deemed invincible.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new campaign,
+which was soon signalized by a great victory over the Russians, at
+Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the battles of Rossbach
+and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand men defeated an army of
+fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thousand Russians lay dead on the
+field. This victory placed Frederic at the zenith of military fame. In
+less than a year, he had defeated three great armies; in less than a
+year, and when nearly driven to despair,&mdash;when his cause seemed
+hopeless, and his enemies were rejoicing in their strength,&mdash;he
+successively triumphed over the French, the Austrians, and the
+Russians; the three most powerful nations on the continent of Europe.
+And his moderation after victory was as marked as his self-reliance
+after defeat. At this period, he stood out, to the wondering and
+admiring eyes of the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern
+times. But, after this, his career was more checkered, and he was
+still in danger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving the
+Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing <span class="inline">Fall of Dresden.</span> Dresden. No capital in Europe
+has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished city. It has
+been often besieged and taken, but the victors have always spared its
+famous picture gallery&mdash;the finest collection of the works of the old
+masters, probably, in existence.</p>
+
+<p>But Frederic was now assailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> He
+sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and a dove of
+pearls,&mdash;"the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter,"&mdash;to Marshal
+Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the conqueror at Kolin
+and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the papal gifts, and had been
+only bestowed, in the course of six centuries, on Godfrey of Bouillon,
+by Urban <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, when he took Jerusalem; on Alva, after his massacres in
+Holland; and on Sobieski, after his deliverance of Vienna, when
+besieged by the Turks. It <span class="pagenum"><a id="page386" name="page386"></a>(p. 386)</span>had never been conferred, except
+for the defence of the "Holy Catholic Church." But this greatest of
+papal gifts made no impression on the age which read Montesquieu and
+Voltaire. A flood of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and
+the world laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been
+thunderbolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>The fourth year of the war proved <span class="inline">Reverses of Frederic.</span> disastrous to Frederic. He did not
+lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. The
+forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Austrians invaded
+Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians gained a victory over
+the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed eighteen thousand men. The
+Russians did not improve this great victory over Frederic, which
+nearly drove him to despair. But he rallied, and was again defeated in
+three disastrous battles. In his distress, he fed his troops on
+potatoes and rye bread, took from the peasant his last horse, debased
+his coin, and left his civil functionaries unpaid.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prussians.
+Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies had two hundred
+thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged to maintain the
+defensive. But still disasters thickened. General Loudon obtained a
+great victory over his general, Fouqué, in Silesia. Instead of being
+discouraged by this new defeat, he formed the extraordinary resolution
+of wresting Dresden from the hands of the Austrians. But he pretended
+to retreat from Saxony, and advance to Silesia. General Daun was
+deceived, and decoyed from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as
+Frederic had retired a considerable distance from Dresden, he
+returned, and bombarded it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and
+was forced to retreat to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to
+gain a victory over the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the
+Russians. At Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand
+of the enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed
+the campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as
+at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now ulcerated
+with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his enemies, who were
+resolved to crush him. He should, however, have remembered that he had
+provoked their implacable resentment, by the commission of a great
+crime.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page387" name="page387"></a>(p. 387)</span>Although Frederic, by rare heroism, had maintained his
+ground, still his resources were now nearly exhausted, and he began to
+look around, in vain, for a new supply of men, horses, and provisions.
+The circle which his enemies had drawn around him was obviously
+becoming smaller. In a little while, to all appearance, he would be
+crushed by overwhelming forces.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, the campaign in 1761 was opened; but no
+event of importance occurred until nearly the close of the year. On
+the whole, it was <span class="inline">Continued Disasters.</span> disastrous to Prussia. Half of Silesia was taken by
+the Austrians, and the Russian generals were successful in Pomerania.
+And a still greater misfortune happened to Frederic in consequence of
+the resignation of Pitt, who had ever been his firmest ally, and had
+granted him large subsidies, when he was most in need of them. On the
+retirement of the English minister, these subsidies were withdrawn,
+and the party which had thwarted William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, which had persecuted
+Marlborough, and had given up the Catalans, came into power&mdash;the
+Tories. "It was indifferent to them whether the house of Hohenstaufen
+or Hohenzollern should be dominant in Germany." But Pitt and the Whigs
+argued that no sacrifice would be too great to preserve the balance of
+power. The defection of England, however, filled the mind of Frederic
+with implacable hatred, and he never could bear to hear even the name
+of England mentioned. The defection of this great ally made his
+affairs desperate; and no one, taking a dispassionate view of the
+contending parties, could doubt but that the ruin of the Prussian king
+was inevitable. Maria Theresa was so confident of success, that she
+disbanded twenty thousand of her troops.</p>
+
+<p>But Providence had ordered otherwise. A great and unexpected change
+came over the fortunes of Frederic. His heroism was now to be
+rewarded&mdash;not the vulgar heroism which makes a sudden effort, and
+gains a single battle, but that well-sustained heroism which strives
+in the midst of defeat, and continues to hope when even noble hearts
+are sinking in despair. On the 5th of January, 1762, Elizabeth, the
+empress of Russia, died; and her successor, Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, who was an
+admirer of Frederic, and even a personal friend, returned the Prussian
+prisoners, withdrew his troops from the Prussian territories, dressed
+himself in a Prussian uniform, and wore the black eagle of Prussia on
+his breast. He even sent fifteen thousand troops to reënforce the army
+of Frederic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page388" name="page388"></a>(p. 388)</span>England and France had long been wearied of this war, and
+formed a separate treaty for themselves. Prussia and Austria were
+therefore left to combat each other. If Austria, assisted by France
+and Russia, could not regain Silesia and ruin Prussia, it certainly
+was not strong enough to conquer Frederic single-handed. The proud
+Maria Theresa was compelled to make peace with that heroic but
+unprincipled robber, who had seized one of the finest provinces of the
+Austrian empire. In February, the treaty of Hubertsburg was signed, by
+which Frederic retained his spoil. He, in comparison with the other
+belligerent parties was the gainer. But no acquisition of territory
+could compensate for those seven years of toil, expense, and death.
+After six years, he entered his capital in triumph; but he beheld
+every where the melancholy marks of devastation and suffering. The
+fields were untilled, houses had been sacked, population had declined,
+and famine and disease had spread a funereal shade over the dwellings
+of the poor. He had escaped death, but one sixth of the whole male
+population of Prussia had been killed, and untold millions of property
+had been destroyed. In some districts, no laborers but women were seen
+in the fields, and fifteen thousand houses had been burnt in his own
+capital.</p>
+
+<p>It is very remarkable that no national debt was incurred by the king
+of Prussia, in spite of all his necessities. He always, in the worst
+of times, had a year's revenue in advance; and, at the close of the
+war, to show the world that he was not then impoverished, he built a
+splendid palace at Potsdam, which nearly equalled the magnificence of
+Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>But <span class="inline">Exhaustion of Prussia by the War.</span> he also did all in his power to alleviate the distress which his
+wars had caused. Silesia received three millions of thalers, and
+Pomerania two millions. Fourteen thousand houses were rebuilt;
+treasury notes, which had depreciated, were redeemed; officers who had
+distinguished themselves were rewarded; and the widows and children of
+those who had fallen were pensioned.</p>
+
+<p>The possession of Silesia did not, indeed, compensate for the Seven
+Years' War; but the struggles which the brave Prussians made for their
+national independence, when assailed on all sides by powerful enemies,
+were not made in vain. Had they not been made, worse evils would have
+happened. Prussia would not have held her place in the scale of
+nations, and the people would have <span class="pagenum"><a id="page389" name="page389"></a>(p. 389)</span>fallen in self-respect.
+It was wrong in Frederic to seize the possession of another. In so
+doing, he was in no respect better than a robber: and he paid a
+penalty for his crime. But he also fought in self-defence. This
+defence was honorable and glorious, and this entitles him to the name
+of <span class="italic">Great</span>.</p>
+
+<p>After the peace of Hubertsburg, in 1763, Prussia, for a time, enjoyed
+repose, and the king devoted himself to the improvement of his
+country. But the army received his greatest consideration, and a peace
+establishment of one hundred and sixty thousand men was maintained; an
+immense force for so small a kingdom, but deemed necessary in such
+unsettled times. Frederic amused himself in building palaces, in
+writing books, and corresponding with literary friends. But schemes of
+ambition were, after all, paramount in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>The Seven Years' War had scarcely closed before the partition of
+Poland was effected, the greatest political crime of that age, for
+which the king of Prussia was chiefly responsible.</p>
+
+<p>The Bavarian war was the next great political event of importance
+which occurred during the reign of Frederic. The emperor of Germany
+formed a project for the dismemberment of the electorate of Bavaria.
+The liberties of the Germanic body were in danger, and Frederic came
+to the rescue. On this occasion, he was the opposer of lawless
+ambition. In 1778, he took the field with a powerful army; but no
+action ensued. The Austrian court found it expedient to abandon the
+design, and the peace of Teschen prevented another fearful contest.
+The two last public acts of Frederic were the establishment, in 1785,
+of the Germanic Union for preserving the constitution of the empire,
+and a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1786, with the United States of
+America, which was a model of liberal policy respecting the rights of
+independent nations, both in peace and war.</p>
+
+<p>He <span class="inline">Death of Frederic.</span> died on the 17th of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year of his
+age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the whole, he was one of
+the most remarkable men of his age, and had a great influence on the
+condition of his country.</p>
+
+<p>His distinguishing peculiarity was his admiration of, and devotion to,
+the military profession, which he unduly exalted. An ensign in his
+army ranked higher than a counsellor of legation <span class="pagenum"><a id="page390" name="page390"></a>(p. 390)</span>or a
+professor of philosophy. His ordinary mode of life was simple and
+unostentatious, and his favorite residence was the palace of Sans
+Souci, at Potsdam. He was very fond of music, and of the society of
+literary men; but he mortified them by his patronizing arrogance, and
+worried them by his practical jokes. His favorite literary companions
+were infidel philosophers, and Voltaire received from him marks of the
+highest distinction. But the king of letters could not live with the
+despot who solicited his society, and an implacable hatred succeeded
+familiarity and friendship. The king had considerable literary
+reputation, and was the author of several works. He was much admired
+by his soldiers, and permitted in them uncommon familiarity. He was
+ever free from repulsive formality and bolstered dignity. He was
+industrious, frugal, and vigilant. Nothing escaped his eye, and he
+attended to the details of his administration. He was probably the
+most indefatigable sovereign that ever existed, but displayed more
+personal ability than enlarged wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>But able and successful as he was as a ruler, he was one of those men
+for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. <span class="inline">Character of Frederic.</span> He was
+cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the blood of his
+subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those who had sacrificed
+every thing for his sake. He ruled by fear rather than by love. He
+introduced into every department the precision of a rigid military
+discipline, and had no faith in any power but that of mechanical
+agencies. He quarrelled with his best friends, and seemed to enjoy the
+miseries he inflicted. He was contemptuous of woman, and disdainful of
+Christianity. His egotism was not redeemed by politeness or
+affability, and he made no efforts to disguise his unmitigated
+selfishness and heartless injustice. He had no loftiness of character,
+and no appreciation of elevation of sentiment in others. He worshipped
+only himself and rewarded those only who advanced his ambitious
+designs.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;The Posthumous Works of Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Gillies's
+     View of the Reign of Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Thiebault's Mémoires de
+     Frédéric le Grand. Voltaire's Idée du Roi de Prusse. Life of
+     Baron Trenck. Macaulay's Essay on the Life and Times of
+     Frederic the Great. Coxe's House of Austria. Tower's,
+     Johnson's, and Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page391" name="page391"></a>(p. 391)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="24">XXIV.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></h4>
+
+
+<p>Contemporaneous with Frederic the Great were Maria Theresa and
+Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>&mdash;two sovereigns who claim an especial notice, as
+representing two mighty empires. The part which Maria Theresa took in
+the Seven Years' War has been often alluded to and it is not necessary
+to recapitulate the causes or events of that war. She and
+Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> were also implicated with Frederic in the partition of
+Poland. The misfortunes of that unhappy country will be separately
+considered. In alluding to Maria Theresa, we cannot but review the
+history of that great empire over which she ruled, the most powerful
+of the German states. The power of Austria, at different times since
+the death of the Emperor Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, threatened the liberties of
+Europe; and, to prevent her ascendency, the kings of France, England,
+and Prussia have expended the treasure and wasted the blood of their
+subjects.</p>
+
+<p>By the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, at the close of the Thirty Years'
+War, the <span class="inline">The Germanic Constitution.</span> constitution of Germany was established upon a firm basis.
+The religious differences between the Catholics and the Protestants
+were settled, and religious toleration secured in all the states of
+the empire. It was settled that no decree of the Diet was to pass
+without a majority of suffrages, and that the Imperial Chamber and the
+Aulic Council should be composed of a due proportion of Catholics and
+Protestants. The former was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>,
+in 1495, at the Diet of Worms, and was a judicial tribunal, and the
+highest court of appeal. It consisted of seventeen judges nominated by
+the emperor, and took cognizance of Austrian affairs chiefly. The
+Aulic Council was also judicial, and was composed of eighteen persons
+and attended chiefly to business connected with the empire. The
+members of these two great judicial tribunals were Catholics; and
+there were also frequent disputes between them as to their respective
+jurisdictions. It was ordained by the treaty of Westphalia that a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page392" name="page392"></a>(p. 392)</span>perfect equality should be observed in the appointment of
+the members of these two important courts; but, in fact, twenty-four
+Protestants and twenty-six Catholics were appointed to the Imperial
+Chamber. The various states had the right of presenting members,
+according to political importance. The Aulic Council was composed of
+six Protestants and twelve Catholics, and was a tribunal to settle
+difficulties between the various states of which Germany was composed.</p>
+
+<p>These states were nearly independent of each other, but united under
+one common head. Each state had its own peculiar government, which was
+generally monarchical, and regulated its own coinage, police, and
+administration of justice. Each kingdom, electorate, principality, and
+imperial city, which were included in the states of Germany, had the
+right to make war, form alliances, conclude peace, and send
+ambassadors to foreign courts.</p>
+
+<p>The Diet of the empire consisted of representatives of each of the
+states, appointed by the princes themselves, and took cognizance of
+matters of common interest, such as regulations respecting commerce,
+the license of books, and the military force which each state was
+required to furnish.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor had power, in some respects, over all these states; but it
+was chiefly confined to his hereditary dominions. He could not
+exercise any despotic control over the various princes of the empire;
+but, as hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Moravia, Bohemia,
+Hungary, and the Tyrol, he was the most powerful prince in Europe
+until the aggrandisement of Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was emperor of Germany at the peace of Westphalia; but
+he did not long survive it. He died in 1657, and his son Leopold
+succeeded him as sovereign of all the Austrian dominions. He had not
+completed his eighteenth year, but nevertheless was, five months
+after, elected Emperor of Germany by the Electoral Diet.</p>
+
+<p>Great events occurred during the reign of Leopold <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>&mdash;the Turkish war,
+the invasion of the Netherlands by Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, the heroic struggles of
+the Prince of Orange, the French invasion of the Palatinate, the
+accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain, the discontents
+of Hungary, and the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. Most of these
+have been already alluded <span class="pagenum"><a id="page393" name="page393"></a>(p. 393)</span>to, especially in the chapter on
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr>, and, therefore, will not be further discussed.</p>
+
+<p>The most important event connected with Austrian affairs, as distinct
+from those of France, England, and Holland, was the <span class="inline">The Hungarian War.</span> Hungarian war.
+Hungary was not a province of Austria, but was a distinct state. In
+1526, the crowns of the two kingdoms were united, like those of
+England and Hanover under George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> But the Hungarians were always
+impatient of the rule of the Emperor of Germany, and, in the space of
+a century, arose five times in defence of their liberties.</p>
+
+<p>In 1667, one of these insurrections took place, occasioned by the
+aggressive policy and government of Leopold. The Hungarians conspired
+to secure their liberties, but in vain. So soon as the emperor was
+aware of the conspiracy of his Hungarian subjects, he adopted vigorous
+measures, quartered thirty thousand additional troops in Hungary,
+loaded the people with taxes, occupied the principal fortresses,
+banished the chiefs, and changed the constitution of the country. He
+also attempted to suppress Protestantism, and committed all the
+excesses of a military despotism. These accumulated oppressions drove
+a brave but turbulent people to despair, and both Catholics and
+Protestants united for their common safety. The insurgents were
+assisted by the Prince of Transylvania, and were supplied with money
+and provisions by the French. They also found a noble defender in
+Emeric Tekeli, a young Hungarian noble, who hated Austria as intensely
+as Hannibal hated Rome, and who, at the head of twenty thousand men,
+defended his country against the emperor. Moreover, he successfully
+intrigued with the Turks, who invaded Hungary with two hundred
+thousand men, and advanced to lay siege to Vienna. This immense army
+was defeated by John Sobieski, to whom Leopold appealed in his
+necessities, and the Turks were driven out of Hungary. Tekeli was
+gradually insulated from those who had formed the great support of his
+cause, and, in consequence of jealousies which Leopold had fomented
+between him and the Turks, was arrested and sent in chains to
+Constantinople. New victories followed the imperial army, and Leopold
+succeeded in making the crown of Hungary, hitherto elective,
+hereditary in his family. He instituted in the conquered country
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page394" name="page394"></a>(p. 394)</span>a horrible inquisitorial tribunal, and perpetrated cruelties
+which scarcely find a parallel in the proscriptions of Marius and
+Sylla. His son Joseph, at the age of ten, was crowned king of Hungary
+with great magnificence, and with the usual solemnities.</p>
+
+<p>When the Hungarian difficulties were settled, Leopold had more leisure
+to prosecute his war with the Turks, in which he gained signal
+successes. The Ottoman Porte was humbled and crippled, and a great
+source of discontent to the Christian powers of Europe was removed. By
+the peace of Carlovitz, (1697,) Leopold secured Hungary and Sclavonia,
+which had been so long occupied by the Turks, and consolidated his
+empire by the acquisition of Transylvania.</p>
+
+<p>Leopold <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> lived only to witness the splendid victories of Marlborough
+and Eugene, by which the power of his great rival, Louis, was
+effectually reduced. He died in 1705, having reigned forty-six years;
+the longest reign in the Austrian annals, except that of Frederic <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>He was a man of great private virtues; pure in his morals, faithful to
+his wife, a good father, and a kind master. He was minute in his
+devotions, unbounded in his charities, and cultivated in his taste.
+But he was reserved, cold, and phlegmatic. His jealousy of Sobieski
+was unworthy of his station, and his severities in Hungary made him
+the object of execration. He was narrow, bigoted, and selfish. But he
+lived in an age of great activity, and his reign forms an era in the
+military and civil institutions of his country. The artillery had been
+gradually lightened, and received most of the improvements which at
+present are continued. Bayonets had been added to muskets, and the use
+of pikes abandoned. Armies were increased from twenty or thirty
+thousand men to one hundred thousand, more systematically formed. A
+police was established in the cities, and these were lighted and
+paved. Jurisprudence was improved, and numerous grievances were
+redressed.</p>
+
+<p>Leopold was succeeded by his eldest son, <span class="inline">The Emperor Joseph.</span> Joseph, who had an energetic
+and aspiring mind. His reign is memorable for the continuation of the
+great War of the Spanish Succession, signalized by the victories of
+Marlborough and Eugene, the humiliation of the French, and the career
+of Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> of Sweden. He also restored Bohemia to its electoral
+rights, rewarded the elector palatine <span class="pagenum"><a id="page395" name="page395"></a>(p. 395)</span>with the honors and
+territories wrested from his family by the Thirty Years' War, and
+confirmed the house of Hanover in the possession of the ninth
+electorate. He had nearly restored tranquillity to his country, when
+he died (1711) of the small-pox&mdash;a victim to the ignorance of his
+physicians. He was a lover and patron of the arts, and spoke several
+languages with elegance and fluency. But he had the usual faults of
+absolute princes; was prodigal in his expenditures, irascible in his
+temper, fond of pageants and pleasure, and enslaved by women.</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, under the title
+of Charles <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> Soon after his accession, the tranquillity of Europe
+was established by the peace of Utrecht, and Austria once more became
+the preponderating power in Europe. But Charles <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> was not capable of
+appreciating the greatness of his position, or the true sources of
+national power. He, however, devoted himself zealously to the affairs
+of his empire, and effected some useful reforms. As he had no male
+issue, he had drawn up a solemn law, called the <span class="italic">Pragmatic Sanction</span>,
+according to which he transferred to his daughter, Maria Theresa, his
+vast hereditary possessions. He found great difficulty in securing the
+assent of the European powers to this law; but, after a while, he
+effected his object. On his death, (1740,) <span class="inline">Accession of Maria Theresa.</span> Maria Theresa succeeded to
+all the dominions of the house of Austria.</p>
+
+<p>No princess ever ascended a throne under circumstances of greater
+peril, or in a situation which demanded greater energy and fortitude.
+Her army had dwindled to thirty thousand; her treasury contained only
+one hundred thousand florins; a general scarcity of provisions
+distressed the people, and the vintage was cut off by the frost.</p>
+
+<p>Under all these embarrassing circumstances, the Elector of Bavaria
+laid claim to her territory, and Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> marched into Silesia. It
+has been already stated that England sympathized with her troubles,
+and lent a generous aid. Her appeal to her Hungarian subjects, and the
+enthusiasm they manifested in her cause, have also been described. The
+boldness of Frederic and the distress of Maria Theresa drew upon them
+the eyes of all Europe. Hostilities were prosecuted four years, which
+resulted in the acquisition of Silesia by the King of Prussia. The
+peace of Dresden (1745) <span class="pagenum"><a id="page396" name="page396"></a>(p. 396)</span>gave a respite to Germany, and
+Frederic and Maria Theresa prepared for new conflicts.</p>
+
+<p>The Seven Years' War has been briefly described, in connection with
+the reign of Frederic, and need not be further discussed. The war was
+only closed by the exhaustion of all the parties engaged in it.</p>
+
+<p>In 1736, Maria Theresa was married to Francis Stephen, Grand Duke of
+Tuscany, and he was elected (1745) Emperor of Germany, under the title
+of <span class="italic">Francis I</span>. He died soon after the peace of Hubertsburg was
+signed, and his son Joseph succeeded to the throne of the empire, and
+was co-regent, as his father had been, with Maria Theresa. But the
+empress queen continued to be the real, as she was the legitimate,
+sovereign of Austria, and took an active part in all the affairs of
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>When the tranquillity of her kingdom was restored, she founded various
+colleges, <span class="inline">Maria Theresa Institutes Reforms.</span> reformed the public schools, promoted agriculture and
+instituted many beneficial regulations for the prosperity of her
+subjects. She reformed the church, diminished the number of
+superfluous clergy, suppressed the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and
+formed a system of military economy which surpassed the boasted
+arrangements of Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> "She combined private economy with public
+liberality, dignity with condescension, elevation of soul with
+humility of spirit, and the virtues of domestic life with the splendid
+qualities which grace a throne." Her death, in 1780, was felt as a
+general loss to the people, who adored her; and her reign is
+considered as one of the most illustrious in Austrian annals.</p>
+
+<p>Her reign was, however, sullied by the partition of Poland, in which
+she was concerned with Frederic the Great and Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Before
+this is treated, we will consider the reign of the Russian empress.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">The reign of Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, like that of Maria Theresa, is interlinked
+with that of Frederic. But some remarks concerning her predecessors,
+after the death of Peter the Great, are first necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine, the wife of Peter, was crowned empress before his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page397" name="page397"></a>(p. 397)</span>
+death. The first years of <span class="inline">Successors of Peter the Great.</span> her reign were agreeable to the people,
+because she diminished the taxes, and introduced a mild policy in the
+government of her subjects. She intrusted to Prince Menzikoff an
+important share in the government of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>But Catharine, who, during the reign of Peter <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, had displayed so
+much enterprise and intrepidity, very soon disdained business, and
+abandoned herself to luxury and pleasure. She died in 1727, and
+Peter <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> ascended her throne, chiefly in consequence of the intrigues
+of Menzikoff, who, like Richelieu, wished to make the emperor his
+puppet.</p>
+
+<p>Peter <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> was only thirteen years of age when he became emperor. He
+was the son of Alexis, and, consequently, grandson of Peter <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> His
+youth did not permit him to assume the reins of government, and every
+thing was committed to the care of Menzikoff, who reigned, for a time,
+with absolute power. But he, at last, incurred the displeasure of his
+youthful master, and was exiled to Siberia. But Peter <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> did not long
+survive the disgrace of his minister. He died of the small-pox, in
+1730.</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by Anne, Duchess of Holstein, and eldest daughter of
+Catharine <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> But she lived but a few months after her accession to the
+throne, and the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her.</p>
+
+<p>The Empress Elizabeth resembled her mother, the beautiful Catharine,
+but was voluptuous and weak. She abandoned herself to puerile
+amusements and degrading follies. And she was as superstitious as she
+was debauched. She would continue whole hours on her knees before an
+image, to which she spoke, and which she ever consulted; and then
+would turn from bigotry to infamous sensuality. She hated
+Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and assisted Maria Theresa in her struggles. Russia
+gained no advantage from the Seven Years' War, except that of
+accustoming the Russians to the tactics of modern warfare. She died in
+1762, and was succeeded by the Grand Duke Peter Fedorowitz, son of the
+Duke of Holstein and Anne, daughter of Peter <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> He assumed the title
+of Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<p>Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> was a weak prince, but disposed to be beneficent. One of
+his first acts was to recall the numerous exiles whom the jealousy of
+Elizabeth had consigned to the deserts of Siberia. Among them was
+Biren, the haughty lover and barbarous minister of the Empress Anne
+and Marshal Munich, a veteran of eighty-two <span class="pagenum"><a id="page398" name="page398"></a>(p. 398)</span>years of age.
+Peter also abolished the Inquisition, established by Alexis
+Michaelowitz, and promoted commerce, the arts, and sciences. He
+attempted to imitate the king of Prussia, for whom he had an
+extravagant admiration. He set at liberty the Prussian prisoners, and
+made peace with Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> He had a great respect for Germany, but
+despised the country over which he was called to reign. But his
+partiality for the Germans, and his numerous reforms, alienated the
+affections of his subjects, and he was not sufficiently able to curb
+the spirit of discontent. He imitated his immediate predecessors in
+the vices of drunkenness and sensuality, and was guilty of great
+imprudences. He reigned but a few months, being dethroned and
+<span class="inline">Murder of Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></span> murdered. His wife, the Empress Catharine, was the chief of the
+conspirators; and she was urged to the bloody act by her own desperate
+circumstances. She was obnoxious to her husband, who probably would
+have destroyed her, had his life been prolonged. She, in view of his
+hostility, and prompted by an infernal ambition, sought to dethrone
+her husband. She was assisted by some of the most powerful nobles, and
+gained over most of the regiments of the imperial guard. The
+Archbishop of Novgorod and the clergy were friendly to her, because
+they detested the reforms which Peter had attempted to make. Catharine
+became mistress of St. Petersburg, and caused herself to be crowned
+Empress of Russia, in one of the principal churches. Peter had timely
+notice of the revolt, but not the energy to suppress it. He listened
+to the entreaties of women, rather than to the counsels of those
+veteran generals who still supported his throne. He was timid,
+irresolute, and vacillating. He was doomed. He was a weak and
+infatuated prince, and nothing could save him. He surrendered himself
+into the hands of Catharine, abdicated his empire, and, shortly after,
+died of poison. His wife seated herself, without further opposition,
+on his throne; and the principal nobles of the empire, the army, and
+the clergy, took the oath of allegiance, and the monarchs of Europe
+acknowledged her as the absolute sovereign of Russia. In 1763, she was
+firmly established in the power which had been before wielded by
+Catharine <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> She had dethroned an imbecile prince, whom she abhorred;
+but the revolution was accomplished without bloodshed, and resulted in
+the prosperity of Russia.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page399" name="page399"></a>(p. 399)</span>Catharine was a woman of great moral defects; but she had
+many excellences to counterbalance them; and her rule was, on the
+whole, able and beneficent. She was no sooner established in the power
+which she had usurped, than she directed attention to the affairs of
+her empire, and sought to remedy the great evils which existed. She
+devoted herself to business, advanced commerce and the arts, regulated
+the finances, improved the jurisprudence of the realm, patronized all
+works of internal improvement, rewarded eminent merit, encouraged
+education, and exercised a liberal and enlightened policy in her
+intercourse with foreign powers. After engaging in business with her
+ministers, she would converse with scholars and philosophers. With
+some she studied politics, and with others literature. She tolerated
+all religions, abolished odious courts, and enacted mild laws. She
+held out great inducements for foreigners to settle in Russia, and
+founded colleges and hospitals in all parts of her empire.</p>
+
+<p>Beneficent as her reforms were, she nevertheless committed some great
+political crimes. One of these was the <span class="inline">Assassination of Ivan.</span> assassination of the dethroned
+Ivan, the great-grandson of the Czar Ivan Alexejewitsch, who was
+brother of Peter the Great. On the death of the Empress Anne, in 1731,
+he had been proclaimed emperor: but when Elizabeth was placed upon the
+throne, the infant was confined in the fortress of Schlussenburg. Here
+he was so closely guarded and confined, that he was never allowed
+access to the open air or the light of day. On the accession of
+Catharine, he was twenty-three years of age, and was extremely
+ignorant and weak. But a conspiracy was formed to liberate him, and
+place him on the throne. The attempt proved abortive, and the prince
+perished by the sword of his jailers, who were splendidly rewarded for
+their infamous services.</p>
+
+<p>Her scheme of foreign aggrandizement, and especially her interference
+in the affairs of Poland, caused the Ottoman Porte to declare war
+against her, which war proved disastrous to Turkey, and contributed to
+aggrandize the empire of Russia. The Turks lost several battles on the
+Pruth, Dniester, and Danube; the provinces of Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+and Bessarabia submitted to the Russian arms; while a great naval
+victory, in the Mediterranean, was gained by Alexis Orloff, whose
+share in the late revolution had raised him from the rank of a simple
+soldier to that of a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page400" name="page400"></a>(p. 400)</span>general of the empire, and a favorite
+of the empress. The naval defeat of the Turks at Tschesmé, by Orloff
+and Elphinstone, was one of the most signal of that age, and greatly
+weakened the power of Turkey. The war was not terminated until 1774,
+when the Turks were compelled to make peace, by the conditions of
+which, Russia obtained a large accession of territory, a great sum of
+money, the free navigation of the Black Sea, and a passage through the
+Dardanelles.</p>
+
+<p>In 1772 occurred the partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia, and
+Russia. Catharine and Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> were the chief authors of this
+great political crime, which will be treated in the notice on Poland.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of Catharine was not signalized by any other great political
+events which affected materially the interests of Europe, except the
+continuation of the war with the Turks, which broke out again in 1778,
+and which was concluded in 1792, by the treaty of Jassy. In this war,
+Prince Potemkin, the favorite and prime minister of Catharine, greatly
+distinguished himself; also General Suwarrow, afterwards noted for his
+Polish campaigns. In this war Russia lost two hundred thousand men,
+and the Turks three hundred and thirty thousand, besides expending two
+hundred and fifty millions of piasters. The most important political
+consequence was the aggrandizement of Russia, whose dominion was
+established on the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine, having acquired, either by arms or intrigues, almost half
+of Poland, the Crimea, and a part of the frontiers of Turkey, then
+turned her arms against Persia. But she <span class="inline">Death of Catharine.</span> died before she could realize
+her dreams of conquest. At her death, she was the most powerful
+sovereign that ever reigned in Russia. She was succeeded by her son,
+Paul <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, (1796,) and her remains were deposited by the side of her
+murdered husband, while his chief murderers, Alexis Orloff and Prince
+Baratinski, were ordered to stand at her funeral, on each side of his
+coffin as chief mourners.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine, though a woman of great energy and talent, was ruled by
+favorites; the most distinguished of whom were Gregory Orloff and
+Prince Potemkin. The former was a man of brutal manners and surprising
+audacity; the latter was more civilized, but was a man disgraced, like
+Orloff, by every vice. His memory, however, is still cherished in
+Russia on account of his military <span class="pagenum"><a id="page401" name="page401"></a>(p. 401)</span>successes. He received
+more honors and rewards from his sovereign than is recorded of any
+favorite and minister of modern times. His power was equal to what
+Richelieu enjoyed, and his fortune was nearly as great as Mazarin's.
+He was knight of the principal orders of Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and
+Russia, field-marshal, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, high
+admiral of the fleets, great hetman of the Cossacks, and chamberlain
+of the empress. He received from her a fortune of fifty millions of
+roubles; equal to nearly twenty-five millions of dollars. The Orloffs
+received also about seventeen millions in lands, and palaces, and
+money, with forty-five thousand peasants.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine <span class="inline">Her Character.</span> had two passions which never left her but with her last
+breath&mdash;the love of the other sex, which degenerated into the most
+unbounded licentiousness, and the love of glory, which sunk into
+vanity. She expended ninety millions of roubles on her favorites, the
+number of which is almost incredible; and she was induced to engage in
+wars, which increased the burdens of her subjects.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of these two passions, her character is interesting
+and commanding. Her reign was splendid, and her court magnificent. Her
+institutions and monuments were to Russia what the magnificence of
+Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> was to France. She was active and regular in her habits;
+was never hurried away by anger, and was never a prey to dejection;
+caprice and ill humor were never perceived in her conduct; she was
+humorous, gay, and affable; she appreciated literature, and encouraged
+good institutions; and, with all her faults, obtained the love and
+reverence of her subjects. She had not the virtues of Maria Theresa,
+but had, perhaps, greater energy of character. Her foulest act was her
+part in the dismemberment of Poland, which now claims a notice.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;For the reign of Maria Theresa, see Archdeacon
+     Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Austria, which is the most
+     interesting and complete. See also Putter's Constitution of
+     the Germanic Empire; Kolhrausch's History of Germany;
+     Heeren's Modern History; Smyth's Lectures; also a history of
+     Germany, in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopædia. For a life of
+     Catharine, see Castina's Life, translated by Hunter; Tooke's
+     Life of Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>; Ségur's Vie de Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>; Coxe's
+     Travels; Heeren's and Russell's Modern History.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page402" name="page402"></a>(p. 402)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="25">XXV.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>CALAMITIES OF POLAND.</h4>
+
+
+<p>No kingdom in Europe has been subjected to so many <span class="inline">Calamities of Poland.</span> misfortunes and
+changes, considering its former greatness, as the Polish monarchy.
+Most of the European states have retained their ancient limits, for
+several centuries, without material changes, but Poland has been
+conquered, dismembered, and plundered. Its ancient constitution has
+been completely subverted, and its extensive provinces are now annexed
+to the territories of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The greatness of
+the national calamities has excited the sympathy of Christian nations,
+and its unfortunate fate is generally lamented.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixteenth century, Poland was a greater state than Russia, and
+was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms of Europe. The Poles,
+as a nation, are not, however, of very ancient date. Prior to the
+ninth century, they were split up into numerous tribes, independent of
+each other, and governed by their respective chieftains. Christianity
+was introduced in the tenth century, and the earliest records of the
+people were preserved by the monks. We know but little, with
+certainty, until the time of Piast, who united the various states, and
+whose descendants reigned until 1386, when the dynasty of the
+Jagellons commenced, and continued till 1572. Under the princes of
+this line, the government was arbitrary and oppressive. War was the
+great business and amusement of the princes, and success in it brought
+the highest honors. The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and
+capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their
+reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and
+violence&mdash;the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some
+of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great
+majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the
+Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and
+the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page403" name="page403"></a>(p. 403)</span>gloom
+hanging over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in reference to
+kings. And yet their reigns, though stained by revolting crimes,
+generally were to be preferred to the anarchy of an interregnum, or
+the overgrown power of nobles.</p>
+
+<p>The brightest period in the history of Poland was during the reigns of
+the Jagellon princes, especially when Casimir <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> held the sceptre of
+empire. During his reign, Lithuania, which then comprised Hungary,
+Bohemia, and Silesia, was added to his kingdom. The university of
+Cracow was founded, and Poland was the great resort of the Jews, to
+whom were committed the trade and commerce of the land. But the rigors
+of the feudal system, and the vast preponderance of the aristocracy,
+proved unfortunate for the prosperity of the kingdom. What in England
+was the foundation of constitutional liberty, proved in Poland to be
+subversive of all order and good government. In England, the
+representative of the nation was made an instrument in the hands of
+the king of humbling the great nobility. Absolutism was established
+upon the ruins of feudalism. But, in Poland, the Diet of the nation
+controlled the king, and, as the representatives of the nobility
+alone, perpetuated the worst evils of the feudal system.</p>
+
+<p>When Sigismund <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, the last male heir of the house of Jagellon, died,
+in 1572, the nobles were sufficiently powerful to make the <span class="inline">The Crown of Poland Made Elective.</span> crown
+elective. From this period we date the decline of Poland. The
+Reformation, so beneficent in its effects, did not spread to this
+Sclavonic country; and the barbarism of the Middle Ages received no
+check. On the death of Sigismund, the nobles would not permit the new
+sovereign to be elected by the Diet, but only by the whole body of the
+nobility. The plain of Praga was the place selected for the election;
+and, at the time appointed, such a vast number of nobles arrived, that
+the plain, of twelve miles in circumference, was scarcely large enough
+to contain them and their retinues. There never was such a sight seen
+since the crusaders were marshalled on the field of Chalcedon, for all
+the nobles were gorgeously apparelled, and decked with ermine, gold,
+and jewels. The Polish horseman frequently invests half his fortune in
+his horse and dress. In the centre of the field was the tent of the
+late king, capable of accommodating eight thousand men. The candidates
+for the crown were Ernest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page404" name="page404"></a>(p. 404)</span>Archduke of Austria; the Czar of
+Russia; a Swedish prince, and Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, and
+brother of Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr>, king of France.</p>
+
+<p>The first candidate was rejected because the house of Austria was
+odious to the Polish nobles; the second, on account of his arrogance;
+and the third, because he was not powerful enough to bring advantage
+to the republic. The choice fell on the <span class="inline">Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou.</span> Duke of Anjou; and he, for the
+title of a king, agreed to the ignominious conditions which the Poles
+proposed, viz., that he should not attempt to influence the election
+of his successors, or assume the title of heir of the monarchy, or
+declare war without the consent of the Diet, or impose taxes of any
+description, or have power to appoint his ambassadors, or any
+foreigner to a benefice in the church; that he should convoke the Diet
+every two years; and that he should not marry without its permission.
+He also was required to furnish four thousand French troops, in case
+of war; to apply annually, for the sole benefit of the Polish state, a
+considerable part of his hereditary revenues; to pay the debts of the
+crown; and to educate, at his own expense, at Paris or Cracow, one
+hundred Polish nobles. He had scarcely been crowned when his brother
+died, and he was called to the throne of France. But he found it
+difficult to escape from his kingdom, the government of which he found
+to be burdensome and vexatious. No criminal ever longed to escape from
+a prison, more than this prince to break the fetters which bound him
+to his imperious subjects. He resolved to run away; concealed his
+intentions with great address; gave a great ball at his palace; and in
+the midst of the festivities, set out with full speed towards Silesia.
+He was pursued, but reached the territories of the emperor of Germany
+before he was overtaken. He reached Paris in safety, and was soon
+after crowned as king of France.</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded by Stephen, Duke of Transylvania; and he, again, by
+Sigismund, Prince of Sweden. The two sons of Sigismund, successively,
+were elected kings of Poland, the last of whom, John <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, was
+embroiled in constant war. It was during his disastrous reign that
+<span class="inline">Sobieski Assists the Emperor Leopold.</span> John Sobieski, with ten thousand Poles, defeated eighty thousand
+Cossacks, the hereditary enemies of Poland. On the death of Michael,
+who had succeeded John <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page405" name="page405"></a>(p. 405)</span>Sobieski was elected king, and
+he assumed the title of <span class="italic">John III</span>. He was a native noble, and was
+chosen for his military talents and successes. Indeed, Poland needed a
+strong arm to defend her. Her decline had already commenced, and
+Sobieski himself could not avert the ruin which impended. For some
+time, Poland enjoyed cessation from war, and the energies of the
+monarch were directed to repair the evils which had disgraced his
+country. But before he could prosecute successfully any useful
+reforms, the war between the Turks and the eastern powers of Europe
+broke out, and Vienna was besieged by an overwhelming army of two
+hundred thousand Mohammedans. The city was bravely defended, but its
+capture seemed inevitable. The emperor of Germany, Leopold, in his
+despair, implored the aid of Sobieski. He was invested with the
+command of the allied armies of Austrians, Bavarians, Saxons, and
+Poles, amounting to seventy thousand men. With this force he advanced
+to relieve Vienna. He did not hesitate to attack the vast forces
+encamped beneath the walls of the Austrian capital, and obtained one
+of the most signal victories in the history of war. Immense treasures
+fell into his hands, and Vienna and Christendom were saved.</p>
+
+<p>But the mean-spirited emperor treated his deliverer with arrogance and
+chilling coldness. No gratitude was exhibited or felt. But the pope
+sent him the rarest of his gifts&mdash;"the dove of pearls." Sobieski, in
+spite of the ingratitude of Leopold, pursued his victories over the
+Turks; and, like Charles Martel, ten centuries before, freed Europe
+from the danger of a Mohammedan yoke. But he saved a serpent, when
+about to be crushed, which turned and stung him for his kindness. The
+dismemberment of his country soon followed the deliverance of Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>He was succeeded, in 1696, by Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony,
+whose reign was a constant succession of disasters. During his reign,
+Poland was invaded and conquered by Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> of Sweden. He was
+succeeded by his son, Frederic Augustus <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, the most beautiful,
+extravagant, luxurious, and licentious monarch of his age. But he was
+a man of elegant tastes, and he filled Dresden with pictures and works
+of art, which are still the admiration of travellers. His reign, as
+king of Poland, was exceedingly disastrous. Muscovite and Prussian
+armies traversed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page406" name="page406"></a>(p. 406)</span>the plains of Poland at pleasure, and
+extorted whatever they pleased. Faction was opposed by faction in the
+field and in the Diet. The national assembly was dissolved by the
+<span class="italic">veto</span>, the laws were disregarded, and brute force prevailed on every
+side. The miserable peasants in vain besought the protection of their
+brutal yet powerless lords. Bands of robbers infested the roads, and
+hunger invaded the cottages. The country rapidly declined in wealth,
+population, and public spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Under the reign of Stanislaus <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, who succeeded Frederic
+Augustus <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, in 1764, the ambassadors of Prussia, Austria, and
+Russia, informed the miserable king that, in order to prevent further
+bloodshed, and restore peace to Poland, the three powers had
+determined to insist upon their claims to some of the provinces of the
+kingdom. This barefaced and iniquitous scheme for the dismemberment of
+Poland originated with Frederic the Great. So soon as the close of the
+Seven Years' War allowed him repose, he turned his eyes to Poland,
+with a view of seizing one of her richest provinces. Territories
+inhabited by four million eight hundred thousand people, were divided
+between Frederic, Maria Theresa, and Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> There were no
+scruples of conscience in the breast of Frederic, or of Catharine, a
+woman of masculine energy, but disgraceful morals. The conscience of
+Maria Theresa, however, long resisted. "The fear of hell," said she,
+"restrains me from seizing another's possessions;" but sophistry was
+brought to bear upon her mind, and the lust of dominion asserted its
+powerful sway. This crime was regarded with detestation by the other
+powers of Europe; but they were too much occupied with their own
+troubles to interfere, except by expostulation. England was disturbed
+by difficulties in the colonies, and France was distracted by
+revolutionary tumults.</p>
+
+<p>Stanislaus, robbed of one third of his dominions, now directed his
+attention to those reforms which had been so long imperatively needed.
+He intrusted to the celebrated Zamoyski the task of revising the
+constitution. The patriotic chancellor recommended the abolition of
+the <span class="inline">The Liberum Veto.</span> "liberum veto," a fatal privilege, by which any one of the armed
+equestrians, who assembled on the plain of Praga to elect a king, or
+deliberate on state affairs, had power to nullify the most important
+acts, and even to dissolve the assembly. A <span class="pagenum"><a id="page407" name="page407"></a>(p. 407)</span>single word,
+pronounced in the vehemence of domestic strife, or by the influence of
+external corruption, could plunge the nation into a lethargic sleep.
+And faction went so far as often to lead to the dissolution of the
+assembly. The treasury, the army, the civil authority then fell into a
+state of anarchy. Zamoyski also recommended the emancipation of serfs,
+the encouragement of commerce, the elevation of the trading classes,
+and the abolition of the fatal custom of electing a king. But the
+Polish nobles, infatuated and doomed, opposed these wholesome reforms.
+They even had the madness to invoke the aid of the Empress Catharine
+to protect them in their ancient privileges. She sent an army into
+Poland, and great disturbances resulted.</p>
+
+<p>Too late, at last, the nobles perceived their folly, and adopted some
+of the proposed reforms. But these reforms gave a new pretence to the
+allied powers for a second dismemberment. <span class="inline">The Fall of Poland.</span> An army of one hundred
+thousand men invaded Poland, to effect a new partition. The unhappy
+country, without fortified towns or mountains, abandoned by all the
+world, distracted by divisions, and destitute of fortresses and
+military stores, was crushed by the power of gigantic enemies. There
+were patriotism and bravery left, but no union or organized strength.
+The patriots made a desperate struggle under Kosciusko, a Lithuanian
+noble, but were forced to yield to inevitable necessity. Warsaw for a
+time held out against fifty thousand men; but the Polish hero was
+defeated in a decisive engagement, and unfortunately taken prisoner.
+His countrymen still rallied, and another bloody battle was fought at
+Praga, opposite Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula, and ten
+thousand were slain; Praga was reduced to a heap of ruins; and twelve
+thousand citizens were slaughtered in cold blood. Warsaw soon after
+surrendered, Stanislaus was sent as a captive to Russia, and the final
+partition of the kingdom was made.</p>
+
+<p>"Sarmatia fell," but not "unwept," or "without a crime." "She fell,"
+says Alison, "a victim of her own dissensions, of the chimera of
+equality falsely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy unceasingly
+maintained. The eldest born of the European family was the first to
+perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union;
+because she united the turbulence of democratic to the exclusion of
+aristocratic societies; because she had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page408" name="page408"></a>(p. 408)</span>the vacillation of a
+republic without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without
+its stability. The Poles obstinately refused to march with other
+nations in the only road to civilization; they had valor, but it could
+not enforce obedience to the laws; it could not preserve domestic
+tranquillity; it could not restrain the violence of petty feuds and
+intestine commotions; it could not preserve the proud nobles from
+unbounded dissipation and corruption; it could not prevent foreign
+powers from interfering in the affairs of the kingdom; it could not
+dissolve the union of these powers with discontented parties at home;
+it could not inspire the slowly-moving machine of government with
+vigor, when the humblest partisan, corrupted with foreign money, could
+arrest it with a word; it could not avert the entrance of foreign
+armies to support the factious and rebellious; it could not uphold, in
+a divided country, the national independence against the combined
+effects of foreign and domestic treason; finally, it could not effect
+impossibilities, nor turn aside the destroying sword which had so long
+impended over it."</p>
+
+<p>But this great crime was attended with retribution. Prussia, in her
+efforts to destroy Poland, paralyzed her armies on the Rhine. Suwarrow
+entered Warsaw when its spires were reddened by the fires of Praga;
+but the sack of the fallen capital was forgotten in the conflagration
+of Moscow. The remains of the soldiers of Kosciusko sought a refuge in
+republican France, and served with distinction, in the armies of
+Napoleon, against the powers that had dismembered their country.</p>
+
+<p>The ruin of Poland, as an independent state, was not fully
+accomplished until the year 1832, when it was incorporated into the
+great empire of Russia. But the history of the late revolution, with
+all its melancholy results, cannot be well presented in this
+connection.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Fletcher's History of Poland. Rulhière's
+     Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne. Coyer's Vie de Sobieski.
+     Parthenay's History of Augustus <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> Hordynski's History of
+     the late Polish Revolution. Also see Lives of Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>,
+     Maria Theresa, and Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>; contemporaneous histories
+     of Prussia, Russia, and Austria; Alison's History of Europe;
+     Smyth's Lectures; Russell's Modern Europe; Heeren's Modern
+     History.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page409" name="page409"></a>(p. 409)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="26">XXVI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.</h4>
+
+
+<p>While the great monarchies of Western Europe were struggling for
+preëminence, and were developing resources greater than had ever
+before been exhibited since the fall of the Roman empire, that great
+power which had alarmed and astonished Christendom in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, <span class="inline">Saracenic Empire.</span> began to show the signs of weakness and
+decay. Nothing, in the history of society, is more marvellous than the
+rise of Mohammedan kingdoms. The victories of the Saracens and Turks
+were rapid and complete; and in the tenth century, they were the most
+successful warriors on the globe, and threatened to subvert the world.
+They had planted the standard of the Prophet on the walls of Eastern
+capitals, and had extended their conquests to India on the east, and
+to Spain on the west. Powerful Mohammedan states had arisen in Asia,
+Africa, and Europe, and the Crusaders alone arrested the progress of
+these triumphant armies. The enthusiasm which the doctrines of
+Mohammed had kindled, cannot easily be explained; but it was fresh,
+impetuous, and self-sacrificing. Successive armies of Mohammedan
+invaders overwhelmed the ancient realms of civilization, and reduced
+the people whom they conquered and converted to a despotic yoke. But
+success enervated the victorious conquerors of the East, the empire of
+the Caliphs was broken up, and great changes took place even in those
+lands where the doctrines of the Koran prevailed. Mohammed perpetuated
+a religion, but not an empire. Different Saracenic chieftains revolted
+from the "Father of the Faithful," and established separate kingdoms,
+or viceroyalties, nearly independent of the acknowledged successors of
+Mohammed. The Saracenic empire was early dismembered, and the sultans
+of Egypt, Spain, and Syria contested for preëminence.</p>
+
+<p>But a new power arose on the ruins of the Saracen empire, and became
+the enthusiastic defenders of the religion of Islam. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page410" name="page410"></a>(p. 410)</span>
+<span class="inline">Rise of the Turks.</span> Turks were an obscure tribe of barbarians when Bagdad was the seat of
+a powerful monarchy. Their origin has been traced to the wilds of
+Scythia; but they early deserted their native forests in search of
+more fruitful regions. When Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the
+Norman pirates, a swarm of these Scythian shepherds settled in
+Armenia, probably in the ninth century, and, by their valor and
+simplicity, soon became a powerful tribe. Not long after they were
+settled in their new abode, the Sultan of Persia invoked their aid to
+assist him in his wars against the Caliph of Bagdad, his great rival.
+The Turks complied with his request, and their arms were successful.
+The sultan then refused to part with such useful auxiliaries, and
+moreover, fearing their strength, designed to employ them in his wars
+against the Hindoos, and to shut them up in the centre of his
+dominions. The Turkmans rebelled, withdrew into a mountainous part of
+the country, became robbers, and devastated the adjacent countries.
+The band of robbers gradually swelled into a powerful army, gained a
+great victory over the troops of the Sultan Mohammed, and placed their
+chieftain upon the Persian throne, (1038.) According to Gibbon, the
+new monarch was chosen by lot, and Seljuk had the fortune to win the
+prize of conquest, and became the founder of the dynasty of the
+Shepherd kings. During the reign of his grandson Togrul, the ancient
+Persian princes were expelled, and the Turks embraced the religion of
+the conquered. In 1055, the Turkish sultan delivered the Caliph of
+Bagdad from the arms of the Caliph of Egypt, who disputed with him the
+title of <span class="italic">Commander of the Faithful</span>. For this service he was
+magnificently rewarded by the grateful successor of the Prophet, who,
+at that time, banqueted in his palace at Bagdad&mdash;a venerable phantom
+of power. The victorious sultan was publicly commissioned as
+lieutenant of the caliph, and he was virtually seated on the throne of
+the Abbassides. Shortly after, the Turkish conqueror invaded the
+falling empire of the Greeks, and its Asiatic provinces were
+irretrievably lost. In the latter part of the eleventh century, the
+Turkish power was established in Asia Minor, and Jerusalem itself had
+fallen into the hands of the sultan. He exacted two pieces of gold
+from the Christian pilgrim, and treated him, moreover, with greater
+cruelty than the Saracens had ever exercised. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page411" name="page411"></a>(p. 411)</span>extortion
+and oppression of the Turkish masters of the Sacred City led to the
+Crusades and the final possession of Western Asia by the followers of
+the Prophet. The Turkish power constantly increased with the decline
+of the Saracenic and Greek empires, but the Seljukian dynasty, like
+that of Abbassides at Bagdad, at last run out, and Othman, a soldier
+of fortune, became sultan of the Turks. He is regarded as the founder
+of the Ottoman empire, and under his reign, from 1299 to 1326, the
+Moslems made rapid strides in the progress of aggrandizement.</p>
+
+<p>Orkham, his son, instituted the force of the Janizaries, completed the
+<span class="inline">Turkish Conquerors.</span> conquest of Bithynia, and laid the foundation of Turkish power in
+Europe. Under his successor, Amurath <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>, Adrianople became the capital
+of the Ottoman empire, and the rival of Constantinople. Bajazet
+succeeded Amurath, and his conquests extended from the Euphrates to
+the Danube. In 1396, he defeated, at Nicopolis, a confederate army of
+one hundred thousand Christians; and, in the intoxication of victory,
+declared that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the
+altar of St. Peter, at Rome. Had it not been for the victories of
+Tamerlane, Constantinople, which contained within its walls the feeble
+fragments of a great empire, would also have fallen into his hands. He
+was unsuccessful in his war with the great conqueror of Asia, and was
+defeated at the battle of Angora, (1402,) and taken captive, and
+carried to Samarcand, by Tamerlane, in an iron cage.</p>
+
+<p>The great Bajazet died in captivity, and Mohammed <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> succeeded to his
+throne. He restored, on a firmer basis, the fabric of the Ottoman
+monarchy, and devoted himself to the arts of peace. His successor,
+Amurath <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, continued hostilities with the Greeks, and laid siege to
+Constantinople. But this magnificent city, the last monument of Roman
+greatness, resisted the Turkish arms only for a while. In 1453, it
+fell before an irresistible force of three hundred thousand men,
+supported by a fleet of three hundred sail. The Emperor Constantine
+succeeded in maintaining a siege of fifty-three days; and the religion
+and empire of the Christians were trodden to the dust by the Moslem
+conquerors. The city was sacked, the people were enslaved, and the
+Church of St. Sophia was despoiled of the oblations of ages, and
+converted into a Mohammedan mosque. One hundred and twenty thousand
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page412" name="page412"></a>(p. 412)</span>manuscripts perished in the sack of Constantinople, and the
+palaces and treasure of the Greeks were transferred to
+semi-barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>From that time, the Byzantine capital became the seat of the Ottoman
+empire; and, for more than two centuries, Turkish armies excited the
+fears and disturbed the peace of the world. <span class="inline">Progress of the Turks.</span> They gradually subdued and
+annexed Macedonia, the Peloponnesus, Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia,
+Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, India, Tunis, Algiers, Media,
+Mesopotamia, and a part of Hungary, to the dominions of the sultan. In
+the sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire was the most powerful in the
+world. Nor should we be surprised, in view of the great success of the
+Turks, when we remember their singular bravery, their absorbing
+ambition, their almost incredible obedience to the commands of the
+sultan, and the unity which pervaded the national councils. They also
+fought to extend their religion, to which they were blind devotees.
+After the capture of Constantinople, a succession of great princes sat
+on the most absolute throne known in modern times; men disgraced by
+many crimes, but still singularly adapted to extend their dominion.</p>
+
+<p>The progress of the Turks justly alarmed the Emperor Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr>, and
+he exerted all his energies to unite the German princes against them,
+but unsuccessfully. The Sultan Solyman, called the <span class="italic">Magnificent</span>,
+maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+ravaged Hungary, wrested Rhodes from the Knights of St. John,
+conquered the whole of Arabia, and attacked the Portuguese dominion in
+India. He raised the Turkish empire to the highest pitch of its
+greatness, and died while besieging Sigeth, as he was completing the
+conquest of Hungary. His empire was one vast camp, and his decrees
+were dated from the imperial stirrup. The iron sceptre which he and
+his successors wielded was imbrued in blood; and discipline alone was
+the politics of his soldiers, and rapine their resources.</p>
+
+<p>Selim <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> succeeded Solyman, and set the ruinous example of not going
+himself to the wars, and of carrying them on by his lieutenants. His
+son, Murad <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, penetrated into Russia and Poland, and made war on
+the Emperor of Germany. Mohammed <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, who died in 1604, murdered all
+his brothers, nineteen in number, and executed his own son. It was
+usual, when an emperor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page413" name="page413"></a>(p. 413)</span>mounted the throne, for him to put to
+death his brothers and nephews. Indeed, the characters of the sultans
+were marked by unusual ferocity and jealousy, and they were
+unscrupulous in the means they took to advance their power. The world
+has never seen more suspicious tyrants; and it ever must excite our
+wonder that they were so unhesitatingly obeyed. But they were,
+however, sometimes dethroned by the Janizaries, who constituted a sort
+of imperial guard. Osman <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, fearing their power, and disgusted with
+their degeneracy, resolved to destroy them, as dangerous to the state.
+But his design was discovered, and he himself lost his life, (1622.)
+Several monsters of tyranny and iniquity succeeded him, whose reigns
+were disgraced by every excess of debauchery and cruelty. Their
+subjects, however, had not, as yet, lost vigor, temperance, and
+ambition, and still continued to furnish troops unexampled for
+discipline and bravery, and bent on conquest and dominion.</p>
+
+<p>The Turkish power received no great checks until the reign of
+Mohammed <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, during which Sobieski defeated an immense army, which
+had laid siege to Vienna. By the peace of Carlovitz, in 1699,
+Transylvania was ceded to the Emperor of Germany, and a barrier was
+raised against Mohammedan invasion.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians, from the time of Peter the Great, looked with great
+jealousy on the power of the sultan, and several wars were the result.
+No Russian sovereign desired the humiliation of the Porte more than
+Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> A bloody contest ensued, signalized by the victories of
+Galitzin, Suwarrow, Romanzoff, and Orloff, by which Turkey became a
+second class power, no longer feared by the European states.</p>
+
+<p>From the peace of Carlovitz, the <span class="inline">Decline of Turkish Power.</span> decline of the Ottoman empire has
+been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to
+all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile
+to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been
+bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental
+dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and
+customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia several
+centuries ago.</p>
+
+<p>One of the peculiarities of the Turkish government, in the most
+flourishing period of its history, was the <span class="inline">Turkish Institutions.</span> institution of the
+Janizaries&mdash;a guard of soldiers, to whom was intrusted the
+guardianship <span class="pagenum"><a id="page414" name="page414"></a>(p. 414)</span>of the sultan, and the protection of his
+capital. When warlike and able princes were seated on the throne, this
+institution proved a great support to the government; but when the
+reins were held by effeminate princes, the Janizaries, like the
+Prætorian Guards of Rome, acquired an undue ascendency, and even
+deposed the monarchs whom they were bound to obey. They were insolent,
+extortionate, and extravagant, and became a great burden to the state.
+At first they were brave and resolute; but they gradually lost their
+skill and their courage, were uniformly beaten in the later wars with
+the Russians, and retained nothing of the soldier but the name.
+Mahmoud <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, in our own time, succeeded in dissolving this dangerous
+body, and in introducing European tactics into his army.</p>
+
+<p>The Turkish institutions have <span class="inline">Turkish Character.</span> reference chiefly to the military
+character of the nation. All Mussulmans, in the eye of the law, are
+soldiers, to whom the extension of the empire and the propagation of
+their faith were the avowed objects of warfare. They may be regarded,
+wherever they have conquered, as military colonists, exercising great
+tyranny, and treating all vanquished subjects with contempt. The
+government has ever been a pure despotism, and both the executive and
+legislative authorities have been vested in the sultan. He is the sole
+fountain of honor; for, in Turkey, birth confers no privilege. His
+actions are regarded as prescribed by an inevitable fate, and his
+subjects suffer with resignation. The evils of despotism are
+aggravated by the ignorance and effeminacy of those to whom power is
+intrusted, although the grand vizier, who is the prime minister of the
+empire, is generally a man of great experience and talent. All the
+laws of the country are founded upon the precepts of the Koran, the
+example of Mohammed, the precepts of the four first caliphs, and the
+decision of learned doctors upon disputed cases. Justice is
+administered promptly, but without much regard to equity or mercy; and
+the course of the grand vizier is generally marked with blood. The
+character of the people partakes of the nature of their government,
+religion, and climate. They are arrogant, ignorant, and austere;
+passing from devotion to obscenity; fastidiously abstemious in some
+things, and grossly sensual in others. They have cherished the virtues
+of hospitality, and are fond of conversation <span class="pagenum"><a id="page415" name="page415"></a>(p. 415)</span>but their
+domestic life is spent in voluptuous idleness, and is dull and insipid
+compared with that of Europeans. But the Turks have degenerated. In
+the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were simple, brave, and
+religious. They founded an immense empire on the ruins of Asiatic
+monarchies, and filled the world with the terror of their arms. For
+two hundred years their power has been retrograding, and there is much
+reason now to believe that a total eclipse of their glory is soon to
+take place.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;See Knolle's History of Turkey. Eton's Survey
+     of the Turkish Empire. Upham's History of the Ottoman
+     Empire. Encyclopædia Britannica. Heeren's Modern History.
+     Madden's Travels in Turkey. Russell's Modern Europe. Life of
+     Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr><a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page416" name="page416"></a>(p. 416)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="27">XXVII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>REIGN OF GEORGE <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Great subjects were discussed in England, and great events happened in
+America, during the latter years of the reigns of Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>,
+Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>, and Maria Theresa. These now demand attention.</p>
+
+<p>George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> ascended the throne of Great Britain at a period of
+unparalleled prosperity, when the English arms were <span class="inline">Military Successes in America.</span> victorious in all
+parts of the world, and when commerce and the arts had greatly
+enriched his country and strengthened its political importance. By the
+peace of Paris, (1763,) the dominions of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> were enlarged,
+and the country over which he reigned was the most powerful in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. George Grenville succeeded the Earl of Bute as the prime minister
+of the king, and he was chiefly assisted by the Earls of Egremont and
+Halifax. His administration was signalized by the prosecution of
+Wilkes, and by schemes for the taxation of the American colonies.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wilkes was a member of parliament, but a man of ruined fortunes
+and profligate morals. As his circumstances were desperate, he applied
+to the ministry for some post of emolument; but his application was
+rejected. Failure enraged him, and he swore revenge, and resolved to
+libel the ministers, under the pretext of exercising the liberty of
+the press. He was editor of the North Briton, a periodical publication
+of some talent, but more bitterness. In the forty-fifth number, he
+assailed the king, charging him with a direct falsehood. The charge
+should have been dismissed with contempt; for it was against the
+dignity of the government to refute an infamous slander. But, in an
+evil hour, it was thought expedient to vindicate the honor of the
+sovereign; and a warrant was therefore issued against the editor,
+publisher, and printer of the publication. The officers of the law
+entered Wilkes's house <span class="pagenum"><a id="page417" name="page417"></a>(p. 417)</span>late one evening, seized his papers,
+and committed him to the Tower. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus,
+in consequence of which he was brought up to Westminster Hall. Being a
+member of parliament, and a man of considerable abilities and
+influence, his case attracted attention. The judges decided that his
+arrest was illegal, since a member of parliament could not be
+imprisoned except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. He had
+not committed any of these crimes, for a libel had only a <span class="italic">tendency</span>
+to disturb the peace. Still, had he been a private person, his
+imprisonment would have been legal; but being unconstitutional, he was
+discharged. Lord Chief Justice Pratt gained great popularity by his
+charge in favor of the liberation of Wilkes, and ever nobly defended
+constitutional liberty. He is better known as Lord Camden, the able
+lord chancellor and statesman during a succeeding administration, and
+one of the greatest lawyers England has produced, ranking with Lord
+Hardwicke, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Eldon.</p>
+
+<p>After the discharge of Wilkes, the attorney-general was then ordered
+to commence a state <span class="inline">Prosecution of Wilkes.</span> prosecution, and he was arraigned at the bar of
+the House of Commons. It was voted, by a great majority, that the
+forty-fifth number of the North Briton was a scandalous and seditious
+libel, and tending to excite traitorous insurrections. It was further
+voted that the paper should be burned by the common hangman. Wilkes
+then complained to the House of a breach of privilege, which
+complaint, being regular, was considered. But the Commons decided that
+the privilege of parliament does not extend to a libel, which
+resolution was against the decision of the Court of Common Pleas, and
+the precedents upon record in their own journals. However scandalous
+and vulgar the vituperation of Wilkes, and especially disgraceful in a
+member of parliament, still his prosecution was an attack on the
+constitution. Wilkes was arrested on what is called a <span class="italic">general
+warrant</span>, which, if often resorted to, would be fatal to the liberties
+of the people. Many, who strongly disliked the libeller, still
+defended him in this instance, among whom were Pitt, Beckford, Legge,
+Yorke, and Sir George Saville. But party spirit and detestation of
+Wilkes triumphed over the constitution, and the liberties of members
+of parliament were abridged even by themselves. But Wilkes was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page418" name="page418"></a>(p. 418)</span>not discouraged, and immediately brought an action, in
+Westminster Hall, against the Earl of Halifax, the secretary of state,
+for seizing his papers, and, after a hearing of fifteen hours, before
+Lord Chief Justice Pratt and a special jury, obtained a verdict in his
+favor of one thousand pounds damages and costs.</p>
+
+<p>While the Commons were prosecuting Wilkes for a libel, the Lords also
+continued the prosecution. Wilkes, in conjunction with Potter, a
+dissipated son of Archbishop Potter, during some of their bacchanalian
+revels, had written a blasphemous and obscene poem, after the model of
+Pope's Essay on Man, called <span class="italic">An Essay on Woman</span>. The satire was not
+published, but a few copies of it were printed privately for the
+authors. Lord Sandwich had contrived to secure a copy of it, and read
+it before the House; and the Lords, indignant and disgusted, voted an
+address to the king to institute a prosecution against the author. The
+Lords, by so doing, departed from the dignity of their order, and
+their ordinary functions, and their persecution served to strengthen,
+instead of weaken, the cause of Wilkes.</p>
+
+<p>Associated with him, in his writings and his revels, was the poet
+<span class="inline">Churchill.</span> Churchill, a clergyman of the Establishment, but as open a contemner
+of decency as Wilkes himself. For some years, his poetry had proved as
+bad as his sermons, his time being spent in low dissipation. An
+ill-natured criticism on his writings called forth his energies, and
+he started, all at once, a giant in numbers, with all the fire of
+Dryden and all the harmony of Pope. Imagination, wit, strength, and
+sense, were crowded into his compositions; but he was careless of both
+matter and manner, and wrote just what came in his way. "This
+bacchanalian priest," says Horace Walpole, "now mouthing patriotism,
+and now venting libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better
+than the worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the
+weight of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots, and
+set himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the state and
+punish its oppressors. And true it is, the storm that saved us was
+raised in taverns and night-cellars; so much more effectual were the
+orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the dagger of Cato and Brutus.
+Earl Temple joined them in mischief and dissipation, and whispered
+where they might find torches, though he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page419" name="page419"></a>(p. 419)</span>took care never to
+be seen to light one himself. This triumvirate has even made me
+reflect that nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in them.
+The virtuous are too scrupulous to go the lengths which are necessary
+to rouse the people against their tyrants."</p>
+
+<p>The ferment created by the prosecution of Wilkes led to the
+resignation of Mr. Grenville, in 1765, and the Marquis of Rockingham
+succeeded him as head of the administration. He continued, however,
+the prosecution. He retained his place but a few months, and was
+succeeded by the <span class="inline">Grafton's Administration.</span> Duke of Grafton, the object of such virulent
+invective in the Letters of Junius, a work without elevation of
+sentiment, without any appeal to generous principle, without
+recognition of the eternal laws of justice, and without truthfulness,
+and yet a work which produced a great sensation, and is to this day
+regarded as a masterpiece of savage and unscrupulous sarcasm. The Duke
+of Grafton had the same views as his predecessor respecting Wilkes,
+who had the audacity, notwithstanding the sentence of outlawry which
+had been passed against him, to return from Paris, to which he had,
+for a time, retired, and to appear publicly at Guildhall, and offer
+himself as a candidate for the city of London. He was contemptuously
+rejected, but succeeded in being elected as member for Middlesex
+county.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wilkes, however, recognizing the outlawry that had been passed
+against him, surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the Court of
+the King's Bench, which was then presided over by Lord Mansfield. This
+great lawyer and jurist confirmed the verdicts against him, and
+sentenced him to pay a fine of one thousand pounds, to suffer two
+years' imprisonment, and to find security for good behavior for seven
+years. This sentence was odious and severe, and the more unjustifiable
+in view of the arbitrary and unprecedented alteration of the records
+on the very night preceding the trial.</p>
+
+<p>The multitude, enraged, rescued their <span class="inline">Popularity of Wilkes.</span> idol from the officers of the
+law, as they were conducting him to prison, and carried him with
+triumph through the city; but, through his entreaties, they were
+prevailed upon to abstain from further acts of outrage. Mr. Wilkes
+again surrendered himself, and was confined in prison. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page420" name="page420"></a>(p. 420)</span>When
+the Commons met, Wilkes was again expelled, in order to satisfy the
+vengeance of the court. But the electors of Middlesex again returned
+him to parliament, and the Commons voted that, being once expelled, he
+was incapable of sitting, even if elected, in the same parliament. The
+electors of Middlesex, equally determined with the Commons, chose him,
+for a third time, their representative; and the election, for the
+third time, was declared void by the commons. In order to terminate
+the contest, Colonel Lutterell, a member of the House, vacated his
+seat, and offered himself a candidate for Middlesex. He received two
+hundred and ninety-six votes, and Wilkes twelve hundred and
+forty-three, but Lutterell was declared duly elected by the Commons,
+and took his seat for Middlesex.</p>
+
+<p>This decision threw the whole nation into a ferment, and was plainly
+an outrage on the freedom of elections; and it was so considered by
+some of the most eminent men in England, even by those who despised
+the character of Wilkes. Lord Chatham, from his seat, declared "that
+the laws were despised, trampled upon, destroyed; those laws which had
+been made by the stern virtues of our ancestors, those iron barons of
+old, to whose spirit in the hour of contest, and to whose fortitude in
+the triumph of victory, the silken barons of this day owe all their
+honors and security."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wilkes subsequently triumphed; the Commons grew weary of a contest
+which brought no advantage and much ignominy, and the prosecution was
+dropped; but not until the subject of it had been made Lord Mayor of
+London. From 1768 to 1772, he was the sole unrivalled political idol
+of the people, who lavished on him all in their power to bestow. They
+subscribed twenty thousand pounds for the payment of his debts,
+besides gifts of plate, wine, and household goods. Every wall bore his
+name and every window his picture. In china, bronze, or marble, he
+stood upon the chimney-pieces of half the houses in London, and he
+swung from the sign-board of every village, and every great road in
+the environs of the metropolis. In 1770 he was discharged from his
+imprisonment, in 1771 was permitted to take his seat, and elected
+mayor. From 1776, his popularity declined, and he became involved in
+pecuniary difficulties. He, however, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page421" name="page421"></a>(p. 421)</span>emerged from them, and
+enjoyed a quiet office until his death (1797.) He was a patriot from
+accident, and not from principle, and corrupt in his morals; but he
+was a gentleman of elegant manners and cultivated taste. He was the
+most popular political character ever known in England; and his name,
+at one time, was sufficient to blow up the flames of sedition, and
+excite the lower orders to acts of violence bordering on madness.</p>
+
+<p>During his prosecution, important events occurred, of greater moment
+to the world. The disputes about the <span class="inline">Taxation of the Colonies.</span> taxation of America led to the
+establishment of a new republic, whose extent and grandeur have never
+been equalled, and whose future greatness cannot well be exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>These disputes commenced during the administration of George
+Grenville. The proposal to tax the American colonies had been before
+proposed to Sir Robert Walpole, but this prudent and sagacious
+minister dared not run the risk. Mr. Grenville was not, however,
+daunted by the difficulties and dangers which the more able Walpole
+regarded. In order to lighten the burden which resulted from the
+ruinous wars of Pitt, the minister proposed to raise a revenue from
+the colonies. The project pleased the house, and the Stamp Duties were
+imposed. It is true that the tax was a light one, and was so regarded
+by Mr. Grenville; but he intended it as a precedent; he was resolved
+to raise a revenue from the colonies sufficiently great to lighten the
+public burden. He regarded the colonists as subjects of the King of
+Great Britain, in every sense of the word; and, since they received
+protection from the government, they were bound to contribute to its
+support.</p>
+
+<p>But the colonists, now scattered along the coast from Maine to
+Georgia, took <span class="inline">Indignation of the Colonies.</span> other views. They maintained that, though subject in
+some degree to English legislation, they could not be taxed, any more
+than other subjects of Great Britain, without their consent. They were
+willing to be ruled in accordance with those royal charters which had,
+at different times, been given them. They were even willing to assist
+the mother country, which they loved and revered, and with which were
+connected their brightest and most cherished associations, in
+expelling its enemies from adjoining territories, and to fight battles
+in its defence. They were willing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page422" name="page422"></a>(p. 422)</span>to receive the literature,
+the religion, the fashions, and the opinions of their brethren in
+England. But they looked upon the soil which they cultivated in the
+wilderness with so many difficulties, hardships, and dangers, as their
+own, and believed that they were bound to raise taxes only to defend
+the soil, and promote good government, religion, and morality in their
+midst. But they could not understand why they were bound to pay taxes
+to support English wars on the continent of Europe. It was for their
+children, and for the sacred privilege of religious liberty, that they
+had originally left the mother country. It was only for themselves and
+their children that they felt bound to labor. They sought no political
+influence in England. They did not wish to control elections, or
+regulate the finances, or interfere with the projects of military
+aggrandizement. They were not represented in the English parliament,
+and they composed, politically speaking, no part of the English
+nation. Great, therefore, was their indignation, when they learned
+that the English government was interfering with their chartered
+rights, and designed to raise a revenue from them to lighten taxes at
+home, merely to support the government in foolish wars. If they could
+be taxed, without their consent, in any thing, they could be taxed
+without limit; and they would be in danger of becoming mere slaves of
+the mother country, and be bound to labor for English aggrandizement.
+On one point they insisted with peculiar earnestness&mdash;that taxation,
+in a free country, without a representation of interests in
+parliament, was an outrage. It was on account of this arbitrary
+taxation that Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> lost his crown, and the second revolution was
+effected, which placed the house of Hanover on the throne. The
+colonies felt that, if the subjects of the king at home were justified
+in resisting unlawful taxes, they surely, on another continent, and
+without a representation, had a right to do so also; that, if they
+were to be taxed without their consent, they would be in a worse
+condition than even the people of Ireland; would be in the condition
+of a conquered people, without the protection which even a conquered
+country enjoyed. Hence they remonstrated, and prepared themselves for
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>The English government was so blinded as not to perceive or feel the
+force of the reasoning of the colonists, and obstinately <span class="pagenum"><a id="page423" name="page423"></a>(p. 423)</span>
+resolved to resort to measures which, with a free and spirited people,
+must necessarily lead to violence and strife. The House of Commons
+would not even hear the reports of the colonial agents, but proceeded,
+with strange infatuation and obstinate bigotry, to impose the <span class="inline">The Stamp Act.</span> Stamp
+Act, (1765.) There were some, however, who perceived its folly and
+injustice. General Conway protested against the assumed right of the
+government, and Colonel Barré, a speaker of great eminence, exclaimed,
+in reply to the speech of Charles Townshend, who styled the colonies
+"children planted by our care, and nourished by our
+indulgence,"&mdash;"They planted by your care!&mdash;No! your oppressions
+planted them in America; they fled from your tyranny to a then
+uncultivated wilderness, exposed to all the hardships to which human
+nature is liable! They nourished by your indulgence!&mdash;No! they grew by
+your neglect; your <span class="italic">care</span> of them was displayed in sending persons to
+govern them who were the deputies of deputies of ministers&mdash;men whose
+behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of
+liberty to recoil within them; men who have been promoted to the
+highest seats of justice in a foreign country, in order to escape
+being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own." Mr. Pitt
+opposed the fatal policy of Grenville with singular eloquence; by
+arguments which went beyond acts of parliament; by an appeal to the
+natural reason; and by recognition of the great, inalienable
+principles of liberty. He maintained that the House had <span class="italic">no right</span> to
+lay an internal tax upon America, <span class="italic">that country not being
+represented</span>. Burke, too, then a new speaker, raised his voice against
+the folly and injustice of taxing the colonies; but it was in vain.
+The commons were bent on imposing the Stamp Act.</p>
+
+<p>But the passage of this act created great disturbances in America, and
+was every where regarded as the beginning of great calamities.
+Throughout the colonies there was a general combination to resist the
+stamp duty; and it was resolved to purchase no English manufactures,
+and to prevent the adoption of stamped paper.</p>
+
+<p>Such violent and unexpected opposition embarrassed the English
+ministry; which, in addition to the difficulties attending the
+prosecution of Wilkes, led to the retirement of Grenville, who was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page424" name="page424"></a>(p. 424)</span>succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham. During his short
+administration, the Stamp Act was repealed, although the Commons still
+insisted on their right to tax America. The joy which this repeal
+created in the colonies was unbounded; and the speech of Pitt, who
+proposed the repeal, and defended it with unprecedented eloquence, was
+every where read with enthusiasm, and served to strengthen the
+conviction, among the leading men in the colonies, that their cause
+was right. Lord Rockingham did not long remain at the head of the
+government, and was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton; although Mr.
+Pitt, recently created Earl of Chatham, was virtually the prime
+minister. Lord Rockingham retired from office with a high character
+for pure and disinterested patriotism, and without securing place,
+pension, or reversion, to himself or to any of his adherents.</p>
+
+<p>The elevation of <span class="inline">Lord Chatham.</span> Lord Chatham to the peerage destroyed his popularity
+and weakened his power. No man ever made a greater mistake than he did
+in consenting to an apparent elevation. He had long been known and
+designated as the <span class="italic">Great Commoner</span>. The people were proud of him and,
+as a commoner, he could have ruled the nation, in spite of all
+opposition. No other man could have averted the national calamities.
+But, as a peer, he no longer belonged to the people, and the people
+lost confidence in him, and abandoned him. What he gained in dignity
+he lost in power and popularity. The people now compared him with Lord
+Bath, and he became the object of universal calumny.</p>
+
+<p>And Chatham felt the change which had taken place in the nation. He
+had ever loved and courted popularity, and that was the source of his
+power. He now lost his spirits, and interested himself but little in
+public affairs. He relapsed into a state of indolence and apathy. He
+remained only the shadow of a mighty name; and, sequestered in the
+groves of his family residence, ceased to be mentioned by the public.
+He became melancholy, nervous, and unfit for business. Nor could he be
+induced to attend a cabinet council, even on the most pressing
+occasions. He pretended to be ill, and would not hold conference with
+his colleagues. Nor did he have the influence with the king which he
+had a right to expect. Being no longer beloved by the people, he was
+no longer feared by the king. He was like <span class="pagenum"><a id="page425" name="page425"></a>(p. 425)</span>Samson when
+deprived of his locks&mdash;without strength; for his strength lay in the
+confidence and affections of the nation. He opposed his colleagues in
+their resolution to impose new taxes on America, but his counsels were
+disregarded.</p>
+
+<p>These taxes were in the shape of duties on glass, paper, lead, and
+painters' colors, from which no considerable revenue could be gained,
+and much discontent would inevitably result. When the news of this new
+taxation reached the colonies, it destroyed all the cheerfulness which
+the repeal of the Stamp Act had caused. Sullenness and gloom returned.
+Trust in parliament was diminished. New combinations of opposition
+were organized, and the newspapers teemed with invective.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these disturbances, Lord Chatham resigned the Privy
+Seal, the office he had selected, and retired from the administration,
+(1768.)</p>
+
+<p>In 1770, the Duke of Grafton also resigned his office as first lord of
+the treasury, chiefly in consequence of the increasing difficulties
+with America; and <span class="inline">Administration of Lord North.</span> Lord North, who had been two years chancellor of the
+exchequer, took his place. He was an amiable and accomplished
+nobleman, and had many personal friends, and few personal enemies; but
+he was unfit to manage the helm of state in the approaching storm.</p>
+
+<p>It was his misfortune to be minister in the most unsettled and
+revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of the
+age, but the character and circumstances of the American colonies.
+George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, with singular obstinacy and blindness, sustained the
+minister against all opposition; and under his administration the
+American war was carried on, which ended so disastrously to the mother
+country.</p>
+
+<p>As this great and eventful war will be the subject of the next
+chapter, the remaining events of interest, connected with the domestic
+history of England, will be first presented.</p>
+
+<p>The most important of these were the discontents of the Irish.</p>
+
+<p>As early as 1762, associations of the peasantry were formed with a
+view to political reforms and changes, and these popular
+demonstrations of the discontented have ever since marked the history
+of the Irish nation&mdash;ever poor, ever oppressed, ever on the eve of
+rebellion.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page426" name="page426"></a>(p. 426)</span>
+
+<p>The first circumstance, however, after the accession of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>,
+which claims particular notice, was the passing of the Octennial Bill,
+in 1788. The <span class="inline">Functions of the Parliament.</span> Irish parliament, unlike the English, continued in
+existence during the life of the sovereign. In 1761, an attempt had
+been made by the patriotic party to limit its duration, and to place
+it upon the same footing as the parliament of England; but this did
+not succeed. Lord Townshend, at this period, was lord lieutenant, and
+it was the great object of his government to break the power of the
+Irish aristocracy, and to take out of their hands the distribution of
+pensions and places, which hitherto had, from motives of policy, been
+allowed them. He succeeded in his object, though by unjustifiable
+means, and the British government became the source of all honor and
+emolument. During his administration, some disturbances broke out in
+Ulster, in consequence of the system which then prevailed of letting
+land on fines. As a great majority of the peasantry and small farmers
+were unable to pay these fines, and were consequently deprived of
+their farms, they became desperate, and committed violent outrages on
+those who had taken their lands. Government was obliged to resort to
+military force, and many distressed people were driven to America for
+subsistence. To Ireland there appeared no chance of breaking the
+thraldom which England in other respects also exercised, when the
+American war broke out. This immediately changed the language and
+current of the British government in reference to Ireland; proposals
+were made favorable to Irish commerce; and some penal statutes against
+Catholics were annulled. Still the patriots of Ireland aimed at much
+greater privileges than had as yet been granted, and the means to
+secure these were apparent. England had drawn from Ireland nearly all
+the regular forces, in order to send them to America, and the
+sea-coast of Ireland was exposed to invasion. In consequence of the
+defenceless state of the country, the inhabitants of the town of
+Belfast, in 1779, entered into armed associations to defend themselves
+in case of necessity. This gave rise to a system of volunteers, which
+soon was extended over the island. The Irish now began to feel their
+strength; and even Lord North admitted, in the House of Commons, the
+necessity of granting to them still greater privileges, and carried a
+bill through parliament, which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page427" name="page427"></a>(p. 427)</span>removed some grievous
+commercial restrictions. But the Irish looked to greater objects, and
+especially since Lord North, in order to carry his bill, represented
+it as a boon resumable at pleasure, rather than as a right to which
+the Irish were properly entitled. This bill, therefore, instead of
+quieting the patriots, led to a desire for an independent parliament
+of their own. A union was formed of volunteers to secure this end, not
+composed of the ignorant peasantry, but of all classes, at the head of
+which was the Duke of Leinster himself. In 1781, this association of
+volunteers had a force of fifty thousand disciplined men; and it
+moreover formed committees of correspondence, which naturally alarmed
+the British government.</p>
+
+<p>These and other disturbances, added to the disasters in America,
+induced the House of Commons to pass censure on Lord North and his
+colleague, as incapable of managing the helm of state. The king,
+therefore, was compelled to dismiss his ministers, whose
+administration had proved the most disastrous in British annals. Lord
+North, however, had uncommon difficulties to contend with, and might
+have governed the nation with honor in ordinary times. He resigned in
+1782, four years after the death of Chatham, and the Marquis of
+Buckingham, a second time, was placed at the head of the government.
+Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke also obtained places, and the Whigs were once
+more triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of the new ministry was imperatively demanded by the
+<span class="inline">Irish Discontents.</span> discontents in Ireland, and important concessions were made. Mr.
+Grattan moved an address to the king, which was unanimously carried in
+both Houses, in which it was declared that "the crown of Ireland was
+inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain; but that the
+kingdom of Ireland was a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her
+own, the sole legislature thereof; that in this right they conceived
+the very essence of their liberty to exist; that in behalf of all the
+people of Ireland, they claimed this as their birthright, and could
+not relinquish it but with their lives; that they had a high
+veneration for the British character; and that, in sharing the freedom
+of England, it was their determination to share also her fate, and to
+stand and fall with the British nation." The new lord lieutenant, the
+Duke of Portland, assured the Irish parliament that the British
+legislature had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page428" name="page428"></a>(p. 428)</span>resolved to remove the cause of discontent,
+and a law was actually passed which placed the Irish parliament on the
+same footing as that of England. Acts were also passed for the right
+of habeas corpus, and for the independence of the judges.</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers, having accomplished the objects which they originally
+contemplated, did not, however, disband, but now directed their
+efforts to a reform in parliament. But the House of Commons rejected
+the proposition offered by Mr. Flood, and the convention, appointed by
+the volunteers, indefinitely adjourned without persevering, as it
+should have done. The volunteer system soon after declined.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of parliamentary reform, though no longer supported by the
+volunteers in their associate character, was not deserted by the
+people, or by their advocates in parliament. Among these advocates was
+William Pitt himself. But in 1783, he became prime minister, and
+changed his opinions.</p>
+
+<p>But before the administration of Pitt can be presented, an event in
+the domestic history of England must be alluded to, which took place
+during the administration of Lord North. This was the <span class="inline">Protestant Association.</span> Protestant
+Association, headed by Lord George Gordon, and the riots to which it
+led.</p>
+
+<p>In 1780, parliament had passed an act relieving Roman Catholics from
+some of the heavy penalties inflicted on them in the preceding
+century. It relieved bishops, priests, and schoolmasters from
+prosecution and imprisonment, gave security to the rights of
+inheritance, and permission to purchase lands on fee simple. This act
+of toleration was generally opposed in England; but the fanatical
+spirit of Presbyterianism in Scotland was excited in view of this
+reasonable indulgence, to a large body of men, of the rights of
+conscience and civil liberty. On the bare rumor of the intended
+indulgence, great tumults took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow; the
+Roman Catholic chapel was destroyed, and the houses of the principal
+Catholics were attacked and plundered. Nor did the magistracy check or
+punish these disorders with any spirit, but secretly favored the
+rioters. Encouraged by the indifference of the magistrates, the
+fanatics formed themselves into a society called the <span class="italic">Protestant
+Association</span>, to oppose any remission of the present unjust laws; and
+of this association <span class="inline">Lord George Gordon's Riots.</span> Lord George Gordon was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page429" name="page429"></a>(p. 429)</span>chosen president.
+He was the son of the Duke of Gordon, belonging to one of the most
+ancient of the Scottish nobility, but a man in the highest degree wild
+and fanatical. He was also a member of parliament, and opposed the
+views of the most enlightened statesmen of his time, and with an
+extravagance which led to the belief that he was insane. He
+calumniated the king, defied the parliament, and boasted of the number
+of his adherents. He pretended that he had, in Scotland, one hundred
+and sixty thousand men at his command, who would cut off the king's
+head, if he did not keep his coronation oath. The enthusiasm of the
+Scotch soon spread to the English; and, throughout the country,
+associations were affiliated with the parent societies in London and
+Edinburgh, of both of which Lord Gordon was president. At Coachmakers'
+Hall he assembled his adherents; and, in an incendiary harangue,
+inflamed the minds of an immense audience in regard to the Church of
+Rome, with the usual invectives respecting its idolatry and
+corruption. He urged them to violent courses, as the only way to stop
+the torrent of Catholicism which was desolating the land. Soon after,
+this association assembled at St. George's Fields, to the astonishing
+number of fifty thousand people, marshalled in separate bands, with
+blue cockades; and this immense rabble proceeded through the city of
+London to the House of Parliament, preceded by a man carrying a
+petition signed by twelve hundred thousand names. The rabble took
+possession of the lobby of the house, making the old palace ring with
+their passionate cries of "No popery! no popery!" This mob was
+harangued by Lord Gordon himself, in the lobby of the house, while the
+matter was discussed among the members. The military were drawn out,
+and the mob was dispersed for a time, but soon assembled again, and
+became still more alarming. Houses were plundered, churches were
+entered, and the city set on fire in thirty-six different places. The
+people were obliged to chalk on their houses "No popery," and pay
+contributions to prevent their being sacked. The prisons were emptied
+of both felons and debtors. Lord Mansfield's splendid residence was
+destroyed, together with his pictures, furniture, and invaluable law
+library. Martial law was finally proclaimed&mdash;the last resort in cases
+of rebellion, and never resorted to but in extreme cases; and the
+military did what magistrates could not <span class="pagenum"><a id="page430" name="page430"></a>(p. 430)</span>do&mdash;restored order
+and law. Had not the city been decreed to be in a state of rebellion,
+the rioters would have taken the bank, which they had already
+attacked. Five hundred persons were killed in the riot, and Lord
+George Gordon was committed to the Tower. He, however, escaped
+conviction, through the extraordinary talents of his counsel, Mr.
+Erskine and Mr. Kenyon; but one hundred others were capitally
+convicted. This disgraceful riot opened the eyes of the people to the
+horrors of popular insurrection, and perhaps prevented a revolution in
+England, when other questions, of more practical importance, agitated
+the nation.</p>
+
+<p>But no reform of importance took place until the administration of
+William Pitt. Mr. Burke attempted to secure some economical
+retrenchments, which were strongly opposed. But what was a
+retrenchment of two hundred thousand pounds a year, when compared with
+the vast expenditures of the British armies in America and in India?
+But though the reforms which Burke projected were not radical or
+important, they contributed to raise his popularity with the people,
+who were more annoyed by the useless offices connected with the king's
+household, than by the expenditure of millions in war. At first, his
+scheme received considerable attention, and the members listened to
+his propositions so long as they were abstract and general. But when
+he proceeded to specific reforms, they no longer regarded his voice,
+and he was obliged to abandon his task as hopeless. William Pitt made
+his first speech in the debate which Burke had excited, and argued in
+favor of retrenchment with the eloquence of his father, but with more
+method and clearness. The bill was lost, but Burke finally succeeded
+in carrying his measures; and the offices of the master of the
+harriers, the master of the staghounds, the clerk of the green cloth,
+and some other unimportant sinecures, were abolished.</p>
+
+<p>The first attempt at that <span class="inline">Parliamentary Reforms.</span> great representative reform which afterwards
+convulsed the nation, was made by William Pitt. He brought forward two
+resolutions, to prevent bribery at elections, and secure a more
+equitable representation. But he did not succeed; and Pitt himself,
+when his cause was advocated by men of a different spirit,&mdash;men
+inflamed by <span class="inline">Reform Questions.</span> revolutionary principles,&mdash;changed his course, and opposed
+parliamentary reform with more ardor than he had at first advocated
+it. But parliamentary reform <span class="pagenum"><a id="page431" name="page431"></a>(p. 431)</span>did not become an object of
+absorbing interest until the times of Henry Brougham and Lord John
+Russell.</p>
+
+<p>No other great events were sufficiently prominent to be here alluded
+to, until the ministry of William Pitt. The American Revolution first
+demands attention.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Belsham's History of the Reign of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>
+     Walpole's Memoir of the same reign. Holt's Private and
+     Domestic Life of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> Lord Brougham's Statesmen of
+     the Reign of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> Smyth's Lectures. Thackeray's Life
+     of the Earl of Chatham. Correspondence of the Earl of
+     Chatham. Annual Register, from 1765 to 1775. Debret's
+     Parliamentary Debates. Stephens' Life of Horne Tooke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Macaulay's Essay
+     on Chatham. Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page432" name="page432"></a>(p. 432)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="28">XXVIII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">The American Revolution.</span> American Revolution, if contemplated in view of its ultimate as
+well as immediate consequences, is doubtless the greatest event of
+modern times. Its importance was not fully appreciated when it took
+place, but still excited a great interest throughout the civilized
+world. It was the main subject which engrossed the attention and
+called out the energies of British statesmen, during the
+administration of Lord North. In America, of course, all other
+subjects were trivial in comparison with it. The contest is memorable
+for the struggles of heroes, for the development of unknown energies,
+for the establishment of a new western empire, for the triumph of the
+cause of liberty, and for the moral effects which resulted, even in
+other countries, from the examples of patriots who preferred the glory
+and honor of their country to their own aggrandizement.</p>
+
+<p>The causes of the struggle have been already alluded to in the
+selfishness and folly of British statesmen, who sought to relieve the
+burdens of the English people by taxing the colonies. The colonies
+were doubtless regarded by the British parliament without proper
+affection or consideration; somewhat in the light of a conquered
+nation, from which England might derive mercantile advantage. The
+colonies were not ruled in a spirit of conciliation, nor were the
+American people fully appreciated. Some, perhaps, like Chatham and
+Burke, may have known the virtues and the power of the colonial
+population, and may have had some glimpse of the glory and greatness
+to which America was destined. But they composed but a small minority
+of the nation, and their advice and remonstrances were generally
+disregarded.</p>
+
+<p>Serious disturbances did not take place until Lord North commenced his
+<span class="inline">Causes of the Revolution.</span> unfortunate administration, (1770.) Although the colonies were then
+resolved not to submit to unlawful taxation, and to an oppressive
+government, independence was not contemplated. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page433" name="page433"></a>(p. 433)</span>Conciliatory
+measures, if they had been at that time adopted, probably would have
+deferred the Revolution. But the contest must have occurred, at a
+later date; for nothing, in the ordinary course of events, could have
+prevented the ultimate independence of the colonies. Their rapid
+growth, the extent of the country in which settlements were made, its
+distance from England, the spirit of liberty which animated the
+people, their general impatience under foreign restraint, and the
+splendid prospects of future greatness which were open to their eyes,
+must have led to a rupture with the mother country at no distant time.</p>
+
+<p>The colonies, at the commencement of their difficulties, may have
+exaggerated their means of resistance, but not their future greatness.
+All of them, from New Hampshire to Georgia, were animated by a spirit
+of liberty which no misfortunes could crush. A large majority of the
+people were willing to incur the dangers incident to revolution, not
+for themselves merely, but for the sake of their posterity, and for
+the sacred cause of liberty. They felt that their cause was just, and
+that Providence would protect and aid them in their defence.</p>
+
+<p>A minute detail of the events of the American Revolution, of course,
+cannot be expected in a history like this. Only the more prominent
+events can be alluded to. The student is supposed to be familiar with
+the details of the conflict, which are to be read in the works of
+numerous American authors.</p>
+
+<p>Lord North, at the commencement of his administration, repealed the
+obnoxious duties which had been imposed in 1767, but still retained
+the duty on tea, with a view chiefly to assert the supremacy of Great
+Britain, and her right to tax the colonies. This course of the
+minister cannot be regarded in any other light than that of the
+blindest infatuation.</p>
+
+<p>The imposition of the port duties, by Grenville, had fomented
+innumerable disturbances, and had led to universal discussion as to
+the nature and extent of parliamentary power. A distinction, at first,
+had been admitted between internal and external taxes; but it was soon
+asserted that Great Britain had no right to tax the colonies, either
+internally or externally. It was stated that the colonies had received
+charters, under the great seal, which had given them all the rights
+and privileges of Englishmen at home <span class="pagenum"><a id="page434" name="page434"></a>(p. 434)</span>and therefore that they
+could not be taxed, except by their own consent; that this consent had
+never been asked or granted; that they were unrepresented in the
+imperial parliament; and that the taxes which had been imposed by
+their own respective legislatures were, in many instances, greater
+than what were paid by the people of England&mdash;taxes too, incurred, to
+a great degree, to preserve the jurisdiction of Great Britain on the
+American continent. The colonies were every where exceedingly
+indignant with the course the mother country had pursued with
+reference to them. Patrick Henry, a Virginian, supported the cause of
+liberty with unrivalled eloquence and power, as did John Adams, Josiah
+Quincy, Jr., James Otis, and other patriots in Massachusetts. Riots
+took place in Boston, Newport, and New York, and assemblies of
+citizens in various parts expressed an indignant and revolutionary
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The residence of the military at Boston was, moreover, the occasion of
+perpetual <span class="inline">Riots and Disturbances.</span> tumult. The people abused the soldiers, vilified them in
+newspapers, and insulted them in the street. Mutual animosity was the
+result. Rancor and insults produced riot, and the troops fired upon
+the people. So great was the disturbances, that the governor was
+reluctantly obliged to remove the military from the town. The General
+Court was then removed to Cambridge, but refused to enter upon
+business unless it were convened in Boston. Fresh disturbances
+followed. The governor quarrelled with the legislature, and a complete
+anarchy began to prevail. The public mind was inflamed by effigies,
+paintings, and incendiary articles in the newspapers. The parliament
+was represented as corrupt, the ministry as venal, the king as a
+tyrant, and England itself as a rotten, old, aristocratic structure,
+crumbling to pieces. The tide was so overwhelming in favor of
+resistance, that even moderate men were borne along in the current;
+and those who kept aloof from the excitement were stigmatized as timid
+and selfish, and the enemies of their country. The courts of justice
+were virtually silenced, since juries disregarded the charges of the
+judges. Libels were unnoticed, and the rioters were unpunished.
+Smuggling was carried on to a great extent, and revenue officers were
+insulted in the discharge of their duties. Obnoxious persons were
+tarred and feathered, and exposed to public derision and scorn. In
+Providence, they burnt the revenue <span class="pagenum"><a id="page435" name="page435"></a>(p. 435)</span>cutter, and committees
+were formed in the principal towns who fanned the flame of sedition.
+The committee in Boston, in 1773, framed a celebrated document, called
+the <span class="italic">Bill of Rights</span>, in which the authority of parliament to
+legislate for the colonies, in any respect, was denied, and in which
+the salaries decreed by the crown to the governor and judges were
+considered as a systematic attempt to enslave the land.</p>
+
+<p>The public discontents were further inflamed by the information which
+Dr. Franklin, then in London, afforded the colonies, and the advice he
+gave them to persevere, assuring them that, if they were firm, they
+had nothing to apprehend. Moreover, he got into his possession a copy
+of the letters of Governor Hutchinson to the ministry, which he
+transmitted to the colonies, and which by them were made public. These
+letters were considered by the legislature of Massachusetts as unjust
+and libellous, and his recall was demanded. Resolutions, of an
+offensive character to the English, were every where passed, and all
+things indicated an approaching storm. The crisis was at hand. The
+outrage, in Boston harbor, of throwing overboard three hundred and
+forty-two chests of tea, which the East India Company had sent to
+America, consummated the difficulties, and induced the government to
+resort to more coercive measures.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the power of Lord North to terminate the difficulties with
+the colonies when the East India Company urged him to repeal the <span class="inline">Duty on Tea.</span> duty
+of threepence per pound on tea, and offered to pay sixpence per pound
+in lieu of it, as export duty, if permitted to import it into the
+colonies duty free. The company was induced to make this proposition
+in view of the great accumulation of tea in England; but the
+government, more solicitous about the right than the revenue, would
+not consent. The colonists were equally determined to resist taxation,
+not on account of immediate burdens, but upon principle, and therefore
+resolved to prevent the landing of the tea. A multitude rushed to the
+wharf, and twenty persons, disguised as Indians, went on board the
+ships laden with it, staved the chests, and threw their contents into
+the sea. In New York and Philadelphia, as no persons could be found
+who would venture to receive the tea sent to those ports, the ships
+laden with it returned to England.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page436" name="page436"></a>(p. 436)</span>
+
+<p>The ministers of the crown were especially indignant with the province
+of Massachusetts, which had always been foremost in resistance, and
+the scene of the greatest disorders, and therefore resolved to block
+up the port of Boston. Accordingly, in 1774 they introduced a bill to
+discontinue the lading and shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise
+at Boston, and to remove the custom-house to Salem. The bill received
+the general approbation of the House, and passed by a great majority.</p>
+
+<p>No measure could possibly have been more impolitic. A large force
+should have been immediately sent to the colonies, to coerce them,
+before they had time to organize sufficient force to resist the mother
+country, or conciliatory measures should have been adopted. But the
+House was angry and infatuated, and the voice of wisdom was
+disregarded.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, Lord North introduced another bill for the better
+government of the provinces, which went to subvert the charter of the
+colony, and to violate all the principles of liberty and justice. By
+this bill, the nomination of counsellors, judges, sheriffs, and
+magistrates of all kinds, was vested in the crown; and these were also
+removable at pleasure. The ministers, in advocating the bill, urged
+the ground of necessity, the universal spirit of disaffection, which
+bordered on actual rebellion. The bill was carried, by a majority of
+two hundred and thirty-nine against sixty-four voices, May 2, 1774.</p>
+
+<p>The next step of the minister was to bring in a bill which provided
+that, in case any person was indicted in Massachusetts for a capital
+offence, and that, if it should appear that a fair trial could not be
+had in the province, the prisoner might be sent to any other colony,
+or even to Great Britain itself, to be tried. This was insult added to
+injury, and met with vigorous resistance even in parliament itself.
+But it nevertheless passed through both Houses.</p>
+
+<p>When intelligence arrived concerning it, and of the other bills, a
+fire was kindled in the colonies not easily to be extinguished. There
+was scarcely a place which did not convene its assembly. Popular
+orators, in the public halls and in the churches, every where inflamed
+the people by incendiary discourses; organizations were made to
+abstain from all commerce with the mother country; and measures were
+adopted to assemble a General Congress, to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page437" name="page437"></a>(p. 437)</span>take into
+consideration the state of the country. People began to talk of
+defending their rights by the sword. Every where was heard the sound
+of the drum and the fife. All were fired by the spirit of liberty.
+Associations were formed for the purchase of arms and ammunition.
+Addresses were printed and circulated calling on the people to arm
+themselves, and resist unlawful encroachment. All proceedings in the
+courts of justice were suspended. Jurors refused to take their oaths;
+the reign of law ceased, and that of violence commenced. <span class="inline">Port of Boston Closed.</span> Governor
+Gage, who had succeeded Hutchinson, fortified Boston Neck, and cut off
+the communication of the town with the country.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the Continental Congress <span class="inline">Meeting of Congress.</span> met at Philadelphia, in
+which all the colonies were represented but Georgia. Congress passed
+resolutions approving the course of Massachusetts, and also a bill
+called a <span class="italic">Declaration of Rights</span>. It sent an address to the king,
+framed with great ability, in which it discussed the rights of the
+colonies, complained of the mismanagement of ministers, and besought a
+redress of the public evils.</p>
+
+<p>But this congress was considered by the government of Great Britain as
+an illegal body, and its petition was disregarded. But the ministers
+no longer regarded the difficulties as trifling, and sought to remedy
+them, though not in the right way. The more profound of the English
+statesmen fully perceived the danger and importance of the crisis, and
+many of them took the side of liberty. Dean Tucker, who foresaw a long
+war, with all its expenses, urged, in a masterly treatise, the
+necessity of giving the Americans, at once, the liberty they sought.
+Others, who overrated the importance of the colonies in a mercantile
+view, wished to retain them, but to adopt conciliatory measures. Lord
+Chatham put forth all the eloquence of which he was such a master, to
+arouse the ministers. He besought them to withdraw the troops from
+Boston. He showed the folly of metaphysical refinements about the
+right of taxation when a continent was in arms. He spoke of the means
+of enforcing thraldom as inefficient and ridiculous. Lord Camden
+sustained Chatham in the House of Lords, and declared, not as a
+philosopher, but as a constitutional lawyer, that England had no right
+to tax America. <span class="inline">Speech of Burke.</span> Mr. Burke moved a conciliatory measure in the House of
+Commons, fraught with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page438" name="page438"></a>(p. 438)</span>wisdom and knowledge. "My hold of the
+colonies," said this great oracle of moral wisdom, "is the close
+affection which grows from the common names, from the kindred blood,
+from similar privileges, and from equal protection. These are the ties
+which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the
+colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with
+your government; they will cling and grapple with you, and no power
+under heaven will be able to tear them from their allegiance. But let
+it once be understood that your government may be one thing, and their
+privileges another, then the cement is gone, and every thing hastens
+to dissolution. It is the love of the people, it is their attachment
+to your government from the sense in the deep stake they have in such
+glorious institutions, which gives you your army and navy, and infuses
+into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be but
+a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber." But this
+elevated and sublime wisdom was regarded as a philosophical
+abstraction, as a vain and impractical view of political affairs, well
+enough for a writer on the "sublime and beautiful," but absurd in a
+British statesman. Colonel Barré and Fox supported Burke; but their
+eloquence had not much effect on the Commons, and the ministry was
+supported in their measures. The colonies were declared to be in a
+state of rebellion, and measures were adopted to crush them.</p>
+
+<p>To declare the colonies in a state of rebellion was, in fact, to
+declare war. And this was perfectly understood by the popular leaders
+who fanned the spirit of resistance. All ideas of reconciliation now
+became chimerical. Necessity stimulated the timid, and vengeance
+excited the bold. It was felt that the people were now to choose
+between liberty and slavery, and slavery was, of course, regarded as
+worse than death. "We must look back," said the popular orators, "no
+more! We must conquer or die! We are placed between altars smoking
+with the most grateful incense of glory and gratitude on the one part,
+and blocks and dungeons on the other. Let each, then, rise and gird
+himself for the conflict. The dearest interests of the world command
+it; our most holy religion requires it. Let us banish fear, and
+remember that fortune smiles only on the brave."</p>
+
+<p>Such was the general state of feeling; and there only needed a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page439" name="page439"></a>(p. 439)</span>spark to kindle a conflagration. That spark was kindled at
+Lexington. General Gage, the governor, having learned that military
+stores and arms were deposited at Concord, resolved to seize them. His
+design was suspected, and the people prepared to resist his orders.
+The alarm bells were rung, and the cannons were fired. The provincial
+militia assembled, and the English retreated to Lexington. That
+village witnessed the commencement of a long and sanguinary war. The
+tide of revolution could no longer be repressed. The colonies were now
+resolved to achieve their independence.</p>
+
+<p>The Continental Congress met on the 10th of May, 1775, shortly after
+the first blood had been shed at Lexington, and immediately proceeded
+to raise an army, establish a paper currency, and to dissolve the
+compact between Great Britain and the Massachusetts colony. John
+Hancock was chosen president of the assembly, and George Washington
+commander-in-chief of the continental army. He accepted the
+appointment with a modesty only equalled by his merit, and soon after
+departed for the seat of war. For his associates, Congress appointed
+Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam as
+major-generals, and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster,
+William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and
+Nathanael Greene as brigadiers. Horatio Gates received the appointment
+of adjutant-general, with the rank of brigadier.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th of June was fought the battle of <span class="inline">Battle of Bunker Hill.</span> Bunker Hill, which proved
+the bravery of the Americans, and which was followed by great moral
+results. But the Americans unfortunately lost, in this battle, Dr.
+Warren, who had espoused the cause of revolution with the same spirit
+that Hampden did in England, and whom he resembled in genius,
+patriotism, and character. He had been chosen major-general four days
+before his death, but fought at Bunker Hill as a simple volunteer. On
+the 2d of July, Washington took command of the army, and established
+his head-quarters at Cambridge. The American army amounted to
+seventeen thousand men, of whom twenty-five hundred were unfit for
+duty. They were assembled on the spur of the occasion, and had but few
+tents and stores, no clothing, no military chest and no general
+organization. They were collected from the various provinces and were
+governed by their own militia laws. Of this material <span class="pagenum"><a id="page440" name="page440"></a>(p. 440)</span>he
+constructed the first continental army, and under innumerable
+vexations and difficulties. No man was ever placed in a more
+embarrassing situation. His troops were raw and undisciplined; and the
+members of the Continental Congress, from whom he received his
+commission, were not united among themselves. He had all the
+responsibility of the war, and yet had not sufficient means to
+prosecute it with the vigor which the colonies probably anticipated.
+His success, in the end, <span class="italic">was</span> glorious and unequivocal; but none
+other than he could have secured it, and not he, even, unless he had
+been sustained by a loftiness of character almost preternatural.</p>
+
+<p>The English forces, at this time, were centred in Boston under the
+command of General Gage, and were greatly inferior in point of numbers
+to the American troops who surrounded them. But the troops of Gage
+were regulars and veterans, and were among the best in the English
+army. He was recalled in order to give information to the government
+in reference to the battle of Bunker Hill, and was succeeded in
+October by General Howe.</p>
+
+<p>The first campaign of the war was signalized by the invasion of Canada
+by the American troops, with the hope of wresting that province from
+the English, which was not only disaffected, but which was defended by
+an inconsiderable force. General Montgomery, with an army of three
+thousand, advanced to Montreal, which surrendered. The fortresses of
+Crown Point and Ticonderoga had already been taken by Colonel Ethan
+Allen. But the person who most distinguished himself in this
+unfortunate expedition was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who, with a
+detachment of one thousand men, penetrated through the forests,
+swamps, and mountains of Maine, beyond the sources of the Kennebec
+and, in six weeks from his departure at Boston, arrived on the plains
+of Canada, opposite Quebec. He there effected a junction with the
+troops of Montgomery, and made an assault on the strongest fortress in
+America, defended by sixteen hundred men. The attack was unsuccessful,
+and <span class="inline">Death of Montgomery.</span> Montgomery was killed. Arnold did not retire from the province,
+but remained encamped upon the Heights of Abraham. This enterprise,
+though a failure, was not without great moral results, since it showed
+to the English government the singular bravery and intrepidity of the
+nation it had undertaken to coerce.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page441" name="page441"></a>(p. 441)</span>The ministry then resolved upon vigorous measures, and,
+finding a difficulty in raising men, applied to the Landgrave of Hesse
+for seventeen thousand mercenaries. These, added to twenty-five
+thousand men enlisted in England, and the troops already sent to
+America, constituted a force of fifty-five thousand men&mdash;deemed amply
+sufficient to reduce the rebellious colonies. But these were not sent
+to America until the next year.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, General Howe was encamped in Boston with a force,
+including seamen, of eleven thousand men, and General Washington, with
+an army of twenty-eight thousand, including militia, was determined to
+attack him. In February, 1776, he took possession of Dorchester
+Heights, which command the harbor. General Howe found it expedient to
+evacuate Boston, and sailed for Halifax with his army, and Washington
+repaired to Philadelphia to deliberate with Congress.</p>
+
+<p>But Howe retired from Boston only to occupy New York; and when his
+arrangements were completed, he landed at Staten Island, waiting for
+the arrival of his brother, Lord Howe, with the expected
+reinforcements. By the middle of August they had all arrived, and his
+united forces amounted to twenty-four thousand men. Washington's army,
+though it nominally numbered twenty thousand five hundred, still was
+composed of only about eleven thousand effective men, and these
+imperfectly provided with arms and ammunition. Nevertheless,
+Washington gave battle to the English; but the result was disastrous
+to the Americans, owing to the disproportion of the forces engaged.
+General Howe took possession of Long Island, the Americans evacuated
+New York, and, shortly after, the city fell into the hands of the
+English. Washington, with his diminished army, posted himself at
+Haerlem Heights.</p>
+
+<p>But before the victory of Howe on Long Island was obtained, Congress
+had declared the <span class="inline">Declaration of American Independence.</span> Independence of the American States, (4th July,
+1776.) This Declaration of Independence took the English nation by
+surprise, and firmly united it against the colonies. It was received
+by the Americans, in every section of the country, with unbounded
+enthusiasm. Reconciliation was now impossible, and both countries were
+arrayed against each other in fierce antagonism.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the campaign of 1776 was occupied by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page442" name="page442"></a>(p. 442)</span>the
+belligerents in skirmishing, engagements, marchings and
+countermarchings, in the states of New York and New Jersey. The latter
+state was overrun by the English army, and success, on either side,
+was indecisive. Forts Washington and Lee were captured. General Lee
+was taken prisoner. The capture of Lee, however, was not so great a
+calamity as it, at first, seemed; for, though a man of genius and
+military experience, his ambition, vanity, and love of glory would
+probably have led to an opposition to his superior officer, and to
+Congress itself. To compensate for the disasters in New Jersey,
+Washington, invested with new and extraordinary power by Congress,
+gained the battles of Princeton and Trenton, which were not only
+brilliant victories, but were attended by great moral effects, and
+showed the difficulty of subduing a people determined to be free.
+"Every one applauded the firmness, the prudence, and the bravery of
+Washington. All declared him to be the savior of his country; all
+proclaimed him equal to the most renowned commanders of antiquity, and
+especially distinguished him by the name of the <span class="italic">American Fabius."</span></p>
+
+<p>The greatness of Washington was seen, not so much by his victories at
+Princeton and Trenton, or by his masterly retreat before superior
+forces, as by his admirable prudence and patience during the
+succeeding winter. He had, for several months, a force which scarcely
+exceeded fifteen hundred men, and these suffered all manner of
+hardships and privations. After the first gush of enthusiasm had
+passed, it was found exceedingly difficult to enlist men, and still
+more difficult to pay those who had enlisted. Congress, composed of
+great men, and of undoubted patriotism, on the whole, harmonized with
+the commander-in-chief, whom, for six months, it invested with almost
+dictatorial power; still there were some of its members who did not
+fully appreciate the character or condition of Washington, and threw
+great difficulties in his way.</p>
+
+<p>Congress about this time sent <span class="inline">Commissioners Sent to France.</span> commissioners to France to solicit money
+and arms. These commissioners were Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and
+Arthur Lee. They were not immediately successful; for the French king,
+doubtful of the result of the struggle, did not wish to incur
+prematurely the hostility of Great Britain; but they <span class="pagenum"><a id="page443" name="page443"></a>(p. 443)</span>induced
+many to join the American cause, and among others, the young Marquis
+de La Fayette, who arrived in America in the spring of 1777, and
+proved a most efficient general, and secured the confidence and love
+of the nation he assisted.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1777 was marked by the evacuation of the Jerseys by
+the English, by the battles of Bennington and Brandywine, by the
+capture of Philadelphia, and the <span class="inline">Capture of Burgoyne.</span> surrender of Burgoyne. Success, on
+the whole, was in favor of the Americans. They suffered a check at
+Brandywine, and lost the most considerable city in the Union at that
+time. But these disasters were more than compensated by the victory at
+Bennington and the capture of Burgoyne.</p>
+
+<p>This indeed was the great event of the campaign. Burgoyne was a member
+of parliament, and superseded General Carleton in the command of the
+northern army&mdash;an injudicious appointment, but made by the minister in
+order to carry his measures more easily through the House of Commons.
+The troops under his command amounted to over seven thousand veterans,
+besides a corps of artillery. He set out from St. John's, the 16th of
+June, and advanced to Ticonderoga, which he invested. The American
+forces, under General Schuyler, destined to oppose this royal army,
+and to defend Ticonderoga, were altogether insufficient, being not
+over five thousand men. The fortress was therefore abandoned, and the
+British general advanced to the Hudson, hoping to open a communication
+between it and Lake Champlain, and thus completely surround New
+England, and isolate it from the rest of the country. But the delays
+attending the march of the English army through the forests enabled
+the Americans to rally. The defeat of Colonel Baum at Bennington, by
+Colonel Stark, added to the embarrassments of Burgoyne, who now was
+straitened for provisions; nevertheless, he continued his march,
+hoping to reach Albany unmolested. But the Americans, commanded by
+General Gates, who had superseded Schuyler, were strongly intrenched
+at the principal passes on his route, and had fortified the high
+grounds. The army of Burgoyne was moreover attacked by the Americans
+at Stillwater, and he was forced to retreat to Saratoga. His army was
+now reduced to five thousand men; he had only three days' provisions;
+all the passes were filled by the enemy, and he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page444" name="page444"></a>(p. 444)</span>was
+completely surrounded by fifteen thousand men. Under these
+circumstances, he was forced to surrender. His troops laid down their
+arms, but were allowed to embark at Boston for Europe. The Americans,
+by this victory, acquired forty-two pieces of brass artillery, four
+thousand six hundred muskets, and an immense quantity of military
+stores. <span class="inline">Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture.</span> This surrender of Burgoyne was the greatest disaster which the
+British troops had thus far experienced, and raised the spirits of the
+Americans to the highest pitch. Indeed, this surrender decided the
+fate of the war, for it proved the impossibility of conquering the
+Americans. It showed that they fought under infinitely greater
+advantages, since it was in their power always to decline a battle,
+and to choose their ground. It showed that the country presented
+difficulties which were insurmountable. It mattered but little that
+cities were taken, when the great body of the people resided in the
+country, and were willing to make sacrifices, and were commanded by
+such generals as Washington, Gates, Greene, Putnam, and Lee. The
+English ministry ought to have seen the nature of the contest; but a
+strange infatuation blinded the nation. There were some, however, whom
+no national pride could blind. Lord Chatham was one of these men. "No
+man," said this veteran statesman, "thinks more highly of the virtues
+and valor of British troops than I do. I know that they can achieve
+any thing except impossibilities. But the conquest of America is an
+impossibility."</p>
+
+<p>There was one nation in Europe who viewed the contest with different
+eyes. This nation was France, then on the eve of revolution itself,
+and burning with enthusiastic love of the principles on which American
+independence was declared. The French government may not have admired
+the American cause, but it hated England so intensely, that it was
+resolved to acknowledge the independence of America, and aid the
+country with its forces.</p>
+
+<p>In the early part of the war, the American Congress had sent
+commissioners to France, in order to obtain assistance. In consequence
+of their representations, La Fayette, then a young man of nineteen
+years of age, freighted a ship at his own expense, and <span class="inline">Arrival of La Fayette.</span> joined the
+American standard. Congress, in consideration of his illustrious rank
+and singular enthusiasm, gave him a commission of major-general. And
+gloriously did he fulfil the great expectations <span class="pagenum"><a id="page445" name="page445"></a>(p. 445)</span>which were
+formed of him; richly did he deserve the gratitude and praise of all
+the friends of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>La Fayette embarked in the American cause as a volunteer. The court of
+France, in the early period of the contest, did not think it expedient
+openly to countenance the revolution. But, after the surrender of
+Burgoyne, and it was evident that the United States would succeed in
+securing their independence, then it was acknowledged, and substantial
+aid was rendered.</p>
+
+<p>The winter which succeeded the surrender of Burgoyne is memorable for
+the sufferings of the American army encamped at Valley Forge, about
+twenty miles from Philadelphia. The army was miserably supplied with
+provisions and clothing, and strong discontent appeared in various
+quarters. Out of eleven thousand eight hundred men, nearly three
+thousand were barefooted and otherwise naked. But the sufferings of
+the army were not the only causes of solicitude to the
+commander-in-chief, on whom chiefly rested the responsibility of the
+war. The officers were discontented, and were not prepared, any more
+than the privates, to make permanent sacrifices. They were obliged to
+break in upon their private property, and were without any prospect of
+future relief. Washington was willing to make any sacrifices himself,
+and refused any payment for his own expenses; but, while he exhibited
+the rarest magnanimity, he did not expect it from others, and urged
+Congress to provide for the future pay of the officers, when the war
+should close. He looked upon human nature as it was, not as he wished
+it to be, and recognized the principles of self-interest as well as
+those of patriotism. It was his firm conviction that a long and
+lasting war could not, even in those times, be sustained by the
+principle of patriotism alone, but required, in addition, the prospect
+of interest, or some reward. The members of Congress did not all agree
+with him in his views, and expected that officers would make greater
+sacrifices than private citizens, but, after a while, the plan of
+half-pay for life, as Washington proposed, was adopted by a small
+majority, though afterwards changed to half-pay for seven years. There
+was also a prejudice in many minds against a standing army, besides
+the jealousies and antipathies which existed between different
+sections of the Union. But Washington, with his rare practical good
+sense, combated <span class="pagenum"><a id="page446" name="page446"></a>(p. 446)</span>these, as well as the fears of the timid and
+the schemes of the selfish. The history of the Revolution impresses us
+with the greatness and bravery of the American nation; and every
+American should feel proud of his ancestors for the efforts they made,
+under so many discouragements, to secure their liberties; but it would
+be a mistake to suppose that nothing but exalted heroism was
+exhibited. Human nature showed its degeneracy in the camp and on the
+field of battle, among heroes and among patriots. The perfection of
+character, so far as man is ever perfect, was exhibited indeed, by
+Washington, but by Washington alone.</p>
+
+<p>The army remained at Valley Forge till June, 1778. In the mean time,
+Lord North made another ineffectual effort to procure reconciliation.
+But he was too late. His offers might have been accepted at the
+commencement of the contest; but nothing short of complete
+independence would now satisfy the Americans, and this North was not
+willing to concede. Accordingly, new measures of coercion were
+resorted to by the minister, although the British forces in America
+were upwards of thirty-three thousand.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of June, Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Sir William
+Howe in command of the British forces, evacuated <span class="inline">Evacuation of Philadelphia.</span> Philadelphia, the
+possession of which had proved of no service to the English, except as
+winter quarters for the troops. It was his object to proceed to New
+York, for which place he marched with his army, having sent his heavy
+baggage by water. The Americans, with superior forces, hung upon his
+rear, and sought an engagement. An indecisive one occurred at
+Monmouth, during which General Lee disregarded the orders of his
+superior in command, and was suspended for twelve months. There never
+was perfect harmony between Washington and Lee; and the aid of the
+latter, though a brave and experienced officer, was easily dispensed
+with.</p>
+
+<p>No action of importance occurred during this campaign, and it was
+chiefly signalized by the arrival of the Count d'Estaing, with twelve
+ships of the line and four frigates, to assist the Americans. But, in
+consequence of disagreements and mistakes, this large armament failed
+to engage the English naval forces.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1779 was not more decisive than that of the preceding
+year. Military operations were chiefly confined to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page447" name="page447"></a>(p. 447)</span>
+southern sections of the country, in which the English generally
+gained the advantage, having superior forces. They overran the
+country, inflamed the hostility of the Indians, and destroyed
+considerable property. But they gained no important victory, and it
+was obvious to all parties that conquest was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1780 is memorable for the <span class="inline">The Treason of Arnold.</span> desertion of General Arnold.
+Though not attended by important political results, it produced an
+intense excitement. He was intrusted with the care of the fortress of
+West Point, which commanded the Hudson River; but, dissatisfied,
+extravagant, and unprincipled, he thought to mend his broken fortunes
+by surrendering it to the British, who occupied New York. His treason
+was discovered when his schemes were on the point of being
+accomplished; but he contrived to escape, and was made a
+brigadier-general in the service of the enemy. Public execration
+loaded his name with ignominy, and posterity has not reversed the
+verdict of his indignant countrymen. His disgrace and ruin were
+primarily caused by his extravagance and his mortified pride.
+Washington fully understood his want of moral principle, but continued
+to intrust him with power, in view of the great services he had
+rendered his country, and his unquestioned bravery and military
+talents. After his defection, the American commander-in-chief was
+never known to intrust an important office to a man in whose virtue he
+had not implicit faith. The fate of Major André, who negotiated the
+treason with Arnold, and who was taken as a spy, was much lamented by
+the English Neither his family, nor rank, nor accomplishments, nor
+virtues nor the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, could save him from
+military execution, according to the established laws of war.
+Washington has been blamed for not exercising more forbearance in the
+case of so illustrious a prisoner; but the American general never
+departed from the rigid justice which he deemed it his duty to pursue.</p>
+
+<p>During this year, the American currency had singularly depreciated, so
+that forty dollars were worth only one in specie&mdash;a fact which shows
+the embarrassments of the country, and the difficulty of supporting
+the army. But the prospects of ultimate success enabled Congress, at
+length, to negotiate loans, and the army was kept together.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page448" name="page448"></a>(p. 448)</span>
+
+<p>The great event in the campaign of 1781 was the <span class="inline">Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.</span> surrender of Lord
+Cornwallis, at Yorktown, which decided the fate of the war. Lord
+Cornwallis, who was an able commander, had been successful at the
+south, although vigorously and skilfully opposed by General La
+Fayette. But he had at last to contend with the main body of the
+American army, and French forces in addition, so that the combined
+armies amounted to over twelve thousand men. He was compelled to
+surrender to superior forces; and seven thousand prisoners, with all
+their baggage and stores, fell into the hands of the victors, 19th of
+October, 1781. This great event diffused universal joy throughout
+America, and a corresponding depression among the English people.</p>
+
+<p>After this capitulation, the conviction was general that the war would
+soon be terminated. General La Fayette obtained leave to return to
+France, and the recruiting service languished. The war nevertheless,
+was continued until 1783; without, however, being signalized by any
+great events. On the 30th of November, 1782, preliminary articles of
+peace were signed at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the
+independence of the United States, and by which the whole country
+south of the lakes and east of the Mississippi was ceded to them, and
+the right of fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland.</p>
+
+<p>On the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated New York;
+and, shortly after, the American army was disbanded. The 4th of
+December, Washington made his farewell address to his officers; and,
+on the 23d of December, he resigned his commission into the hands of
+the body from which he received it, and retired to private life;
+having discharged the great trust reposed in him in a manner which
+secured the gratitude of his country and which will probably win the
+plaudits of all future generations.</p>
+
+<p>The results of the Revolutionary War can only be described by
+enumerating the progressive steps of American aggrandizement from that
+time to this, and by speculating on the future destinies of the
+Anglo-Saxon race on the American continent. The success which attended
+this long war is in part to be traced to the talents and matchless
+wisdom and integrity of the commander-in-chief; to the intrepid
+courage and virtues of the armies he directed; to the self-confidence
+and inexperience of the English generals; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page449" name="page449"></a>(p. 449)</span>to the
+difficulties necessarily attending the conquest of forests, and
+swamps, and scattered towns; to the assistance of the French nation;
+and, above all, to the superintending providence of God, who designed
+to rescue the sons of the Pilgrims from foreign oppression, and, in
+spite of their many faults, to make them a great and glorious nation,
+in which religious and civil liberty should be perpetuated, and all
+men left free to pursue their own means of happiness, and develop the
+inexhaustible resources of a great and boundless empire.</p>
+
+<p>The English nation acquiesced in an event which all felt to be
+inevitable; but Lord North was compelled to <span class="inline">Resignation of Lord North.</span> resign, and a change of
+measures was pursued. It is now time to contemplate English affairs,
+until the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;The books written on the American Revolution
+     are very numerous, an index to which may be seen in Botta's
+     History, as well as in the writings of those who have
+     treated of this great event. Sparks's Life and
+     Correspondence of Washington is doubtless the most valuable
+     work which has yet appeared since Marshall wrote the Life of
+     Washington. Guizot's Essay on Washington is exceedingly
+     able; nor do I know any author who has so profoundly
+     analyzed the character and greatness of the American hero.
+     Botta's History of the Revolution is a popular but
+     superficial and overlauded book. Mr. Hale's History of the
+     United States is admirably adapted to the purpose for which
+     it is designed, and is the best compendium of American
+     history. Stedman is the standard authority in England.
+     Belsham, in his History of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, has written candidly
+     and with spirit. Smyth, in his lectures on Modern History,
+     has discussed the Revolution with great ability. See also
+     the works of Ramsay, Winterbotham, Allen, and Gordon. The
+     lives of the prominent American generals, statesmen, and
+     orators, should also be read in connection; especially of
+     Lee, Greene, Franklin, Adams, and Henry, which are best
+     described in Sparks's American Biography.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page450" name="page450"></a>(p. 450)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="29">XXIX.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.</h4>
+
+
+<p>We come now to consider the most eventful administration, in many
+important respects, in British annals. The greatness of military
+operations, the magnitude of reforms, and the great number of
+illustrious statesmen and men of genius, make the period, when <span class="inline">William Pitt.</span> Pitt
+managed the helm of state, full of interest and grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>William Pitt, <span class="inline">Early Life of Pitt.</span> second son of the first Earl of Chatham, entered public
+life at a very early age, and was prime minister of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> at a
+period of life when most men are just completing a professional
+education. He was a person of extraordinary precocity. He entered
+Cambridge University at the age of fourteen, and at that period was a
+finished Greek and Latin scholar. He spent no idle hours, and evinced
+but little pleasure in the sports common to boys of his age. He was as
+successful in mastering mathematics as the languages, and was an
+admirer of the profoundest treatises of intellectual philosophy. He
+excelled in every branch of knowledge to which he directed his
+attention. In 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he became a resident in
+Lincoln's Inn, entered parliament the succeeding spring, and
+immediately assumed an active part. His first speech astonished all
+who heard him, notwithstanding that great expectations were formed
+concerning his power. He was made chancellor of the exchequer at the
+age of twenty-three, and at a time when it required a finance minister
+of the greatest experience. Nor would the Commons have acquiesced in
+his appointment to so important a post, in so critical a state of the
+nation, had not great confidence existed as to his abilities. From his
+first appearance, Pitt took a commanding position as a parliamentary
+orator; nor, as such, has he ever, on the whole, been surpassed. His
+peculiar talents fitted him for the highest post in the gift of his
+sovereign, and the circumstances of the times, in addition, were such
+as were calculated to develop all the energies and talents he
+possessed. He was not the most <span class="pagenum"><a id="page451" name="page451"></a>(p. 451)</span>commanding intellect of his
+age, but he was, unquestionably, the greatest orator that England has
+produced, and exercised, to the close of his career, in spite of the
+opposition of such men as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, an overwhelming
+parliamentary influence. He was a prodigy; as great in debate, and in
+executive power, as Napoleon was in the field, Bacon in philosophy, or
+Shakspeare in poetry. It is difficult for us to conceive how a young
+man, just emerging from college halls, should be able to answer the
+difficult questions of veteran statesmen who had been all their lives
+opposing the principles he advanced, and to assume at once the powers
+with which his father was intrusted only at a mature period of life.
+Pitt was almost beyond envy, and the proud nobles and princely
+capitalists of the richest, proudest, and most conservative country in
+the world, surrendered to him the guardianship of their liberties with
+no more fear or distrust than the hereditary bondmen of Turkey or
+Russia would have shown in hailing the accession of a new emperor. He
+was born to command, one of nature's despots, and he assumed the reins
+of government with a perfect consciousness of his abilities to rule.</p>
+
+<p>He was only twenty-four years of age when he began to reign; for, as
+prime minister of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, he was, during his continuance in
+office, the absolute ruler of the British empire. He had, virtually,
+the nomination of his colleagues, and, through them, the direction of
+all executive affairs. He was controlled by the legislature only, and
+parliament was subservient to his will. What a proud position for a
+young man to occupy! A commoner, with a limited fortune, to give laws
+to a vast empire, and to have a proud nobility obedient to his will;
+and all this by the force of talents alone&mdash;talents which extorted
+admiration and respect. He selected Lord Thurlow as chancellor, Lord
+Gower as president of the council, the Duke of Richmond as lord privy
+seal, Lords Carmarthen and Sydney as secretaries of state, and Lord
+Howe as first lord of the admiralty. These were his chief associates
+in resisting a powerful opposition, and in regulating the affairs of a
+vast empire&mdash;the concerns of India, the national debt, the necessary
+taxation, domestic tranquillity, and intercourse with foreign powers.
+But he deserved the confidence of his sovereign and of the nation, and
+they sustained him in his extraordinary embarrassments and
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page452" name="page452"></a>(p. 452)</span>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Policy of Pitt.</span> policy of the administration is not here to be discussed; but it
+was the one pursued, in the main, by his father, and one which
+gratified the national pride. The time has not yet come for us to
+decide, with certainty, on the wisdom of his course. He was the
+advocate of measures which had for their object national
+aggrandizement. He was the strenuous defender of war, and he would
+oppose Napoleon and all the world to secure preëminence to Great
+Britain. He believed that glory was better than money; he thought that
+an overwhelming debt was a less evil than national disgrace; he
+exaggerated the resources and strength of his country, and believed
+that it was destined to give laws to the world; he underrated the
+abilities of other nations to make great advances in mechanical skill
+and manufacturing enterprise; he supposed that English manufactures
+would be purchased forever by the rest of the world, and therefore
+that England, in spite of the debt, would make all nations contribute
+to her glory and wealth. It was to him a matter of indifference how
+heavily the people were taxed to pay the interest on a fictitious
+debt, provided that, by their commerce and manufactures, they could
+find abundant means to pay this interest. And so long as England could
+find a market for her wares, the nation would not suffer from
+taxation. His error was in supposing that England, forever, would
+manufacture for the world; that English skill was superior to the
+skill of all other nations; that there was a superiority in the very
+nature of an Englishman which would enable him, in any country, or
+under any circumstances, to overcome all competitors and rivals. Such
+views were grateful to his nation; and he, by continually flattering
+the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and patriotism,
+induced it to follow courses which may one day result in overwhelming
+calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a nation as it is to an
+individual, and constitutes that pride which precedes destruction. But
+the mere debt of England, being owed to herself, and not to another
+nation, is not so alarming as it is sometimes supposed. The worst
+consequence, in a commercial point of view, is national bankruptcy;
+but if England becomes bankrupt, her factories, her palaces, her
+warehouses, and her ships remain. These are not destroyed. Substantial
+wealth does not fly from the island, but merely passes from the hands
+of capitalists <span class="pagenum"><a id="page453" name="page453"></a>(p. 453)</span>to the people. The policy of Pitt has merely
+enriched the few at the expense of the many&mdash;has confirmed the power
+of the aristocracy. When manufacturers can no longer compete with
+those of other countries, upon such unequal terms as are rendered
+necessary in consequence of unparalleled taxation to support the
+public creditors, then the public creditors must suffer rather than
+the manufacturer himself. The manufacturer must live. This class
+composes a great part of the nation. The people must be fed, and they
+will be fed; and they can be fed as cheaply as in any country, were it
+not for taxes. The policy of Pitt, during the period of commercial
+prosperity, tended, indeed, to strengthen the power of the
+aristocracy&mdash;that class to which he belonged, and to which the House
+of Commons, who sustained him, belonged. But it was suicidal, as is
+the policy of all selfish men; and ultimately must tend to
+revolutionary measures, even though those measures may not be carried
+by massacres and blazing thrones.</p>
+
+<p>But we must hasten to consider the leading events which characterized
+the administration of William Pitt. These were the troubles in
+Ireland, parliamentary reforms, the aggrandizement of the East India
+Company, the trial of Hastings, debates on the slave trade, and the
+war with France in consequence of the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Difficulties with Ireland.</span> difficulties with Ireland did not become alarming until the French
+Revolution had created a spirit of discontent and agitation in all
+parts of Great Britain. Soon after his accession to power, Mr. Flood,
+a distinguished member of the Irish House of Commons, brought in a
+bill of parliamentary reform, which, after a long debate, was
+negatived. Though his measure was defeated in the House, its advocates
+out of doors were not cast down, but took measures to form a national
+congress, for the amelioration of the evils which existed. A large
+delegation of the people actually met at Dublin, and petitioned
+parliament for the redress of grievances. Mr. Pitt considered the
+matter with proper attention, and labored to free the commerce of
+Ireland from the restraints under which it labored. But, in so doing,
+he excited the jealousy of British merchants and manufacturers, and
+they induced him to remodel his propositions for the relief of
+Ireland, which were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page454" name="page454"></a>(p. 454)</span>then adopted. Tranquillity was restored
+until the year 1791, when there appeared at Belfast the plan of an
+association, under the name of the <span class="inline">The United Irishmen.</span> <span class="italic">United Irishmen</span>, whose object was
+a radical reform of all the evils which had existed in Ireland since
+its connection with England. This association soon extended throughout
+the island, and numbered an immense body of both Protestants and
+Catholics who were disaffected with the government. In consequence of
+the disaffections, especially among the Catholics, the English
+ministry made many concessions, and the legislature allowed Catholics
+to practice law, to intermarry with Protestants, and to obtain an
+unrestrained education. But parliament also took measures to prevent
+the assembling of any convention of the people, and augmented the
+militia in case of disturbance. But disturbances took place, and the
+United Irishmen began to contemplate an entire separation from
+England, and other treasonable designs. In consequence of these
+commotions, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and a military
+government was enforced with all its rigor. The United Irish pretended
+to submit, but laid still deeper schemes, and extended their
+affiliations. In May, 1797, the number of men enrolled by the union in
+Ulster alone was one hundred thousand, and their organization was
+perfect. The French government was aware of the union, which gradually
+numbered five hundred thousand men, and promised it assistance. The
+Irish, however, relied chiefly upon themselves, and prepared to resist
+the English government, which was resolved on pursuing the most
+vigorous measures. A large military force was sent to Ireland, and
+several ringleaders of the contemplated insurrection were arrested.</p>
+
+<p>But the timely discovery of the conspiracy prevented one of the most
+bloody contests which ever happened in Ireland. Nevertheless, the
+insurrection broke out in some places, and in the county of Wexford
+was really formidable. The rebels numbered twenty thousand men. They
+got possession of Wexford, and committed great barbarities; but they
+were finally subdued by Lord Cornwallis. Had the French coöperated, as
+they had promised, with a force of fifteen thousand, it is not
+improbable that Ireland would have been wrested from England. But the
+French had as much as they could do, at this time, to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page455" name="page455"></a>(p. 455)</span>take
+care of themselves; and Ireland was again subjected to greater
+oppressions than before.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish parliament had hitherto been a mere body of perpetual
+dictators. By the Octennial Bill, this oligarchy was disbanded, and
+the House of Commons wore something of the appearance of a
+constitutional assembly, and there were found in it some men of
+integrity and sagacity. Ireland also had her advocates in the British
+senate; but whenever the people or the parliament gained a victory
+over the viceroy, some accident or blunder deprived the nation of
+reaping the fruits. The Commons became again corrupted, and the
+independence which Ireland obtained ceased to have a value. The
+corrupted Commons basely surrendered all that had been obtained. In
+vain the eloquence of Curran and Grattan. The Irish nation, without
+public virtue, a prey to faction, and a scene of corruption, became at
+last powerless and politically helpless. The rebellion of 1798 was a
+mere peasants' war, without intelligence to guide, or experience to
+counsel. It therefore miserably failed, but did not fail until fifty
+thousand rebels and twenty thousand royalists had perished.</p>
+
+<p>In June, 1800, the <span class="inline">Union of England and Ireland.</span> union of Ireland and England was effected, on the
+same basis as that between England and Scotland in the time of Anne.
+It was warmly opposed by some of the more patriotic of the Irish
+statesmen, and only carried by corruption and bribery. By this union,
+foreign legislation took the place of the guidance of those best
+qualified to know the national grievances; the Irish members became,
+in the British senate, merely the tools of the administration.
+Absenteeism was nearly doubled, and the national importance nearly
+annihilated in a political point of view. But, on the other hand, an
+oligarchal tyranny was broken, and the bond of union which bound the
+countries was strengthened, and the nation subsided into a greater
+state of tranquillity. Twenty-eight peers and one hundred commoners
+were admitted into the English parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the suppression of the rebellion of 1798, only five
+years elapsed before another one was contemplated&mdash;the result of
+republican principles, and of national grievances. The leaders were
+Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell. But their treasonable designs were
+miserably supported by their countrymen, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page456" name="page456"></a>(p. 456)</span>and they were able
+to make but a feeble effort, which immediately failed. These men were
+arrested, tried, and executed. The speech of Emmet, before his
+execution, has been much admired for its spirit of patriotism and
+pensive eloquence. His grand mistake consisted in overrating the
+strength of democratic influences, and in supposing that, by violent
+measures, he could overturn a strong military government. The Irish
+were not prepared for freedom, still less republican freedom. There
+was not sufficient concert, or patriotism, or intelligence, to secure
+popular liberty, and the antipathy between the Catholic and Protestant
+population was too deeply seated and too malignant to hope,
+reasonably, for a lasting union.</p>
+
+<p>All the measures which have been adopted for the independence and
+elevation of Ireland have failed, and the country is still in as
+<span class="inline">Condition of Ireland.</span> lamentable a state as ever. It presents a grand enigma and mystery to
+the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in devising
+means for the tranquillity and improvement of that unhappy and
+unfortunate country. The more privileges the people gain, and the
+greater assistance they receive, the more unreasonable appear to be
+their demands, and the more extravagant their expectations. Still,
+there are great and shameful evils, which ought to be remedied. There
+are nearly five millions of acres of waste land in the country,
+capable of the highest cultivation. The soil is inexhaustibly rich,
+the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for
+agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain
+oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the
+earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real
+union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different
+classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and
+Catholic population. The northern and Protestant part of the island is
+the most flourishing; but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is
+the most miserable country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst
+governed, and the most afflicted, in Christendom; and no human
+sagacity or wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the
+innumerable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the
+degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have been
+variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page457" name="page457"></a>(p. 457)</span>tyranny of the government, to the system by which the lands
+are leased and cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish
+character. These, united, may have produced the effects which all
+philanthropists deplore; but no one cause, in particular, can account
+for so fine a nation sinking into such poverty and wretchedness,
+especially when it is considered that the same idle and miserable
+peasantry, when transplanted to America, exhibit very different
+dispositions and tastes, and develop traits of character which command
+respect and secure prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>The first plan for <span class="inline">Parliamentary Reform.</span> parliamentary reform was brought forward by Pitt in
+1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of a large number
+of the House representing no important interests, and dependent on the
+minister. But his motion was successfully opposed. In May, 1783, he
+brought in another bill to add one hundred members to the House of
+Commons, and to abolish a proportionate number of the small and
+obnoxious boroughs. This plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived
+by a great majority. In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a
+reform of parliament, and again failed; and with this last attempt
+ended all his efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the
+impracticability of the measure, that he even uniformly opposed the
+object when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions
+when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject with
+other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it could be
+obtained without mischief; but when it became a democratic measure, he
+opposed it with all his might. Indeed, he avowed that he preferred to
+have parliament remain as it was, forever, rather than risk any
+prospects of reform when the country was so deeply agitated by
+revolutionary discussions. Mr. Pitt perfectly understood that those
+persons who were most eager for parliamentary reform, desired the
+overthrow of the existing institutions of the land, or, at least, such
+as were inconsistent with the hereditary succession to the throne,
+hereditary titles, and the whole system of entailed estates. Mr. Pitt,
+as he grew older, more powerful, and more experienced, became more
+aristocratic and conservative; feared to touch any of the old supports
+of the constitution for fear of producing a revolution&mdash;an evil which,
+of all evils, he most abhorred. Mr. Burke, though opposed to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page458" name="page458"></a>(p. 458)</span>minister, here defended him, and made an eloquent speech
+against revolutionary measures. Nor can we wonder at the change of
+opinion, which Mr. Pitt and others admitted, when it is considered
+that the advocates of parliamentary reform also were associated with
+men of infidel and dangerous principles. Thomas Paine was one of the
+apostles of liberty in that age, and his writings had a very great and
+very pernicious influence on the people at large. It is very singular,
+but nevertheless true, that some of the most useful reforms have been
+projected by men of infidel principles, and infidelity and
+revolutionary excess have generally been closely connected.</p>
+
+<p>But the reform question did not deeply agitate the people of England
+until a much later period. One of the most exciting events, in the
+domestic history of England during the administration of Pitt, was the
+trial of Hastings and the difficulties which grew out of the
+aggrandizement of the East India Company.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter on colonization, allusion was made to Indian affairs
+until the close of the administration of Lord Clive. <span class="inline">Warren Hastings.</span> Warren Hastings
+continued the encroachments and conquests which Clive had so
+successfully begun. He went to India in 1750, at the age of seventeen,
+as a clerk in the service of the company. It was then merely a
+commercial corporation. His talents and sagacity insured his
+prosperity. He gradually was promoted, and, in 1772, was appointed
+head of the government in Bengal. But the governor was not then, as he
+now is, nearly absolute, and he had only one vote in the council which
+represented the company at Calcutta. He was therefore frequently
+overruled, and his power was crippled. But he contrived to make
+important changes, and abolished the office of the minister to whom
+was delegated the collection of the revenue and the general regulation
+of internal affairs&mdash;an office which had been always held by a native.
+Hastings transferred the internal administration to the servants of
+the company, and in various other ways improved the finances of the
+company, the members of which were indifferent, comparatively, to the
+condition of the people of India, provided that they themselves were
+enriched. To enrich the company and extend its possessions, even at
+the expense of justice and humanity, became the object of the
+governor-general. He succeeded; but success brought upon him the
+imprecations <span class="pagenum"><a id="page459" name="page459"></a>(p. 459)</span>of the natives and the indignant rebukes of his
+own countrymen. In less than two years after he had assumed the
+government, he added four hundred thousand pounds to the annual income
+of the company, besides nearly a million in ready money. But the
+administration of Hastings cannot be detailed. We can only notice that
+part of it which led to his trial in England.</p>
+
+<p>The great event which marked his government was the <span class="inline">War with Hyder Ali.</span> war with Hyder
+Ali, the Mohammedan sovereign of Mysore. The province of Bengal and
+the Carnatic had been, for some time, under the protection of the
+English. Adjoining the Carnatic, in the centre of the peninsula, were
+the dominions of Hyder Ali. Had Hastings been governor of Madras, he
+would have conciliated him, or vigorously encountered him as an enemy.
+But the authorities at Madras had done neither. They provoked him to
+hostilities, and, with an army of ninety thousand men, he invaded the
+Carnatic. British India was on the verge of ruin. Hyder Ali was every
+where triumphant, and only a few fortified places remained to the
+English.</p>
+
+<p>Hastings, when he heard of the calamity, instantly adopted the most
+vigorous measures. He settled his difficulties with the Mahrattas; he
+suspended the incapable governor of Fort George, and sent Sir Eyre
+Coote to oppose the great Mohammedan prince who threatened to subvert
+the English power in India.</p>
+
+<p>But Hastings had not the money which was necessary to carry on an
+expensive war with the most formidable enemy the English ever
+encountered in the East. He therefore resolved to plunder the richest
+and most sacred city of India&mdash;Benares. It was the seat of Indian
+learning and devotion, and contained five hundred thousand people. Its
+temple, as seen from the Ganges, was the most imposing in the Eastern
+world, while its bazaars were filled with the most valuable and rare
+of Indian commodities; with the muslins of Bengal, the shawls of
+Cashmere, the sabres of Oude, and the silks of its own looms.</p>
+
+<p>This rich capital was governed by a prince nominally subject to the
+Great Mogul, but who was dependent on the Nabob of Oude, a large
+province north of the Ganges, near the Himmaleh Mountains. Benares and
+its territories, being oppressed by the Nabob of Oude, sought the
+protection of the British. Their protection <span class="pagenum"><a id="page460" name="page460"></a>(p. 460)</span>was, of course,
+readily extended; but it was fatal to the independence of Benares. The
+alliance with the English was like the protection Rome extended to
+Greece when threatened by Asia, and which ended in the subjection of
+both Greece and Asia. The Rajah of Benares became the vassal of the
+company, and therefore was obliged to furnish money for the protection
+he enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>But the tribute which the Rajah of Benares paid did not satisfy
+Hastings. He exacted still greater sums, which led to an insurrection
+and ultimate conquest. The fair domains of Cheyte Sing, the lord of
+Benares, were added to the dominions of the company together with an
+increased revenue of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The treasure
+of the rajah amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and
+this was divided as prize money among the English.</p>
+
+<p>The rapacious governor-general did not obtain the treasure which he
+expected to find at Benares, and then resolved to <span class="inline">Robbery of the Princesses of Oude.</span> rob the Princesses
+of Oude, who had been left with immense treasures on the death of
+Suraj-w Dowlah, the nabob vizier of the Grand Mogul. The only pretext
+which Hastings could find was, that the insurrection at Benares had
+produced disturbances at Oude, and which disturbances were imputed to
+the princesses. Great barbarities were inflicted in order to secure
+these treasures; but the robbers were successful, and immense sums
+flowed into the treasury of the company. By these iniquities, the
+governor found means to conduct the war in the Carnatic successfully,
+and a treaty was concluded with Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, by which
+the company reigned without a rival on the great Indian peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>When peace was restored to India, and the company's servants had
+accumulated immense fortunes, Hastings returned to England. But the
+iniquities he had practised excited great indignation among those
+statesmen who regarded justice and humanity as better supports to a
+government than violence and rapine.</p>
+
+<p>Foremost among these patriots was Edmund Burke. He had long been a
+member of the select committee to investigate Indian affairs, and he
+had bestowed great attention to them, and fully understood the course
+which Hastings had pursued.</p>
+
+<p>Through his influence, an inquiry into the conduct of the late
+governor-general was instituted, and he was accordingly impeached
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page461" name="page461"></a>(p. 461)</span>at the bar of the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt permitted matters
+to take their natural course; but the king, the Lord Chancellor
+Thurlow, the ministers generally, and the directors of the East India
+Company espoused his cause. They regarded him as a very great man,
+whose rule had been glorious to the nation, in spite of the mistakes
+and cruelties which marked his government. He had added an empire to
+the British crown, educed order out of anarchy, and organized a system
+of administration which, in its essential features, has remained to
+this time. He enriched the company, while he did not enrich himself;
+for he easily might have accumulated a fortune of three millions of
+pounds. And he moreover contrived, in spite of his extortions and
+conquests, to secure the respect of the native population, whose
+national and religious prejudices he endeavored not to shock. "These
+things inspired good will. At the same time, his constant success, and
+the manner in which he extricated himself from every difficulty, made
+him an object of superstitious admiration; and the more than regal
+splendor which he sometimes displayed, dazzled a people who have much
+in common with children. Even now, after the lapse of more than fifty
+years, the natives of India still talk of him as the greatest of the
+English, and nurses sing children to sleep with a gingling ballad
+about the fleet horses and richly-caparisoned elephants of Sahib
+Warren Hostein."</p>
+
+<p>But neither the admiration of the people of the East for the splendid
+abilities of Hastings, nor the gratitude of a company of merchants,
+nor the powerful friends he had in the English parliament, could
+screen him from the malignant hatred of Francis, or the purer
+indignation of Burke. The zeal which the latter evinced in his
+<span class="inline">Prosecution of Hastings.</span> prosecution has never been equalled, and all his energies, for years,
+were devoted to the exposure of a person whom he regarded as "a
+delinquent of the first magnitude." "He had just as lively an idea of
+the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of
+the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd." Burke was
+assisted in his vehement prosecution by Charles James Fox, the
+greatest debater ever known in the House of Commons, but a man vastly
+inferior to himself in moral elevation, in general knowledge, in power
+of fancy, and in profound wisdom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page462" name="page462"></a>(p. 462)</span>The trial was at Westminster Hall, the hall which had
+witnessed the inauguration of thirty kings, and the trials of accused
+nobles since the time of William Rufus. And he was a culprit not
+unworthy of that great tribunal before which he was summoned&mdash;"a
+tribunal which had pronounced sentence on Strafford, and pardon on
+Somers"&mdash;the tribunal before which royalty itself had been called to
+account. Hastings had ruled, with absolute sway, a country which was
+more populous and more extensive than any of the kingdoms of Europe,
+and had gained a fame which was bounded only by the unknown countries
+of the globe. He was defended by three men who subsequently became the
+three highest judges of the land, and he was encouraged by the
+appearance and sympathetic smiles of the highest nobles of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>But greater than all were the mighty statesmen who conducted the
+prosecution. First among them in character and genius was <span class="inline">Edmund Burke.</span> Edmund
+Burke, who, from the time that he first spoke in the House of Commons,
+in 1766, had been a prominent member, and had, at length, secured
+greater fame than any of his contemporaries, Pitt alone excepted, not
+merely as an orator, but as an enlightened statesman, a philosopher,
+and a philanthropist. He excelled all the great men with whom he was
+associated, in the variety of his powers; he was a poet even while a
+boy; a penetrating philosopher, critic, and historian before the age
+of thirty; a statesman of unrivalled moral wisdom; an orator whose
+speeches have been read with increasing admiration in every succeeding
+age; a judge of the fine arts to whose opinions Reynolds submitted;
+and a writer on various subjects, in which he displayed not only vast
+knowledge, but which he treated in a style of matchless beauty and
+force. All the great men of his age&mdash;Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith,
+Garrick, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, North, Thurlow, Parr&mdash;scholars,
+critics, divines, and statesmen&mdash;bore testimony to his commanding
+genius and his singular moral worth, to his hatred of vice, and his
+passionate love of virtue. But these great and varied excellences,
+which secured him the veneration of the finest minds in Europe, were
+not fully appreciated by his own nation, which was astonished rather
+than governed by his prophetic wisdom. But Burke was remarkable, not
+merely for his knowledge, eloquence, and genius but also for an
+unblemished <span class="pagenum"><a id="page463" name="page463"></a>(p. 463)</span>private life, for the habitual exercise of all
+those virtues, and the free expression of all those noble sentiments
+which only have marked exalted Christian characters. In his political
+principles, he was a conservative, and preferred to base his views on
+history and experience, rather than to try experiments, especially
+when these were advocated by men whose moral character or infidel
+sentiments excited his distrust or aversion. He did not shut his eyes
+to abuse, but aimed to mend deliberately and cautiously. His
+admonition to his country respecting America corresponded with his
+general sentiments. "Talk not of your abstract rights of government; I
+hate the very sound of them; follow experience and common sense." He
+believed that love was better than force, and that the strength of any
+government consisted in the affections of the people. And these he
+ever strove to retain, and for these he was willing to relinquish
+momentary gain and selfish aggrandizement. He advocated concession to
+the Irish legislature; justice and security to the people of India;
+liberty of conscience to Dissenters; relief to small debtors; the
+suppression of general warrants; the extension of the power of juries;
+freedom of the press; retrenchment in the public expenditures; the
+removal of commercial restrictions; and the abolition of the slave
+trade. He had a great contempt for "mechanical politicians," and
+"pedler principles." And he lived long enough to see the fulfilment of
+his political prophecies, and the horrors of that dreadful revolution
+which he had predicted and disliked, not because the principles which
+the French apostles of liberty advocated, were not abstractedly true,
+but because they were connected with excesses, and an infidel
+recklessness in the violation of established social rights, which
+alarmed and disgusted him. He died in 1797, in the sixty-eighth year
+of his age, beloved and honored by the good and great in all Christian
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Burke, among the prosecutors of Hastings, for greatness and
+popularity, was <span class="inline">Charles James Fox.</span> Charles James Fox; inferior to Burke in knowledge,
+imagination, and moral power, but superior in all the arts of debate,
+the most logical and accomplished forensic orator which that age of
+orators produced. His father, Lord Holland, had been the rival of the
+great Chatham, and he himself was opposed, nearly the whole of his
+public life, to the younger <span class="pagenum"><a id="page464" name="page464"></a>(p. 464)</span>Pitt. His political principles
+were like those of Burke until the French Revolution, whose principles
+he at first admired. He was emphatically the man of the people, easy
+of access, social in his habits, free in his intercourse, without
+reserve or haughtiness, generous, magnanimous, and conciliatory. He
+was unsurpassed for logical acuteness, and for bursts of overpowering
+passion. He reached high political station, although his habits were
+such as destroyed, in many respects, the respect of those great men
+with whom he was associated.</p>
+
+<p>Richard <span class="inline">Richard Brinsley Sheridan.</span> Brinsley Sheridan, another of the public accusers of Hastings,
+was a different man from either Burke or Fox. He was born in Ireland,
+but was educated at Harrow, and first distinguished himself by writing
+plays. In 1776, on the retirement of Garrick, he became manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre; and shortly after appeared the School for Scandal,
+which placed him on the summit of dramatic fame. In 1780, he entered
+parliament, and, when Hastings was impeached, was in the height of his
+reputation, both as a writer and orator. His power consisted in
+brilliant declamation and sparkling wit, and his speech in relation to
+the Princesses of Oude produced an impression almost without a
+parallel in ancient or modern times. Mr. Burke's admiration was
+sincere and unbounded, but Fox thought it too florid and rhetorical.
+His fame now rests on his dramas. But his life was the shipwreck of
+genius, in consequence of his extravagance, his recklessness in
+incurring debts, and his dissipated habits, which disorganized his
+moral character and undermined the friendships which his brilliant
+talents at first secured to him.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of the indignation which these illustrious orators
+excited against Hastings, he was nevertheless acquitted, after a trial
+which lasted eight years, in consequence of the change of public
+opinion; and, above all, in view of the great services which he had
+really rendered to his country. The expenses of the trial nearly
+ruined him; but the East India Company granted him an annual income of
+four thousand pounds, which he spent in ornamenting and enriching
+Daylesford, the seat which had once belonged to his family, and which
+he purchased after his return from India.</p>
+
+<p>Although Warren Hastings was eventually acquitted by the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page465" name="page465"></a>(p. 465)</span>
+House of Lords, still his long and protracted trial brought to light
+many evils connected with the government of India; and, in 1784, acts
+were passed which gave the nation a more direct control over the East
+India Company&mdash;the most gigantic monopoly the world has ever seen.
+That a company of merchants in Leadenhall Street should exercise an
+unlimited power over an empire larger than the whole of Europe with
+the exception of Russia, and sacrifice the interests of humanity to
+base pecuniary considerations, at length aroused the English nation.
+Accordingly, Mr. Pitt brought in a <span class="inline">Bill for the Regulation of India.</span> bill, which passed both Houses,
+which provided that the affairs of the company should be partly
+managed by a Board of Control, partly by the Court of Directors, and
+partly by a general meeting of the stockholders of the company. The
+Board of Control was intrusted to five privy counsellors, one of whom
+was secretary of state. It was afterwards composed of a president,
+such members of the privy council as the king should select, and a
+secretary. This board superintends and regulates all civil, military,
+and revenue officers, and political negotiations, and all general
+despatches. The Board of Directors, composed of twenty-four men, six
+of whom are annually elected, has the nomination of the
+governor-general, and the appointment of all civil and military
+officers. These two boards operate as a check against each other.</p>
+
+<p>The first governor-general, by the new constitution, was Lord
+Cornwallis, a nobleman of great military experience and elevated moral
+worth; a man who was intrusted with great power, even after his
+misfortunes in America, and a man who richly deserved the confidence
+reposed in him. Still, he was seldom fortunate. He made blunders in
+India as well as in America. He did not fully understand the
+institutions of India, or the genius of the people. He was soon called
+to embark in the contests which divided the different native princes,
+and with the usual result. The simple principle of English territorial
+acquisition is, in defending the cause of the feebler party. The
+stronger party was then conquered, and became a province of the East
+India Company, while the weaker remained under English protection,
+until, by oppression, injustice, and rapacity on the part of the
+protectors, it was driven to rebellion, and then subdued.</p>
+
+<p>When Lord Cornwallis was sent to India, in 1786, the East <span class="pagenum"><a id="page466" name="page466"></a>(p. 466)</span>
+India Company had obtained possession of Bengal, a part of Bahar, the
+Benares district of Allahabad, part of Orissa, the Circars, Bombay,
+and the Jaghire of the Carnatic&mdash;a district of one hundred miles along
+the coast. The other great Indian powers, unconquered by the English,
+were the Mahrattas, who occupied the centre of India, from Delhi to
+the Krishna, and from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea; also,
+Golconda, the western parts of the Carnatic, Mysore, Oude, and the
+country of the Sikhs. Of the potentates who ruled over these extensive
+provinces, the Sultan of Mysore, Tippoo Saib, was the most powerful,
+although the Mahrattas country was the largest.</p>
+
+<p>The hostility of <span class="inline">War with Tippoo Saib.</span> Tippoo, who inherited his father's prejudices against
+the English, excited the suspicions of Lord Cornwallis, and a
+desperate war was the result, in which the sultan showed the most
+daring courage. In 1792, the English general invested the formidable
+fortress of Seringapatam, with sixteen thousand Europeans and thirty
+thousand sepoys, and with the usual success. Tippoo, after the loss of
+this strong fort, and of twenty-three thousand of his troops, made
+peace with Lord Cornwallis, by the payment of four millions of pounds,
+and the surrender of half his dominions. Lord Cornwallis, after the
+close of this war, returned home, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore;
+and he by Marquis Wellesley, (1798,) under whose administration the
+war with Tippoo was renewed, in consequence of the intrigues of the
+sultan with the French at Pondicherry, to regain his dominions. The
+Sultan of Mysore, was again defeated, and slain; the dynasty of Hyder
+Ali ceased to reign, and the East India Company took possession of the
+whole southern peninsula. A subsequent war with the Mahratta powers
+completely established the British supremacy in India. Delhi, the
+capital of the Great Mogul, fell into the hands of the English, and
+the emperor himself became a stipendiary of a company of merchants.
+The conquest of the country of the Mahrattas was indeed successful,
+but was attended by vast expenses, which entailed a debt on the
+company of about nineteen millions of pounds. The brilliant successes
+of Wellesley, however, were not appreciated by the Board of Directors,
+who wanted dividends rather than glory, and he was recalled.</p>
+
+<p>There were no <span class="inline">Conquest of India.</span> new conquests until 1817, under the government <span class="pagenum"><a id="page467" name="page467"></a>(p. 467)</span>
+of the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He made war on
+the Pindarries, who were bands of freebooters in Central India. They
+were assisted by several native powers, which induced the
+governor-general to demand considerable cessions of territory. In
+1819, the British effected a settlement at Singapore by which a
+lucrative commerce was secured to Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Hastings was succeeded by the Earl of Amherst, under whose
+administration the Burmese war commenced, and by which large
+territories, between Bengal and China, were added to the British
+empire, (1826.)</p>
+
+<p>On the overthrow of the Mogul empire, the kingdom of the Sikhs, in the
+northern part of India, and that of the Affghans, lying west of the
+Indus, arose in importance&mdash;kingdoms formerly subject to Persia. The
+former, with all its dependent provinces, has recently been conquered,
+and annexed to the overgrown dominions of the Company.</p>
+
+<p>In 1833, the charter of the East India Company expired, and a total
+change of system was the result. The company was deprived of its
+exclusive right of trade, the commerce with India and China was freely
+opened to all the world, and the possessions and rights of the company
+were ceded to the nation for an annual annuity of six hundred and
+thirty thousand pounds. The political government of India, however,
+was continued to the company until 1853.</p>
+
+<p>Thus has England come in possession of one of the oldest and most
+powerful of the Oriental empires, containing a population of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, speaking various languages, and
+wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious institutions.
+<span class="inline">Consequences of the Conquest.</span> The conquest of India is complete, and there is not a valuable office
+in the whole country which is not held by an Englishman. The native
+and hereditary princes of provinces, separately larger and more
+populous than Great Britain itself, are divested of all but the shadow
+of power, and receive stipends from the East India Company. The
+Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of
+Tanjore and Benares, and the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other
+princes, receive, indeed, an annual support of over a million
+sterling; but their power has passed away. An empire two thousand
+miles from east to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and
+containing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page468" name="page468"></a>(p. 468)</span>more square miles than a territory larger than
+all the States between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, has
+fallen into the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a
+considerable part of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies,
+under the protection of the British government; but the moment that
+these dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be
+withdrawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is
+beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better
+observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty; but no
+compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for
+interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has been
+robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only held in
+bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must be felt as
+burdensome and expensive when the plundered country shall no longer
+satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. But that day may be
+remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital
+of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than
+Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of
+Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army
+amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are
+taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen
+millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies
+of India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever
+full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice and
+oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation among
+the governed. It is too much to suppose that one hundred and eighty
+millions of the human race can be permanently governed by a power on
+the opposite side of the globe, and where there never can exist any
+union or sympathy between the nation that rules and the nations that
+are ruled, in any religious, social, or political institution; and
+when all that is dear to the heart of man, and all that is consecrated
+by the traditions of ages, are made to subserve the interests of a
+mercantile state.</p>
+
+<p>But it is time to hasten to the consideration of the remaining
+subjects connected with the administration of William Pitt.</p>
+
+<p>The agitations of moral reformers are among the most prominent and
+interesting. The efforts of benevolent statesmen and philanthropists
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page469" name="page469"></a>(p. 469)</span>to abolish the slave trade produced a great excitement
+throughout Christendom, and were followed by great results.</p>
+
+<p>In 1787, William Wilberforce, who represented the great county of
+York, brought forward, in the House of Commons, a motion for the
+abolition of the slave trade. The first public movements to put a stop
+to this infamous traffic were made by the Quakers in the Southern
+States of America, who presented petitions for that purpose to their
+respective legislatures. Their brethren in England followed their
+example, and presented similar petitions to the House of Commons. A
+society was formed, and a considerable sum was raised to collect
+information relative to the traffic, and to support the expense of
+application to parliament. A great resistance was expected and made,
+chiefly by merchants and planters. Mr. Wilberforce interested himself
+greatly in this investigation, and in May brought the matter before
+parliament, and supported his motion with overwhelming arguments and
+eloquence. Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Whitbread
+supported Mr. Wilberforce. Mr. Pitt defended the cause of abolition
+with great eloquence and power; but the House was not then in favor of
+immediate abolition, nor was it carried until Mr. Fox and his friends
+came into power.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">War with France.</span> war with France, in consequence of the progress of the revolution,
+is too great a subject to be treated except in a chapter by itself.
+Mr. Pitt abstained from all warlike demonstrations until the internal
+tranquillity of England itself was affected by the propagation of
+revolutionary principles. But when, added to these, it was feared that
+the French were resolved to extend their empire, and overturn the
+balance of power, and encroach on the liberties of England, then Pitt,
+sustained by an overwhelming majority in parliament, declared war upon
+France, (1793.) The advocates of the French Revolution, however, take
+different views, and attribute the rise and career of Napoleon to the
+jealousy and encroachments of England herself, as well as of Austria
+and Prussia. Whether the general European war might not have been
+averted, is a point which merits inquiry, and on which British
+statesmen are not yet agreed. But the connection of England with this
+great war will be presented in the following chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pitt continued to manage the helm of state until 1806; but
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page470" name="page470"></a>(p. 470)</span>all his energies were directed to the prosecution of the
+war, and no other events of importance took place during his
+administration.</p>
+
+<p>His genius most signally was displayed in his <span class="inline">Policy of Pitt.</span> financial skill in
+extricating his nation from the great embarrassments which resulted
+from the American war, and in providing the means to prosecute still
+more expensive campaigns against Napoleon and his generals. He also
+had unrivalled talent in managing the House of Commons against one of
+the most powerful oppositions ever known, and in a period of great
+public excitements. He was always ready in debate, and always retained
+the confidence of the nation. He is probably the greatest of the
+English statesmen, so far as talents are concerned, and so far as he
+represented the ideas and sentiments of his age. But it is a question
+which will long perplex philosophers whether he was the wisest of that
+great constellation of geniuses who enlightened his brilliant age. To
+him may be ascribed the great increase of the national debt. If taxes
+are the greatest calamity which can afflict a nation, then Pitt has
+entailed a burden of misery which will call forth eternal curses on
+his name, in spite of all the brilliancy of his splendid
+administration. But if the glory and welfare of nations consist in
+other things&mdash;in independence, patriotism, and rational liberty; if it
+was desirable, above all material considerations, to check the current
+of revolutionary excess, and oppose the career of a man who aimed to
+bring all the kings and nations of Europe under the yoke of an
+absolute military despotism, and rear a universal empire on the ruins
+of ancient monarchies and states,&mdash;then Pitt and his government should
+be contemplated in a different light.</p>
+
+<p>That mighty contest which developed the energies of this great
+statesman, as well as the genius of a still more remarkable man,
+therefore claims our attention.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References.</span>&mdash;Tomline's Life of Pitt. Belsham's History of
+     George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> Prior's and Bissett's Lives of Burke. Moore's
+     Life of Sheridan. Walpole's Life of Fox. Life of
+     Wilberforce, by his sons. Annual Register, from 1783 to
+     1806. Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. Elphinstone's and
+     Martin's Histories of India. Mill's British India. Russell's
+     Modern Europe. Correspondence of Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Boswell's Life of
+     Johnson. Burke's Works. Schlosser's Modern History.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page471" name="page471"></a>(p. 471)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="30">XXX.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.</h4>
+
+
+<p>If the American war was the greatest event in modern times, in view of
+ultimate results, the French Revolution may be considered the most
+exciting and interesting to the eye of contemporaries. The wars which
+grew out of the Revolution in France were conducted on a scale of much
+greater magnitude, and embroiled all the nations of Europe. A greater
+expenditure of energies took place than from any contest in the annals
+of civilized nations. Nor has any contest ever before developed so
+great military genius. Napoleon stands at the head of his profession,
+by general consent; and it is probable that his fame will increase,
+rather than diminish, with advancing generations.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the great and varied
+events connected with the French Revolution, or even allude to all the
+prominent ones. The causes of this great movement are even more
+interesting than the developments.</p>
+
+<p>The question is often asked, could Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> have prevented the
+catastrophe which overturned his throne? He might, perhaps, have
+delayed it; but it was an inevitable event, and would have happened,
+sooner or later. <span class="inline">Causes of the French Revolution.</span> There were evils in the government of France, and in
+the condition of the people, so overwhelming and melancholy, that they
+would have produced an outbreak. Had Richelieu never been minister;
+had the Fronde never taken place; had Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr> and <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> never
+reigned; had there been no such women as disgraced the court of France
+in the eighteenth century; had there been no tyrannical kings, no
+oppressive nobles, no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no
+luxurious courts, no infidel writings, and no discontented
+people,&mdash;then Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> might have reigned at Versailles, as
+Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> had done before him. But the accumulated grievances of two
+centuries called imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a
+revolution could have removed them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page472" name="page472"></a>(p. 472)</span>Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of
+necessity, produced the most violent revolutionary storm in the annals
+of the world? The causes of the French revolution may be generalized
+under five heads: First, the influence of the writings of infidel
+philosophers; second, the diffusion of the ideas of popular rights;
+third, the burdens of the people, which made these abstract ideas of
+right a mockery; fourth, the absurd infatuation of the court and
+nobles; fifth, the derangement of the finances, which clogged the
+wheels of government, and led to the assembling of the States General.
+There were also other causes: but the above mentioned are the most
+prominent.</p>
+
+<p>Of those <span class="inline">Helvetius &mdash; Voltaire.</span> philosophers whose writings contributed to produce this
+revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable influence. These
+were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot.</p>
+
+<p>Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, and published, in 1758, a
+book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac and of other
+philosophers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes called, the
+sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of undisguised
+selfishness. He maintained that man owed his superiority over the
+lower animals to the superior organization of the body. Proceeding
+from this point, he asserted, further, that every faculty and emotion
+are derived from sensation; that all minds are originally equal; that
+pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the only ground of
+morality. The materialism of Helvetius was the mere revival of pagan
+Epicurianism; but it was popular, and his work, called <span class="italic" lang="fr">De l'Esprit</span>,
+made a great sensation. It was congenial with the taste of a court and
+a generation that tolerated Madame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of
+Paris condemned it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature,
+inasmuch as it confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and
+destroyed the distinctions between virtue and vice.</p>
+
+<p>His fame was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who
+exercised a greater influence on his age than any other man. He is the
+great apostle of French infidelity, and the great oracle of the
+superficial thinkers of his nation and age. He was born in 1694, and
+early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Versailles, and a
+companion of Frederic the Great&mdash;as great an egotist as he, though his
+egotism was displayed in a different way. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page473" name="page473"></a>(p. 473)</span>He was an
+aristocrat, made for courts, and not for the people, with whom he had
+no sympathy, although the tendency of his writings was democratic. In
+all his satirical sallies, he professed to respect authority. But he
+was never in earnest, was sceptical, insincere, and superficial. It
+would not be rendering him justice to deny that he had great genius.
+But his genius was to please, to amuse a vain-glorious people, to turn
+every thing into ridicule, to pull down, and substitute nothing
+instead. He was a modern Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed
+reverence for God and truth. He despised and defied the future, and
+the future has rendered a verdict which can never be reversed&mdash;that he
+was vain, selfish, shallow, and cold, without faith in any spiritual
+influence to change the world. But he had a keen perception of what
+was false, with all his superficial criticism, a perception of what is
+now called <span class="italic">humbug</span>; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense,
+he had a love of truth, but not of truth in its highest development,
+not of the positive, the affirmative, the real. Negation and denial
+suited him better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence
+he was a "representative man," was an exponent of his age, and led the
+age. He hated the Jesuits, but chiefly because they advocated a blind
+authority; and he strove to crush Christianity, because its professors
+so often were a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs
+and victims. Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system
+of philosophy, but strove to make all systems absurd. He set the ball
+of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track: pushed
+out, not his principles, for he had none, but his spirit, into the
+extreme of mockery and negation. And such a course unsettled the
+popular faith, both in religion and laws, and made men indifferent to
+the future, and to their moral obligations.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a different man was <span class="inline">Rousseau.</span> Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or a
+leveller, or a satirist, or an atheist. He resembled Voltaire only in
+one respect&mdash;in egotism. He was not so learned as Voltaire, did not
+write so much, was not so highly honored or esteemed. But he had more
+genius, and exercised a greater influence on posterity. His influence
+was more subtle and more dangerous, for he led astray people of
+generous impulses and enthusiastic dispositions, with but little
+intelligence or experience. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page474" name="page474"></a>(p. 474)</span>He abounded in extravagant
+admiration of unsophisticated nature, professed to love the simple and
+earnest, affected extraordinary friendship and sympathy, and was most
+enthusiastic in his rhapsodies of sentimental love. Voltaire had no
+cant, but Rousseau was full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton,
+but Rousseau of Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who as a judge,
+was too conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently
+unscrupulous to destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be
+detected in the ravings of the ultra Transcendentalists, in the
+extravagance of Fourierism, in the mock philanthropy of such apostles
+of light as Eugene Sue and Louis Blanc. The whole mental and physical
+constitution of Rousseau was diseased, and his actions were strangely
+inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of friendship, and
+it proved the token of treachery; he expatiated on simplicity and
+earnestness in most bewitching language, but was a hypocrite, seducer,
+and liar. He was always breathing the raptures of affection, yet never
+succeeded in keeping a friend; he was always denouncing the
+selfishness and vanity of the world, and yet was miserable without its
+rewards and praises; no man was more dependent on society, yet no man
+ever professed to hold it in deeper contempt; no man ever had a
+prouder spirit, yet no man ever affected a more abject humility. He
+dilated, with apparent rapture, on disinterested love, and yet left
+his own children to cold neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and
+the susceptible by pouring out streams of passion in eloquent and
+exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own soul and
+revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about philanthropy
+and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a charity. No man was ever
+more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in absurdity. He spent his life
+in gilding what is corrupt, and glossing over what is impure. The
+great moral effect of his writings was to make men commit crimes under
+the name of patriotism, and permit them to indulge in selfish passion
+under the name of love.</p>
+
+<p>But more powerful than either of these false prophets and guides, in
+immediate influence, was <span class="inline">Diderot.</span> Diderot; and with him the whole school of
+bold and avowed infidels, who united open atheism with a fierce
+democracy. The Encyclopedists professed to know every thing, to
+explain every thing, and to teach every <span class="pagenum"><a id="page475" name="page475"></a>(p. 475)</span>thing, they
+discovered that there was no God, and taught that truth was a
+delusion, and virtue but a name. They were learned in mathematical,
+statistical, and physical science, but threw contempt on elevated
+moral wisdom, on the lessons of experience, and the eternal truths of
+divine revelation. They advocated changes, experiments, fomentations,
+and impracticable reforms. They preached a gospel of social rights,
+inflamed the people with disgust of their condition, and with the
+belief that wisdom and virtue resided, in the greatest perfection,
+with congregated masses.</p>
+
+<p>They incessantly boasted of the greatness of <span class="inline">General Influence of the Philosophers.</span> philosophy, and the
+obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that successive
+developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to
+itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. What
+they could not explain by their logical formularies, they utterly
+discarded. They denied the reality of a God in heaven, and talked
+about the divinity of man on earth, especially when associated masses
+of the ignorant and brutal asserted what they conceived to be their
+rights. They made truth to reside, in its greatest lustre, with
+passionate majorities; and virtue, in its purest radiance, with felons
+and vagabonds, if affiliated into a great association. They flattered
+the people that they were wiser and better than any classes above
+them, that rulers were tyrants, the clergy were hypocrites, the
+oracles of former days mere fools and liars. To sum up, in few words,
+the French Encyclopedists, "they made Nature, in her outward
+manifestations, to be the foundation of all great researches, man to
+be but a mass of organization, mind the development of our sensations,
+morality to consist in self-interest, and God to be but the diseased
+fiction of an unenlightened age. The whole intellect, being
+concentrated on the outward and material, gave rise, perhaps, to some
+improvements in physical science; but religion was disowned, morality
+degraded, and man made to be but the feeble link in the great chain of
+events by which Nature is inevitably accomplishing her blind designs."
+From such influences, what could we expect but infidelity, madness,
+anarchy, and crimes?</p>
+
+<p>The second cause of the French revolution was the diffusion of the
+ideas of democratic liberty. Rousseau was a republican in his
+politics, as he was a sentimentalist in religion. Thomas <span class="pagenum"><a id="page476" name="page476"></a>(p. 476)</span>
+Paine's Age of Reason had a great influence on the French mind, as it
+also had on the English and American. Moreover, the apostles of
+liberty in France were much excited in view of the success of the
+American Revolution, and fancied that the words "popular liberty,"
+"sovereignty of the people," the "rights of man," "liberty and
+equality," meant the same in America as they did when pronounced by a
+Parisian mob. The French people were unduly flattered, and made to
+believe, by the demagogues, that they were philosophers, and that they
+were as fit for liberty as the American nation itself. Moreover, it
+must be confessed that the people had really made considerable
+advances, and discovered that there was no right or justice in the
+oppressions under which they groaned. The exhortations of popular
+leaders and the example of American patriots prepared the people to
+make a desperate effort to shake off their fetters. What were rights,
+in the abstract, if they were to be ground down to the dust? What a
+mockery was the watchword of liberty and equality, if they were
+obliged to submit to a despotism which they knew to be, in the highest
+degree, oppressive and tyrannical?</p>
+
+<p>Hence the <span class="inline">Sufferings of the People.</span> real and physical evils which the people of France endured,
+had no small effect in producing the revolution. Abstract ideas
+prepared the way, and sustained the souls of the oppressed; but the
+absolute burdens which they bore aroused them to resistance.</p>
+
+<p>These evils were so great, that general <span class="inline">Degradation of the People.</span> discontent prevailed among the
+middle and lower classes through the kingdom. The agricultural
+population was fettered by game laws and odious privileges to the
+aristocracy. "Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars
+and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through spacious
+districts, in order that the nobles might hunt as in a savage
+wilderness." Numerous edicts prohibited weeding, lest young partridges
+should be disturbed, and mowing of hay even, lest their eggs should be
+destroyed. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were carried
+before courts where every species of oppression and fraud prevailed.
+Fines were imposed at every change of property and at every sale. The
+people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to
+press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven. In
+consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page477" name="page477"></a>(p. 477)</span>very poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress
+ragged and miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the
+enormous taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or even the
+pockets of the great proprietors. Officers were indefinitely
+multiplied. The governing classes looked upon the people only to be
+robbed. Their cry was unheard in the courts of justice, while the tear
+of sorrow was unnoticed amid the pageantry of the great, whose
+extravagance, insolence, and pride were only surpassed by the misery
+and degradation of those unfortunate beings on whose toils they lived.
+Justice was bought and sold like any other commodity, and the
+decisions of judges were influenced by the magnitude of the bribes
+which were offered them. Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed
+additional burdens, and swarmed wherever there was plunder to be
+obtained. The people were so extravagantly taxed that it was no object
+to be frugal or industrious. Every thing beyond the merest necessaries
+of life was seized by various tax-gatherers. In England, severe as is
+taxation, three fourths of the produce of the land go to the farmer,
+while in France only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. Two thirds
+of his earnings went to the king. Nor was there any appeal from this
+excessive taxation, which ground down the middle and lower classes,
+while the clergy and the nobles were entirely exempted themselves. Nor
+did the rich proprietor live upon his estates. He was a non-resident,
+and squandered in the cities the money which was extorted from his
+dependents. He took no interest in the condition of the peasantry,
+with whom he was not united by any common ties. Added to this
+oppression, the landlord was cruel, haughty, and selfish; and he
+irritated by his insolence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All
+situations in the army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench,
+and in diplomacy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom
+there were one hundred and fifty thousand people&mdash;a class insolent,
+haughty, effeminate, untaxed; who disdained useful employments, who
+sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those by whose
+toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and pleasure, as
+ignoble minions, who were unworthy of a better destiny, and unfit to
+enjoy those rights which God designed should be possessed by the whole
+human race.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page478" name="page478"></a>(p. 478)</span>The privileges and pursuits of the aristocratic class, from
+the king to a lieutenant in his army, were another cause of
+revolution. Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr> squandered twenty million pounds sterling in
+pleasures too ignominious to be even named in the public accounts, and
+enjoyed almost absolute power. He could send any one in his dominions
+to rot in an ignominious prison, without a hearing or a trial. The
+odious <span class="italic" lang="fr">lettre de cachet</span> could consign the most powerful noble to a
+dungeon, and all were sent to prison who were offensive to government.
+The king's mistresses sometimes had the power of sending their enemies
+to prison without consulting the king. The lives and property of the
+people were at his absolute disposal, and he did not scruple to
+exercise his power with thoughtless, and sometimes inhuman cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>But these evils would have ended only in disaffection, and hatred, and
+unsuccessful resistance, had not the royal finances been <span class="inline">Derangement of Finances.</span> deranged. So
+long as the king and his ministers could obtain money, there was no
+immediate danger of revolution. So long as he could pay the army, it
+would, if decently treated, support an absolute throne.</p>
+
+<p>But the king at last found it difficult to raise a sufficient revenue
+for his pleasures and his wars. The annual deficit was one hundred and
+ninety million of francs a year. The greater the deficit, the greater
+was the taxation, which, of course, increased the popular discontent.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> ascended the throne of
+Hugh Capet, (1774,) in his twentieth year, having married, four years
+before, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of
+Austria. He was grandson of Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr>, who bequeathed to him a debt of
+four thousand millions of livres.</p>
+
+<p>The new king was amiable and moral, and would have ruled France in
+peaceful times, but was unequal to a revolutionary crisis. "Of all the
+monarchs," says Alison, "of the Capetian line, he was the least able
+to stem, and yet the least likely to provoke, a revolution. The people
+were tired of the arbitrary powers of their monarch, and he was
+disposed to abandon them; they were provoked at the expensive
+corruptions of the court, and he was both innocent in his manners, and
+unexpensive in his habits; they demanded reformation in the
+administration of affairs, and he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page479" name="page479"></a>(p. 479)</span>placed his chief glory in
+yielding to the public voice. His reign, from his accession to the
+throne to the meeting of the States General, was nothing but a series
+of ameliorations, without calming the public effervescence. He had the
+misfortune to wish sincerely for the public good, without possessing
+the firmness necessary to secure it; and with truth it may be said
+that reforms were more fatal to him than the continuance of abuses
+would have been to another sovereign."</p>
+
+<p>He made choice of <span class="inline">Maurepas &mdash; Turgot &mdash; Malesherbes.</span> Maurepas as his prime minister, an old courtier
+without talent, and who was far from comprehending the spirit of the
+nation or the genius of the times. He accustomed the king to half
+measures, and pursued a temporizing policy, ill adapted to
+revolutionary times. The discontents of the people induced the king to
+dismiss him, and Turgot, for whom the people clamored, became prime
+minister. He was an honest man, and contemplated important reforms,
+even to the abolition of feudal privileges and the odious <span class="italic" lang="fr">lettres de
+cachet</span>, which were of course opposed by the old nobility, and were
+not particularly agreeable to the sovereign himself.</p>
+
+<p>Malesherbes, a lawyer who adopted the views of Turgot, succeeded him,
+and, had he been permitted, would have restored the rights of the
+people, and suppressed the <span class="italic" lang="fr">lettres de cachet</span>, reënacted the Edict of
+Nantes, and secured the liberty of the press. But he was not equal to
+the crisis, with all his integrity and just views, and <span class="inline">Necker &mdash; Calonne.</span> Necker became
+financial minister.</p>
+
+<p>He was a native of Geneva, a successful banker, and a man who had won
+the confidence of the nation. He found means to restore the finances,
+and to defray the expenses of the American war. But he was equally
+opposed by the nobles, who wanted no radical reform, and he was not a
+man of sufficient talent to stem the current of revolution. Financial
+skill was certainly desirable, but no financiering could save the
+French nation on the eve of bankruptcy with such vast expenditures as
+then were deemed necessary. The nobles indeed admitted the extent of
+the evils which existed, and descanted, on their hunting parties, in a
+strain of mock philanthropy, but would submit to no sacrifices
+themselves, and Necker was compelled to resign.</p>
+
+<p>M. de Calonne took his place; a man of ready invention, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page480" name="page480"></a>(p. 480)</span>
+unscrupulous, witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of
+promises, he succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a
+plan directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged
+the extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off
+pressing debts by contracting new ones. He pleased all classes by his
+captivating manners, brilliant conversation, and elegant dress. The
+king, furnished with what money he wanted, forgot the burdens of the
+people, and the minister went on recklessly contracting new loans, and
+studiously concealing from the public the extent of the annual
+deficit.</p>
+
+<p>But such a policy could not long be adopted successfully, and the
+people were overwhelmed with amazement when it finally appeared that,
+since the retirement of Necker in 1781, Calonne had added sixteen
+hundred and forty-six millions of francs to the public debt. National
+bankruptcy stared every body in the face. It was necessary that an
+extraordinary movement should be made; and Calonne recommended the
+assembling of the Notables, a body composed chiefly of the nobility,
+clergy, and magistracy, with the hope that these aristocrats would
+consent to their own taxation.</p>
+
+<p>He was miserably mistaken. The Notables met, (1787,) the first time
+since the reign of Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, and demanded the dismissal of the
+minister, who was succeeded by Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse.</p>
+
+<p>He was a weak man, and owed his elevation to his influence with women.
+He won the queen by his pleasing conversation, but had no solid
+acquirements. Occupying one of the highest positions in his church, he
+yet threw himself into the arms of atheistical philosophers. A man so
+inconsistent and so light was not fit for his place.</p>
+
+<p>However, the Notables agreed to what they had refused to Calonne. They
+consented to a land tax, to the stamp duty, to provincial assemblies,
+and to the suppression of the gratuitous service of vassals. These
+were popular measures, but were insufficient. Brienne was under the
+necessity of proposing the imposition of new taxes. But the Parliament
+of Paris refused to register the edict. A struggle between the king
+and the parliament resulted; and the king, in order to secure the
+registration of new taxes, resorted to the <span class="italic">bed of justice</span>&mdash;the last
+stretch of his royal power.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page481" name="page481"></a>(p. 481)</span>
+
+<p>During one of the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses and
+prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the
+word <span class="italic">états</span>, (statements,) exclaimed, <span class="inline">States General.</span> "It is not statements but
+States General that we want."</p>
+
+<p>From that moment, nothing was thought of or talked about but the
+assembling of the States General; to which the minister, from his
+increasing embarrassments, consented. Moreover, the court hoped, in
+view of the continued opposition of the parliament, that the <span lang="fr">Tiers
+État</span> would defend the throne against the legal aristocracy.</p>
+
+<p>All classes formed great and extravagant expectations from the
+assembling of the States General, and all were doomed to
+disappointment, but none more than those who had most vehemently and
+enthusiastically called for its convocation.</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop of Toulouse soon after retired, unable to stem the
+revolutionary current. But he contrived to make his own fortune, by
+securing benefices to the amount of eight hundred thousand francs, the
+archbishopric of Sens, and a cardinal's hat. At his recommendation
+Necker was recalled.</p>
+
+<p>On Necker's return, he found only two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs in the royal treasury; but the funds immediately rose, thirty
+per cent., and he was able to secure the loans necessary to carry on
+the government, rich capitalists fearing that absolute ruin would
+result unless they came to his assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed discussions in reference to the <span lang="fr">Tiers État</span>, as to what
+the third estate really represented, and as to the number of deputies
+who should be called to the assembly of the States General. "The <span lang="fr">Tiers
+État</span>," said the Abbé Sièyes, in an able pamphlet, "is the French
+nation, <span class="italic">minus</span> the noblesse and the clergy."</p>
+
+<p>It was at last decided that the assembly should be at least one
+thousand, and that the number of deputies should equal the
+representatives of the nobles and clergy. The elections, were
+carelessly conducted, and all persons, decently dressed, were allowed
+to vote. Upwards of three millions of electors determined the choice
+of deputies. Necker conceded too much, and opened the flood-gates of
+revolution. He had no conception of the storm, which was to overwhelm
+the throne.</p>
+
+<p>On the 4th of May, 1789, that famous Assembly, which it was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page482" name="page482"></a>(p. 482)</span>
+hoped would restore prosperity to France, met with great pomp in the
+cathedral church of Notre Dame, and the Bishop of Nancy delivered the
+sermon, and, the next day, the assembly was opened in the hall
+prepared for the occasion. The king was seated on a magnificent
+throne, the nobles and the clergy on both sides of the hall, and the
+third estate at the farther end. Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> pronounced a speech full
+of disinterested sentiments, and Necker read a report in reference to
+the state of the finances.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the deputies of the <span class="inline" lang="fr">The Tiers État.</span> <span lang="fr">Tiers État</span> were directed to the
+place allotted to them, which was the common hall. The nobles and
+clergy repaired to a separate hall. It was their intention, especially
+in view of the great number of the deputies, to deliberate in distinct
+halls. But the deputies insisted upon the three orders deliberating
+together in the same room. Angry discussions and conferences took
+place. But there was not sufficient union between the nobles and the
+clergy, or sufficient energy on the part of the court. There happened
+also to be some bold and revolutionary spirits among the deputies, and
+they finally resolved, by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one to
+ninety, to assume the title of <span class="italic">National Assembly</span>, and invited the
+members of the other chamber to join them. They erected themselves
+into a sovereign power, like the Long Parliament of Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr>,
+disregarding both the throne and the nobility.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the most resolute of the nobles urged the king to adopt
+vigorous measures against the usurpation of the third estate; but he
+was timid and irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had, at that time, the greatest influence in the National
+Assembly was Mirabeau, a man of noble birth, but who had warmly
+espoused the popular side. He was disagreeable in his features,
+licentious in his habits, and a bankrupt in reputation, but a man of
+commanding air, of great abilities, and unrivalled eloquence. His
+picture has been best painted by Carlyle, both in his essays and his
+history of the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The National Assembly contained many great men, who would never have
+been heard of in quiet times; some of great virtues and abilities, and
+others of the most violent revolutionary principles. There were also
+some of the nobility, who joined them, not anticipating the evils
+which were to come. Among them were the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page483" name="page483"></a>(p. 483)</span>Dukes of Orleans,
+Rochefoucault, and Liancourt, Count Lally Tollendal, the two brothers
+Lameth, Clermont Tonnerre, and the Marquis de La Fayette, all of whom
+were guillotined or exiled during the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The discussions in the Assembly did not equal the <span class="inline">Commotions.</span> tumults of the
+people. All classes were intoxicated with excitement, and believed
+that a new era was to take place on earth; that all the evils which
+afflicted society were to be removed, and a state of unbounded
+liberty, plenty, and prosperity, was about to take place.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the popular ferments, the regiment of guards,
+comprising three thousand six hundred men, revolted: immense bodies of
+workmen assembled together, and gave vent to the most inflammatory
+language; the Hotel of the Invalids was captured; fifty thousand pikes
+were forged and distributed among the people; the Bastile was stormed;
+and military massacres commenced. Soon after, the tricolored cockade
+was adopted, the French guards were suppressed by the Assembly, the
+king and his family were brought to Paris by a mob, and the Club of
+the Jacobins was established. Before the year 1789 was ended, the
+National Assembly was the supreme power in France, and the king had
+become a shadow and a mockery; or, rather, it should be said that
+there was no authority in France but what emanated from the people,
+and no power remained to suppress popular excesses and insurrections.
+The Assembly published proclamations against acts of violence; but it
+was committed in a contest with the crown and aristocracy, and
+espoused the popular side. A famine, added to other horrors, set in at
+Paris; and the farmers, fearing that their grain would be seized, no
+longer brought it to market. Manufactures of all kinds were suspended,
+and the public property was confiscated to supply the immediate wants
+of a starving and infuriated people. A state was rapidly hastening to
+universal violence, crime, misery, and despair.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1790 opened gloomily, and no one could tell when the
+agitating spirit would cease, or how far it would be carried, for the
+mob of Paris was rapidly engrossing the power of the state. One of the
+first measures of the Assembly was to divest the provinces of France
+of their ancient privileges, since they were jealous of the
+sovereignty exercised by the Assembly, and to divide the kingdom
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page484" name="page484"></a>(p. 484)</span>into eighty-four new departments, nearly equal in extent and
+population. A criminal tribunal was established for each department
+and a civil court for each of the districts into which the department
+was divided. The various officers and magistrates were elected by the
+people, and the qualification for voting was a contribution to the
+amount of three days' labor. <span class="inline">Rule of the People.</span> By this great stop, the whole civil force
+in the kingdom was placed at the disposal of the lower classes. They
+had the nomination of the municipality, and the control of the
+military, and the appointment of judges, deputies, and officers of the
+National Guard. Forty-eight thousand communes, or municipalities,
+exercised all the rights of sovereignty, and hardly any appointment
+was left to the crown. A complete democratic constitution was made,
+which subverted the ancient divisions of the kingdom, and all those
+prejudices and interests which had been nursed for centuries. The
+great extension of the electoral franchise introduced into the
+Assembly a class of men who were prepared to make the most
+impracticable changes, and commit the most violent excesses.</p>
+
+<p>The next great object of the Assembly was the regulation of the
+finances. Further taxation was impossible, and the public necessities
+were great. The revenue had almost failed, and the national debt had
+alarmingly increased,&mdash;twelve hundred millions in less than three
+years. The capitalists would advance nothing, and voluntary
+contributions had produced but a momentary relief. Under these
+circumstances, the spoliation of the church was resolved, and
+Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was the first to propose the confiscation
+of the property of his order. The temptation was irresistible to an
+infidel and revolutionary assembly; for the church owned nearly one
+half of the whole landed property of the kingdom. Several thousand
+millions of francs were confiscated, and the revenues of the clergy
+reduced to one fifth of their former amount.</p>
+
+<p>This violent measure led to another. There was no money to pay for the
+great estates which the Assembly wished to sell. The municipalities of
+the large cities became the purchasers, and gave promissory notes to
+the public creditors until payment should be made; supposing that
+individuals would buy in small portions. Sales not being effected by
+the municipalities, as was expected <span class="pagenum"><a id="page485" name="page485"></a>(p. 485)</span>and payment becoming
+due, recourse was had to government bills. Thus arose the system of
+<span class="italic" lang="fr">Assignats</span>, which were issued to a great amount on the security of
+the church lands, and which resulted in a paper circulation, and the
+establishment of a vast body of small landholders, whose property
+sprung out of the revolution, and whose interests were identified with
+it. The relief, however great, was momentary. New issues were made at
+every crisis, until the over issue alarmed the reflecting portion of
+the community, and <span lang="fr">assignats</span> depreciated to a mere nominal value. At
+the close of the year, the credit of the nation was destroyed, and the
+precious metals were withdrawn, in a great measure, from circulation.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, the assembly abolished all titles of nobility, changed the
+whole judicial system, declared its right to make peace and war, and
+established the National Guard, by which three hundred thousand men
+were enrolled in support of revolutionary measures.</p>
+
+<p>On the 14th of July, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastile,
+was the celebrated <span class="inline">National Federation.</span> National Federation, when four hundred thousand
+persons repaired to the Champ de Mars, to witness the king, his
+ministers, the assembly, and the public functionaries, take the oath
+to the new constitution; the greatest mockery of the whole revolution,
+although a scene of unparalleled splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of the year, an extensive emigration of the nobles
+took place; a great blunder on their part, since their estates were
+immediately confiscated, and since the forces left to support the
+throne were much diminished. The departure of so many distinguished
+persons, however, displeased the Assembly, and proposals were made to
+prevent it. But Mirabeau, who, until this time, had supported the
+popular side, now joined the throne, and endeavored to save it. His
+popularity was on the decline, when a natural death relieved him from
+a probable execution. He had contributed to raise the storm, but he
+had not the power to allay it. He exerted his splendid abilities to
+arrest the revolution, whose consequences, at last, he plainly
+perceived. But in vain. His death, however, was felt as a public
+calamity, and all Paris assembled to see his remains deposited, with
+extraordinary pomp, in the Pantheon, by the side of Des Cartes. Had he
+lived, he might possibly have saved the lives of the king and queen,
+but he could not have prevented the revolution.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page486" name="page486"></a>(p. 486)</span>
+
+<p>Soon after, the royal family, perceiving, too late, that they were
+mere prisoners in the Tuileries, <span class="inline">Flight of the King.</span> undertook to escape, and fly to
+Coblentz, where the great body of emigrants resided. The unfortunate
+king contrived to reach Varennes, was recognized, and brought back to
+Paris. But the National Assembly made a blunder in not permitting him
+to escape; for it had only to declare the throne vacant by his
+desertion, and proceed to institute a republican government. The crime
+of regicide might have been avoided, and further revolutionary
+excesses prevented. But his return increased the popular ferments, and
+the clubs demanded his head. He was suspended from his functions, and
+a guard placed over his person.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of September, 1791, the Constituent Assembly dissolved
+itself; having, during the three years of its existence enacted
+thirteen hundred and nine laws and decrees relative to the general
+administration of the state. It is impossible, even now, to settle the
+question whether it did good or ill, on the whole; but it certainly
+removed many great and glaring evils, and enacted many wise laws. It
+abolished torture, the <span class="italic" lang="fr">lettres de cachet</span>, the most oppressive
+duties, the privileges of the nobility, and feudal burdens. It
+established a uniform system of jurisprudence, the National Guards,
+and an equal system of finance. "It opened the army to men of merit,
+and divided the landed property of the aristocracy among the laboring
+classes; which, though a violation of the rights of property, enabled
+the nation to bear the burdens which were subsequently imposed, and to
+prosper under the evils connected with national bankruptcy,
+depreciated <span lang="fr">assignats</span>, the Reign of Terror, the conscription of
+Napoleon, and the subjugation of Europe."</p>
+
+<p>The Legislative Assembly, composed of inexperienced men,&mdash;country
+attorneys and clerks for the most part, among whom there were not
+fifty persons possessed of one hundred pounds a year,&mdash;took the place
+of the Constituent Assembly, and opened its sittings on the 1st of
+October.</p>
+
+<p>In the first assembly there was a large party attached to royal and
+aristocratical interests, and many men of great experience and
+talents. But in the second nearly all were in favor of revolutionary
+principles. They only differed in regard to the extent to which
+revolution should be carried.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page487" name="page487"></a>(p. 487)</span>The members of the right were called the <span class="italic" lang="fr">Feuillants</span>, from
+the club which formed the centre of their power, and were friends of
+the constitution, or the limited monarchy which the Constituent
+Assembly had established. The national guard, the magistrates, and all
+the constituted authorities, were the supporters of this party.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">The Girondists and the Jacobins.</span> <span class="italic">Girondists</span>, comprehending the more respectable of the
+republicans, and wishing to found the state on the model of antiquity,
+formed a second party, among whom were numbered the ablest men in the
+assembly. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Guadet, and Isnard, were
+among the leading members.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and Merlin,
+which was supported by the clubs of the <span class="italic">Jacobins</span> and the
+<span class="italic">Cordeliers</span>. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre,
+Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois; while the leaders of the Cordeliers
+were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, as were others
+of the last assembly, from the new one, by a sort of self-denying
+ordinance which he himself had proposed. His influence, at that time,
+was immense, from the extravagance of his opinions, the vehemence of
+his language, and the reputation he had acquired for integrity.</p>
+
+<p>Between these three parties there were violent contentions, and the
+struggle for ascendency soon commenced, to end in the complete triumph
+of the Jacobinical revolutionists.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the restrictions imposed on the king, who still
+enjoyed the shadow of authority, the extent of popular excesses, and
+the diffusion of revolutionary principles, induced the leading
+monarchs of Europe to confederate together, in order to suppress
+disturbances in France. In July, the Emperor Leopold appealed to the
+sovereigns of Europe to unite for the deliverance of Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr>
+Austria collected her troops, the emigrants at Coblentz made warlike
+demonstrations, and preparations were made for a contest, which,
+before it was finished, proved the most bloody and extensive which has
+desolated the world since the fall of the Roman empire.</p>
+
+<p>The Constituent Assembly rejected with disdain the dictation of the
+various European powers; and the new ministry, of which Dumourier and
+Roland were the most prominent members, prepared for war. All classes
+in France were anxious for it, and war <span class="pagenum"><a id="page488" name="page488"></a>(p. 488)</span>was soon declared. On
+the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick, with an army of one hundred
+and forty-eight thousand Prussians, Austrians, and Hessians, entered
+the French territory. The spirit of resistance animated all classes,
+and the ardor of the multitude was without a parallel. The manifesto
+of the allied powers indicated the dispositions of the court and
+emigrants. Revolt against the throne now seemed necessary, in order to
+secure the liberty of the people, who now had no choice between
+victory and death. On the 25th of July, the Marseillais arrived in
+Paris, and augmented the strength and confidence of the insurgents.
+Popular commotions increased, and the clubs became unmanageable. On
+the 10th of August, the tocsin sounded, the <span class="italic" lang="fr">générale</span> beat in every
+quarter of Paris, and that famous insurrection took place which
+overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the
+insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were
+massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was lost,
+and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob.</p>
+
+<p>The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of the
+foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation of
+their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, the
+fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legislative
+Assembly, rapidly succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>On the 21st of September, the <span class="inline">The National Convention.</span> National Convention was opened, and was
+composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. It was ruled by
+those popular orators who had the greatest influence in the clubs. The
+most influential of these leaders were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.
+Danton was the hero of the late insurrection; was a lawyer, a man of
+brutal courage, the slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the
+Parisian mob. He was made minister of justice, and was the author of
+the subsequent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity,
+he was lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the
+period of danger had passed.</p>
+
+<p>Marat <span class="inline">Marat &mdash; Danton &mdash; Robespierre.</span> was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member of the
+convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary excesses. His
+bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand of a heroine,
+Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid the country of
+the greatest monster which the annals of crime have consigned to an
+infamous immortality.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page489" name="page489"></a>(p. 489)</span>Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the
+mask of patriotism and philanthropy, an insatiable ambition,
+inordinate vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the passion of
+money, and, when he had at his disposal the lives and fortunes of his
+countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is the fashion to deny
+to him any extraordinary talent; but that he was a man of domineering
+will, of invincible courage, and austere enthusiasm appears from
+nearly all the actions of his hateful career.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where more
+than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated vengeance of the
+Parisian mob, that the National Convention commenced its sittings.</p>
+
+<p>Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim a
+republic; the next, to issue new <span lang="fr">assignats</span>. The two preceding
+assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred
+millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on the
+security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, the trial of
+the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, his examination
+commenced. On his appearance at the bar of the Convention, the
+president, Barrere, said, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you
+are about to hear the charges that are to be preferred. Louis, be
+seated."</p>
+
+<p>The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to which
+he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. He was defended,
+in the mock trial, by Desèze, Tronchet, and Malesherbes; but his blood
+was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pronounced the condemnation
+of their king. That seven hundred men, with all the natural
+differences of opinion, could be found to do this, shows the excess of
+revolutionary madness. On the 20th of January, Santerre appeared in
+the royal prison, and read the sentence of death; and only three days
+were allowed the king to prepare for the last hour of anguish. On the
+24th of January, he mounted the scaffold erected between the garden of
+the Tuileries and the Champs Élysées, and the fatal axe separated his
+head from his body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of
+the Madeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of
+Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page490" name="page490"></a>(p. 490)</span>the restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the
+beautiful church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The
+spot where Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes
+of his ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red
+granite, which the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a
+monument which has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may survive
+the glory of the French nation itself.</p>
+
+<p>The martyrdom of Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> was the signal for a <span class="inline">General War.</span> general war. All the
+powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the principles of
+the French revolutionists. The Convention, after declaring war against
+England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies,
+the Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont,&mdash;all of which had combined
+together,&mdash;ordered a levy of three hundred thousand men, instituted a
+military tribunal, and imposed a forced loan on the rich of one
+thousand millions, and prepared to defend the principles of liberty
+and the soil of France. The enthusiasm of the French was unparalleled,
+and the energies put forth were most remarkable. Patriotism and
+military ardor were combined, and measures such as only extraordinary
+necessities require were unhesitatingly adopted.</p>
+
+<p>A Committee of Public Safety was appointed, and the dictatorship of
+Danton, Marat, and Robespierre commenced, marked by great horrors and
+barbarities, but signalized by wonderful successes in war, and by
+exertions which, under common circumstances, would be scarcely
+credited.</p>
+
+<p>This committee was composed of twenty-five persons at first, and
+twelve afterwards; but Robespierre and Marat were the leading members.
+The committee assigned to ruling Jacobins the different departments of
+the government. St. Just was intrusted with the duty of denouncing its
+enemies; Couthon for bringing forward its general measures; Billaud
+Varennes and Collot d'Herbois with the management of departments;
+Carnot was made minister of war; and Robespierre general dictator.
+This committee, though required to report to the Convention, as the
+supreme authority, had really all the power of government. "It named
+and dismissed generals, judges, and juries; brought forward all
+public measures in the Convention; ruled provinces and armies;
+controlled the Revolutionary Tribunal; and made requisitions of men
+and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page491" name="page491"></a>(p. 491)</span>money; and appointed revolutionary committees, which
+sprung up in every part of the kingdom to the frightful number of
+fifty thousand. It was the object of the Committee of Public Safety to
+destroy all who opposed the spirit of the most violent revolutionary
+measures. Marat declared that two hundred and sixty thousand heads
+must fall before freedom was secure; the revolutionary committees
+discovered that seven hundred thousand persons must be sacrificed."</p>
+
+<p>Then commenced the <span class="inline">Reign of Terror.</span> Reign of Terror, when all the prisons of France
+were filled with victims, who were generally the most worthy people in
+the community, and whose only crime was in being obnoxious to the
+reigning powers. Those who were suspected fled, if possible, but were
+generally unable to carry away their property. Millions of property
+was confiscated; the prisons were crowded with the rich, the elegant,
+and the cultivated classes; thousands were guillotined; and universal
+anarchy and fear reigned without a parallel. Deputies, even those who
+had been most instrumental in bringing on the Revolution, were
+sacrificed by the triumphant Jacobins. Women and retired citizens were
+not permitted to escape their fear and vengeance. Marie Antoinette,
+and the Princess Elizabeth, and Madame Roland, were among the first
+victims. Then followed the executions of Bailly, Mayor of Paris;
+Barnave, one of the most eloquent and upright members of the
+Constituent Assembly; Dupont Dutertre, one of the ministers of
+Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr>; Lavoisier, the chemist; Condorcet, the philosopher;
+General Custine; and General Houchard; all of whom had been the allies
+of the present dominant party. The Duke of Orleans, called <span class="italic" lang="fr">Égalité</span>,
+who had supported the revolt of the 10th of August, and had voted for
+the execution of the king, shared the fate of Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> He was the
+father of Louis Philippe, and, of all the victims of the revolution,
+died the least lamented.</p>
+
+<p>The "Decemvirs" had now destroyed the most illustrious advocates of
+constitutional monarchy and of republican liberty. The slaughter of
+their old friends now followed. The first victim was Danton himself,
+who had used his influence to put a stop to the bloody executions
+which then disgraced the country, and had recognized the existence of
+a God and the rights of humanity. For such sentiments he was denounced
+and executed, together with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page492" name="page492"></a>(p. 492)</span>Camille Desmoulins, and Lacroix,
+who perished because they were less wicked than their associates.
+Finally, the anarchists themselves fell before the storm which they
+had raised, and Hebert, Gobet, Clootz, and Vincent died amid the
+shouts of general execration. The Committee of Public Safety had now
+all things in their own way, and, in their iron hands, order resumed
+its sway from the influence of terror. "The history of the world has
+no parallel to the horrors of that long night of suffering, because it
+has no parallel to the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed
+so hideous a form, because licentiousness never required so severe a
+punishment."</p>
+
+<p>The Committee of Public Safety, now confident of its strength, decreed
+the disbanding of the revolutionary army, raised to overawe the
+capital, and the dissolution of all the popular societies which did
+not depend on the Jacobin Club, and devoted all their energies to
+establish their power. But death was the means which they took to
+secure it, and two hundred thousand victims filled the prisons of
+France.</p>
+
+<p>At last, fear united the members of the Convention, and they resolved
+to free the country of the great tyrant who aimed at the suppression
+of all power but his own. "Do not flatter yourselves," said Tallien to
+the Girondists, "that he will spare you, for you have committed an
+unpardonable offence in being freemen." "Do you still live?" said he
+to the Jacobins; "in a few days, he will have your heads if you do not
+take his." All parties in the assembly resolved to overthrow their
+common enemy. Robespierre, the chief actor of the bloody tragedy,
+Dumas, the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Henriot, the
+commander of the National Guard, Couthon and St. Just, the tools of
+the tyrant, were denounced, condemned, and executed. <span class="inline">Death of Robespierre.</span> The last hours of
+Robespierre were horrible beyond description. When he was led to
+execution, the blood flowed from his broken jaw, his face was deadly
+pale, and he uttered yells of agony, which filled all hearts with
+terror. But one woman, nevertheless, penetrated the crowd which
+surrounded him, exclaiming, "Murderer of my kindred! your agony fills
+me with joy; descend to hell, covered with the curses of every mother
+in France."</p>
+
+<p>Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, during which, nearly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page493" name="page493"></a>(p. 493)</span>
+nineteen thousand persons were guillotined; and among these were over
+two thousand nobles and one thousand priests, besides immense numbers
+of other persons, by war or the axe, in other parts of France.</p>
+
+<p>But vigorous measures had been adopted to carry on the war against
+united Christendom. No less than two hundred and eighty thousand men
+were in the field, on the part of the allies, from Basle to Dunkirk.
+Toulon and Lyons had raised the standard of revolt, Mayence gave the
+invaders a passage into the heart of the kingdom, while sixty thousand
+insurgents in La Vendée threatened to encamp under the walls of Paris.
+But under the exertions of the Committee, and especially of Carnot,
+the minister of war, still greater numbers were placed under arms,
+France was turned into an immense workshop of military preparations,
+and the whole property of the state, by means of confiscations and
+<span lang="fr">assignats</span>, put at the disposal of the government. The immense debts of
+the government were paid in paper money, while conscription filled the
+ranks with all the youth of the state. Added to all this force which
+the government had at its disposal, it must be remembered that the
+army was burning with enthusiastic dreams of liberty, and of
+patriotism, and of glory. No wonder that such a nation of soldiers and
+enthusiasts should have been able to resist the armies of united
+Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Robespierre, (July, 1794,) a great reaction succeeded
+the Reign of Terror. His old associates and tools were executed or
+transported, the club of the Jacobins was closed, the Revolutionary
+Tribunals were suppressed, the rebellious faubourgs were subdued, the
+National Guard was reorganized, and a <span class="inline">New Constitution.</span> new constitution was formed.</p>
+
+<p>The constitution of 1798, framed under different influences,
+established the legislative power among two councils,&mdash;that of the
+<span class="italic">Five Hundred</span>, and that of the <span class="italic">Ancients</span>. The former was intrusted
+with the power of originating laws; the latter had the power to reject
+or pass them. The executive power was intrusted to <span class="inline">The Directory.</span> five persons,
+called <span class="italic">Directors</span>, who were nominated by the Council of Five Hundred,
+and approved by that of the Ancients. Each individual was to be
+president by rotation during three months, and a new director was to
+be chosen every year. The Directory <span class="pagenum"><a id="page494" name="page494"></a>(p. 494)</span>had the entire disposal
+of the army, the finances, the appointment of public functionaries,
+and the management of public negotiations.</p>
+
+<p>But there were found powerful enemies to the new constitution. Paris
+was again agitated. The National Guard took part with the disaffected,
+and the Convention, threatened and perplexed, summoned to its aid a
+body of five thousand regular troops. The National Guard mustered in
+great strength, to the number of thirty thousand men, and resolved to
+overawe the Convention, which was likened to the Long Parliament in
+the times of Cromwell. The Convention intrusted Barras with its
+defence, and he demanded, as his second in command, a young officer of
+artillery who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon. By his
+advice, a powerful train of artillery was brought to Paris by a
+lieutenant called <span class="italic">Murat</span>. On the 4th of October, 1795, the whole
+neighborhood of the Tuileries resembled an intrenched camp. The
+commander of the Convention then waited the attack of the insurgents,
+and the action soon commenced. Thirty thousand men surrounded the
+little army of six thousand, who defended the Convention and the cause
+of order and law. Victory inclined to the regular troops, who had the
+assistance of artillery, and, above all, who were animated by the
+spirit of their intrepid leader&mdash;<span class="italic">Napoleon Bonaparte</span>. The insurgents
+were not a rabble, but the flower of French citizens; but they were
+forced to yield to superior military skill, and the reign of the
+military commenced.</p>
+
+<p>Thus closed what is technically called the French Revolution; the most
+awful political hurricane in the annals of modern civilized nations.
+It closed, nominally, with the accession of the Directory to power,
+but really with the accession of Napoleon; for, shortly after, his
+victories filled the eyes of the French nation, and astonished the
+whole world.</p>
+
+<p>It <span class="inline">Reflections.</span> is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revolution,
+since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form healthy
+judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some of the actors
+every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. But
+unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men who excite
+our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might have been
+respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an honorable name to
+his death, as an upright judge. But the French <span class="pagenum"><a id="page495" name="page495"></a>(p. 495)</span>mind was
+deranged. New ideas had turned the brains of enthusiasts. The triumph
+of the abstract principles of justice seemed more desirable than the
+preservation of human life. The sense of injury and wrong was too
+vivid to allow heated partisans to make allowances for the common
+infirmities of man. The enthusiasts in liberty could not see in
+Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr> any thing but the emblem of tyranny in the worst form. They
+fancied that they could regenerate society by their gospel of social
+rights, and they overvalued the virtues of the people. But, above all,
+they over-estimated themselves, and placed too light a value on the
+imperishable principles of revealed religion; a religion which enjoins
+patience and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and
+progress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, and
+however marked the providence of God in overruling them for the
+ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men behold in the
+Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in humiliating a
+proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and oppressive nobility
+for the evils they had inflicted on society.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;Alison's History of the French Revolution,
+     marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and
+     inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and
+     profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes
+     different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the
+     most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of
+     his affected and abominable style. Lamartine's History of
+     the Girondists is sentimental, but pleasing and instructive.
+     Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacretelle's Histoire
+     de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and
+     Robespierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and
+     Danton are extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be
+     read by all who wish to have the most vivid conception of
+     the horrors of the awful event which he deprecated. The
+     Annual Register should be consulted. For a general list of
+     authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index
+     of writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too
+     numerous to be mentioned here.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page496" name="page496"></a>(p. 496)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="31">XXXI.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Alison has found it necessary to devote ten large octavo volumes
+to the life and times of <span class="inline">Napoleon Bonaparte.</span> Napoleon Bonaparte; nor can the varied events
+connected with his brilliant career be satisfactorily described in
+fewer volumes. The limits of this work will not, however, permit a
+notice extending beyond a few pages. Who, then, even among those for
+whom this History is especially designed, will be satisfied with our
+brief review? But only a brief allusion to very great events can be
+made; for it is preposterous to attempt to condense the life of the
+greatest actor on the stage of real tragedy in a single chapter. And
+yet there is a uniformity in nearly all of the scenes in which he
+appears. The history of war is ever the same&mdash;the exhibition of
+excited passions, of restless ambition, of dazzling spectacles of
+strife, pomp, and glory. Pillage, oppression, misery, crime, despair,
+ruin, and death&mdash;such are the evils necessarily attendant on all war,
+even glorious war, when men fight for their homes, for their altars,
+or for great ideas. The details of war are exciting, but painful. We
+are most powerfully reminded of our degeneracy, of our misfortunes, of
+the Great Destroyer. The "Angel Death" appears before us, in grim
+terrors, punishing men for crimes. But while war is so awful, and
+attended with all the evils of which we can conceive, or which it is
+the doom of man to suffer, yet warriors are not necessarily the
+enemies of mankind. They are the instruments of the Almighty to
+scourge a wicked world, or to bring, out of disaster and suffering,
+great and permanent blessings to the human race.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon is contemplated by historians in both those lights. The
+English look upon him, generally, as an ambitious usurper, who aimed
+to erect a universal empire upon universal ruin; as an Alexander, a
+Cæsar, an Attila, a Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr> The French nation regard him almost
+as a deity, as a messenger of good, as a great <span class="pagenum"><a id="page497" name="page497"></a>(p. 497)</span>conqueror,
+who fought for light and freedom. But he was not the worst or the best
+of warriors. <span class="inline">Character of Napoleon.</span> His extraordinary and astonishing energies were called
+into exercise by the circumstances of the times; and he, taking
+advantage of both ideas and circumstances, attempted to rear a
+majestic throne, and advance the glory of the country, of which he
+made himself the absolute ruler. His nature was not sanguinary, or
+cruel, or revengeful; but few conquerors have ever committed crimes on
+a greater scale, or were more unscrupulous in using any means, lawful
+or unlawful, to accomplish a great end. Napoleon had enlightened
+views, and wished to advance the real interests of the French nation,
+but not until he had climbed to the summit of power, and realized all
+those dreams which a most inordinate ambition had excited. He
+doubtless rescued his country from the dangers which menaced it from
+foreign invasion; but his conquests and his designs led to still
+greater combinations, and these, demanding for their support the
+united energies of Christendom, deluged the world with blood.
+Napoleon, to an extraordinary degree, realized the objects to which he
+had aspired; but these were not long enjoyed, and he was hurled from
+his throne of grandeur and of victory, to impress the world, which he
+mocked and despised, of the vanity of military glory and the
+dear-earned trophies of the battle field. No man was ever permitted by
+Providence to accomplish so much mischief, and yet never mortal had
+more admirers than he, and never were the opinions of the wise more
+divided in regard to the effects of his wars. A painful and sad
+recital may be made of the desolations he caused, so that Alaric, in
+comparison, would seem but a common robber, while, at the same time, a
+glorious eulogium might be justly made of the many benefits he
+conferred upon mankind. The good and the evil are ever combined in all
+great characters; but the evil and the good are combined in him in
+such vast proportions, that he seems either a monster of iniquity, or
+an object of endless admiration. There are some characters which the
+eye of the mind can survey at once, as the natural eye can take in the
+proportions of a small but singular edifice; but Napoleon was a genius
+and an actor of such wonderful greatness and majesty, both from his
+natural talents and the great events which he controlled, that he
+rises before us, when we contemplate him, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page498" name="page498"></a>(p. 498)</span>like some vast
+pyramid or some majestic cathedral, which the eye can survey only in
+details. Our age is not sufficiently removed from the times in which
+he lived, we are too near the object of vision, to pronounce upon the
+general effect of his character, and only prejudiced or vain persons
+would attempt to do so. He must remain for generations simply an
+object of awe, of wonder, of dread, of admiration, of hatred, or of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can we condense the events of his life any more than we can
+analyze his character and motives. We do not yet know their relative
+importance. In the progress of ages, some of them will stand out more
+beautiful and more remarkable, and some will be entirely lost sight
+of. Thousands of books will waste away as completely as if they were
+burned, like the Alexandrian library; and a future age may know no
+more of the details of Napoleon's battles than we now know of
+Alexander's marches. But the main facts can never be lost; something
+will remain, enough to "point a moral or adorn a tale." The object of
+all historical knowledge is moral wisdom, and this we may learn from
+narratives as brief as the stories of Joseph and Daniel, or the
+accounts which Tacitus has left us of the lives of the Roman tyrants.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon <span class="inline">Early Days of Napoleon.</span> Bonaparte was born in Corsica, the 15th of August, 1769, of
+respectable parents, and was early sent to a royal military school at
+Brienne. He was not distinguished for any attainments, except in
+mathematics; he was studious, reserved, and cold; he also exhibited an
+inflexible will, the great distinguishing quality of his mind. At the
+age of fourteen, in view of superior attainments, he was removed to
+the military school at Paris, and, at the age of seventeen, received
+his commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery.</p>
+
+<p>When the Revolution <span class="inline">Early Services to the Republic.</span> broke out, Toulon, one of the arsenals of France,
+took a more decided part in favor of the king and the constitution
+than either Marseilles or Lyons, and invited the support of the
+English and Spanish squadrons. The Committee of Public Safety resolved
+to subdue the city; and Bonaparte, even at that time a
+brigadier-general, with the command of the artillery at the siege,
+recommended a course which led to the capture of that important place.</p>
+
+<p>For his distinguished services and talents, he was appointed second
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page499" name="page499"></a>(p. 499)</span>in command, by the National Convention, when that body was
+threatened and overawed by the rebellious National Guard. He saved the
+state and defended the constitutional authorities, for which service
+he was appointed second in command of the great army of the interior,
+and then general-in-chief in the place of Barras, who found his new
+office as director incompatible with the duties of a general.</p>
+
+<p>The other directors who now enjoyed the supreme command were Reubel,
+Laréveillère-Lépeaux, Le Tourneur, and Carnot. Sièyes, a man of great
+genius, had been elected, but had declined. Among these five men,
+Carnot was the only man of genius, and it was through his exertions
+that France, under the Committee of Public Safety, had been saved from
+the torrent of invasion. But Barras, though inferior to Carnot in
+genius, had even greater influence, and it was through his favor that
+Bonaparte received his appointments. That a young man of twenty-five
+should have the command of the army of the interior, is as remarkable
+as the victories which subsequently showed that his elevation was not
+the work of chance, but of a providential hand.</p>
+
+<p>The acknowledged favorite of Barras was a young widow, by birth a
+Creole of the West Indies, whose husband, a general in the army of the
+Rhine, had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Her name was
+Josephine Beauharnois; and, as a woman of sense, of warm affections,
+and of rare accomplishments, she won the heart of Bonaparte, and was
+married to him, March 9, 1796. Her dowry was the command of the army
+of Italy, which, through her influence, the young general received.</p>
+
+<p>Then commenced his brilliant military career. United with Josephine,
+whom he loved, he rose in rank and power.</p>
+
+<p>The army which Bonaparte commanded was composed of forty-two thousand
+men, while the forces of the Italian states numbered one hundred and
+sixty thousand, and could with ease be increased to three hundred
+thousand. But Italian soldiers had never been able to contend with
+either Austrian or French, and Bonaparte felt sure of victory. His
+soldiers were young men, inured to danger and toil; and among his
+officers were Berthier, Massena, Marmont, Augereau, Serrurier,
+Joubert, Lannes, and Murat. They were not then all generals, but they
+became afterwards marshals of France.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page500" name="page500"></a>(p. 500)</span>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1796, in <span class="inline">The Italian Campaign.</span> Italy, was successful beyond precedent in the
+history of war; and the battles of Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego,
+the passage of the bridge of Lodi, the siege of Mantua, and the
+victories at Castiglione, Caldiero, Arcola, Rivoli, and Mantua,
+extended the fame of Bonaparte throughout the world. The Austrian
+armies were every where defeated, and Italy was subjected to the rule
+of the French. "With the French invasion commenced tyranny under the
+name of liberty, rapine under the name of generosity, the stripping of
+churches, the robbing of hospitals, the levelling of the palaces of
+the great, and the destruction of the cottages of the poor; all that
+military license has of most terrible, all that despotic authority has
+of most oppressive."</p>
+
+<p>While Bonaparte was subduing Italy, the French under Moreau were
+contending, on the Rhine, with the Austrians under the Archduke
+Charles. Several great battles were fought, and masterly retreats were
+made, but without decisive results.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising that England, France, and the other contending
+powers, were able at this time to commence the contest, much more so
+to continue it for more than twenty years. The French Directory, on
+its accession to power, found the finances in a state of inextricable
+confusion. <span lang="fr">Assignats</span> had fallen to almost nothing, and taxes were
+collected with such difficulty, that there were arrears to the amount
+of fifteen hundred millions of francs. The armies were destitute and
+ill paid, the artillery without horses, and the infantry depressed by
+suffering and defeat. In England, the government of Pitt was violently
+assailed for carrying on a war against a country which sought simply
+to revolutionize her own institutions, and which all the armies of
+Europe had thus far failed to subdue. Mr. Fox, and others in the
+opposition, urged the folly of continuing a contest which had already
+added one hundred millions of pounds to the national debt, and at a
+time when French armies were preparing to invade Italy; but Pitt
+argued that the French must be nearly exhausted by their great
+exertions, and would soon be unable to continue the warfare. The
+nation, generally, took this latter view of the case, and parliament
+voted immense supplies.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1797 opened gloomily for England. The French had gained
+immense successes. Bonaparte had subdued Italy, Hoche had suppressed
+the rebellion in La Vendée, Austria was preparing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page501" name="page501"></a>(p. 501)</span>to defend
+her last barriers in the passes of the Alps, Holland was virtually
+incorporated with Republican France, Spain had also joined its forces,
+and the whole continent was arrayed against Great Britain. England had
+interfered in a contest in which she was not concerned, and was forced
+to reap the penalty. The funds fell from ninety-eight to fifty-one,
+and petitions for a change of ministers were sent to the king from
+almost every city of note in the kingdom. The Bank of England stopped
+payment in specie, and the country was overburdened by taxation.
+Nevertheless, parliament voted new supplies, and made immense
+preparations, especially for the increase of the navy. One hundred and
+twenty-four ships of the line, one hundred and eighty frigates, and
+one hundred and eighty-four sloops, were put in commission, and sent
+to the various quarters of the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after occurred the memorable mutiny in the English fleet, which
+produced the utmost alarm; but it was finally suppressed by the
+vigorous measures which the government adopted, and the happy union of
+firmness and humanity, justice and concession which Mr. Pitt
+exercised. The mutiny was entirely disconnected with France, and
+resulted from the real grievances which existed in the navy;
+grievances which, to the glory of Pitt, were candidly considered and
+promptly redressed. The temporary disgrace which resulted to the navy
+by this mutiny was soon, however, wiped away by the battle of Cape St.
+Vincent, in which Admiral Jervis, seconded by Nelson and Collingwood,
+with fifteen ships of the line and six frigates, defeated a Spanish
+fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line and twelve frigates. This
+important naval victory delivered England from all fears of invasion,
+and inspired courage into the hearts of the nation, groaning under the
+heavy taxes which the war increased. Before the season closed, the
+Dutch fleet, of fifteen ships of the line and eleven frigates, was
+defeated by an English one, under Admiral Duncan, consisting of
+sixteen ships of the line and three frigates. The battles of
+Camperdown and <span class="inline">Battle of St. Vincent.</span> Cape St. Vincent, in which the genius of Duncan and
+Nelson were signally exhibited, were among the most important fought
+at sea during the war, and diffused unexampled joy throughout Great
+Britain. The victors were all rewarded. Jervis became Earl St.
+Vincent, Admiral Duncan became a viscount, and Commodore <span class="pagenum"><a id="page502" name="page502"></a>(p. 502)</span>
+Nelson became a baronet. Soon after the bonfires and illuminations for
+these victories were ended, Mr. Burke died urging, as his end
+approached, the ministry to persevere in the great struggle to which
+the nation was committed.</p>
+
+<p>While the English were victorious on the water, the French obtained
+new triumphs on the land. In twenty days after the opening of the
+campaign of 1797, Bonaparte had driven the Archduke Charles, with an
+army equal to his own, over the Julian Alps, and occupied Carniola,
+Carinthia, Trieste, Fiume, and the Italian Tyrol, while a force of
+forty-five thousand men, flushed with victory, was on the northern
+declivity of the Alps, within fifty leagues of Vienna. In the midst of
+these successes, an insurrection broke out in the Venetian
+territories; and, as Bonaparte was not supported, as he expected, by
+the Armies of the Rhine, and partly in consequence of the jealousy of
+the Directory, he resolved to forego all thoughts of dictating peace
+under the walls of Vienna, and contented himself with making as
+advantageous terms as possible with the Austrian government. Bonaparte
+accomplished his object, and directed his attention to the subjugation
+of <span class="inline">Conquest of Venice by Napoleon.</span> Venice, no longer the "Queen of the Adriatic, throned on her
+hundred isles," but degenerate, weakened, and divided. Bonaparte
+acted, in his treaty with Austria, with great injustice to Venice, and
+also encouraged the insurrection of the people in her territories. And
+when the Venetian government attempted to suppress rebellion in its
+own provinces, Bonaparte affected great indignation, and soon found
+means to break off all negotiations. The Venetian senate made every
+effort to avert the storm, but in vain. Bonaparte declared war against
+Venice, and her fall soon after resulted. The French seized all the
+treasure they could find, and obliged the ruined capital to furnish
+heavy contributions, and surrender its choicest works of art. Soon
+after, the youthful conqueror established himself in the beautiful
+chateau of Montebello near Milan, and there dictated peace to the
+assembled ambassadors of Germany, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples,
+Piedmont, and the Swiss republic. The treaty of Campo Formio exhibited
+both the strength and the perfidy of Bonaparte, especially in
+reference to Venice, which was disgracefully despoiled to pay the
+expenses of the Italian wars. Among other things, the splendid bronze
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page503" name="page503"></a>(p. 503)</span>horses, which, for six hundred years, had stood over the
+portico of the church of St. Mark, to commemorate the capture of
+Constantinople by the Venetian crusaders, and which had originally
+been brought from Corinth to Rome by ancient conquerors, were removed
+to Paris to decorate the Tuileries.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte's journey from Italy to Paris, after Venice, with its
+beautiful provinces, was surrendered to Austria, was a triumphal
+procession. The enthusiasm of the Parisians was boundless; the public
+curiosity to see him indescribable. But he lived in a quiet manner,
+and assumed the dress of a member of the Institute, being lately
+elected. Great <span class="italic">fêtes</span> were given to his honor, and his victories were
+magnified.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not content with repose or adulation. His ambitious soul
+panted for new conquests, and he conceived the scheme of his <span class="inline">Invasion of Egypt.</span> Egyptian
+invasion, veiled indeed from the eyes of the world by a pretended
+attack on England herself. He was invested, with great pomp, by the
+Directory, with the command of the army of England, but easily induced
+the government to sanction the invasion of Egypt. It is not probable
+that Bonaparte seriously contemplated the conquest of England, knowing
+the difficulty of supporting and recruiting his army, even if he
+succeeded in landing his forces. He probably designed to divert the
+attention of the English from his projected enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, Bonaparte (9th May) embarked at Toulon in a fleet
+of thirteen ships of the line, fourteen frigates, seventy-two brigs,
+and four hundred transports, containing thirty-six thousand soldiers
+and ten thousand sailors. He was joined by reinforcements at Genoa,
+Ajaccio, Civita Castellana, and on the 10th of June arrived at Malta,
+which capitulated without firing a shot; proceeded on his voyage,
+succeeded in escaping the squadron of Nelson, and on the 1st of July
+reached Alexandria. He was vigorously opposed by the Mamelukes, who
+were the actual rulers of the country, but advanced in spite of them
+to Cairo, and marched along the banks of the Nile. Near the Pyramids,
+a great battle took place, and the Mamelukes were signally defeated,
+and the fate of Egypt was sealed.</p>
+
+<p>But Nelson got intelligence of Bonaparte's movements, and resolved to
+"gain a peerage, or a grave in Westminster Abbey." <span class="pagenum"><a id="page504" name="page504"></a>(p. 504)</span>Then
+succeeded the battle of the Nile, and the victory of Nelson, one of
+the most brilliant but bloody actions in the history of naval warfare.
+Nelson was wounded, but gained a peerage and magnificent presents. The
+battle was a mortal stroke to the French army, and made the conquest
+of Egypt useless. Bonaparte found his army exiled, and himself
+destined to hopeless struggles with Oriental powers. But he made
+gigantic efforts, in order to secure the means of support, to
+prosecute scientific researches, and to complete the conquest of the
+country. He crossed the desert which separates Africa from Asia, with
+his army, which did not exceed sixteen thousand men, invaded Syria,
+stormed Jaffa, massacred its garrison, since he could not afford to
+support the prisoners,&mdash;a most barbarous measure, and not to be
+excused even in view of the policy of the act,&mdash;and then advanced to
+<span class="inline">Siege of Acre.</span> Acre. Its memorable siege in the time of the Crusades should have
+deterred Bonaparte from the attempt to subdue it with his little army
+in the midst of a hostile population. But he made the attack. The
+fortress, succored by Sir Sidney Smith, successfully resisted the
+impetuosity of his troops, and they were compelled to retire with the
+loss of three thousand men. His discomfited army retreated to Egypt,
+and suffered all the accumulated miseries which fatigue, heat, thirst,
+plague, and famine could inflict. He, however, amidst all these
+calamities, added to discontents among the troops, won the great
+battle of Aboukir, and immediately after, leaving the army under the
+command of Kleber, returned to Alexandria, and secretly set sail for
+France, accompanied by Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Marmont, and other
+generals. He succeeded in escaping the English cruisers, and, on the
+8th of October, 1799, landed in France.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte, had he not been arrested at Acre by Sir Sidney Smith,
+probably would have conquered Asia Minor, and established an Oriental
+empire; but such a conquest would not have been permanent. More
+brilliant victories were in reserve for him than conquering troops of
+half-civilized Turks and Arabs.</p>
+
+<p>During the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, the French Directory became
+unpopular, and the national finances more embarrassed than ever. But
+Switzerland was invaded and conquered&mdash;an outrage which showed the
+ambitious designs of the government <span class="pagenum"><a id="page505" name="page505"></a>(p. 505)</span>more than any previous
+attack which it had made on the liberties of Europe. The Papal States
+were next seized, the venerable pontiff was subjected to cruel
+indignities, and the treasures and monuments of Rome were again
+despoiled. "The Vatican was stripped to its naked walls, and the
+immortal frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo alone remained in
+solitary beauty amidst the general desolation." The King of Sardinia
+was driven from his dominions, and Naples yielded to the tricolored
+flag. Immense military contributions were levied in all these
+unfortunate states, and all that was beautiful in art was transported
+to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the spirits of the English were revived by the
+<span class="inline">Reverses of the French.</span> victories of Nelson, and greater preparations than ever were made to
+resist the general, who now plainly aimed at the conquest of Europe.
+England, Austria, and Russia combined against France and her armies
+met with reverses in Italy and on the Rhine. Suwarrow, with a large
+army of Russians united with Austrians gained considerable success,
+and General Moreau was obliged to retreat before him. Serrurier
+surrendered with seven thousand men, and Suwarrow entered Milan in
+triumph, with sixty thousand troops. Turin shared the fate of Milan,
+and Piedmont and Lombardy were overrun by the allies. The republicans
+were expelled from Naples. Mantua fell, and Suwarrow marched with his
+conquering legions into Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>These disasters happened while Bonaparte was in Egypt; and his return
+to France was hailed with universal joy. His victories in Egypt had
+prepared the way for a most enthusiastic reception, and for his
+assumption of the sovereign power. All the generals then in Paris paid
+their court to him, and his saloon, in his humble dwelling in the Rue
+Chantereine, resembled the court of a monarch. Lannes, Murat,
+Berthier, Jourdan, Augereau, Macdonald, Bournonville, Leclerc,
+Lefebvre, and Marmont, afterwards so illustrious as the marshals of
+the emperor, offered him the military dictatorship, while Sièyes,
+Talleyrand, and Régnier, the great civil leaders, concurred to place
+him at the head of affairs. He himself withdrew from the gaze of the
+people, affected great simplicity, and associated chiefly with men
+distinguished for literary and scientific attainments. But he secretly
+intrigued with Sièyes and with his generals. Three of the Directory
+sent in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page506" name="page506"></a>(p. 506)</span>their resignations, and Napoleon assumed the reins
+of government under the title of <span class="inline">Napoleon First Consul.</span> <span class="italic">First Consul</span>, and was associated
+with Sièyes and Roger Ducos. The legislative branches of the
+government resisted, but the Council of Five Hundred was powerless
+before the bayonets of the military. A new revolution was effected,
+and despotic power in the hands of a military chieftain commenced. He,
+however, signalized himself by the clemency he showed in the moment of
+victory, and the principles of humanity, even in the government of a
+military despot, triumphed over the principles of cruelty. Bonaparte
+chose able men to assist him in the government. Talleyrand was made
+minister of foreign affairs. Fouché retained his portfolio of police,
+and the celebrated La Place was made minister of the interior. On the
+24th of December, 1799, the new constitution was proclaimed; and,
+shortly after, Sièyes and Roger Ducos withdrew from the consulate, and
+gave place to Cambacères and Lebrun, who were in the interests of
+Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The first step of the first consul was to offer peace to Great
+Britain; and he wrote a letter to the king, couched in his peculiar
+style of mock philanthropy and benevolence, in which he spoke of peace
+as the first necessity and truest glory of nations! Lord Grenville,
+minister of foreign affairs, replied in a long letter, in which he
+laid upon France the blame of the war, in consequence of her
+revolutionary principles and aggressive spirit, and refused to make
+peace while the causes of difficulty remained; in other words, until
+the Bourbon dynasty was restored. The Commons supported the government
+by a large majority, and all parties prepared for a still more
+desperate conflict. Napoleon was obliged to fight, and probably
+desired to fight, feeling that his power and the greatness of his
+country would depend upon the victories he might gain; that so long as
+the <span class="italic">éclat</span> of his government continued, his government would be
+strong. Mr. Pitt was probably right in his opinion that no peace could
+be lasting with a revolutionary power, and that every successive peace
+would only pave the way for fresh aggressions. Bonaparte could only
+fulfil what he called his destiny, by continual agitation; and this
+was well understood by himself and by his enemies. The contest had
+become one of life and death; and both parties resolved that no peace
+should be made until one or the other was effectually conquered
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page507" name="page507"></a>(p. 507)</span>The land forces of Great Britain, at the commencement of the
+year 1800, amounted to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand men,
+exclusive of eighty thousand militia, while one hundred and twenty
+thousand seamen and marines were voted. The ships in commission were
+no less than five hundred, including one hundred and twenty-four of
+the line. The charter of the Bank of England was renewed, and the
+union with Ireland effected. The various German states made still
+greater exertions, and agreed to raise a contingent force of three
+hundred thousand men. They were greatly assisted in this measure by
+subsidies from Great Britain. Austria, alone, had in the field at this
+time a force of two hundred thousand men, half of whom belonged to the
+army of Italy under Melas.</p>
+
+<p>To make head against the united forces of England and Austria, with a
+defeated army, an exhausted treasury, and a disunited people, was the
+difficult task of Bonaparte. His first object was to improve the
+finances; his second, to tranquillize La Vendée; his third, to detach
+Russia from the allies; his fourth, <span class="inline">Immense Military Preparations.</span> to raise armies equal to the
+crisis; and all these measures he rapidly accomplished. One hundred
+and twenty thousand men were raised by conscription, without any
+exemption from either rank or fortune, and two hundred and fifty
+thousand men were ready to commence hostilities. The first consul
+suppressed the liberty of the press, fixed his residence in the
+Tuileries, and established the usages and ceremonial of a court. He
+revoked the sentence of banishment on illustrious individuals,
+established a secret police, and constructed the gallery of the
+Louvre.</p>
+
+<p>Hostilities commenced in Germany, and General Moreau was successful
+over General Kray at the battles of Engen, Moeskirch, and Biberach.
+General Massena fought with great courage in the Maritime Alps, but
+was obliged to retreat before superior forces, and shut himself up in
+Genoa, which endured a dreadful siege, but was finally compelled to
+surrender. The victor, Melas, then set out to meet Bonaparte himself,
+who was invading Italy, and had just effected his wonderful passage
+over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, one of the most wonderful
+feats in the annals of war; for his artillery and baggage had to be
+transported over one of the highest and most difficult passes of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page508" name="page508"></a>(p. 508)</span>Alps. The passes of the St. Gothard and Mount Cenis were
+also effected by the wings of the army. The first action was at
+Montebello, which ended in favor of the French; and this was soon
+followed by a decisive and brilliant victory at Marengo, (June 14,)
+one of the most obstinately contested during the war, and which was
+attended with greater results than perhaps any battle that had yet
+occurred in modern warfare. Moreau also gained a great victory over
+the Austrians at Hohenlinden, and Macdonald performed great exploits
+amid the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The treaty of Lunéville,
+(February 9, 1801,) in consequence of the victorious career of
+Bonaparte, ceded to France the possession of Belgium, and the whole
+left bank of the Rhine. Lombardy was erected into an independent
+state, Venice was restored to Austria, and the independence of the
+Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics was guaranteed.
+This peace excited unbounded joy at Paris, and was the first
+considerable pause in the continental strife.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon returned to his capital to reconstruct society, which was
+entirely <span class="inline">The Reforms of Napoleon.</span> disorganized. It was his object to restore the institutions
+of religion, law, commerce, and education. He did not attempt to give
+constitutional freedom. This was impracticable; but he did desire to
+bring order out of confusion. One night, going to the theatre, he
+narrowly escaped death by the explosion of an "infernal machine." He
+attributed the design of assassination to the Jacobins, and forthwith
+transported one hundred and thirty of them, more as a statesman than
+as a judge. He was determined to break up that obnoxious party, and
+the design against his life furnished the pretence. Shortly after, he
+instituted the Legion of Honor, an order of merit which was designed
+to restore gradually the gradation in the ranks of society. He was
+violently opposed, but he carried his measures through the Council of
+State; and this institution, which at length numbered two thousand
+persons, civil and military, became both popular and useful. He then
+restored the external institution of religion, and ten archbishops and
+fifty bishops administered the affairs of the Gallican Church. The
+restoration of the Sunday, with its customary observances, was hailed
+by the peasantry with undisguised delight, and was a pleasing sight to
+the nations of Europe. He then contemplated the complete restoration
+of all the unalienated national <span class="pagenum"><a id="page509" name="page509"></a>(p. 509)</span>property to the original
+proprietors, but was forced to abandon the design. A general amnesty,
+was also proclaimed to emigrants, by which one hundred thousand people
+returned, not to enjoy their possessions, but to recover a part of
+them, and breathe the air of their native land. At last, he resolved
+to make himself first consul for life, and seat his family on a
+monarchical throne. He was opposed by the Council of State; but he
+appealed to the people, and three million three hundred and
+sixty-eight thousand two hundred and nine, out of three million five
+hundred and fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-five
+electors, voted for his elevation.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline" lang="fr">The Code Napoléon.</span> "<span class="italic">Code Napoléon</span>" then
+occupied his attention, indisputably the
+greatest monument of his reign, and the most beneficial event of his
+age. All classes and parties have praised the wisdom of this great
+compilation, which produced more salutary changes than had been
+effected by all the early revolutionists. Amid these great
+undertakings of the consul, the internal prosperity of France was
+constantly increasing, and education, art, and science received an
+immense impulse. Every thing seemed to smile upon Bonaparte, and all
+appeared reconciled to the great power which he exercised.</p>
+
+<p>But there were some of his generals who were attached to republican
+principles, and viewed with ill-suppressed jealousy the rapid strides
+he was making to imperial power. Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden,
+was at the head of these, and, in conjunction with Fouché, who had
+been turned out of his office on account of the immense power which it
+gave him, formed a conspiracy of republicans and royalists to overturn
+the consular throne. But Fouché revealed the plot to Bonaparte, who
+restored him to power, and Generals Moreau and Pichegru, the Duke
+d'Enghien, and other illustrious persons were arrested. The duke
+himself was innocent of the conspiracy, but was sacrificed to the
+jealousy of Bonaparte, who wished to remove from the eyes of the
+people this illustrious scion of the Bourbon family, the only member
+of it he feared. This act was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable,
+and therefore, impolitic, which Bonaparte ever committed. "It was
+worse than a crime," said Talleyrand; "it was a blunder." His murder
+again lighted the flames of continental war, and from it <span class="pagenum"><a id="page510" name="page510"></a>(p. 510)</span>may
+be dated the commencement of that train of events which ultimately
+hurled Napoleon from the imperial throne.</p>
+
+<p>That possession was what his heart now coveted, and he therefore
+seized what he desired, and what he had power to retain. On the 18th
+of May, 1804, Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French, and an
+overwhelming majority of the electoral votes of France confirmed him
+in his usurpation of the throne of Hugh Capet.</p>
+
+<p>His first step, as emperor, was the creation of eighteen marshals, all
+memorable in the annals of military glory&mdash;Berthier, Murat, Moncey,
+Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier,
+Ney, Davoust, Bessières, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Pérignon, and
+Serrurier. The individual lives of these military heroes cannot here
+be alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the year 1805, the great powers of England, Austria, and
+Russia entered into a coalition to reduce France to its ancient
+limits, and humble the despot who had usurped the throne. Enormous
+preparations were made by all the belligerent states, and four hundred
+thousand men were furnished by the allies for active service; a force
+not, however, much larger than Napoleon raised to prosecute his scheme
+of universal dominion.</p>
+
+<p>Among other designs, he <span class="inline">Meditated Invasion of England.</span> meditated the invasion of England itself, and
+assembled for that purpose one of the most splendid armies which had
+been collected since the days of the Roman legions. It amounted to one
+hundred and fourteen thousand men, four hundred and thirty-two pieces
+of cannon, and fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty-four horses.
+Ample transports were provided to convey this immense army to the
+shores of England. But the English government took corresponding means
+of defence, having fathomed the designs of the enemy, who had
+succeeded in securing the coöperation of Spain. This great design of
+Napoleon was defeated by the vigilance of the English, and the number
+of British ships which defended the coasts&mdash;the "wooden walls" which
+preserved England from a most imminent and dreaded danger.</p>
+
+<p>Frustrated in the attempt to invade Great Britain, Napoleon instantly
+conceived the plan of the campaign of <span class="inline">Battle of Austerlitz.</span> Austerlitz, and without delay
+gave orders for the march of his different armies to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page511" name="page511"></a>(p. 511)</span>the
+banks of the Danube. The army of England on the shores of the Channel,
+the forces in Holland, and the troops in Hanover were formed into
+seven corps, under the command of as many marshals, comprising
+altogether one hundred and ninety thousand men, while the troops of
+his allies in Italy and Germany amounted to nearly seventy thousand
+more. Eighty thousand new conscripts were also raised, and all of
+these were designed for the approaching conflict with the Austrians.</p>
+
+<p>But before the different armies could meet together in Germany, Nelson
+had gained the great and ever-memorable victory of Trafalgar, (October
+23,) on the coast of Spain, by which the naval power of France and
+Spain was so crippled and weakened, that England remained, during the
+continuance of the war, sovereign mistress of the ocean. Nothing could
+exceed the transports of exultation which pervaded the British empire
+on the news of this great naval victory&mdash;perhaps the greatest in the
+annals of war. And all that national gratitude could prompt was done
+in honor of Nelson. The remains of the fallen victor were buried in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, over which a magnificent monument was erected.
+His brother, who inherited his title, was made an earl, with a grant
+of six thousand pounds a year, and an estate worth one hundred
+thousand pounds. Admiral Collingwood, the second in command, was
+raised to the peerage, with a grant of two thousand pounds yearly. But
+the thoughts of the nation were directed to the departed hero, and
+countless and weeping multitudes followed him to the grave; and his
+memory has ever since been consecrated in the hearts of his
+countrymen, who regard him, and with justice, as the greatest naval
+commander whom any nation or age has produced.</p>
+
+<p>Early in October, the forces of Napoleon were marshalled on the plains
+of Germany, and the Austrians, under the Archduke Charles, acted on
+the defensive. Napoleon advanced rapidly on Vienna, seized the bridge
+which led from it to the northern provinces of the empire, passed
+through the city, and established his head-quarters at Schoenbrunn. On
+the 1st of December was fought the celebrated battle of Austerlitz,
+the most glorious of all Napoleon's battles, and in which his military
+genius shone with the greatest lustre, and which decided the campaign.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page512" name="page512"></a>(p. 512)</span>Negotiations with Austria, dictated by the irresistible
+power of the French emperor, were soon concluded at Presburg, (27th
+December,) by which that ancient state was completely humbled. The
+dethronement of the King of Naples followed, and the power of Napoleon
+was consolidated on the continent of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The defeat of Austerlitz was a great blow to the allied powers, and
+the health and spirits of Pitt sunk under the disastrous intelligence.
+A devouring fever seized his brain, and delirium quenched the fire of
+his genius. He died on the 23d of January, 1806, at the age of
+forty-seven, with the exclamation, "Alas, my country!" after having
+nobly guided the British bark in the most stormy times his nation had
+witnessed since the age of Cromwell. He was buried with great pomp in
+Westminster Abbey, and died in debt, after having the control, for so
+many years, of the treasury of England. Mr. Fox did not long survive
+his more illustrious rival, but departed from the scene of conflict
+and of glory the 13th of September.</p>
+
+<p>The humiliation of Prussia succeeded that of Austria. The battle of
+<span class="inline">Battle of Jena.</span> Jena, the 14th of October, prostrated, in a single day, the strength
+of the Prussian monarchy, and did what the united armies of Austria,
+Russia, and France could not accomplish by the Seven Years' War.
+Napoleon followed up his victories by bold and decisive measures,
+invested Magdeburg, which was soon abandoned, entered Berlin in
+triumph, and levied enormous contributions on the kingdom, to the
+amount of one hundred and fifty-nine millions of francs. In less than
+seven weeks, three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces
+of cannon, and eighty thousand prisoners were taken; while only
+fifteen thousand, out of one hundred and twenty thousand men, were
+able to follow the standards of the conquered king to the banks of the
+Vistula. Alarm, as well as despondency, now seized all the nations of
+Europe. All the coalitions which had been made to suppress a
+revolutionary state had failed, and the proudest monarchs of
+Christendom were suppliant at the feet of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate Frederic William sued for peace; but such hard
+conditions were imposed by the haughty conqueror at Berlin, that the
+King of Prussia prepared for further resistance, especially in view of
+the fact that the Russians were coming to his assistance <span class="pagenum"><a id="page513" name="page513"></a>(p. 513)</span>At
+Berlin, Napoleon issued his celebrated decrees against British
+commerce, which, however, flourished in spite of them.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon then advanced into Poland to meet the Russian armies, and at
+Eylau, on the 8th of February, 1807, was fought a bloody battle, in
+which fifty thousand men perished. It was indecisive, but had the
+effect of checking the progress of the French armies. But Napoleon
+ordered new conscriptions, and made unusual exertions, so that he soon
+had two hundred and eighty thousand men between the Vistula and Memel.
+<span class="inline">Napoleon Aggrandizes France.</span> New successes attended the French armies, which resulted in a peace
+with Russia, at Tilsit, on the river Niemen, at which place Napoleon
+had a personal interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of
+Prussia. By this treaty, (7th July,) Poland was erected into a
+separate principality, and the general changes which Napoleon had made
+in Europe were ratified by the two monarchs. Soon after, Napoleon,
+having subdued resistance on the continent of Europe, returned to his
+capital. He was now at the height of his fame and power, but on an
+elevation so high that his head became giddy. Moreover, his elevation,
+at the expense of Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia,
+Saxony, and Russia, to say nothing of inferior powers, excited the
+envy and the hatred of all over whom he had triumphed, and prepared
+the way for new intrigues and coalitions.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon after the peace of Tilsit, devoted all his energies to the
+preservation of his power and to the improvement of his country, and
+expected of his numerous subjects the most implicit obedience to his
+will. He looked upon himself as having received a commission from
+Heaven to rule and to reign as absolute monarch of a vast empire, as a
+being upon whom the fate of France depended. The watchwords "liberty,"
+"equality," "fraternity," "the public welfare," were heard no more,
+and gave place to others which equally flattered the feelings of the
+French people&mdash;"the interests of the empire," "the splendor of the
+imperial throne." From him emanated all glory and power, and the whole
+structure of the state, executive, judicial, and legislative, depended
+upon his will. Freedom, in the eyes of the people, was succeeded by
+glory, and the <span class="italic">éclat</span> of victory was more highly prized than any
+fictitious liberty. The <span class="italic">Code Napoléon</span> rapidly progressed; schools
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page514" name="page514"></a>(p. 514)</span>of science were improved; arts, manufactures, and
+agriculture revived. Great monuments were reared to gratify the
+national pride and perpetuate the glory of conquests. The dignity of
+the imperial throne was splendidly maintained, and the utmost duties
+of etiquette were observed. He encouraged amusements, festivities, and
+<span class="italic">fêtes</span>; and Talma, the actor, as well as artists and scholars,
+received his personal regard. But his reforms and his policy had
+reference chiefly to the conversion of France into a nation of
+soldiers; and his system of conscription secured him vast and
+disciplined armies, not animated, as were the soldiers of the
+revolution, by the spirit of liberty, but transformed into mechanical
+forces. The time was to come, in spite of the military enthusiasm of
+his veteran soldiers, when it was to be proved that the throne of
+absolutism is better sustained by love than by mechanism.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon had already elevated his two brothers, Louis and Joseph, to
+the thrones of Holland and Naples. He <span class="inline">Aggrandizement of Napoleon's Family.</span> now sought to make his brother
+Joseph the King of Spain. He availed himself of a quarrel between King
+Charles and his son; acted as mediator, in the same sense that
+Hastings and Clive acted as mediators in the quarrels of Indian
+princes; and prepared to seize, not to humble, one of the oldest and
+proudest monarchies of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The details of that long war on the Spanish peninsula, which resulted
+from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain, have
+been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best military history
+that has been written in modern times. The great hero of that war was
+Wellington; and, though he fought under the greatest disadvantages and
+against superior forces,&mdash;though unparalleled sufferings and miseries
+ensued among all the belligerent forces,&mdash;still he succeeded in
+turning the tide of French conquest.</p>
+
+<p>Spain did not fall without a struggle. The Spanish Juntas adopted all
+the means of defence in their power; and the immortal defence of
+Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, should have taught the imperial
+robber that the Spanish spirit, though degenerate, was not yet
+extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>It became almost the universal wish of the English to afford the
+Spaniards every possible assistance in their honorable struggle,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page515" name="page515"></a>(p. 515)</span>and Sir Arthur Wellesley, the conqueror of the Mahrattas,
+landed in Portugal in August, 1808. He was immediately opposed by
+Marshal Junot. Napoleon could not be spared to defend in person the
+throne of his brother, but his most illustrious marshals were sent
+into the field; and, shortly after, the battle of Corunna was fought,
+at which Sir John Moore, one of the bravest of generals, was killed in
+the moment of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Long and disastrous was that <span class="inline">The Peninsular War.</span> Peninsular war. Before it could be
+closed, Napoleon was called to make new exertions. Austria had again
+declared war, and the forces which she raised were gigantic. Five
+hundred and fifty thousand men, in different armies, were put under
+the command of the Archduke Charles. Napoleon advanced against him,
+and was again successful, at Abensberg and at Eckmuhl. Again he
+occupied Vienna; but its fall did not discourage the Austrians, who,
+soon after, were marshalled against the French at Wagram, which
+dreadful battle made Napoleon once more the conqueror of Austria. On
+the 14th of November, 1809, he returned to Paris, and soon after made
+the grand mistake of his life.</p>
+
+<p>He resolved to divorce Josephine, whom he loved and respected; a woman
+fully worthy of his love, and of the exalted position to which she was
+raised. But she had no children, and Napoleon wanted an heir to the
+universal empire which he sought to erect on the ruins of the ancient
+monarchies of Europe. The dream of Charlemagne and of Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr> was
+his, also&mdash;the revival of the great Western Empire. Moreover, Napoleon
+sought a domestic alliance with the proud family of the German
+emperor. He sought, by this, to gratify his pride and strengthen his
+throne. He perhaps also contemplated, with the Emperor of Austria for
+his father and ally, the easy conquest of Russia. Alexander so
+supposed. "His next task," said he, "will be to drive me back to my
+forests."</p>
+
+<p>The Empress Josephine heard of the intentions of Napoleon with
+indescribable anguish, but submitted to his will; thus sacrificing her
+happiness to what she was made to believe would advance the welfare of
+her country and the interests of that heartless conqueror whom she
+nevertheless loved with unparalleled devotion. On the 11th of March,
+1810, the espousals of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page516" name="page516"></a>(p. 516)</span>Napoleon and Maria Louisa were
+celebrated at Vienna, the person of the former being represented by
+his favorite Berthier. A few days afterwards she set out for France;
+and her marriage, in a domestic point of view, was happy. Josephine
+had the advantage over her in art and grace, but she was superior in
+the charms of simplicity and modesty. "It is singular," says Sir
+Walter Scott, "that the artificial character should have belonged to
+the daughter of a West India planter; that, marked by nature and
+simplicity, to a princess of the proudest court in Europe."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the <span class="inline">War in Spain.</span> war in Spain was prosecuted, and Napoleon was master of
+its richest and most powerful provinces. Seventy-five thousand men in
+Andalusia, under Soult; fifty thousand under Marmont, in Leon; sixty
+thousand under Bessières, at Valladolid and Biscay; forty-five
+thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to guard Catalonia; thirty
+thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand under Joseph and Jourdan,
+fifteen thousand under Régnier, besides many more thousand troops in
+the various garrisons,&mdash;in all over three hundred thousand men,&mdash;held
+Spain in military subjection. Against these immense forces, marshalled
+under the greatest generals of France, Spain and her allies could
+oppose only about ninety thousand men, for the most part ill
+disciplined and equipped.</p>
+
+<p>The vital point of resistance was to be found shut up within the walls
+of Cadiz, which made a successful defence. But Tortosa, Tarragona,
+Saguntum, and Valentia, after making most desperate resistance, fell.
+But Wellington gained, on the other hand, the great battle of Albuera,
+one of the bloodiest ever fought, and which had a great effect in
+raising the spirits of his army and of the Spaniards. The tide of
+French conquest was arrested, and the English learned from their
+enemies those arts of war which had hitherto made Napoleon triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>In the next campaign of 1812, new successes were obtained by
+Wellington, and against almost overwhelming difficulties. He renewed
+the siege of Badajoz, and carried this frontier fortress, which
+enabled him now to act on the offensive, and to enter the Spanish
+territories. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo was attended with the same
+important consequences. Wellington now aimed to reduce the French
+force on the Peninsula, although vastly superior to his own. He had
+only sixty thousand men; but, with this <span class="pagenum"><a id="page517" name="page517"></a>(p. 517)</span>force, he invaded
+Spain, defended by three hundred thousand. Salamanca was the first
+place of consequence which fell: Marmont was totally defeated.
+Wellington advanced to Madrid, which he entered the 12th of August,
+amid the enthusiastic shouts of the Spanish population. Soult was
+obliged to raise the siege of Cadiz, abandon Andalusia, and hasten to
+meet the great English general, who had turned the tide of French
+aggression. Wellington was compelled, of course, to retire before the
+immense forces which were marching against him, and fell back to
+Salamanca, and afterwards to Ciudad Rodrigo. The campaign, on the part
+of the English, is memorable in the annals of successful war, and the
+French power was effectually weakened, if it was not destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these successes, Napoleon prepared for his disastrous
+<span class="inline">Invasion of Russia.</span> invasion of Russia; the most gigantic and most unfortunate expedition
+in the whole history of war.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was probably induced to invade Russia in order to keep up the
+succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance;
+that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter;
+that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new
+triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however,
+dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly
+aggressive and unnecessary, but because it was impolitic. Three
+hundred thousand men were fighting in Spain to establish his family on
+the throne of the Bourbons, and the rest of Europe was watching his
+course, with the intention of assailing him so soon as he should meet
+with misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>But neither danger nor difficulty deterred Napoleon from the
+commission of a gigantic crime, for which no reasonable apology could
+be given, and which admits of no palliation. He made, however, a
+fearful mistake, and his rapid downfall was the result. Providence
+permitted him to humble the powers of Europe, but did not design that
+he should be permanently aggrandized by their misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>The forces of all the countries he had subdued were marshalled with
+the French in this dreadful expedition, and nothing but enthusiasm was
+excited in all the dominions of the empire. The army of invasion
+amounted to above five hundred thousand men, only two hundred thousand
+of whom were native French. To oppose <span class="pagenum"><a id="page518" name="page518"></a>(p. 518)</span>this enormous force,
+the Russians collected about three hundred thousand men; but Napoleon
+felt secure of victory.</p>
+
+<p>On the banks of the Niemen he reviewed the principal corps of his
+army, collected from so many countries, and for the support of which
+they were obliged to contribute. On the 24th of June, he and his hosts
+crossed the river; and never, probably, in the history of man, was
+exhibited a more splendid and imposing scene.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians retreated as the allied armies advanced; and, on the 28th
+of June, Napoleon was at Wilna, where he foolishly remained seventeen
+days&mdash;the greatest military blunder of his life. The Emperor Alexander
+hastened to Moscow, collected his armaments, and issued proclamations
+to his subjects, which excited them to the highest degree of
+enthusiasm to defend their altars and their firesides.</p>
+
+<p>Both armies approached <span class="inline">Battle of Smolensko.</span> Smolensko about the 16th of July, and there was
+fought the first great battle of the campaign. The town was taken, and
+the Russians retreated towards Moscow. But before this first conflict
+began, a considerable part of the army had perished from sickness and
+fatigue. At Borodino, another bloody battle was fought, in which more
+men were killed and wounded than in any battle which history records.
+Napoleon, in this battle, did not exhibit his usual sagacity or
+energy, being, perhaps, overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. His
+dispirited and broken army continued the march to Moscow, which was
+reached the 14th of September. The Sacred City of the Russians was
+abandoned by the army, and three hundred thousand of the inhabitants
+took to flight. Napoleon had scarcely entered the deserted capital,
+and taken quarters in the ancient palace of the czars, before the city
+was discovered to be on fire in several places; and even the Kremlin
+itself was soon enveloped in flames. Who could have believed that the
+Russians would have burnt their capital? Such an event surely never
+entered into a Frenchman's head. The consternation and horrors of that
+awful conflagration can never be described, or even conceived. Pillage
+and murder could scarcely add to the universal wretchedness.
+Execration, indignation, and vengeance filled the breasts of both the
+conquerors and the conquered. But who were the conquerors? Alas! those
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page519" name="page519"></a>(p. 519)</span>only, who witnessed the complicated miseries and awful
+destruction of the retreating army, have answered.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Retreat of the French.</span> retreat was the saddest tragedy ever acted by man, but rendered
+inevitable after the burning of Moscow, for Napoleon could not have
+advanced to St. Petersburg. For some time, he lingered in the vicinity
+of Moscow, hoping for the submission of Russia. Alexander was too wise
+to treat for peace, and Napoleon and his diminished army, loaded,
+however, with the spoil of Moscow, commenced his retreat, in a hostile
+and desolate country, harassed by the increasing troops of the enemy.
+Soon, however, heavy frosts commenced, unusual even in Russia, and the
+roads were strewed by thousands who perished from fatigue and cold.
+The retreat became a rout; for order, amid general destruction and
+despair, could no longer be preserved. The Cossacks, too, hung upon
+the rear of the retreating army, and cut off thousands whom the
+elements had spared. In less than a week, thirty thousand horses died,
+and the famished troops preyed upon their remains. The efforts of
+Napoleon proved in vain to procure provisions for the men, or forage
+for the horses. Disasters thickened, and all abandoned themselves to
+despair. Of all the awful scenes which appalled the heart, the passage
+of the Beresina was the most dreadful. When the ice was dissolved in
+the following spring, twelve thousand dead bodies were found upon the
+shore. The shattered remnants of the Grand Army, after unparalleled
+suffering, at length reached the bank of the Niemen. Not more than
+twenty thousand of the vast host with which Napoleon passed Smolensko
+left the Russian territory. Their course might be traced by the bones
+which afterwards whitened the soil. But before the Polish territories
+were reached, Napoleon had deserted his army, and bore to Paris
+himself the first intelligence of his great disaster. One hundred and
+twenty-five thousand of his troops had died in battle, one hundred and
+ninety thousand had been taken prisoners, and one hundred and
+thirty-two thousand had died of cold, fatigue and famine. Only eighty
+thousand had escaped, of whom twenty-five thousand were Austrians and
+eighteen thousand were Prussians. The annals of the world furnish no
+example of so complete an overthrow of so vast an armament, or so
+terrible a retribution to a vain-glorious nation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page520" name="page520"></a>(p. 520)</span>This calamity proved the chief cause of Napoleon's overthrow.
+Had he retained his forces to fight on the defensive, he would have
+been too strong for his enemies; but, by his Russian campaign, he lost
+a great part of his veteran troops, and the veneration of his
+countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>His failure was immediately followed by the resurrection of Germany.
+Both Austria and Prussia threw off the ignominious yoke he had
+imposed, and united with Russia to secure their ancient liberties. The
+enthusiasm of the Prussians was unbounded, and immense preparations
+were made by all the allied powers for a new campaign. Napoleon
+exerted all the energies, which had ever distinguished him, to rally
+his exhausted countrymen, and a large numerical force was again
+raised. But the troops were chiefly conscripts, young men, unable to
+endure the fatigue which his former soldiers sustained, and no longer
+inspired with their sentiments and ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1813 was opened in Germany, signalized by the battles
+of <span class="inline">Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen.</span> Lutzen and Bautzen, in which the French had the advantage. Saxony
+still remained true to Napoleon, and he established his head-quarters
+in Dresden. The allies retreated, but only to prepare for more
+vigorous operations. England nobly assisted, and immense supplies were
+sent to the mouth of the Elbe, and distributed immediately through
+Germany. While these preparations were going on, the battle of
+Vittoria, in Spain, was fought, which gave a death blow to French
+power in the Peninsula, and placed Wellington in the front rank of
+generals. Napoleon was now more than ever compelled to act on the
+defensive, which does not suit the genius of the French character, and
+he resolved to make the Elbe the base of his defensive operations. His
+armies, along this line, amounted to the prodigious number of four
+hundred thousand men; and Dresden, the head-quarters of Napoleon,
+presented a scene of unparalleled gayety and splendor, of
+licentiousness, extravagance, and folly. But Napoleon was opposed by
+equally powerful forces, under Marshal Blucher, the Prussian general,
+a veteran seventy years of age, and Prince Schwartzenberg, who
+commanded the Austrians. But these immense armies composed not one
+half of the forces arrayed in desperate antagonism. Nine hundred
+thousand men in arms <span class="pagenum"><a id="page521" name="page521"></a>(p. 521)</span>encircled the French empire, which was
+defended by seven hundred thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The allied forces marched upon Dresden, and a dreadful battle was
+fought, on the 27th of August, beneath its walls, which resulted in
+the retreat of the allies, and in the death of General Moreau, who
+fought against his old commander. But Napoleon was unable to remain
+long in that elegant capital, having exhausted his provisions and
+forage, and was obliged to retreat. On the 15th of October was fought
+the celebrated battle of <span class="inline">Battle of Leipsic.</span> Leipsic, in which a greater number of men
+were engaged than in any previous battle during the war, or probably
+in the history of Europe&mdash;two hundred and thirty thousand against one
+hundred and sixty thousand. The triumph of the allies was complete.
+Napoleon was overpowered by the overwhelming coalition of his enemies.
+He had nothing to do, after his great discomfiture, but to retreat to
+France, and place the kingdom in the best defence in his power.
+Misfortunes thickened in every quarter; and, at the close of the
+campaign, France retained but a few fortresses beyond the Rhine. The
+contest in Germany was over, and French domination in that country was
+at an end. Out of four hundred thousand men, only eighty thousand
+recrossed the Rhine. So great were the consequences of the battle of
+Leipsic, in which the genius of Napoleon was exhibited as in former
+times, but which availed nothing against vastly superior forces. A
+grand alliance of all the powers of Europe was now arrayed against
+Napoleon&mdash;from the rock of Gibraltar to the shores of Archangel; from
+the banks of the Scheldt to the margin of the Bosphorus; the mightiest
+confederation ever known, but indispensably necessary. The greatness
+of Napoleon is seen in his indomitable will in resisting this
+confederation, when his allies had deserted him, and when his own
+subjects were no longer inclined to rally around his standard. He
+still held out, even when over a million of men, from the different
+states that he had humbled, were rapidly hemming him round and
+advancing to his capital. Only three hundred and fifty thousand men
+nominally remained to defend his frontiers, while his real effective
+army amounted to little over one hundred thousand men. A million of
+his soldiers in eighteen months had perished, and where was he to look
+for recruits?</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page522" name="page522"></a>(p. 522)</span>
+
+<p>On the 31st of December, 1814, fourteen hundred and seven years after
+the Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine and entered
+without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul, <span class="inline">The Allied Powers Invade France.</span> the united
+Prussians, Austrians, and Russians crossed the same river, and invaded
+the territories of the modern Cæsar. They rapidly advanced towards
+Paris, and Napoleon went forth from his capital to meet them. His
+cause, however, was now desperate: but he made great exertions, and
+displayed consummate abilities, so that the forces of his enemies were
+for a time kept at bay. Battles were fought and won by both sides,
+without decisive results. Slowly, but surely, the allied armies
+advanced, and gradually surrounded him. By the 30th of March, they
+were encamped on the heights of Montmartre; and Paris, defenceless and
+miserable, surrendered to the conquerors. They now refused to treat
+with Napoleon, who, a month before, at the conference of Chatillon,
+might have retained his throne, if he had consented to reign over the
+territories of France as they were before the Revolution. Napoleon
+retired to Fontainebleau; and, on the 4th of April, he consented to
+abdicate the throne he no longer could defend. His wife returned to
+her father's protection, and nearly every person of note or
+consideration abandoned him. On the 11th, he formally abdicated, and
+the house of Bourbon was restored. He himself retired to the Island of
+Elba, but was allowed two million five hundred thousand francs a year,
+the title of emperor, and four hundred soldiers as his body guard. His
+farewell address to the soldiers of his old guard, at Fontainebleau,
+was pathetic and eloquent. They retained their attachment amid general
+desertion and baseness.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine did not long survive the fall of the hero she had loved, and
+with whose fortunes her own were mysteriously united. She died on the
+28th, and her last hours were soothed by the presence of the Emperor
+Alexander, who promised to take her children under his protection. Of
+all the great monarchs of his age, he was the most extensively beloved
+and the most profoundly respected.</p>
+
+<p>The allies showed great magnanimity and moderation after their
+victory. The monarchy of France was established nearly as it was
+before the Revolution, and the capital was not rifled of any of
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page523" name="page523"></a>(p. 523)</span>its monuments, curiosities, or treasures&mdash;not even of those
+which Napoleon had brought from Italy. Nor was there a military
+contribution imposed upon the people. The allies did not make war to
+destroy the kingdom of France, but to dethrone a monarch who had
+proved himself to be the enemy of mankind. The <span class="inline">Peace of Paris.</span> peace of Paris was
+signed by the plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, Russia,
+Prussia, and Austria, on the 30th of April; and Christendom, at last,
+indulged the hope that the awful conflict had ended. The Revolution
+and its offspring Napoleon were apparently suppressed, after more than
+three millions of men had perished in the struggle on the part of
+France and of her allies alone.</p>
+
+<p>Great changes had taken place in the sentiments of all classes, since
+the commencement of the contest, twenty years before, and its close
+excited universal joy. In England, the enthusiasm was unparalleled,
+and not easy to be conceived. The nation, in its gratitude to
+Wellington, voted him four hundred thousand pounds, and the highest
+military triumphs. It also conferred rewards and honors on his
+principal generals; for his successful operations in Spain were no
+slight cause of the overthrow of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>But scarcely were these rejoicings terminated, before Napoleon escaped
+from Elba, and again overturned the throne of the Bourbons. The
+impolitic generosity and almost inconceivable rashness of the allies
+had enabled Napoleon to carry on extensive intrigues in Paris, and to
+collect a respectable force on the island of which he was constituted
+the sovereign; while the unpopularity and impolitic measures of the
+restored dynasty singularly favored any scheme which Napoleon might
+have formed. The disbanding of an immense military force, the
+humiliation of those veterans who still associated with the eagles of
+Napoleon the glory of France, the derangement of the finances, and the
+discontents of so many people thrown out of employment, naturally
+prepared the way for the return of the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th of February, he gave a brilliant ball to the principal
+people of the island, and embarked the same evening, with eleven
+hundred troops, to regain the sceptre which had been wrested from him
+only by the united powers of Europe. On the <span class="inline">Napoleon's Return to France.</span> 1st of March, his vessels
+cast anchor in the Gulf of St. Juan, on the coast of Provence; and
+Napoleon immediately commenced <span class="pagenum"><a id="page524" name="page524"></a>(p. 524)</span>his march, having unfurled
+the tricolored flag. As he anticipated he was welcomed by the people,
+and the old cry of "<span class="italic" lang="fr">Vive l'Empereur</span>" saluted his ears.</p>
+
+<p>The court of the Bourbons made vigorous preparations of resistance,
+and the armies of France were intrusted to those marshals who owed
+their elevation to Napoleon. Soult, Ney, Augereau, Massena, Oudinot,
+all protested devotion to Louis <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr>; and Ney promised the king
+speedily to return to Paris with Napoleon in an iron cage. But Ney was
+among the first to desert the cause of law and legitimacy, and threw
+himself into the arms of the emperor. He could not withstand the arts
+and the eloquence of that great hero for whose cause he had so long
+fought. The defection of the whole army rapidly followed. The king was
+obliged to fly, and Napoleon took possession of his throne, amid the
+universal transports of the imperial party in France.</p>
+
+<p>The intelligence of his restoration filled Europe with consternation,
+rage, and disappointment, and greater preparations were made than ever
+to subdue a man who respected neither treaties nor the interests of
+his country. The unparalleled sum of one hundred and ten millions of
+pounds sterling was decreed by the British senate for various
+purposes, and all the continental powers made proportionate exertions.
+The genius of Napoleon never blazed so brightly as in preparing for
+his last desperate conflict with united Christendom; and, considering
+the exhaustion of his country, the forces which he collected were
+astonishing. Before the beginning of June, two hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran soldiers were completely armed and equipped; a great
+proof of the enthusiastic ardor which the people felt for Napoleon to
+the last.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Wellington had eighty thousand effective men under his
+command, and Marshal Blucher one hundred and ten thousand. These
+forces were to unite, and march to Paris through Flanders. It was
+arranged that the Austrians and Russians should invade France first,
+by Befort and Huningen, in order to attract the enemy's principal
+forces to that quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon's plan was to collect all his forces into one mass, and
+boldly to place them between the English and Prussians, and attack
+them separately. He had under his command one hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran troops, and therefore, not unreasonably, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page525" name="page525"></a>(p. 525)</span>
+expected to combat successfully the one hundred and ninety thousand of
+the enemy. He forgot, however, that he had to oppose Wellington and
+Blucher.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of June was performed the last sad act of the great
+tragedy which had for twenty years convulsed Europe with blood and
+tears. All the combatants on that eventful day understood the nature
+of the contest, and the importance of the battle. At <span class="inline">Battle of Waterloo.</span> Waterloo,
+Napoleon staked his last throw in the desperate game he had hazarded,
+and lost it; and was ruined, irrevocably and forever.</p>
+
+<p>Little signified his rapid flight, his attempt to defend Paris, or his
+readiness to abdicate in favor of his son. The allied powers again, on
+the 7th of July, entered Paris, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon retired to Rochefort, hoping to escape his enemies and reach
+America. It was impossible. He then resolved to throw himself upon the
+generosity of the English. He was removed to St. Helena, where he no
+longer stood a chance to become the scourge of the nations. And there,
+on that lonely island, in the middle of the ocean, guarded most
+effectually by his enemies, his schemes of conquest ended. He
+supported his hopeless captivity with tolerable equanimity, showing no
+signs of remorse for the injuries he had inflicted, but meditating
+profoundly on the mistakes he had committed, and conjecturing vainly
+on the course he might have adopted for the preservation of his power.</p>
+
+<p>How idle were all his conjectures and meditations! His fall was
+decreed in the councils of Heaven, and no mortal strength could have
+prevented his overthrow. His mission of blood was ended; and his
+nation, after its bitter humiliation, was again to enjoy repose. But
+he did not live in vain. He lived as a messenger of divine vengeance
+to chastise the objects of divine indignation. He lived to show to the
+world what a splendid prize human energy could win; and yet to show
+how vain, after all, was military glory, and how worthless is the
+enjoyment of any victory purchased by the sufferings of mankind. He
+lived to point the melancholy moral, that war, for its own sake, is a
+delusion, a mockery, and a snare, and that the greater the elevation
+to which unlawful ambition can raise a man, the greater will be his
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page526" name="page526"></a>(p. 526)</span>subsequent humiliation; that "pride goeth before
+destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">Reflections on Napoleon's Fall.</span> allied sovereigns of Europe insisted on the restoration of the
+works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. "The bronzed horses, brought
+from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old station in the front of
+the Church of St. Mark; the Transfiguration was restored to the
+Vatican; the Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned St. Peter's; the
+Venus was enshrined with new beauty at Florence; and the Descent from
+the Cross was replaced in the Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty
+which restored peace to Europe for a generation, the old dominions of
+Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Holland, and Italy were restored, and
+the Bourbons again reigned over the ancient provinces of France.
+Popular liberty on the continent of Europe was entombed, and the
+dreams of revolutionists were unrealized; but suffering proved a
+beneficial ordeal, and prepared the nations of Europe to appreciate,
+more than ever, the benefits and blessings of peace.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="reference"><span class="smcap">References</span>.&mdash;The most complete work, on the whole, though
+     full of faults, and very heavy and prosaic, is Alison's
+     History of the French Revolution. Scott's Life of Napoleon
+     was too hastily written, and has many mistakes. No English
+     author has done full justice to Napoleon. Thiers's Histories
+     are invaluable. Napier's History of the Peninsula War is
+     masterly. Wellington's Despatches are indispensable only to
+     a student. Botta's History of Italy under Napoleon.
+     Dodsley's Annual Register. Labaume's Russian Campaign.
+     Southey's Peninsular War. Liborne's Waterloo Campaign.
+     Southey's Life of Nelson. Sherer's Life of the Duke of
+     Wellington. Gifford's Life of Pitt. Moore's Life of Sir John
+     Moore. James's Naval History. Memoirs of the Duchess
+     d'Abrantes. Berthier's <span lang="fr">Histoire de l'Expédition d'Égypte</span>.
+     Schlosser's Modern History. The above works are the most
+     accessible, but form but a small part of those which have
+     appeared concerning the French Revolution and the career of
+     Napoleon. For a complete list of original authorities, see
+     the preface of Alison, and the references of Thiers.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page527" name="page527"></a>(p. 527)</span>CHAPTER <abbr title="32">XXXII.</abbr></h2>
+
+<h4>EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.</h4>
+
+
+<p>It would be interesting to trace the <span class="inline">Complexity of Modern History.</span> history of the civilized world
+since the fall of Napoleon; but any attempt to bring within the limits
+of a history like this a notice of the great events which have
+happened for thirty-five years, would be impossible. And even a notice
+as extended as that which has been presented of the events of three
+hundred years would be unsatisfactory to all minds. The common reader
+is familiar with the transactions of the present generation, and
+reflections on them would be sure to excite the prejudices of various
+parties and sects. A chronological table of the events which have
+transpired since the downfall of Napoleon is all that can be
+attempted. The author contemplates a continuation of this History,
+which will present more details, collected from original authorities.
+The history of the different American States, since the Revolution;
+the administration of the various presidents; the late war with Great
+Britain; the Seminole and Mexican wars; the important questions
+discussed by Congress; the contemporary history of Great Britain under
+George <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, William <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, and Victoria; the conquests in India and
+China; the agitations of Ireland; the great questions of Reform,
+Catholic Emancipation, Education, and Free Trade; the French wars in
+Africa; the Turkish war; the independence of the Viceroy of Egypt; the
+progress of Russian territorial aggrandizement; the fall of Poland;
+the Spanish rebellion; the independence of the South American states;
+the Dutch and Belgic war; the two last French revolutions; the great
+progress made in arts and sciences, and the various attempts in
+different nations to secure liberty;&mdash;these, and other great subjects,
+can only be properly discussed in a separate work, and even then
+cannot be handled by any one, however extraordinary his talents or
+attainments, without incurring the imputation of great audacity, which
+only the wants of the public can excuse.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding the present History, a very brief notice of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page528" name="page528"></a>(p. 528)</span>state of the civilized world at the fall of Napoleon may be,
+perhaps, required.</p>
+
+<p>England suffered less than any other of the great powers from the
+French Revolution. A great burden was, indeed, entailed on future
+generations; but the increase of the national debt was not felt so
+long as English manufactures were purchased, to a great extent, by the
+Continental States. Six hundred million pounds were added to the
+national debt; but England, internally, was never more flourishing
+than during this long war of a quarter of a century. And not only was
+glory shed around the British throne by the victories of Nelson and
+Wellington, and the effectual assistance which England rendered to the
+continental powers, and without which the liberties of Europe would
+have been subverted, but, during the reign of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, a splendid
+constellation of <span class="inline">Remarkable Men of Genius.</span> men of genius, in literature and science, illuminated
+the world. Dr. Johnson made moral reflections on human life which will
+ever instruct mankind; Burke uttered prophetic oracles which even his
+age was not prepared to appreciate; and his rivals thundered in the
+senate with an eloquence and power not surpassed by the orators of
+antiquity; Gibbon wrote a history which such men as Guizot and Milman
+pronounced wonderful both for art and learning; Hume, Reid, and
+Stewart, carried metaphysical inquiry to its utmost depth; Gray,
+Burns, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, were not
+unworthy successors of Dryden and Pope; Adam Smith called into
+existence the science of political economy, and nearly brought it to
+perfection in a single lifetime; Reynolds and West adorned the
+galleries with pictures which would not have disgraced the land of
+artists; while scholars, too numerous to mention, astonished the world
+by the extent of their erudition; and divines, in language which
+rivalled the eloquence of Chrysostom or Bossuet, declared to an
+awakened generation the duties and destinies of man.</p>
+
+<p>France, the rival of England, was not probably permanently injured by
+the Revolution; for, if millions of lives were sacrificed, and
+millions of property were swept away, still important civil and social
+privileges were given to the great mass of the people, and odious
+feudal laws and customs were broken forever. All the glory which war
+can give, was obtained; and France, for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page529" name="page529"></a>(p. 529)</span>twenty years, was
+feared and respected. Popular liberty was not secured; but advances
+were made towards it, and great moral truths were impressed upon the
+nation,&mdash;to be again disregarded, but not to be forgotten. The
+territorial limits of France were not permanently enlarged, and the
+conquests of Napoleon were restored to the original rulers. The
+restoration of the former political system was insisted upon by the
+Holy Alliance, and the Bourbon kings, in regaining their throne, again
+possessed all that their ancestors had enjoyed but the possession of
+the hearts of the people. The allied powers may have restored
+despotism and legitimacy for a while; they could not eradicate the
+great ideas of the Revolution, and these were destined once more to
+overturn their thrones. The reigns of Louis <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr>, Charles <abbr title="10">X.</abbr>, and
+Louis Philippe were but different acts of the long tragedy which was
+opened by the convocation of the States General, and which is not
+probably closed by the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to the
+presidency of the French republic. The <span class="italic">ideas</span> which animated La
+Fayette and Moreau, and which Robespierre and Napoleon at one time
+professed, still live, in spite of all the horrors of the Reign of
+Terror, and all the streams of blood which flowed at Leipsic and
+Waterloo. Notwithstanding the suicidal doctrines of Socialists and of
+the various schools of infidel philosophers, and in view of all the
+evils which papal despotism, and democratic license, and military
+passions have inflicted, and will continue to inflict, still the
+immortal principles of liberty are safe under the protection of that
+Providence which has hitherto advanced the nations of Europe from the
+barbarism and paganism of ancient Teutonic tribes.</p>
+
+<p>Germany <span class="inline">Condition of Germany.</span> suffered the most, and apparently reaped the least, from the
+storms which revolutionary discussion had raised. Austria and Prussia
+were invaded, pillaged, and humiliated. Their cities were sacked,
+their fields were devastated, and the blood of their sons was poured
+out like water. But sacrifice and suffering developed extraordinary
+virtues and energies, united the various states, and gave nationality
+to a great confederation. The struggles of the Germans were honorable
+and gigantic, and proved to the world the impossibility of the
+conquest of states, however afflicted, when they are resolved to
+defend their rights. The career of Napoleon demonstrated the
+impossibility of a universal empire in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page530" name="page530"></a>(p. 530)</span>Europe, and least of
+all, an empire erected over the prostrated thrones and discomfited
+armies of Germany. The Germans learned the necessity and the duty of
+union, and proved the strength of their sincere love for their native
+soil and their venerable institutions. The Germans, though poor in
+gold and silver, showed that they were rich in patriotic ardor, and in
+all those glorious sentiments which ennoble a great and progressive
+nation. After twenty years' contention, and infinite sacrifices and
+humiliations, the different princes of Germany recovered their ancient
+territorial possessions, and were seated, more firmly than before on
+the thrones which legitimacy had consecrated.</p>
+
+<p>Absolute <span class="inline">Condition of Other Powers.</span> monarchy was restored also to Spain; but the imbecile
+Bourbons, the tools of priests and courtiers, revived the ancient
+principles of absolutism and bigotry, without any of those virtues
+which make absolutism respectable or bigotry endurable. But in the
+breasts of Spanish peasants the fires of liberty burned, which all the
+terrors of priestly rule, and all the evils of priestly corruption,
+could not quench. They, thus far, have been unfortunate, but no person
+who has studied the elements of the Spanish character, or has faith in
+the providence of God, can doubt that the day of deliverance will,
+sooner or later, come, unless he has the misfortune to despair of any
+permanent triumph of liberty in our degenerate world.</p>
+
+<p>In the northern kingdoms of Europe, no radical change took place; and
+Italy, the land of artists, so rich in splendid recollections, so poor
+in all those blessings which we are taught to value, returned to the
+dominion of Austria, and to the rule of despotic priests. Italy,
+disunited, abandoned, and enslaved, has made generous efforts to
+secure what is enjoyed in more favored nations, but hitherto in vain.
+So slow is the progress of society! so hard are the struggles to which
+man is doomed! so long continued are the efforts of any people to
+secure important privileges!</p>
+
+<p>Greece made, however, a more successful effort, and the fetters of the
+Turkish sultan were shaken off. The Ottoman Porte looked, with its
+accustomed indifference, on the struggles of the Christians, and took
+no active part in the war until absolutely forced. But it looked with
+the indifference of decrepit age, rather than with the philosophical
+calmness of mature strength, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page531" name="page531"></a>(p. 531)</span>exerted all the remaining
+energies it possessed to prevent the absorption of the state in the
+vast and increasing empire of the czars. Russia, of all the great
+powers which embarked in the contest to which we have alluded, arose
+the strongest from defeat and disaster. The rapid aggrandizement of
+Russia immediately succeeded the fall of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The spiritual empire of the Popes was again restored, and the Jesuits,
+with new powers and privileges, were sent into all the nations of the
+earth to uphold the absolutism of their great head. Again they have
+triumphed when their cause seemed hopeless; nor is it easy to predict
+the fall of their empire. So long as the principle of Evil shall
+contend with the principle of Good, the popes will probably rejoice
+and weep at alternate victories and defeats.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="inline">The United States of America.</span> United States of America were too far removed from the scene of
+conflict to be much affected by the fall of thrones. Moreover, it was
+against the wise policy of the government to interfere with foreign
+quarrels. But the American nation beheld the conflict with any
+feelings but those of indifference, and, while its enlightened people
+speculated on the chances of war, they still devoted themselves with
+ardor to the improvement of their institutions, to agriculture, and
+manufacturing interests. Merchants, for a while, made their fortunes
+by being the masters of the carrying trade of the world, and the
+nation was quietly enriched. The wise administrations of Washington,
+Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, much as they conflicted, in some
+respects, with each other, resulted in the growth of commerce,
+manufactures, agriculture, and the arts; while institutions of
+literature and religion took a deep hold of the affections of the
+people. The country increased and spread with unparalleled rapidity on
+all sides, and the prosperity of America was the envy and the
+admiration of the European world. The encroachments of Great Britain,
+and difficulties which had never been settled, led to a war between
+the two countries, which, though lamented at the time, is now viewed,
+by all parties, as resulting in the ultimate advancement of the United
+States in power and wealth, as well as in the respect of foreign
+nations. Great questions connected with the rapid growth of the
+country, unfortunately at different times, have produced acrimonious
+feelings between <span class="pagenum"><a id="page532" name="page532"></a>(p. 532)</span>different partisans; but the agitation of
+these has not checked the growth of American institutions, or weakened
+those sentiments of patriotism and mutual love, which, in all
+countries and ages, have constituted the glory and defence of nations.
+The greatness of American destinies is now a favorite theme with
+popular orators. Nor is it a vain subject of speculation. Our banner
+of Liberty will doubtless, at no distant day, wave over all the
+fortresses which may be erected on the central mountains of North
+America, or on the shores of its far distant oceans; but all national
+aggrandizement will be in vain without regard to those sacred
+principles of law, religion, and morality, for which, in disaster and
+sorrow, both Puritan Settler and Revolutionary Hero contended. The
+believer in Progress, as affected by influences independent of man, as
+coming from the benevolent Providence which thus far has shielded us,
+cannot otherwise than hope for a still loftier national elevation than
+has been yet attained, with all the aid of circumstances, and all the
+energies of heroes.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page533" name="page533"></a>(p. 533)</span>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+<h4>CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE<br>
+
+FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.</h4>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1815.&mdash;Battle</span> of Waterloo, (June 18.) Napoleon embarks for
+     St. Helena, (August 7.) Final Treaty at Paris between the
+     Allied Powers, (November 20.) Inauguration of the King of
+     Holland. First Steam Vessels on the Thames.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1816.&mdash;Great</span> Agricultural distress in Great Britain. Brazil
+     declared a Kingdom. Consolidation of the Exchequers of
+     England and Ireland. Marriage of the Princess Charlotte with
+     Prince Leopold.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1817.&mdash;Disorders</span> in Spain. Renewal of the Bill for the
+     suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Inauguration of
+     President Monroe. Death of the Princess Charlotte. Death of
+     Curran.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1818.&mdash;Entire</span> Withdrawal of Foreign Forces from France.
+     Seminole War. Great Discussions in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Warren Hastings, of Lord Ellenborough, and
+     of Sir Philip Francis.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1819.&mdash;Great</span> depression of Trade and Manufactures in Great
+     Britain. Great Reform meetings in Manchester, Leeds, and
+     other large Towns, Lord John Russell's Motion for a Reform
+     in Parliament. Organized bands of robbers in Spain.
+     Settlement of the Pindarrie War in India. Assassination of
+     Kotzebue.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1820.&mdash;Death</span> of George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr>, (January 23.) Lord Brougham's
+     Plan of Popular Education. Proceedings against Queen
+     Caroline. Rebellion in Spain. Trial of Sir Francis Burdett.
+     Election of Sir Humphrey Davy as President of the Royal
+     Society. Ministry in France of the Duc de Richelieu. Death
+     of Grattan; of the Duke of Kent.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1821.&mdash;Second</span> Inauguration of President Monroe. Revolution
+     in Naples and Piedmont. Insurrections in Spain. Independence
+     of Colombia, and fall of Spanish Power in Mexico and Peru.
+     Disturbances in Ireland. War in the Morea. Formal occupation
+     of the Floridas by the United States. Extinction of the
+     Mamelukes. Revolt in Wallachia and Moldavia. Death of Queen
+     Caroline; of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page534" name="page534"></a>(p. 534)</span><span class="min35em">1822.&mdash;Mr.</span> Canning's Bill for the admission of
+     Catholic Peers to the House of Lords. Disturbances in
+     Ireland. Sir James Mackintosh's Motion for a reform of
+     Criminal Law. Mr. Canning succeeds the Marquis of
+     Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh) as Secretary of State for
+     Foreign Affairs. Lord Amherst appointed Governor-General of
+     India. Fall of the administration of the Duc de Richelieu.
+     Congress of Vienna. War in Greece. Insurrection of the
+     Janizaries. The Persian War. Settlement of the Canadian
+     Boundary. Suicide of the Marquis of Londonderry.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1823.&mdash;Great</span> Agricultural Distress in Great Britain. Debates
+     on Catholic Emancipation, and on the Slave Trade. French
+     Invasion of Spain. Captain Franklin's Voyage to the Polar
+     Seas. Death of Pius <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1824.&mdash;General</span> Prosperity in England. Capture of Ipsara by
+     the Turks. Visit of La Fayette to the United States. Leaders
+     of the Carbonari suppressed in Italy by the Austrian
+     Government. Repeal of duties between Great Britain and
+     Ireland. Burmese War, and Capture of Rangoon. Censorship of
+     the Press in France. Death of Louis <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr>, (September 16.)</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1825.&mdash;Inauguration</span> of President Adams. Independence of
+     Brazil acknowledged by Portugal. Coronation of Charles <abbr title="10">X.</abbr>
+     Siege of Missolonghi. Inundations in the Netherlands. Death
+     of the Emperor Alexander, (December 1.)</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1826.&mdash;Bolivar</span> chosen President of Peru for Life.
+     Independence of Hayti acknowledged by France. Riots in
+     Lancashire. Surrender of the fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa to
+     the Mexicans. Great Debates in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Ex-President Adams; of Jefferson. Coronation
+     of the Emperor Nicholas.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1827.&mdash;Death</span> of the Earl of Liverpool, and dissolution of
+     the Ministry. Mr. Canning appointed First Lord of the
+     Treasury; dies four months after; succeeded by Lord
+     Goderich. National Guard disbanded in France. Defeat of the
+     Greek army before Athens. Battle of Navarino. Foundation of
+     the University of London. Death of the Duke of York; of La
+     Place; of Mitford, the Historian; of Eichhorn; of
+     Pestalozzi; of Beethoven; of King Frederic Augustus of
+     Saxony.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1828.&mdash;Dissolution</span> of Lord Goderich's Ministry, and new one
+     formed under the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel and the Earl
+     of Aberdeen. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. New
+     Corn Law. Riots in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell represents the
+     County of Clare. New and Liberal ministry in France. Final
+     departure of the French Armies from Spain. War between
+     Naples and Tripoli. War between Russia and Turkey.
+     Independence of Greece. Death of Ypsilanti.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1829.&mdash;Inauguration</span> of President Jackson. Passage of the
+     Catholic Emancipation Bill. New and Ultra-Royalist ministry
+     in France, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page535" name="page535"></a>(p. 535)</span>under Polignac. Victories of Count
+     Diebitsch against the Turks. Surrender of Adrianople. Civil
+     War in Mexico. Don Miguel acknowledged as King of Portugal
+     by Spain. Burning of York Cathedral. Treaty between the
+     United States and Brazil. Civil War in Chili. Death of Judge
+     Washington.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1830.&mdash;Great</span> discussions in Congress on the Tariff. Reform
+     Agitations in England. Death of George <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, (June 26.) New
+     Whig Ministry under Earl Grey and Lord John Russell. Opening
+     of the Liverpool Railroad. Revolution in France, and the
+     Duke of Orleans declared King. Capture of Algiers by the
+     French. Belgium erected into an independent Kingdom. Riots
+     and Insurrections in Germany. Plots of the Carlists in
+     Spain. Murder of Joseph White. Death of Pope Leo <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr>; of
+     the King of Naples; of Sir Thomas Lawrence; of the Grand
+     Duke of Baden.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1831.&mdash;Dissolution</span> of the Cabinet at Washington. Great
+     discussions on the Reform Bill. Agitations in Ireland.
+     Leopold made King of Belgium. Insurrection in Switzerland.
+     Revolution in Poland. Treaty between the United States and
+     Turkey. Coronation of William <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr> Appearance of the Cholera
+     in England. Its great ravages on the Continent. Death of
+     Bolivar; of Robert Hall; of Mrs. Siddons; of William Roscoe;
+     of James Monroe.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1832.&mdash;Veto</span> of President Jackson of the Bill to recharter
+     the United States Bank. Discontents in South Carolina, in
+     consequence of the Tariff. War with the Indians. Bristol and
+     Birmingham Riots. Final passage of the Reform Bill.
+     Abolition of the Slave Trade in Brazil. Death of Casimir
+     Périer, Prime Minister of France, who is succeeded by
+     Marshal Soult. Death of Sir Walter Scott; of Sir James
+     Mackintosh; of Spurzheim; of Cuvier; of Goethe; of
+     Champollion; of Adam Clarke; of Andrew Bell; of Anna Maria
+     Porter; of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1833.&mdash;Second</span> Inauguration of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Clay's
+     Tariff Bill. President Jackson's war with the United States
+     Bank. Recharter of the Bank of England and of the East India
+     Company. Fortifications of Paris commenced. Santa Anna
+     inaugurated President of Mexico. Bill passed to abolish
+     slavery in the British Colonies. Trial of Avery. Death of
+     the King of Spain; of Mr. Wilberforce; of Hannah More; of
+     Caspar Hauser; of Lord Grenville; of Dr. Schleiermacher.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1834.&mdash;Discussions</span> on the Corn Laws. Destruction of the two
+     Houses of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress
+     of Vienna. Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal.
+     Opening of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of
+     Earl Grey, succeeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly
+     succeeded by Sir Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death of
+     La Fayette; of William Wirt; of Dr. Porter; of General
+     Huntingdon; of Coleridge; of Rev. Edward Irving.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page536" name="page536"></a>(p. 536)</span><span class="min35em">1835.&mdash;New</span> Ministry of Viscount Melbourne. French
+     expedition to Algiers. Otho made King of Greece. Suppression
+     of the Jesuits in Spain. Remarkable eruption of Vesuvius.
+     Revolt in Spain. Great fire in New York. Death of the
+     Emperor of Austria; of Chief Justice Marshall; of Nathan
+     Dane; of McCrie; of William Cobbett.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1836.&mdash;Settlement</span> of the disputes between France and the
+     United States. Resignation of M. Thiers, who is succeeded,
+     as Prime Minister of France, by Count Molé. Military
+     operations against Abd-el-Kader. Massacre of the Carlist
+     Prisoners at Barcelona. Isturitz made Prime Minister of
+     Spain. Prince Louis Napoleon attempts an insurrection at
+     Strasburg. Commutation of Tithes in England. Bill for the
+     Registration of Births and Marriages. Passage of the Irish
+     Municipal Corporation Bill. Agitations in Canada. War
+     between Texas and Mexico. Burning of the Patent Office at
+     Washington. Death of Aaron Burr; of the Abbé Sièyes; of Lord
+     Stowell; of Godwin.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1837.&mdash;Inauguration</span> of President Van Buren. Death of
+     William <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>, (June 20.) Insurrection in Canada. Suspension
+     of cash payments by the Bank of the United States in
+     Philadelphia, and by the banks in New York. Acknowledgment
+     of the Independence of Texas. Treaty with the Indians. Great
+     failures in New York. Great Protestant Meeting in Dublin.
+     Change of Ministry in Spain. Death of Gustavus Adolphus <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr>
+     of Sweden; of M. de Pradt; of Abiel Holmes; of Dr. Griffin;
+     of Charles Botta; of Lovejoy.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1838.&mdash;War</span> with the Seminoles. General Scott takes command
+     of the New York Militia on the Frontiers. Affair of the
+     Caroline. Lord Durham Governor-General of Canada. Coronation
+     of Queen Victoria; of the Emperor Ferdinand. Violence of
+     Civil War in Spain. Circassian War. Revolution in Peru and
+     Bolivia. Peace between Russia and Turkey. Great Chartist
+     meetings in England. Emancipation of the West India Negro
+     Apprentices. Death of Lord Eldon; of Talleyrand; of Noah
+     Worcester; of Dr. Bowditch; of Zachary Macaulay.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1839.&mdash;Disputes</span> between Maine and New Brunswick. Resignation
+     of the Melbourne Ministry, and the failure of Sir Robert
+     Peel to construct a new one. Birmingham Riots. Chartist
+     Convention. Resignation of Count Molé, who is succeeded, as
+     Prime Minister, by Marshal Soult, and Guizot. Capture of the
+     fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa by the French. Treaty of Peace
+     between France and Mexico. Affghan War. War between Turkey
+     and Mohammed Ali. Invasion of Syria. Death of Lady Hester
+     Stanhope; of Governor Hayne; of Dr. Bancroft; of Stephen Van
+     Rensselaer; of Zerah Colburn; of Samuel Ward.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1840.&mdash;Marriage</span> of Queen Victoria. Penny Postage in England.
+     Affghan <span class="pagenum"><a id="page537" name="page537"></a>(p. 537)</span>War. Difficulties in China respecting the
+     Opium Trade. Blockade of Canton. Ministry of M. Thiers.
+     Arrival of Napoleon's Remains from St. Helena. Abdication of
+     the King of Holland. Continued Civil War in Spain. Burning
+     of the Lexington. Ministry of Espartero. Death of Frederic
+     William <abbr title="3">III.</abbr> of Prussia; of Lord Camden; of Dr. Olinthus
+     Gregory; of Blumenbach; of Dr. Follen; of Dr. Kirkland; of
+     John Lowell; of Judge Mellen; of Dr. Emmons; of Prof. Davis.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1841.&mdash;Inauguration</span> of President Harrison; his Death;
+     succeeded by John Tyler. Trial of McLeod. Repeal of the
+     Sub-Treasury. Veto, by the President, of the Bill to
+     establish a Bank. Resignation of the Melbourne Ministry,
+     succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel. War in Scinde.
+     Espartero sole Regent of Spain. Revolution in Mexico. Treaty
+     between Turkey and Egypt. Treaty between the United States
+     and Portugal. Death of Chantrey; of Dr. Marsh; of Dr.
+     Oliver; of Dr. Ripley; of Blanco White; of William Ladd.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1842.&mdash;Great</span> Debates in Parliament on the Corn Laws. New
+     Tariff of Sir Robert Peel. Affghan War. Treaty of Peace
+     between England and China. Treaty between England and the
+     United States respecting the North-eastern Boundary
+     Question. Chartist Petitions. Income Tax. Accident on the
+     Paris and Versailles Railroad. Death of the Duke of Orleans;
+     of Lord Hill; of Dr. Charming; of Dr. Arnold; of Jeremiah
+     Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1843.&mdash;Activity</span> of the Anti Corn Law League. Repeal
+     Agitation in Ireland. Monster Meetings. Establishment of the
+     Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland. War in Scinde. Sir
+     James Graham's Factory Bill. Repudiation of State Debts.
+     Death of Southey; of Dr. Ware; of Allston; of Legare; of Dr.
+     Richards; of Noah Webster.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1844.&mdash;Corn</span> Law Agitations in Great Britain. Passage of the
+     Sugar Duties Bill; of the Dissenters' Chapel Bill. State
+     Trials in Ireland. Opening of the Royal Exchange. Sir
+     Charles Napier's victories in India. Louis Philippe's visit
+     to England. War between France and Morocco. Disturbances on
+     the Livingston and Rensselaer Manors. Insurrection in
+     Mexico. Death of Secretary Upshur.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1845.&mdash;Installation</span> of President Polk. Treaty between the
+     United States and China. Great Fire in New York. Municipal
+     disabilities removed from the Jews by Parliament. War in
+     Algeria. Abdication of Don Carlos. Termination of the War in
+     Scinde. Revolution in Mexico. War in the Punjaub.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1846&mdash;War</span> between the United States and Mexico. Battle of
+     Monterey. New Tariff Bill. Passage of the Corn Bill in
+     England, and Repeal of Duties. Free Trade policy of Sir
+     Robert Peel. Settlement of the Oregon Question. Distress in
+     Ireland by the failure of the Potato Crop. Resignation of
+     Sir Robert Peel; succeeded by Lord John Russell. Marriage of
+     the Queen of Spain; and of her sister, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page538" name="page538"></a>(p. 538)</span>
+     Infanta, to the Due de Montpensier. Escape of Prince Louis
+     Napoleon from Ham. Death of Pope Gregory <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr>, and elevation
+     of Pius <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> Death of Louis Napoleon, Ex-King of Holland.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1847.&mdash;Splendid</span> military successes of Generals Scott and
+     Taylor in Mexico. Fall of Mexico. Ravages of the Potato
+     Disease. Awful Distress in Ireland. Guizot succeeds Soult as
+     President of the Council. Frequent changes of Ministry in
+     Spain. Civil War in Switzerland. Grant of a Constitution to
+     Prussia. Liberal Measures of Pius <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr> Death of the King of
+     Denmark; of Dr. Chalmers; of Silas Wright.</p>
+
+<p class="chrono"><span class="min35em">1848.&mdash;French Revolution,</span> and Fall of Louis Philippe.
+     Abdication of the King of Bavaria. Tumults in Vienna and
+     Berlin. Riots in Rome. Chartist demonstrations in London.
+     Election of the National Assembly in France. General
+     fermentation throughout Europe. Distress of Ireland. Oregon
+     Territorial Bill. Free Soil Convention in Buffalo. Death of
+     John Quincy Adams. Election of General Taylor for President
+     of the United States.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>PRIME MINISTERS OF ENGLAND<br>
+
+SINCE THE ACCESSION OF HENRY <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></h3>
+
+<p>KING HENRY <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1509.</span> Bishop Fisher, and Earl of
+  Surrey.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1513.</span> Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1529.</span> Sir Thomas More, and Cranmer.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1532.</span> Lord Audley, (Chancellor,) Archbishop Cranmer.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1538.</span> Lord Cromwell, (Earl of Essex.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1540.</span> Duke of Norfolk, Earl of
+  Surrey, and Bishop Gardiner.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1544.</span> Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Hertford.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">KING EDWARD <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>The Earl of Hertford, continued.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1552.</span> John, Duke of Northumberland.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">QUEEN MARY.</p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1553.</span>  Bishop Gardiner.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">QUEEN ELIZABETH.</p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1558.</span> Sir Nicholas Bacon, and Sir
+  William Cecil, (afterwards Lord Burleigh.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1564.</span> Earl of Leicester, (a favorite)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1588.</span> Earl of Essex.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1601.</span> Lord Buckhurst.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">JAMES <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Lord Buckhurst, (Earl of Dorset.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1608.</span> Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, and Northampton.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page539" name="page539"></a>(p. 539)</span></li>
+<li><span class="min25em">1612.</span> Sir Robert Carr (Earl of Somerset.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1615.</span> Sir George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham.)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">CHARLES <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Duke of Buckingham.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1628.</span> Earl of Portland, Archbishop Laud.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1640.</span> Archbishop Laud, Earl of Strafford, Lord Cottington.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1640.</span> Earl of Essex.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1641.</span> Lord Falkland, Lord Digby.</li>
+
+<li>Civil War, and Oliver Cromwell.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">CHARLES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1660.</span> Earl of Clarendon.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1667.</span> Dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1667.</span> Lord Ashley, Lord Arlington, Lord Clifford.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1673.</span> Lord Arlington, Lord Ashley
+  (Earl of Shaftesbury,) and Sir Thomas Osborne.</li>
+
+<li ><span class="min25em">1674.</span> Sir Thomas Osborne.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1677.</span> Earl of Essex, Duke of Ormond,
+  Marquis of Halifax, Sir William Temple.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1682.</span> Duke of York and his friends.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">JAMES <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1685.</span> Earls of Sunderland and Tyrconnell, Lord Jeffreys.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1687.</span>  Lord Jeffreys, Lord Arundel, Earl of Middleton.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">WILLIAM <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1688.</span>  Lord Somers, Lord Godolphin, Earl of Danby (Duke of Leeds.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1695.</span> Earl of Sunderland.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1697.</span> Charles Montague (Earl of
+  Halifax,) Earl of Pembroke, Viscount Lonsdale, Earl of Oxford.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">QUEEN ANNE.</p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1705.</span> Lord Godolphin, R. Harley,
+  Lord Pembroke, Duke of Buckingham, Duke of Marlborough.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1707.</span> Earl Godolphin, Lord Cowper, Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle.</li>
+
+<li class="add3em"><span class="min25em">1710.</span> R. Harley (Earl of Oxford.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1710.</span> Earl of Rochester, Lord Dartmouth,
+  Henry St. John (Lord Bolingbroke,) Lord Harcourt.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1714.</span> Duke of Shrewsbury.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">GEORGE <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1714.</span>  Lord Cowper, Duke of Shrewsbury, Marquis of
+  Wharton, Earl of Oxford, Duke of Marlborough, Viscount Townshend.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1715.</span>  Robert Walpole, Esq.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1717.</span> Earl Stanhope.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1718.</span> Earl of Sunderland.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1721.</span> Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford.)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">GEORGE <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1742.</span> Lord Carteret, Lord Wilmington, Lord Bath, Mr. Sandys, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1743.</span> Hon. Henry Pelham, Lord
+  Carteret, Earl of Harrington, Duke of Newcastle, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1746.</span> Mr. Pelham, Earl of Chesterfield, Duke of Bedford, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1754.</span> Duke of Newcastle, Sir Thos. Robinson, Henry Fox, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1756.</span> Duke of Devonshire, Mr.
+  William Pitt, Earl Temple, Hon. H. B. Legge, &amp;c.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a id="page540" name="page540"></a>(p. 540)</span>(Dismissed in April, 1757;
+  restored in June the same year.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1757.</span> William Pitt, Mr. Legge, Earl Temple, Duke of Newcastle, &amp;c.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">GEORGE <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li><span class="min25em">1761.</span>  Earl of Bute, Earl of Egremont, Duke of Bedford, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1762.</span>  Earl of Bute, Hon. George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1763.</span>  Hon. George Grenville, Earl of Halifax, Earl of Sandwich, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1765.</span>  Marquis of Rockingham, Duke of Grafton, Earl of Shelburne, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1766.</span>  Duke of Grafton, Hon. Chas. Townshend, Earl of Chatham, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1767.</span> Duke of Grafton, Lord North, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1770.</span> Lord North, Lord Halifax, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1779.</span> Lord North, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Stormont, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1782.</span> Marquis of Rockingham, Chas. James Fox, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1782.</span> Earl of Shelburne, William Pitt, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1783.</span>  Duke of Portland, Lord North, Mr. Fox, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1783.</span> Mr. Pitt, Lord Gower, Lord Thurlow, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1786.</span> Mr. Pitt, Lord Camden, Marquis of Stafford, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1790.</span> Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Duke of Leeds.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1795.</span> Mr. Pitt, Duke of Portland, Mr. Dundas, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1801.</span> Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, Duke of Portland, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1804.</span> Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville, Geo. Canning, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1806.</span> Lord Grenville, Earl Spencer, Mr. Fox, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1807.</span> Duke of Portland, Mr. Canning, Earl Camden, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1809.</span> Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, Marquis Wellesley, &amp;c.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1812.</span> Earl of Liverpool, Viscount Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, &amp;c.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">GEORGE <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Earl of Liverpool, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1827.</span> Rt. Hon. George Canning, Lord Goderich, Lord Lyndhurst, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1827.</span> Viscount Goderich, Duke of Portland, Mr. Huskisson, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1828.</span> Duke of Wellington, Rt. Hon. Robert Peel, Viscount Melville, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1828.</span> Duke of Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen, Sir G. Murray, &amp;c.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">WILLIAM <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Duke of Wellington, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1830.</span> Earl Grey, Viscount Althorpe, Melbourne, Goderich, and
+  Palmerston, &amp;c. (Earl Grey resigns May 9, but resumes office May 18.)</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1834.</span> Viscount Melbourne, Viscount
+  Althorpe, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1834.</span> Viscount Melbourne's Administration
+  dissolved. The Duke of Wellington takes the helm of state provisionally, waiting the return
+  <span class="pagenum"><a id="page541" name="page541"></a>(p. 541)</span>of Sir Robert Peel from
+  Italy.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1834.</span> Sir Robert Peel, Duke of
+  Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, &amp;c.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1835.</span> Viscount Melbourne and his colleagues return to office.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">QUEEN VICTORIA.</p>
+
+<ul class="add25em">
+<li>Viscount Melbourne, and the
+  same Cabinet.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1839.</span> Viscount Melbourne resigns,
+  May 7.</li>
+
+<li>Sir Robert Peel fails to form
+  an administration. Lord
+  Melbourne and friends reinstated.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1841.</span> Sir Robert Peel, Duke of
+  Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen.</li>
+
+<li><span class="min25em">1846.</span> Lord John Russell, &amp;c.<a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h3>TABLE OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE<br>
+
+DURING THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH
+CENTURIES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>ENGLAND.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1509. Henry <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1547. Edward <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1553. Mary.</li>
+<li>1558. Elizabeth.</li>
+<li>1603. James <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1625. Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1653. Cromwell.</li>
+<li>1660. Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1685. James <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1688. William &amp; Mary.</li>
+<li>1702. Anne.</li>
+<li>1714. George <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1727. George <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1760. George <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1811. Prince of Wales, (Regent.)</li>
+<li>1820. George <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1830. William <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1837. Victoria.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">FRANCE.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1515. Francis <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1547. Henry <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1559. Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1560. Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></li>
+<li>1574. Henry <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1589. Henry <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1610. Louis <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1643. Louis <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1715. Louis <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1774. Louis <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1789. Revolution.</li>
+<li>1792. Republic.</li>
+<li>1795. Directory.</li>
+<li>1799. Consuls.</li>
+<li>1802. Napoleon First Consul.</li>
+<li>1804. Napoleon Emp'r.</li>
+<li>1815. Louis <abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1825. Charles <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></li>
+<li>1830. Louis Philippe.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">GERMANY.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1493. Maximilian.</li>
+<li>1519. Charles <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1558. Ferdinand <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1564. Maximilian <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1576. Rodolph <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1612. Matthias.</li>
+<li>1619. Ferdinand <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1637. Ferdinand <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1658. Leopold <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1705. Joseph <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1711. Charles <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1742. Charles <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1745. Francis &amp; Maria Theresa.</li>
+<li>1765. Joseph <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1790. Leopold <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1792. Francis <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">EMPERORS OF AUSTRIA.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1804. Francis.</li>
+<li>1835. Ferdinand <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">SPAIN.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1516. Charles <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1556. Philip <abbr title="2">II.</abbr>
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page542" name="page542"></a>(p. 542)</span></li>
+<li>1598. Philip <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1621. Philip <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1665. Charles <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1700. Philip <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1724. Louis.</li>
+<li>1725. Philip <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1746. Ferdinand <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1759. Charles <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1788. Charles <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1808. Ferdinand <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1808. Jos. Bonaparte.</li>
+<li>1814. Ferdinand <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1820. Revolution.</li>
+<li>1833. Isabella <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">SWEDEN.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1523. Gustavus <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1560. Erick <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1568. John <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1592. Sigismund.</li>
+<li>1599. Charles <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></li>
+<li>1611. Gust. Adolphus.</li>
+<li>1632. Christina.</li>
+<li>1654. Charles <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></li>
+<li>1660. Charles <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1697. Charles <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1718. Ulrica Leonora.</li>
+<li>1751. Adolphus Frederic.</li>
+<li>1771. Gustavus <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1792. Gustavus <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1809. Charles <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1810. Bernadotte.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">DENMARK.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1513. Christian <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1523. Frederic <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1534. Christian <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1559. Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1588. Christian <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1648. Frederic <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1670. Christian <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1699. Frederic <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1730. Christian <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1746. Frederic <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1766. Christian <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1784. Regency.</li>
+<li>1808. Frederic <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1839. Christian <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">RUSSIA.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1696. Peter the Great.</li>
+<li>1725. Catharine <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1727. Peter <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1730. Ivan.</li>
+<li>1741. Elizabeth.</li>
+<li>1761. Peter <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1762. Catharine <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1796. Paul <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1801. Alexander.</li>
+<li>1825. Nicholas.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">PRUSSIA.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1700. Frederic.</li>
+<li>1713. Frederic Wm.</li>
+<li>1740. Frederic <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1786. Frederic Wm. <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1796. Fred. Wm. <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1840. Fred. Wm. <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">TURKEY.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1512. Selim.</li>
+<li>1520. Solyman.</li>
+<li>1566. Selim <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1574. Amurath <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1595. Mohammed <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1604. Achmet <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1617. Mustapha <abbr title="1">I.</abbr></li>
+<li>1618. Othman <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1622. Mustapha <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1623. Amurath <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1640. Ibrahim.</li>
+<li>1655. Mohammed <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1687. Solyman <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1691. Achmet <abbr title="2">II.</abbr></li>
+<li>1695. Mustapha <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1703. Achmet <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1730. Mohammed <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1757. Achmet <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1789. Selim <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1807. Mustapha <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1808. Mohammed <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1819. Abdul Medjid.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="p2">POPES.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1513. Leo <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></li>
+<li>1522. Adrian <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1523. Clement <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1534. Paul <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1550. Julius <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1555. Marcellus <abbr title="3">III.</abbr></li>
+<li>1555. Paul <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1559. Pius <abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1566. Pius <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1572. Gregory <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1585. Sixtus <abbr title="5">V.</abbr></li>
+<li>1590. Gregory <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1590. Gregory <abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1591. Innocent <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></li>
+<li>1592. Clement <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1605. Leo <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1623. Urban <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1644. Innocent <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></li>
+<li>1655. Alexander <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1667. Clement <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></li>
+<li>1670. Clement <abbr title="10">X.</abbr></li>
+<li>1676. Innocent <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1689. Alexander <abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1691. Innocent <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1700. Clement <abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1721. Innocent <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1724. Benedict <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1730. Clement <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1740. Benedict <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1758. Clement <abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1769. Clement <abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></li>
+<li>1775. Pius <abbr title="6">VI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1800. Pius <abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1823. Leo <abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></li>
+<li>1831. Gregory <abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></li>
+<li>1847. Pius <abbr title="9">IX.</abbr><a href="#toc"><span class="tiny">(Back to Contents)</span></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page543" name="page543"></a>(p. 543)</span>
+
+<h3>GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF GREAT BRITAIN<br>
+
+&dagger; <i>denotes date of decease.</i></h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0"  summary="British Royal Family.">
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="12">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">JAMES&nbsp;I.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1625.</td>
+<td colspan="12">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="12" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="10" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="12" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="10" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Henry,<br>d.&nbsp;young.</td>
+<td colspan="10">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;I.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1649.</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="center">Elizabeth,<br>Queen of Bohemia.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="13" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="10" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="12" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="15" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;II.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1685.</td>
+<td colspan="12">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">JAMES&nbsp;II.<br>Abdic.&nbsp;1688.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1701.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Electress Sophia of Hanover.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1714.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="16" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="15" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="10" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">MARY,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1694, Wife of William III.</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6" class="center">ANNE,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1714, Wife of George, Prince of Denmark, Duke of Gloucester,<br>d.&nbsp;young.</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">James the Pretender.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">George Louis, Elector of Hanover, and GEORGE I.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1727.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="12">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="11" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="12" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="12" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="10">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">GEORGE&nbsp;II.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1760.</td>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Sophia, mother of Frederic the Great.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="12" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="14">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="11" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="11" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Frederic,<br> Prince of Wales,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1750.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Anne,<br> married Prince of Orange.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Amelia,<br> d.&nbsp;unmar.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Elizabeth,<br> d.&nbsp;unmar.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">William,<br> Duke of Cumberland.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Maria,<br> Princess of Hesse.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Louisa,<br> Queen of Denmark.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">George,<br> d.&nbsp;young.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="25">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="22" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">GEORGE&nbsp;III.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1820.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Edward,<br> Duke of York,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1767.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">William,<br> Duke of Gloucerter,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1805.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Henry,<br> Duke of Cumberland.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Frederic,<br> d.&nbsp;young.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Augusta,<br> Duchess of Brunswick.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Elizabeth Louisa,<br> d.&nbsp;unmarried.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Caroline Mathilda,<br> Queen of Denmark.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="25">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="25" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3" class="center"> GEORGE&nbsp;IV. <br>&dagger;&nbsp;1830.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center"> Frederic, <br> Duke of York. <br>&dagger;&nbsp;1827.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center"> WILLIAM&nbsp;IV. <br>&dagger;&nbsp;1837.</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center"> Edward, <br> Duke of Kent, <br>&dagger;&nbsp;1820.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Augusta,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1840.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center"> Elizabeth, <br> Princess of <br> Hesse-Homburg, <br>&dagger;&nbsp;1840.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center"> Ernest, <br> Duke of Cumberland, <br> King of Hannover. </td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Augustus, <br> Duke of Sussex. </td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Adolphus, <br> Duke of Cambridge. </td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Mary, <br> Duchess of Gloucester. </td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center"> Sophia, <br> d.&nbsp;unmar. </td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Amelia,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1809.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Charlotte,<br> Princess of Wales,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1817.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Charlotte,<br> Elizabeth.</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">VICTORIA.</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">George.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">George.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Augusta.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Mary.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="8" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="17">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="12" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">Charlotte,<br> Queen of Wirtemberg,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1828.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">Victoria Adelaide.</td>
+<td colspan="4">Prince Edward.</td>
+<td colspan="4">Alice Maud.</td>
+<td colspan="4">Alfred Ernest Albert.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page544" name="page544"></a>(p. 544)</span>
+
+
+<h3>GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE BOURBONS.<br>
+
+&dagger; <i>denotes date of decease.</i></h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0"  summary="Bourbon Family.">
+<tr>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">HENRY&nbsp;IV.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1610.</td>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="9" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="9">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">LOUIS&nbsp;XIII.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1643.</td>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">LOUIS&nbsp;XIV.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1715.</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Philip, Duke of Orleans,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1710.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Louis (Dauphin,)<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1711.</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Philip, (Regent,)<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1723.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Louis,<br> Duke of Orleans,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1752.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Louis,<br>Duke of Burgundy,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1712.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">PHILIP<br> (Duke of Anjou,)<br> King of Spain,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1746.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Louis Philip,<br> D. of Orleans,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1785.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">LOUIS XV.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1774.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">FERDINAND&nbsp;VI.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1759.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;IV.<br>King of Naples,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1759.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Louis Philip <br>(Égalité,)<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1796.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Louisa Maria,<br>Duchess of Bourbon.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Louis (Dauphin,)<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1765.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;III.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1788.</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">FERDINAND&nbsp;IV.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1825.</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;IV.<br>Ab. 1808</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">FRANCIS.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1830.</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">FERDINAND&nbsp;VII.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1833.</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1" class="center">Charles,<br> or<br> Don Carlos.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">FERDINAND&nbsp;V.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">LOUIS PHILIPPE.</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Anthony,<br>Duke of Montpensier.</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">Louis,<br>Count of Beaujolais,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1808.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="14">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="center">ISABELLA&nbsp;II.</td>
+<td colspan="13">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="8">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">LOUIS&nbsp;XVI.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1793.</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">LOUIS&nbsp;XVIII.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1825.</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">CHARLES&nbsp;X.<br>(Abd.)<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1836.</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="2" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="1">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Louis Joseph,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1789.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Louis&nbsp;XVII.<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1795.</td>
+<td colspan="3" class="center">Louis,<br> Duke of Angoulême.</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Charles,<br> Duke of Berri,<br>&dagger;&nbsp;1820.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="12" class="right">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="6">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td colspan="10">&nbsp;</td>
+<td colspan="4" class="center">Henry,<br> Duke of Bourdeaux.</td>
+<td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="p4"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><strong>Footnote 1:</strong> Macaulay.<a href="#footnotetag1"><span class="tiny">(Back to Main Text)</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of
+Luther to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of Luther
+to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon
+       For the Use of Schools and Colleges
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24598]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN HISTORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This book was produced from scanned images of public
+domain material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
+been maintained.
+
+Page 492: A probable typographical error "Camide, Desmoulins" has been
+replaced by "Camille Desmoulin".
+
+The following sentences had illegible words; inserted words are shown
+here between "=".
+
+Page 82: "and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the =ruler= of
+the nation."
+
+Page 178: "The minority had now become a majority,"--which is not
+unusual in revolutionary times,--and proceeded to the work, in good
+earnest, which =he= had long contemplated.
+
+Page 487: All classes in France were anxious for it, and =war= was
+soon declared.]
+
+
+
+
+                        A
+                  MODERN HISTORY,
+                    FROM THE
+                  TIME OF LUTHER
+                      TO THE
+                 FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+        FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
+
+
+                        BY
+                  JOHN LORD, A.M.,
+                LECTURER ON HISTORY.
+
+
+
+
+  PHILADELPHIA:
+    CHARLES DESILVER;
+    CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER;
+    J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
+  NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & Co.
+  BOSTON: NICHOLS & HALL.
+  CINCINNATI: ROBERT CLARKE & Co; WILSON, HINKLE & Co.
+  SAN FRANCISCO: A. L. BANCROFT & Co.
+
+  _Chicago_: S. C. GRIGGS & Co.--_Charleston, S. C._: J. M. Greer &
+  Son; Edward Perry & Son.--_Raleigh, N. C._: Williams &
+  Lambeth.--_Baltimore, Md._: Cushings & Bailey; W. J. C Dulaney &
+  Co.--_New Orleans, La._: Stevens & Seymour.--_Savannah, Ga._: J. M.
+  Cooper & Co.--_Macon, Ga._: J. M. Boardman.--_Augusta, Ga._: Thos.
+  Richards & Son.--_Richmond, Va._: Woodhouse & Parham.
+
+  1874.
+
+
+
+
+  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by
+  JOHN LORD,
+  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
+  of Massachusetts.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing this History, I make no claim to original and profound
+investigations; but the arrangement, the style, and the sentiments,
+are my own. I have simply attempted to condense the great and varied
+subjects which are presented, so as to furnish a connected narrative
+of what is most vital in the history of the last three hundred years,
+avoiding both minute details and elaborate disquisitions. It has been
+my aim to write a book, which should be neither a chronological table
+nor a philosophical treatise, but a work adapted to the wants of young
+people in the various stages of education, and which, it is hoped,
+will also prove interesting to those of maturer age; who have not the
+leisure to read extensive works, and yet who wish to understand the
+connection of great events since the Protestant Reformation. Those
+characters, institutions, reforms, and agitations, which have had the
+greatest influence in advancing society, only have been described, and
+these not to the extent which will satisfy the learned or the curious.
+Dates and names, battles and sieges, have not been disregarded; but
+more attention has been given to those ideas and to those men by whose
+influence and agency great changes have taken place. In a work so
+limited, and yet so varied, marginal references to original
+authorities have not been deemed necessary; but a list of standard and
+accessible authors is furnished, at the close of each chapter, which
+the young student, seeking more minute information, can easily
+consult. A continuation of this History to the present time might seem
+desirable; but it would be difficult to condense the complicated
+events of the last thirty years into less than another volume. Instead
+of an unsatisfactory compend, especially of subjects concerning which
+there are great differences of opinion, and considerable warmth of
+feeling, useful tables of important events are furnished in the
+Appendix. I have only to add, that if I have succeeded in remedying,
+in some measure, the defects of those dry compendiums, which are used
+for want of living histories; if I have combined what is instructive
+with what is entertaining; and especially if I shall impress the
+common mind, even to a feeble degree, with those great moral truths
+which history ought to teach, I shall feel that my agreeable labor is
+not without its reward.
+
+                                        J. L.
+
+  BOSTON, _October, 1849_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
+  (pp. 1-9.)
+
+Revival of the Arts -- Influence of Feudalism -- Effects of
+Scholasticism -- Ecclesiastical Corruptions -- Papal Infallibility --
+The sale of Indulgences -- The Corruptions of the Church -- Necessity
+for Reform.
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
+  (pp. 10-29.)
+
+The Early Life of Luther -- Luther's Early Religious Struggles -- The
+Ninety-Five Propositions -- Erasmus -- Melancthon -- Leo X. -- The
+Leipsic Disputation -- Principles of the Leipsic Disputation -- The
+Rights of Private Judgment -- Luther's Elements of Greatness --
+Excommunication of Luther -- The Diet of Worms -- Imprisonment at
+Wartburg -- Carlstadt -- Thomas Muenzer Ulric -- Zwingle -- Controversy
+between Luther and Zwingle -- Diet of Augsburg -- League of Smalcalde
+-- Death and Character of Luther.
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+  (pp. 30-44.)
+
+Charles V. -- Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century -- Wars
+between Charles and Francis. -- Diet of Spires -- Hostilities between
+Charles and Francis -- African War -- Council of Trent -- Treachery of
+Maurice -- Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse -- Heroism of Maurice
+-- Misfortunes of Charles -- Treaty of Passau -- Character of Charles.
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  HENRY VIII.
+  (pp. 45-59.)
+
+Rise of Absolute Monarchy -- Henry VIII. -- Rise of Cardinal Wolsey --
+Magnificence of Henry VIII. -- Anne Boleyn -- Queen Catharine --
+Disgrace and Death of Wolsey -- More -- Cranmer -- Cromwell -- Quarrel
+with the Pope -- Suppression of Monasteries -- Execution of Anne
+Boleyn -- Anne of Cleves -- Catharine Howard -- Last Days of Henry --
+Death of Henry.
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EDWARD VI. AND MARY.
+  (pp. 60-68.)
+
+War with Scotland -- Rebellions and Discontents -- Rivalry of the
+great Nobles -- Religious Reforms -- Execution of Northumberland --
+Marriage of the Queen -- Religious Persecution -- Character of Mary --
+Accession of Elizabeth.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  ELIZABETH.
+  (pp. 69-81.)
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots -- John Knox -- Marriage of Mary -- Darnley --
+Bothwell -- Civil War in Scotland -- Captivity of Queen Mary --
+Execution of Mary -- Military Preparations of Philip II. -- Spanish
+Armada -- Irish Rebellion -- The Earl of Essex -- Character of
+Elizabeth -- Improvements made in the Reign of Elizabeth --
+Reflections.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV.
+  (pp. 82-90.)
+
+Catharine de Medicis -- Civil War in France -- Massacre of St.
+Bartholomew -- Henry III. -- Henry IV. -- Edict of Nantes --
+Improvements during the Reign of Henry IV. -- Peace Scheme of
+Henry IV. -- Death of Henry IV. -- France at the Death of Henry IV.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.
+  (pp. 91-96.)
+
+Bigotry of Philip II. -- Revolt of the Netherlands -- Revolt of the
+Moriscoes -- Causes of the Decline of the Spanish Monarchy -- The
+Increase of Gold and Silver -- Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+  (pp. 97-107.)
+
+The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century -- Rise of the Jesuits --
+Rapid Spread of the Jesuits -- Extraordinary Virtues of the older
+Jesuits -- The Constitution of the Jesuits -- Degeneracy of the
+Jesuits -- Evils in the Jesuit System -- The Popes in the Seventeenth
+Century -- Nepotism of the Popes -- Rome in the Seventeenth Century.
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
+  (pp. 108-119.)
+
+Political Troubles after the Death of Luther -- Diet of Augsburg --
+Commencement of the Thirty Years' War -- The Emperor Frederic -- Count
+Wallenstein -- Character of Wallenstein -- Gustavus Adolphus -- Loss
+of Magdeburg -- Wallenstein reinstated in Power -- Death of Gustavus
+Adolphus -- Assassination of Wallenstein -- Treaty of Westphalia.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.
+  (pp. 120-132.)
+
+Regency of Mary de Medicis -- Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu --
+Suppression of the Huguenots -- The Depression of the great Nobles --
+Power of Richelieu -- Character of Richelieu -- Effects of Richelieu's
+Policy -- Richelieu's Policy -- Cardinal de Retz -- Prince of Conde --
+Power of Mazarin -- Death of Mazarin.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES.
+  (pp. 133-180.)
+
+Accession of James I. -- The Genius of the Reign of James --
+Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh -- Gunpowder Plot -- Persecution of
+the Catholics -- Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset -- Greatness and Fall
+of Somerset -- Duke of Buckingham -- Lord Bacon -- Trial and Execution
+of Raleigh -- Encroachments of James -- Quarrel between James and
+Parliament -- Death of James -- The Struggle of Classes -- Rise of
+Popular Power -- Quarrel between the King and the Commons -- The
+Counsellors of Charles -- Death of Buckingham -- Petition of Right --
+Earl of Strafford -- John Hampden -- Insurrection in Scotland -- Long
+Parliament -- Rebellion of Ireland -- Flight of the King from London
+-- Rise of the Puritans -- Original Difficulties and Differences --
+Persecution during the Reign of Elizabeth -- Archbishops Grindal and
+Whitgift -- Persecution under James -- Puritans in Exile -- Troubles
+in Scotland -- Peculiarities of Puritanism in England -- Conflicts
+among the Puritans -- Character of the Puritans -- John Hampden --
+Oliver Cromwell -- The King at Oxford -- Cromwell after the Battle of
+Marston Moor -- Enthusiasm of the Independents -- Battle of Naseby --
+Success of the Parliamentary Army -- Seizure of the King -- Triumph of
+the Independents -- Cromwell invades Scotland -- Seizure of the King a
+second Time -- Trial of the King.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
+  (pp. 181-191.)
+
+Storming of Drogheda and Wexford -- Battle of Worcester -- Policy of
+Cromwell -- The Rump Parliament -- Dispersion of the Parliament
+Cromwell assumes the Protectorship -- The Dutch War -- Cromwell rules
+without a Parliament -- The Protectorate -- Regal Government restored.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.
+  (pp. 192-210.)
+
+The Restoration -- Great Public Rejoicings -- Reaction to
+Revolutionary Principles -- Excellencies in Charles's Government --
+Failure of the Puritan Experiment -- Repeal of the Triennial Bill --
+Secret Alliance with Louis XIV. -- Venality and Sycophancy of
+Parliament -- Restrictions on the Press -- Habeas Corpus Act -- Titus
+Oates -- Oates's Revelations -- Penal Laws against Catholics --
+Persecution of Dissenters -- Execution of Russell and Sydney --
+Manners and Customs of England -- Milton -- Dryden -- Condition of the
+People of England.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE REIGN OF JAMES II.
+  (pp. 211-233.)
+
+Accession of James II. -- Monmouth lands in England -- Battle of
+Sedgemoor -- Death of Monmouth -- Brutality of Jeffreys -- Persecution
+of the Dissenters -- George Fox -- Persecution of the Quakers --
+Despotic Power of James -- Favor extended to Catholics -- High
+Commission Court -- Quarrel with the Universities -- Magdalen College
+-- Prosecution of the Seven Bishops -- Tyranny and infatuation of
+James -- Organized Opposition -- William, Prince of Orange -- Critical
+condition of James -- Invasion of England by William -- Flight of the
+King -- Consummation of the Revolution -- Declaration of Rights.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  LOUIS XIV.
+  (pp. 234-251.)
+
+The Power and Resources of Louis -- His Habits and Pleasures -- His
+Military Ambition -- William, Prince of Orange -- Second Invasion of
+Holland -- Dutch War -- Madame de Montespan -- Madame de Maintenon --
+League of Augsburg -- Opposing Armies and Generals -- War of the
+Spanish Succession -- Duke of Marlborough -- Battle of Blenheim --
+Exertions and Necessities of Louis -- Treaty of Utrecht -- Last Days
+of Louis -- His Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  WILLIAM AND MARY.
+  (pp. 252-270.)
+
+Irish Rebellion -- King James in Ireland -- Freedom of the Press --
+Act of Settlement -- Death of William III. -- Character of William --
+Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke -- Anne -- The Duke of Marlborough --
+Character of Marlborough -- Whigs and Tories -- Dr. Henry Sacheverell
+-- Union of Scotland and England -- Duke of Hamilton -- Wits of Queen
+Anne's Reign -- Swift -- Pope -- Bolingbroke -- Gay -- Prior --
+Writers of the Age of Queen Anne.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.
+  (pp. 271-289.)
+
+Early History of Russia -- The Tartar Conquest -- Accession of Peter
+the Great -- Peter's Reforms -- His War with Charles XII. --
+Charles XII. -- Building of St. Petersburg -- New War with Sweden --
+War with the Turks -- Peter makes a second Tour -- Elevation of
+Catharine -- Early History of Sweden -- Introduction of Christianity
+-- Gustavus Vasa -- Early Days of Charles XII -- Charles's Heroism --
+His Misfortunes -- His Return to Sweden -- His Death.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
+  (pp. 290-309.)
+
+Accession of George I. -- Sir Robert Walpole -- The Pretender --
+Invasion of Scotland -- The South Sea Bubble -- The South Sea Company
+-- Opposition of Walpole -- Mania for Speculation -- Bursting of the
+South Sea Bubble -- Enlightened policy of Walpole -- East India
+Company -- Resignation of Townshend -- Unpopularity of Walpole --
+Decline of his power -- John Wesley -- Early life of Wesley --
+Whitefield -- Institution of Wesley -- Itinerancy -- Great influence
+and power of Wesley.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.
+  (pp. 310-341.)
+
+Commercial Enterprise -- Spanish Conquests and Settlements --
+Portuguese Discoveries -- Portuguese Settlements -- Early English
+Enterprise -- Sir Walter Raleigh -- London Company incorporated --
+Hardships of the Virginia Colony -- New Charter of the London Company
+-- Rapid Colonization -- Indian Warfare -- Governor Harvey --
+Arbitrary Policy of Charles II. -- Settlement of New England --
+Arrival of the Mayflower -- Settlement of New Hampshire --
+Constitution of the Colony -- Doctrines of the Puritans -- Pequod War
+-- Union of the New England Colonies -- William Penn -- Settlement of
+New York -- Conquest of New Netherlands -- Discovery of the St.
+Lawrence -- Jesuit Missionaries -- Prosperity of the English Colonies
+-- French Encroachments -- European Settlements in the East -- French
+Settlements in India -- La Bourdonnais and Dupleix -- Clive's
+Victories -- Conquest of India.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.
+  (pp. 342-359.)
+
+The Pelhams -- The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart -- Surrender of
+Edinburgh -- Success of the Pretender -- The Retreat of the Pretender
+-- Battle of Culloden -- Latter Days of the Pretender -- Maria Theresa
+-- Capture of Louisburg -- Great Colonial Contest -- Character of the
+Duke of Newcastle -- Unpopularity of the Pelhams -- Rise of William
+Pitt -- Brilliant Military Successes -- Military Successes in America
+-- Victories of Clive in India -- Resignation of Pitt -- Peace of
+Paris.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  LOUIS XV.
+  (pp. 360-379.)
+
+Regency of the Duke of Orleans -- John Law -- Mississippi Company --
+Popular Delusion -- Fatal Effects of the Delusion -- Administration of
+Cardinal Fleury -- Cornelius Jansen -- St. Cyran -- Arnauld -- Le
+Maitre -- The Labors of the Port Royalists -- Principles of Jansenism
+-- Functions of the Parliament -- The Bull Unigenitus -- Madame de
+Pompadour -- The Jesuits -- Exposure of the Jesuits -- Their Expulsion
+from France -- Suppression in Spain -- Pope Clement XIV. -- Death of
+Ganganelli -- Death of Louis XV.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  FREDERIC THE GREAT.
+  (pp. 380-390.)
+
+Frederic William -- Accession of Frederic the Great -- The Seven
+Years' War -- Battle of Rossbach -- Battle of Leuthen -- Fall of
+Dresden -- Reverses of Frederic -- Continued Disasters -- Exhaustion
+of Prussia by the War -- Death of Frederic -- Character of Frederic.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II.
+  (pp. 391-401.)
+
+The Germanic Constitution -- The Hungarian War -- The Emperor Joseph
+-- Accession of Maria Theresa -- She institutes Reforms -- Successors
+of Peter the Great -- Murder of Peter III. -- Assassination, of Ivan
+-- Death of Catharine -- Her Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  CALAMITIES OF POLAND.
+  (pp. 402-408.)
+
+The Crown of Poland made elective -- Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou
+-- Sobieski assists the Emperor Leopold -- The Liberum Veto -- The
+Fall of Poland.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
+  (pp. 409-415.)
+
+Saracenic Empire -- Rise of the Turks -- Turkish Conquerors --
+Progress of the Turks -- Decline of Turkish Power -- Turkish
+Institutions -- Turkish Character.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  REIGN OF GEORGE III. TO ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+  (pp. 416-431.)
+
+Military Successes in America -- Prosecution of Wilkes -- Churchill --
+Grafton's Administration -- Popularity of Wilkes -- Taxation of the
+Colonies -- Indignation of the Colonies -- Functions of the Parliament
+-- The Stamp Act -- Lord Chatham -- Administration of Lord North --
+Irish Discontents -- Protestant Association -- Lord George Gordon's
+Riots -- Parliamentary Reforms.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
+  (pp. 432-449.)
+
+Causes of the Revolution -- Riots and Disturbances -- Duty on Tea --
+Port of Boston closed -- Meeting of Congress -- Speech of Burke --
+Battle of Bunker Hill -- Death of Montgomery -- Declaration of
+American Independence -- Commissioners sent to France -- Capture of
+Burgoyne -- Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture -- Arrival of La
+Fayette -- Evacuation of Philadelphia -- The Treason of Arnold --
+Surrender of Lord Cornwallis -- Resignation of Lord North.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+  (pp. 450-470.)
+
+William Pitt -- Early Life of Pitt -- Policy of Pitt -- Difficulties
+with Ireland -- The United Irishmen -- Union of England and Ireland --
+Condition of Ireland -- Parliamentary Reform -- Warren Hastings -- War
+with Hyder Ali -- Robbery of the Princesses of Oude -- Prosecution of
+Hastings -- Edmund Burke -- Charles James Fox -- Richard Brinsley
+Sheridan -- Bill for the Regulation of India -- War with Tippoo Saib
+-- Conquest of India -- Consequences of the Conquest -- War with
+France -- Policy of Pitt.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+  (pp. 471-495.)
+
+Causes of the French Revolution -- Helvetius -- Voltaire -- Rousseau
+-- Diderot -- General Influence of the Philosophers -- Sufferings of
+the People -- Degradation of the People -- Derangement of Finances --
+Maurepas -- Turgot -- Malesherbes -- Necker -- Calonne -- States
+General -- The Tiers Etat -- Commotions -- Rule of the People --
+National Federation -- Flight of the King -- The Girondists and the
+Jacobins -- The National Convention -- Marat -- Danton -- Robespierre
+-- General War -- Reign of Terror -- Death of Robespierre -- New
+Constitution -- The Directory.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+  (pp. 496-526.)
+
+Character of Bonaparte -- Early Days of Bonaparte -- Early Services to
+the Republic -- The Italian Campaign -- Battle of Cape St. Vincent --
+Conquest of Venice by Bonaparte -- Invasion of Egypt -- Siege of
+Acre -- Reverses of the French -- Bonaparte First Consul -- Immense
+Military Preparations -- The Reforms of Bonaparte -- The Code Napoleon
+-- Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French -- Meditated Invasion of
+England -- Battle of Austerlitz -- Battle of Jena -- Bonaparte
+aggrandizes France -- Aggrandizement of Bonaparte's Family -- The
+Peninsular War -- Invasion of Russia -- Battle of Smolensko -- Retreat
+of the French -- Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen -- Battle of Leipsic --
+The Allied Powers invade France -- Peace of Paris -- Bonaparte escapes
+from Elba -- Battle of Waterloo -- Reflections on Napoleon's Fall.
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+  (pp. 527-532.)
+
+Remarkable Men of Genius -- Condition of Germany -- Condition of other
+Powers -- The United States of America.
+
+
+  APPENDIX.
+
+      Chronological Table, from the Fall of Napoleon,              533
+      Prime Ministers of England, from the Accession of
+        Henry VIII.,                                               538
+      Table of the Monarchy of Europe, during the Sixteenth,
+        Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries,                     541
+      Genealogical Table of the Royal Family of England,           543
+      Genealogical Table of the Bourbons,                          544
+
+
+
+
+MODERN HISTORY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+
+The period at which this History commences,--the beginning of the
+sixteenth century,--when compared with the ages which had preceded it,
+since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented
+brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men
+and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to
+experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been
+suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put
+forth new energies in every department of life. The material and the
+political, the moral and the social condition of society was subject
+to powerful agitations, and passed through important changes.
+
+Great _discoveries and inventions_ had been made. The use of movable
+types, first ascribed to a German, of Mentz, by the name of Gutenberg,
+in 1441, and to Peter Schoeffer, in 1444, changed the whole system of
+book-making, and vastly increased the circulation of the Scriptures,
+the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by
+the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the
+ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had
+been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used
+on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of
+war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The
+polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, and not
+practically applied to the mariner's compass until 1403, had led to
+the greatest event of the fifteenth century--the discovery of America
+by Christopher Columbus, in 1492. The impulse given to commerce by
+this and other discoveries of unknown continents and oceans, by the
+Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, and the French,
+cannot be here enlarged on. America revealed to the astonished
+European her riches in gold and silver; and Indian spices, and silks,
+and drugs, were imported, through new channels, into all the countries
+inhabited by the Teutonic races. Mercantile wealth, with all its
+refinements, acquired new importance in the eyes of the nations. The
+world opened towards the east and the west. The horizon of knowledge
+extended. Popular delusions were dispelled. Liberality of mind was
+acquired. The material prosperity of the western nations was
+increased. Tastes became more refined, and social intercourse more
+cheerful.
+
+[Sidenote: Revival of the Arts.]
+
+Art, in all its departments, was every where revived at this epoch.
+Houses became more comfortable, and churches more splendid. The
+utensils of husbandry and of cookery were improved. Linen and woollen
+manufactures supplanted the coarser fabrics of the dark ages. Music
+became more elaborate, and the present system of notation was adopted.
+The genius of the sculptor again gave life and beauty to a marble
+block, and painting was carried to greater perfection than by the
+ancient Greeks and Romans. Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome became
+seats of various schools of this beautiful art, of which Michael
+Angelo, Correggio, the Carracci, and Raphael were the most celebrated
+masters, all of whom were distinguished for peculiar excellences,
+never since surpassed, or even equalled. The Flemish artists were
+scarcely behind the Italian; and Rubens, of Antwerp, may well rank
+with Correggio and Titian. To Raphael, however, the world has, as yet,
+furnished no parallel.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of Feudalism.]
+
+_The political and social structure_ of society changed. The crusades,
+long before, had given a shock to the political importance of the
+feudal aristocracy, and reviving commerce and art had shaken the
+system to its foundations. The Flemish weavers had arisen, and a
+mercantile class had clamored for new privileges. In the struggle of
+classes, and in the misfortunes of nobles, monarchs had perceived the
+advantages they might gain, and fortunate circumstances enabled them
+to raise absolute thrones, and restore a central power, always so
+necessary to the cause of civilization. Feudalism had answered many
+useful ends in the dark ages. It had secured a reciprocity of duties
+between a lord and his vassal; it had restored loyalty, truth, and
+fidelity among semi-barbarians; it had favored the cultivation of the
+soil; it had raised up a hardy rural population; it had promoted
+chivalry, and had introduced into Europe the modern gentleman; it had
+ennobled friendship, and spread the graces of urbanity and gentleness
+among rough and turbulent warriors. But it had, also, like all human
+institutions, become corrupt, and failed to answer the ends for which
+it was instituted. It had become an oppressive social despotism; it
+had widened the distinction between the noble and ignoble classes; it
+had produced selfishness and arrogance among the nobles, and a mean
+and cringing sycophancy among the people; it had perpetuated
+privileges, among the aristocracy, exceedingly unjust, and ruinous to
+the general welfare of society. It therefore fell before the advancing
+spirit of the age, and monarchies and republics were erected on its
+ruins. The people, as well as monarchs, had learned the secret of
+their power. They learned that, by combining their power, they could
+successfully resist their enemies. The principle of association was
+learned. Combinations of masses took place. Free cities were
+multiplied. A population of artificers, and small merchants, and free
+farmers arose. They discussed their privileges, and asserted their
+independence. Political liberty was born, and its invaluable blessings
+were conceived, if they were not realized.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of Scholasticism.]
+
+_And the intellectual state_ of Europe received an impulse as marked
+and beneficent as the physical and social. The scholastic philosophy,
+with its dry and technical logic, its abstruse formulas, and its
+subtle refinements, ceased to satisfy the wants of the human mind, now
+craving light and absolute knowledge in all departments of science and
+philosophy. Like feudalism, it had once been useful; but like that
+institution, it had also become corrupted, and an object of sarcasm
+and mockery. It had trained the European mind for the discoveries of
+the sixteenth century; it had raised up an inquisitive spirit, and had
+led to profound reflections on the existence of God, on his attributes
+and will, on the nature of the soul, on the faculties of the mind and
+on the practical duties of life. But this philosophy became pedantic
+and cold; covered, as with a funereal shade, the higher pursuits of
+life; and diverted attention from what was practical and useful. That
+earnest spirit, which raised up Luther and Bacon, demanded, of the
+great masters of thought, something which the people could understand,
+and something which would do them good.
+
+In poetry, the insipid and immoral songs of the Provencal bards gave
+place to the immortal productions of the great creators of the
+European languages. Dante led the way in Italy, and gave to the world
+the "Divine Comedy"--a masterpiece of human genius, which raised him
+to the rank of Homer and Virgil. Petrarch followed in his steps, and,
+if not as profound or original as Dante, yet is unequalled as an
+"enthusiastic songster of ideal love." He also gave a great impulse to
+civilization by his labors in collecting and collating manuscripts.
+Boccaccio also lent his aid in the revival of literature, and wrote a
+series of witty, though objectionable stories, from which the English
+Chaucer borrowed the notion of his "Canterbury Tales." Chaucer is the
+father of English poetry, and kindled a love of literature among his
+isolated countrymen; and was one of the few men who, in the evening of
+his days, looked upon the world without austerity, and expressed
+himself with all the vivacity of youthful feeling.
+
+[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical Corruptions.]
+
+Such were some of the leading events and circumstances which gave a
+new life to European society, and created a desire for better days.
+All of these causes of improvement acted and reacted on each other in
+various ways, and prepared the way to new and great developments of
+action and passion. These new energies were, however, unfortunately
+checked by a combination of evils which had arisen in the dark ages,
+and which required to be subverted before any great progress could be
+reasonably expected. These evils were most remarkable in the church
+itself and almost extinguished the light which Christ and his apostles
+had kindled. The church looked with an evil eye on many of the
+greatest improvements and agitations of the age, and attempted to
+suppress the spirit of insurrection which had arisen against the
+abuses and follies of past ages. Great ideas were ridiculed, and
+daring spirits were crushed. There were many good men in the church
+who saw and who lamented prevailing corruptions, but their voice was
+overwhelmed by the clamors of interested partisans, or silenced by the
+authority of the popes. The character of the popes themselves was not
+what was expected of the heads of the visible church, or what was
+frequently exhibited in those ignorant and superstitious times, when
+the papacy fulfilled, in the opinion of many enlightened Protestants,
+a benevolent mission. None had the disinterestedness of Gregory I., or
+the talents of Gregory VII. There had been a time when the great
+central spiritual monarchy of Rome had been exercised for the peace
+and tranquillity of Europe, when it was uniformly opposed to slavery
+and war, and when it was a mild and paternal government, which
+protected innocence and weakness, while it punished injustice and
+crime. The time was, when popes had been elevated for their piety and
+learning, and when they lived as saints and died as martyrs. But that
+time had passed. The Roman church did not keep up with the spirit or
+the wants of the age, and moreover did not reform itself from vices
+which had been overlooked in ages of ignorance and superstition. In
+the fifteenth century, many great abuses scandalized a body of men who
+should have been the lights of the world; and the sacred pontiffs
+themselves set examples of unusual depravity. Julius II. marched at
+the head of armies. Alexander VI. secured his election by bribery, and
+reigned by extortion. He poisoned his own cardinals, and bestowed on
+his son Caesar Borgia--an incarnated demon--the highest dignities and
+rewards. It was common for the popes to sell the highest offices in
+the church for money, to place boys on episcopal thrones, to absolve
+the most heinous and scandalous crimes for gold, to encourage the
+massacre of heretics, and to disgrace themselves by infamous vices.
+And a general laxity of morals existed among all orders of the clergy.
+They were ignorant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were
+exceedingly numerous; had ceased to be men of prayer and
+contemplation, as in the days of Benedict and Bernard; and might be
+seen frequenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to
+pleasure, and enriched by inglorious gains.
+
+But the evils which the church encouraged were more dangerous than the
+vices of its members. These evils were inherent in the papal system,
+and were hard to be subverted. There were corruptions of doctrine, and
+corruptions in the government and customs of the church.
+
+[Sidenote: Papal Infallibility.]
+
+There generally prevailed, throughout Christendom, the belief in papal
+infallibility, which notion subverted the doctrines of the Bible, and
+placed its truths, at least, on a level with the authority of the
+schoolmen. It favored the various usurpations of the popes, and
+strengthened the bonds of spiritual despotism.
+
+The popes also claimed a control over secular princes, as well as the
+supremacy of the church. Hildebrand was content with riveting the
+chains of universal spiritual authority, the evil and absurdity of
+which cannot well be exaggerated; but his more ambitious successors
+sought to reduce the kings of the earth to perfect vassalage, and,
+when in danger of having their monstrous usurpations torn from them,
+were ready to fill the world with discord and war.
+
+But the worldly popes of the fifteenth century also aspired to be
+temporal princes. They established the most elegant court in Europe;
+they supported large armies; they sought to restore the splendor of
+imperial Rome; they became ambitious of founding great families; they
+enriched their nephews and relations at the sacrifice of the best
+interests of their church; they affected great state and dignity; they
+built gorgeous palaces; they ornamented their capital with pictures
+and statues.
+
+The territories of Rome were, however, small. The lawful revenues of
+the popes were insufficient to gratify their extravagance and pomp.
+But money, nevertheless, they must have. In order to raise it, they
+resorted to extortion and corruption. They imposed taxes on
+Christendom, direct and indirect. These were felt as an intolerable
+burden; but such was the superstition of the times, that they were
+successfully raised. But even these were insufficient to gratify papal
+avarice and rapacity. They then resorted, in their necessities, to the
+meanest acts, imposed on the simplicity of their subjects, and finally
+adopted the most infamous custom which ever disgraced the world.
+
+[Sidenote: The Sale of Indulgences.]
+
+They pardoned sins for money--granted sales of indulgences for crime.
+A regular scale for absolution was graded. A proclamation was made
+every fifty, and finally every twenty-five years, of a year of
+jubilee, when plenary remission of all sin was promised to those who
+should make a pilgrimage to Rome. And so great was the influx of
+strangers, and consequently of wealth, to Rome, that, on one occasion,
+it was collected into piles by rakes. It is computed that two hundred
+thousand deluded persons visited the city in a single month. But the
+vast sums they brought to Rome, and the still greater sums which were
+obtained by the sale of indulgences, and by various taxations, were
+all squandered in ornamenting the city, and in supporting a luxurious
+court, profligate cardinals, and superfluous ministers of a corrupted
+religion. Then was erected the splendid church of St. Peter, more
+after the style of Grecian temples, than after the model of the Gothic
+cathedrals of York and Cologne. Glorious was that monument of reviving
+art; wonderful was its lofty dome; but the vast sums required to build
+it opened the eyes of Christendom to the extravagance and presumption
+of the popes; and this splendid trophy of their glory also became the
+emblem of their broken power. Their palaces and temples made an
+imposing show, but detracted from their real strength, which consisted
+in the affections of their spiritual subjects. Their outward grandeur,
+like the mechanical agencies which kings employ, was but a poor
+substitute for the invisible power of love,--in all ages, and among
+all people, "that cheap defence" which supports thrones and kingdoms.
+
+[Sidenote: The Corruptions of the Church.]
+
+Another great evil was, the prevalence of an idolatrous spirit. In the
+churches and chapels, and even in private families, were innumerable
+images of saints, pictures of the Virgin, relics, crucifixes, &c.,
+designed at first to kindle a spirit of devotion among the rude and
+uneducated, but gradually becoming objects of real adoration.
+Intercessions were supposed to be made by the Virgin Mary, and by
+favorite saints, more efficacious with Deity than the penitence and
+prayers of the erring and sinful themselves. The influence of this
+veneration for martyrs and saints was degrading to the mind, and
+became a very lucrative source of profit to the priests, who peddled
+the bones and relics of saints as they did indulgences, and who
+invented innumerable lies to attest the genuineness and antiquity of
+the objects they sold, all of which were parts of the great system of
+fraud and avarice which the church permitted.
+
+Again; the public worship of God was in a language the people could
+not understand, but rendered impressive by the gorgeous dresses of the
+priests, and the magnificence of the altar, and the images and vessels
+of silver and gold, reflecting their splendor, by the light of wax
+candles, on the sombre pillars, roofs, and windows of the Gothic
+church, and the effect heightened by exciting music, and other appeals
+to the taste or imagination, rather than to the reason and the heart.
+The sermons of the clergy were frivolous, and ill adapted to the
+spiritual wants of the people. "Men went to the Vatican," says the
+learned and philosophical Ranke, "not to pray, but to contemplate the
+Belvidere Apollo. They disgraced the most solemn festivals by open
+profanations. The clergy, in their services, sought the means of
+exciting laughter. One would mock the cuckoo, and another recite
+indecent stories about St. Peter." Luther, when he visited Italy, was
+extremely shocked at the infidel spirit which prevailed among the
+clergy, who were hostile to the circulation of the Scriptures, and who
+encouraged persecutions and inquisitions. This was the age when the
+dreadful tribunal of the Inquisition flourished, although its chief
+enormities were perpetrated in Spain and Portugal. It never had an
+existence in England, and but little influence in France and Germany.
+But if the Church did not resort, in all countries, to that dread
+tribunal which subjected youth, beauty, and innocence to the
+inquisitorial vengeance of narrow-minded Dominican monks, still she
+was hostile to free inquiry, and to all efforts made to emancipate the
+reason of men.
+
+The spirit of religious persecution, which inflamed the Roman Church
+to punish all dissenters from the doctrine and abuses she promulgated,
+can never be questioned. The Waldenses and Albigenses had suffered, in
+darker times, almost incredible hardships and miseries--had been
+almost annihilated by the dreadful crusade which was carried on
+against them, so that two hundred thousand had perished for supposed
+heresy. But reference is not now made to this wholesale massacre, but
+to those instances of individual persecution which showed the extreme
+jealousy and hatred of Rome of all new opinions. John Huss and Jerome
+of Prague were publicly burned for attempting to reform the church,
+and even Savonarola, who did not deny the authority of the popes, was
+condemned to the flames for denouncing the vices of his age, rather
+than the evils of the church.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity for Reform.]
+
+These multiplied evils, which checked the spirit of improvement,
+called loudly for reform. Councils were assembled for the purpose; but
+councils supported, rather than diminished, the evils of which even
+princes complained. The reform was not destined to come from
+dignitaries in the church or state; not from bishops, nor
+philosophers, nor kings, but from an obscure teacher of divinity in a
+German university, whom the genius of a reviving and awakened age had
+summoned into the field of revolutionary warfare. It was reserved for
+Martin Luther to commence the first successful rebellion against the
+despotism of Rome, and to give the greatest impulse to freedom of
+thought, and a general spirit of reform, which ten centuries had seen.
+
+The most prominent event in modern times is unquestionably the
+Protestant Reformation, and it was by far the most momentous in its
+results. It gave rise, directly or indirectly, to the great wars of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as to those rival
+sects which agitated the theological world. It is connected with the
+enterprises of great monarchs, with the struggle of the Huguenots and
+Puritans, with the diffusion of knowledge, and with the progress of
+civil and religious liberty in Europe. An event, therefore, of such
+interest and magnitude, may well be adopted as a starting point in
+modern history, and will, accordingly, be the first subject of
+especial notice. History is ever most impressive and philosophical
+when great changes and revolutions are traced to the agency of great
+spiritual ideas. Moreover, modern history is so complicated, that it
+is difficult to unravel it except by tracing the agency of great
+causes, rather than by detailing the fortunes of kings and nobles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Early Life of Luther.]
+
+Martin Luther was born the 10th of November, 1483, at Eisleben, in
+Saxony. His father was a miner, of Mansfield, and his ancestors were
+peasants, who lived near the summit of the Thuringian Forest. His
+early years were spent at Mansfield, in extreme poverty, and he earned
+his bread by singing hymns before the houses of the village. At the
+age of fifteen, he went to Eisenach, to a high school, and at eighteen
+entered the university of Erfurt, where he made considerable progress
+in the sciences then usually taught, which, however, were confined
+chiefly to the scholastic philosophy. He did not know either Greek or
+Hebrew, but read the Bible in Latin. In 1505, he took his degree of
+bachelor of arts, and, shortly after, his religious struggles
+commenced. He had witnessed a fearful tempest, which alarmed him,
+while on a visit at his father's house, and he was also much depressed
+by the death of an intimate friend. In that age, the serious and the
+melancholy generally sought monastic retreats, and Luther, thirsty
+after divine knowledge, and anxious to save his soul, resolved to
+forsake the world, and become a monk. He entered an Augustinian
+monastery at Erfurt, soon after obtaining his first degree. But the
+duties and studies of monastic life did not give his troubled soul the
+repose he sought. He submitted to all the irksome labors which the
+monks imposed; he studied the fathers and the schoolmen; he practised
+the most painful austerities, and fastings, and self-lacerations:
+still he was troubled with religious fears. His brethren encouraged
+his good works, but his perplexities and doubts remained. In this
+state of mind, he was found by Staupitz, vicar-general of the order,
+who was visiting Erfurt, in his tour of inspection, with a view to
+correct the bad morals of the monasteries. He sympathized with Luther
+in his religious feelings, treated him with great kindness, and
+recommended the reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St.
+Augustine whose theological views he himself had embraced. Although
+St. Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still, his
+doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from
+those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines generally,
+who attached less importance to justification by faith than did the
+venerated bishop of Hyppo. In that age of abuses, great importance was
+attached, by the church, to austerities, penance, and absolutions for
+money. But Luther, deeply imbued with the spirit of Augustine, at
+length found light, and repose, and joy, in the doctrine of
+justification by faith alone. This became more and more the idea of
+his life, especially at this time. The firmness of his convictions on
+this point became extraordinary, and his spiritual gladness now
+equalled his former depression and anxiety. He was soon to find a
+sphere for the development of his views.
+
+Luther was consecrated as a priest in 1507, and in 1508 he was invited
+by Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to become a professor in the new
+university which he had established at Wittemberg. He was now
+twenty-five years of age, and the fact, that he should have been
+selected, at that early age, to teach dialectics, is a strong argument
+in favor of his attainments and genius.
+
+He now began to apply himself to the study of the Greek and Hebrew,
+and delivered lectures on biblical theology; and his novel method, and
+great enthusiasm, attracted a crowd of students. But his sermons were
+more striking even than his lectures, and he was invited, by the
+council of Wittemberg, to be the preacher for the city. His eloquence,
+his learning, and his zeal, now attracted considerable attention, and
+the elector himself visited Wittemberg to hear him preach.
+
+In 1512, he was sent on an embassy to Rome, and, while in Italy,
+obtained useful knowledge of the actual state of the hierarchy, and of
+morals and religion. Julius II., a warlike pontiff, sat on the throne
+of St. Peter; and the "Eternal City" was the scene of folly,
+dissipation, and clerical extortion. Luther returned to Germany
+completely disgusted with every thing he had seen--the levity and
+frivolity of the clergy, and the ignorance and vices of the people. He
+was too earnest in his religious views and feelings to take much
+interest in the works of art, or the pleasures, which occupied the
+attention of the Italians; and the impression of the general iniquity
+and corruption of Rome never passed away, and probably gave a new
+direction to his thoughts.
+
+[Sidenote: Luther's Early Religious Struggles.]
+
+On his return, in 1512, he was made doctor of divinity, then a great
+distinction, and renewed his lectures in the university with great
+ardor. He gave a new impulse to the studies, and a new form to the
+opinions of both professors and students. Lupinus and Carlstadt, his
+colleagues, were converts to his views. All within his sphere were
+controlled by his commanding genius, and extraordinary force of
+character. He commenced war upon the schoolmen, and was peculiarly
+hostile to Thomas Aquinas, whom he accused of Pelagianism. He also
+attacked Aristotle, the great idol of the schools, and overwhelmed
+scholasticism with sarcasm and mockery.
+
+Such was the state of things when the preachers of indulgences, whom
+Leo X. had encouraged, in order to raise money for St. Peter's Church,
+arrived in the country round the Elbe. They had already spread over
+Germany, Switzerland, and France. Their luxury and extravagance were
+only equalled by their presumption and insolence. All sorts of crime
+were pardoned by these people for money. Among the most remarkable of
+these religious swindlers and peddlers was Tetzel. He was a friar of
+the Dominicans, apostolical commissioner, inquisitor, and bachelor of
+theology. He united profligate morals with great pretensions to
+sanctity; was somewhat eloquent, so far as a sonorous voice was
+concerned, and was very bold and haughty, as vulgar men, raised to
+eminence and power, are apt to be. But his peculiarity consisted in
+the audacity of his pretensions, and his readiness in inventing
+stories to please the people, ever captivated by rhetoric and
+anecdote. "Indulgences," said he, "are the most precious and sublime
+of God's gifts." "I would not exchange my privileges for those of St.
+Peter in heaven; for I have saved more souls, with my indulgences,
+than he, with his sermons." "There is no sin so great that the
+indulgence cannot remit it: even repentance is not necessary:
+indulgences save not the living alone,--they save the dead." "The very
+moment that the money clinks against the bottom of this chest, the
+soul escapes from purgatory, and flies to heaven." "And do you know
+why our Lord distributes so rich a grace? The dilapidated Church of
+St. Peter and St. Paul is to be restored, which contains the bodies of
+those holy apostles, and which are now trodden, dishonored, and
+polluted."
+
+[Sidenote: The Ninety-Five Propositions.]
+
+Tetzel found but few sufficiently enlightened to resist him, and he
+obtained great sums from the credulous people. This abomination
+excited Luther's intensest detestation; and he accordingly wrote
+ninety-five propositions, and nailed them, in 1517, to the gates of
+the church, in which he denounced the traffic in indulgences, and
+traced the doctrine of absolution to the usurped power of the pope. He
+denied the value of his absolution, and maintained that the divine
+favor would only be granted on the condition of repentance and faith.
+
+In these celebrated propositions, he struck at the root of scholastic
+absurdities, and also of papal pretensions. The spirit which they
+breathed was bold, intrepid, and magnanimous. They electrified
+Germany, and gave a shock to the whole papal edifice. They had both a
+religious and a political bearing; religious, in reference to the
+grounds of justification, and political, in opening men's eyes to the
+unjust and ruinous extortions of Rome.
+
+Among those who perceived with great clearness the political tendency
+of these propositions, and rejoiced in it, was the elector of Saxony
+himself, the most powerful prince of the empire, who had long been
+vexed, in view of the vast sums which had been drained from his
+subjects. He also lamented the corruptions of the church, and probably
+sympathized with the theological opinions of Luther. He accordingly
+protected the bold professor, although he did not openly encourage
+him, or form an alliance with him. He let things take their course.
+Well did Frederic deserve the epithet of _Wise_.
+
+[Sidenote: Erasmus--Melancthon.]
+
+There was another great man who rejoiced in the appearance of Luther's
+theses; and this was Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, the
+autocrat of letters, and, at that time, living in Basle. He was born
+in Rotterdam, in 1467, of poor parents, but early attracted notice for
+his attainments, and early emancipated himself from the trammels of
+scholasticism, which he hated and despised as cordially as Luther
+himself. He also attacked, with elegant sarcasm the absurdities of his
+age, both in literature and morals. He denounced the sins and follies
+of the monks, and spoke of the necessity of reform. But his
+distinguishing excellence was his literary talent and taste. He was a
+great Greek scholar, and published a critical edition of the
+Testament, which he accompanied with a Latin translation. In this, he
+rendered great service to the reformers, especially to Luther. His
+fascinating style and extensive erudition gave him great literary
+fame. But he was timid, conservative, and vain; and sought to be
+popular, except among the monks, whom he uniformly ridiculed. One
+doctor hated him so cordially, that he had his picture hung up in his
+study, that he might spit in his face as often as he pleased. So far
+as Luther opposed monkery and despotism, his sympathies were with him.
+But he did not desire a radical reformation, as Luther did, and always
+shunned danger and obloquy. He dreaded an insurrection among the
+people, and any thing which looked either revolutionary or fanatical.
+Luther, therefore, much as he was gratified by his favor at first,
+soon learned to distrust him; and finally these two great men were
+unfriendly to each other.
+
+Melancthon was too prominent an actor in the great drama about to be
+performed, to be omitted in this sketch of great men who were on the
+side of reform. He was born in 1497, and was, therefore, fourteen
+years younger than Luther. He was educated under the auspices of the
+celebrated Greek scholar Reuchlin, who was also a relative. At twelve,
+he was sent to the university of Heidelberg; at fourteen, was made
+bachelor of arts; and at seventeen, doctor of philosophy. He began to
+lecture publicly at the age of seventeen; and, for his extraordinary
+attainments, was invited to Wittemberg, as professor of ancient
+languages, at the age of twenty-one. He arrived there in 1518, and
+immediately fell under the influence of Luther, who, however,
+acknowledged his classical attainments. He was considered a prodigy;
+was remarkably young looking, and so boyish, that the grave professors
+conceived but little hope of him at first. But, when he delivered his
+inaugural oration in Latin, all were astonished; and their prejudices
+were removed. Luther himself was enthusiastic in his praises, and a
+friendship commenced between them, which was never weakened by a
+quarrel. The mildness and gentleness of Philip Melancthon strongly
+contrasted with the boldness, energy, and tumultuous passions of
+Luther. The former was the more learned and elegant; the latter was
+the superior genius--a genius for commanding men, and guiding great
+enterprises.
+
+[Sidenote: Melancthon--Leo X.]
+
+But there was another great personage, who now viewed the movement of
+Luther with any thing but indifference; and this was Leo X., the
+reigning pope when the theses were published. He belonged to the
+illustrious family of the Medici, and was chosen cardinal at the age
+of thirteen. He was the most elegant and accomplished of all the
+popes, patronized art and literature, and ornamented his capital with
+palaces, churches, and statues. But with his sympathy for intellectual
+excellence, he was prodigal, luxurious, and worldly. Indeed, his
+spirit was almost infidel. He was more ambitious for temporal than
+spiritual power; and, when he commenced his reign, the papal
+possessions were more extensive and flourishing, than at any previous
+period. His leading error was, his recklessness in the imposition of
+taxes, even on the clergy themselves, by which he lost their
+confidence and regard. With a very fine mind, he was, nevertheless,
+quite unfitted for his station and his times.
+
+Thus far, he had allowed the outcry which Luther had raised against
+indulgences to take its course, and even disregarded the theses, which
+he supposed originated in a monkish squabble. But the Emperor
+Maximilian was alarmed, and wrote to the pope an account of Luther's
+differences with Tetzel. Frederic of Saxony had also written to his
+holiness, to palliate the conduct of Luther.
+
+When such powerful princes became interested, Leo was startled. He
+summoned Luther to Rome, to be tried by Prierias. Luther, not daring
+to refuse, and not willing to obey, wrote to his friend Spalatin to
+use his influence with the elector to have his cause tried in Germany;
+and the pope, willing to please Frederic, appointed De Vio, his
+legate, to investigate the matter. Luther accordingly set out for
+Augsburg, in obedience to the summons of De Vio, although dissuaded by
+many of his friends. He had several interviews with the legate, by
+whom he was treated with courtesy and urbanity, and by whom he was
+dissuaded from his present courses. But all the persuasion and
+argument of the cardinal legate were without effect on the mind of
+Luther, whose convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness
+or craft. De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract;
+but, when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone,
+and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave
+Augsburg; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff,
+whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled from the city,
+and returned to Wittemberg, being countenanced by the elector, to whom
+he also addressed letters. His life was safe so long as Frederic
+protected him.
+
+[Sidenote: The Leipsic Disputation.]
+
+The next event in the progress of Luther was the Leipsic disputation,
+June, 1519. The pope seemed willing to make one more effort to
+convince Luther, before he proceeded to more violent courses. There
+was then at his court a noble Saxon, Charles Miltitz, whose talents
+and insinuating address secured him the high office of chamberlain to
+the pope. He accordingly was sent into his native country, with the
+dignity of legate, to remove the difficulties which De Vio had
+attempted. He tried persuasion and flattery, and treated the reformer
+with great civility. But Luther still persisted in refusing to
+retract, and the matter was referred to the elector archbishop of
+Treves.
+
+While the controversy was pending, Dr. Eck, of the university of
+Ingolstadt, a man of great scholastic ingenuity and attainment, and
+proud of the prizes of eight universities, challenged the professors
+of Wittemberg to a public controversy on Grace and Free Will. He
+regarded a disputation with the eye of a practised fencer, and sought
+the means of extending his fame over North Germany. Leipsic was the
+appointed arena, and thither resorted the noble and the learned of
+Saxony. Eck was among the first who arrived, and, soon after, came
+Carlstadt, Luther, and Melancthon.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of the Leipsic Disputation.]
+
+The place for the combat was a hall in the royal palace of Duke
+George, cousin to the elector Frederic, which was arranged and
+ornamented with great care, and which was honored by the presence of
+the duke, and of the chief divines and nobles of Northern Germany.
+Carlstadt opened the debate, which did not excite much interest until
+Luther's turn came, the antagonist whom Eck was most desirous to meet,
+and whose rising fame he hoped to crush by a brilliant victory. Ranke
+thus describes Luther's person at this time. "He was of the middle
+size, and so thin as to be mere skin and bone. He possessed neither
+the thundering voice, nor the ready memory, nor the skill and
+dexterity, of his distinguished antagonist. But he stood in the prime
+of manhood and in the fulness of his strength. His voice was melodious
+and clear; he was perfectly versed in the Bible, and its aptest
+sentences presented themselves unbidden to his mind; above all, he
+inspired an irresistible conviction that he sought the truth. He was
+always cheerful at home, and a joyous, jocose companion at table; he
+even, on this grave occasion, ascended the platform with a nosegay in
+his hand; but, when there, he displayed the intrepid and
+self-forgetting earnestness arising from the depth of a conviction,
+until now, unfathomed, even by himself. He drew forth new thoughts,
+and placed them in the fire of the battle, with a determination that
+knew no fear and no personal regard. His features bore the traces of
+the storms that had passed over his soul, and of the courage with
+which he was prepared to encounter those which yet awaited him. His
+whole aspect evinced profound thought, joyousness of temper, and
+confidence in the future. The battle immediately commenced on the
+question of the authority of the papacy, which, at once intelligible
+and important, riveted universal attention." Eck, with great erudition
+and masterly logic, supported the claim of the pope, from the decrees
+of councils, the opinions of scholastics, and even from those
+celebrated words of Christ to Peter--"Thou art Peter, and on this rock
+will I build my church," &c. Luther took higher and bolder ground,
+denied the infallibility of councils, and appealed to Scripture as the
+ultimate authority. Eck had probably the advantage over his
+antagonist, so far as dialectics were concerned, being a more able
+disputant; but Luther set at defiance mere scholastic logic, and
+appealed to an authority which dialectics could not reach. The victory
+was claimed by both parties; but the result was, that Luther no longer
+acknowledged the authority of the Roman church, and acknowledged none
+but the Scriptures.
+
+[Sidenote: The Rights of Private Judgment.]
+
+The Leipsic disputation was the grand intellectual contest of the
+Reformation, and developed its great idea--the only great principle,
+around which all sects and parties among the Protestants rally. This
+is the idea, that _the Scriptures are the only ultimate grounds of
+authority in religion, and that, moreover, every man has a right to
+interpret them for himself_. The rights of private judgment--that
+religion is a matter between the individual soul and God, and that
+every man is answerable to his own conscience alone how he interprets
+Scripture--these constitute the great Protestant platform. Different
+sects have different views respecting justification, but all profess
+to trace them to the Scriptures. Luther's views were similar to those
+of St. Augustine--that "man could be justified by faith alone," which
+was _his_ great theological doctrine--a doctrine adopted by many who
+never left the communion of the Church of Rome, before and since his
+day, and a doctrine which characterized the early reformers, Zwingle,
+Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, and the Puritans generally. It is as absurd to
+say that Luther's animating principle in religion was not this
+doctrine, as it is unphilosophical to make the reformation consist
+merely in its recognition. After Luther's convictions were settled on
+this point, and he had generally and openly declared them, the main
+contest of his life was against the papacy, which he viewed as the
+predicted Antichrist--the "scarlet mother of abominations." It is not
+the object of the writer of this History to defend or oppose Luther's
+views, or argue any cause whatever, but simply to place facts in their
+true light, which is, to state them candidly.
+
+Although the Leipsic controversy brought out the great principle of
+the Reformation, Luther's views, both respecting the true doctrines
+and polity of the church, were not, on all points, yet developed, and
+were only gradually unfolded, as he gained knowledge and light. It was
+no trifling matter, even to deny the supremacy of the Roman church in
+matters of faith. He was thus placed in the position of Huss and
+Jerome, and other reformers, who had been destroyed, with scarcely an
+exception. He thus was brought in direct conflict with the pope, with
+the great dignitaries of the church, with the universities, and with
+the whole scholastic literature. He had to expect the violent
+opposition and vengeance of the pope, of the monks, of the great
+ecclesiastical dignitaries, of the most distinguished scholars, and of
+those secular princes who were friendly to Rome. He had none to
+protect him but a prince of the empire, powerful, indeed, and wise,
+but old and wavering. There were but few to uphold and defend him--the
+satirical Erasmus, who was called a second Lucian, the feeble
+Staupitz, the fanatical Carlstadt, and the inexperienced Melancthon.
+The worldly-minded, the learned, the powerful, and the conservative
+classes were his natural enemies. But he had reason and Scripture on
+his side, and he appealed to their great and final verdict. He had
+singular faith in the power of truth, and the gracious protection of
+God Almighty. Reposing on the greatness of his cause, and the
+providence of the omnipotent Protector, he was ready to defy all the
+arts, and theories, and malice of man. His weapon was truth. For truth
+he fought, and for truth he was ready to die. The sophistries of the
+schools he despised; they had distorted and mystified the truth. And
+he knew them well, for he had been trained in the severest dialectics
+of his time, and, though he despised them, he knew how to use them.
+The simple word of God, directed to the reason and conscience of men,
+seemed alone worthy of his regard.
+
+[Sidenote: Luther's Elements of Greatness.]
+
+But, beside Scripture and unperverted reason, he had another element
+of power. He was master of the sympathies and passions of the people.
+His father was a toiling miner. His grandfather was a peasant. He had
+been trained to penury; he had associated with the poor; he was a man
+of the people; he was their natural friend. He saw and lamented their
+burdens, and rose up for their deliverance. And the people
+distinguished their true friend, from their false friends. They saw
+the sincerity, earnestness, and labors of the new apostle of liberty,
+and believed in him, and made an idol of him. They would protect him,
+and honor him, and obey him, and believe what he taught them, for he
+was their friend, whom God had raised up to take off their burdens,
+and point a way to heaven, without the intercession of priests, or
+indulgences, or penance. Their friend was to expose the corruptions of
+the clergy, and to give battle to the great arch enemy who built St.
+Peter's Church from their hard-earned pittances. A spirit from heaven
+enlightened those to whom Luther preached, and they rallied around his
+standard, and swore never to separate, until the great enemies of the
+poor and the oppressed were rendered powerless. And their sympathies
+were needed, and best services, too; for the great man of the age--the
+incarnated spirit of liberty--was in danger.
+
+[Sidenote: Excommunication of Luther.]
+
+The pope, hitherto mild, persuasive, and undecided, now arose in the
+majesty of his mighty name, and, as the successor of St. Peter, hurled
+those weapons which had been thunderbolts in the hands of the
+Gregories and the Innocents. From his papal throne, and with all the
+solemnity of God's appointed vicegerent, he denounced the daring monk
+of Wittemberg, and sentenced him to the wrath of God, and to the
+penalty of eternal fire. Luther was excommunicated by a papal bull,
+and his writings were condemned as heretical and damnable.
+
+This was a dreadful sentence. Few had ever resisted it successfully,
+even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was still a fearful weapon,
+and used only in desperate circumstances. It was used only as the last
+resort; for frequency would destroy its power. In the middle ages,
+this weapon was omnipotent; and the middle ages had but just passed
+away. No one could stand before that awful anathema which consigned
+him to the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some
+professed to despise the sentence, still, when inflicted, it could not
+be borne, especially if accompanied with an interdict. Children were
+left unburied. The churches were closed. The rites of religion were
+suspended. A funereal shade was spread over society. The fears of hell
+haunted every imagination. No reason was strong enough to resist the
+sentence. No arm was sufficiently powerful to remove the curse. It
+hung over a guilty land. It doomed the unhappy offender, who was
+cursed, wherever he went, and in whatever work he was engaged.
+
+But Luther was strong enough to resist it, and to despise it. He saw
+it was an imposition, which only barbarous and ignorant ages had
+permitted. Moreover, he perceived that there was now no alternative
+but victory or death; that, in the great contest in which he was
+engaged, retreat was infamy. Nor did he wish to retreat. He was
+fighting for oppressed humanity, and death even, in such a cause, was
+glory. He understood fully the nature and the consequence of the
+struggle. He perceived the greatness of the odds against him, in a
+worldly point of view. No man but a Luther would have been equal to
+it; no man, before him, ever had successfully rebelled against the
+pope. It is only in view of this circumstance, that his intrepidity
+can be appreciated.
+
+What did the Saxon monk do, when the papal bull was published? He
+assembled the professors and students of the university, declared his
+solemn protest against the pope as Antichrist, and marched in
+procession to the gates of the Castle of Wittemberg, and there made a
+bonfire, and cast into it the bull which condemned him, the canon law,
+and some writings of the schoolmen, and then reentered the city,
+breathing defiance against the whole power of the pope, glowing in the
+consciousness that the battle had commenced, to last as long as life,
+and perfectly secure that the victory would finally be on the side of
+truth. This was in 1520, on the 10th of December.
+
+The attention of the whole nation was necessarily drawn to this open
+resistance; and the sympathy of the free thinking, the earnest, and
+the religious, was expressed for him. Never was popular interest more
+absorbing, in respect to his opinions, his fortunes, and his fate. The
+spirit of innovation became contagious, and pervaded the German mind.
+It demanded the serious attention of the emperor himself.
+
+[Sidenote: The Diet of Worms.]
+
+A great Diet of the empire was convened at Worms, and thither Luther
+was summoned by the temporal power. He had a safe-conduct, which even
+so powerful a prince as Charles V. durst not violate. In April, 1521,
+the reformer appeared before the collected dignitaries of the German
+empire, both spiritual and temporal, and was called upon to recant his
+opinions as heretical in the eyes of the church, and dangerous to the
+peace of the empire. Before the most august assembly in the world,
+without a trace of embarrassment, he made his defence, and refused to
+recant. "Unless," said he, "my errors can be demonstrated by texts
+from Scripture, I will not and cannot recant; for it is not safe for a
+man to go against his conscience. Here I am. I can do no otherwise.
+God help me! Amen."
+
+This declaration satisfied his friends, though it did not satisfy the
+members of the diet. Luther was permitted to retire. He had gained the
+confidence of the nation. From that time, he was its idol, and the
+acknowledged leader of the greatest insurrection of human intelligence
+which modern times have seen. The great principles of the reformation
+were declared. The great hero of the Reformation had planted his cause
+upon a rock. And yet his labors had but just commenced. Henceforth,
+his life was toil and vexation. New difficulties continually arose.
+New questions had to be continually settled. Luther, by his letters,
+was every where. He commenced the translation of the Scriptures; he
+wrote endless controversial tracts; his correspondence was
+unparalleled; his efforts as a preacher were prodigious. But he was
+equal to it all; was wonderfully adapted to his age and circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Imprisonment at Wartburg.]
+
+About this time commenced his voluntary imprisonment at Wartburg,
+among the Thuringian forests: he being probably conducted thither by
+the orders of the elector of Saxony. Here he was out of sight, but not
+out of mind; and his retirement, under the disguise of a knight, gave
+him leisure for literary labor. In the old Castle of Wartburg, a great
+part of the Scriptures was translated into that beautiful and simple
+version, which is still the standard of the German language.
+
+[Sidenote: Carlstadt.]
+
+While Luther was translating the Scriptures, in his retreat,
+Wittemberg was the scene of new commotions, pregnant with great
+results. There were many of the more zealous converts to the reformed
+doctrines, headed by Carlstadt, dean of the faculty of theology, who
+were not content with the progress which had been made, and who
+desired more sweeping and radical changes. Such a party ever exists in
+all reforms; for there are some persons who are always inclined to
+ultra and extravagant courses. Carlstadt was a type of such men. He
+was learned, sincere, and amiable, but did not know where to stop; and
+the experiment was now to be tried, whether it was possible to
+introduce a necessary reform, without annihilating also all the
+results of the labors of preceding generations. Carlstadt's mind was
+not well balanced, and to him the reformation was only a half measure,
+and a useless movement, unless all the external observances of
+religion and the whole economy of the church were destroyed. He
+abolished, or desired to abolish, all priestly garments, all fasts and
+holydays, all pictures in the churches, and all emblematical
+ceremonies of every kind. He insisted upon closing all places of
+public amusement, the abolition of all religious communities, and the
+division of their possessions among the poor. He maintained that there
+was no need of learning, or of academic studies, and even went into
+the houses of the peasantry to seek explanation of difficult passages
+of Scripture. For such innovations, the age was certainly not
+prepared, even had they been founded on reason; and the conservative
+mind of Luther was shocked at extravagances which served to disgust
+the whole Christian world, and jeopardize the cause in which he had
+embarked. So, against the entreaties of the elector, and in spite of
+the ban of the empire, he returned to Wittemberg, a small city, it was
+true, but a place to which had congregated the flower of the German
+youth. He resolved to oppose the movements of Carlstadt, even though
+opposition should destroy his influence. Especially did he declare
+against all violent measures to which the ultra reformers were
+inclined, knowing full well, that, if his cause were sullied with
+violence or fanaticism, all Christendom would unite to suppress it.
+His sermons are, at this time, (1522,) pervaded with a profound and
+conservative spirit, and also a spirit of conciliation and love,
+calculated to calm passions, and carry conviction to excited minds.
+His moderate counsels prevailed, the tumults were hushed, and order
+was restored. Carlstadt was silenced for a time; but a mind like his
+could not rest, especially on points where he had truth on his side.
+One of these was, in reference to the presence of Christ's body in the
+Eucharist, which Carlstadt totally denied. He taught "that the Lord's
+supper was purely symbolic, and was simply a pledge to believers of
+their redemption." But Luther saw, in every attempt to exhibit the
+symbolical import of the supper, only the danger of weakening the
+authority of Scripture, which was his stronghold, and became
+exceedingly tenacious on that point; carried his views to the extreme
+of literal interpretation, and never could emancipate himself from the
+doctrines of Rome respecting the eucharist. Carlstadt, finding himself
+persecuted at Wittemberg left the city, and, as soon as he was
+released from the presence of Luther, began to revive his former zeal
+against images also, and was the promoter of great disturbances. He at
+last sought refuge in Strasburg, and sacrificed fame, and friends, and
+bread to his honest convictions.
+
+[Sidenote: Thomas Muenzer.]
+
+But, nevertheless, the views of Carlstadt found advocates, and his
+extravagances were copied with still greater zeal. Many pretended to
+special divine illumination--the great central principle of all
+fanaticism. Among these was Thomas Muenzer, of Zwickau, mystical,
+ignorant, and conceited, but sincere and simple hearted. "Luther,"
+said he, "has liberated men's consciences from the papal yoke, but has
+not led them in spirit towards God." Considering himself as called
+upon by a special revelation to bring men into greater spiritual
+liberty, he went about inflaming the popular mind, and raising
+discontents, and even inciting to a revolt. Religion now became
+mingled with politics, and social and political evils were violently
+resisted, under the garb of religion. An insurrection at last arose in
+the districts of the Black Forest, (1524,) near the sources of the
+Danube, and spread from Suabia to the Rhine provinces, until it became
+exceedingly formidable. Then commenced what is called the "peasants'
+war," which was only ended by the slaughter of fifty thousand people.
+As the causes of this war, after all, were chiefly political, the
+details belong to our chapter on political history. For this
+insurrection of the peasantry, however, Luther expressed great
+detestation; although he availed himself of it to lecture the princes
+of Germany on their duties as civil rulers.
+
+The peasant war was scarcely ended, when Luther married Catharine
+Bora; and, as she was a nun, and he was a monk, the marriage gave
+universal scandal. But this marriage, which proved happy, was the
+signal of new reforms. Luther now emancipated himself from his
+monastic fetters, and lifted up his voice against the whole monastic
+system. Eight years had elapsed since he preached against indulgences.
+During these eight years, reform had been gradual, and had now
+advanced to the extreme limit it ever reached during the life of the
+reformer.
+
+But, in another quarter, it sprang up with new force, and was carried
+to an extent not favored in Germany. It was in Switzerland that the
+greatest approximation was made to the forms, if not to the spirit, of
+primitive Christianity.
+
+[Sidenote: Ulric Zwingle.]
+
+The great hero of this Swiss movement was Ulric Zwingle, the most
+interesting of all the reformers. He was born in 1484, and educated
+amid the mountains of his picturesque country, and, like Erasmus,
+Reuchlin, Luther, and Melancthon, had no aristocratic claims, except
+to the nobility of nature. But, though poor, he was well educated, and
+was a master of the scholastic philosophy and of all the learning of
+his age. Like Luther, he was passionately fond of music, and played
+the lute, the harp, the violin, the flute and the dulcimer. There was
+no more joyous spirit in all Switzerland than his. Every one loved his
+society, and honored his attainments, and admired his genius. Like
+Luther and Erasmus, he was disgusted with scholasticism, and regretted
+the time he had devoted to its study. He was ordained in 1506, by the
+bishop of Constance, and was settled in Zurich in 1518. At first, his
+life did not differ from that which the clergy generally led, being
+one of dissipation and pleasure. But he was studious, and became well
+acquainted with the fathers, and with the original Greek. Only
+gradually did light dawn upon him, and this in consequence of his
+study of the Scriptures, not in consequence of Luther's preaching. He
+had no tempests to withstand, such as shook the soul of the Saxon
+monk. Nor had he ever devoted himself with the same ardor to the
+established church. Nor was he so much interested on doctrinal points
+of faith. But he saw with equal clearness the corruptions of the
+church, and preached with equal zeal against indulgences and the
+usurpations of the popes. The reformation of morals was the great aim
+of his life. His preaching was practical and simple, and his doctrine
+was, that "religion consisted in trust in God, loving God, and
+innocence of life." Moreover, he took a deep interest in the political
+relations of his country, and was an enthusiast in liberty as well as
+in religion. To him the town of Zurich was indebted for its
+emancipation from the episcopal government of Constance, and also for
+a reformation in all the externals of the church. He inspired the
+citizens with that positive spirit of Protestantism, which afterwards
+characterized Calvin and the Puritans. He was too radical a reformer
+to suit Luther, although he sympathized with most of his theological
+opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Controversy between Luther and Zwingle.]
+
+On one point, however, they differed; and this difference led to an
+acrimonious contest, quite disgraceful to Luther, and the greatest
+blot on his character, inasmuch as it developed, to an extraordinary
+degree, both obstinacy and dogmatism, and showed that he could not
+bear contradiction or opposition. The quarrel arose from a difference
+of views respecting the Lord's supper, Luther maintaining not exactly
+the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but something
+approximating to it--even the omnipresence of Christ's body in the
+sacred elements. He relinquished the doctrine of the continually
+repeated miracle, but substituted a universal miracle, wrought once
+for all. In his tenacity to the opinions of the schoolmen on this
+point, we see his conservative spirit; for he did not deny tradition,
+unless it was expressly contradicted by Scripture. He would have
+maintained the whole structure of the Latin church, had it not been
+disfigured by modern additions, plainly at variance with the
+Scriptures; and so profoundly was he attached to the traditions of the
+church, and to the whole church establishment, that he only
+emancipated himself by violent inward storms. But Zwingle had not this
+lively conception of the universal church, and was more radical in his
+sympathies. He took Carlstadt's view of the supper, that it was merely
+symbolic. Still he shrunk from a rupture with Luther, which, however,
+was unavoidable, considering Luther's views of the subject and his
+cast of mind. Luther rejected all offers of conciliation, and, as he
+considered it essential to salvation to believe in the real presence
+of Christ in the sacrament, he refused to acknowledge Zwingle as a
+brother.
+
+Zwingle, nevertheless, continued his reforms, and sought to restore,
+what he conceived to be, the earliest forms in which Christianity had
+manifested itself. He designed to restore a worship purely spiritual.
+He rejected all rites and ceremonies, not expressly enjoined in the
+Bible. Luther insisted in retaining all that was not expressly
+forbidden. And this was the main point of distinction between them and
+their adherents.
+
+But Zwingle contemplated political, as well as religious, changes,
+and, as early as 1527, two years before his conference with Luther at
+Marburg, had projected a league of all the reformers against the
+political authorities which opposed their progress. He combated the
+abuses of the state, as well as of the church. This opposition created
+great enemies against him among the cantons, with their different
+governments and alliances. He also secured enthusiastic friends, and,
+in all the cantons, there was a strong democratic party opposed to the
+existing oligarchies, which party, in Berne and Basle, St. Gall,
+Zurich, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, and Glarus, obtained the ascendency.
+This led to tumults and violence, and finally to civil war between the
+different cantons, those which adhered to the old faith being assisted
+by Austria. Lucerne, Uri Schwytz, Zug, Unterwalden took the lead
+against the reformed cantons, the foremost of which was Zurich, where
+Zwingle lived. Zurich was attacked. Zwingle, from impulses of
+patriotism and courage, issued forth from his house, and joined the
+standard of his countrymen, not as a chaplain, but as an armed
+warrior. This was his mistake. "They who take the sword shall perish
+with the sword." The intrepid and enlightened reformer was slain in
+1531, and, with his death, expired the hopes of his party. The
+restoration of the Roman Catholic religion immediately commenced in
+Switzerland.
+
+Luther, more wise than Zwingle, inasmuch as he abstained from
+politics, continued his labors in Germany. And they were immense. The
+burdens of his country rested on his shoulders. He was the dictator of
+the reformed party, and his word was received as law. Moreover, the
+party continually increased, and, from the support it received from
+some of the most powerful of the German princes, it became formidable,
+even in a political point of view. Nearly one half of Germany embraced
+the reformed faith.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Augsburg.]
+
+The illustrious Charles V. had now, for some time, been emperor, and,
+in the prosecution of his conquests, found it necessary to secure the
+support of united Germany, especially since Germany was now invaded by
+the Turks. In order to secure this support, he found it necessary to
+make concessions in religion to his Protestant subjects. At the diet
+of Augsburg, (1530,) where there was the most brilliant assemblage of
+princes which had been for a long time seen in Germany, the celebrated
+confession of the faith of the Protestants was read. It was written by
+Melancthon, in both Latin and German, on the basis of the articles of
+Torgau, which Luther had prepared. The style was Melancthon's; the
+matter was Luther's. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles, of
+which twenty-one pertained to the faith of the Protestants--the name
+they assumed at the second diet of Spires, in 1529--and the remaining
+seven recounted the errors and abuses of Rome. It was subscribed by
+the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Duke of
+Lunenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, and the
+deputies of the imperial cities Nuremberg and Reutlingen. But the
+Catholics had the ascendency in the diet, and the "Confession of
+Augsburg" was condemned. But the emperor did not venture on any
+decisive measures for the extirpation of the "heresy." He threatened
+and published edicts, but his menaces had but little force.
+Nevertheless, the Protestant princes assembled, first at Smalcalde,
+and afterwards at Frankfort, for an alliance of mutual defence,--the
+first effective union of free princes and states against their
+oppressors in modern Europe,--and laid the foundation of liberty of
+conscience. Hostilities, however, did not commence, since the emperor
+was desirous of uniting Germany against the Turks; and he therefore
+recalled his edicts of Worms and Augsburg against the Protestants, and
+made important concessions, and promised them undisturbed enjoyment of
+their religion. This was a great triumph to the Protestants, and as
+great a shock to the Papal power.
+
+[Sidenote: League of Smalcalde.]
+
+The Confession of Augsburg and the League of Smalcalde form an
+important era of Protestantism, since, by these, the reformed faith
+received its definite form, and was moreover guaranteed. The work for
+which Luther had been raised up was now, in the main, accomplished.
+His great message had been delivered and heard.
+
+[Sidenote: Death and Character of Luther.]
+
+After the confirmation of his cause, his life was perplexed and
+anxious. He had not anticipated those civil commotions which he now
+saw, sooner or later, were inevitable. With the increase of his party
+was the decline of spirituality. Political considerations, also, with
+many, were more prominent than moral. Religion and politics were
+mingled together, not soon to be separated in the progress of reform.
+Moreover, the reformers differed upon many points among themselves.
+There was a lamentable want of harmony between the Germans and the
+Swiss. Luther had quarrelled with nearly every prominent person with
+whom he had been associated, except Melancthon, who yielded to him
+implicit obedience. But, above all, the Anabaptist disorders, which he
+detested, and which distracted the whole bishopric of Muenster,
+oppressed and mortified him. Worn out with cares, labors, and
+vexations, which ever have disturbed the peace and alloyed the
+happiness of great heroes, and from which no greatness is exempt, he
+died at Eisleben, in 1545, while on a visit to his native place in
+older to reconcile dissensions between the counts of Mansfeldt.
+
+Luther's name is still reverenced in Germany, and, throughout all
+Protestant countries, he is regarded as the greatest man connected
+with the history of the church since the apostolic age. Others have
+been greater geniuses, others more learned, others more devout, and
+others more amiable and interesting; but none ever evinced greater
+intrepidity, or combined greater qualities of mind and heart. He had
+his faults: he was irritable, dogmatic, and abusive in his
+controversial writings. He had no toleration for those who differed
+from him--the fault of the age. But he was genial, joyous, friendly,
+and disinterested. His labors were gigantic; his sincerity
+unimpeached; his piety enlightened; his zeal unquenchable.
+Circumstances and the new ideas of his age, favored him, but he made
+himself master of those circumstances and ideas, and, what is more,
+worked out ideas of his own, which were in harmony with Christianity.
+The Reformation would have happened had there been no Luther, though
+at a less favorable time; but, of all the men of his age that the
+Reformation could least spare, Martin Luther stands preeminent. As the
+greatest of reformers, his name will be ever honored.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The attention of the student is directed only
+     to the most prominent and valuable works which treat of
+     Luther and the Protestant reformation. All the works are too
+     numerous, even to be decimated. Allusion is made to those
+     merely which are accessible and useful. Among them may be
+     mentioned, as most important, Ranke's History of the
+     Reformation; D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation;
+     Michelet's Life of Luther; Audin's Life of Luther, a
+     Catholic work, written with great spirit, but not much
+     liberality; Stebbing's History of the Reformation; a Life of
+     Luther, by Rev. Dr. Sears, a new work, written with great
+     correctness and ability; Guizot's Lectures on Civilization;
+     Plank's Essay on the Consequences of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Charles V.]
+
+When Luther appeared upon the stage, the great monarchies of Europe
+had just arisen upon the ruins of those Feudal states which survived
+the wreck of Charlemagne's empire.
+
+The Emperor of Germany, of all the monarchs of Europe, had the
+greatest claim to the antiquity and dignity of his throne. As
+hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, he
+had absolute authority in his feudal provinces; while, as an elected
+emperor, he had an indirect influence over Saxony, the Palatinate, the
+three archbishoprics of Treves, Mentz, and Cologne, and some
+Burgundian territories.
+
+[Sidenote: Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century.]
+
+But the most powerful monarchy, at this time, was probably that of
+France; and its capital was the finest city in Europe, and the resort
+of the learned and elegant from all parts of Christendom. All
+strangers extolled the splendor of the court, the wealth of the
+nobles, and the fame of the university. The power of the monarch was
+nearly absolute, and a considerable standing army, even then, was
+ready to obey his commands.
+
+Spain, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was ruled by
+Ferdinand and Isabella, who, by their marriage, had united the crowns
+of Castile and Arragon. The conquest of Granada and the discovery of
+America had added greatly to the political importance of Spain, and
+laid the foundation of its future greatness under Philip II.
+
+England, from its insular position, had not so much influence in
+European politics as the other powers to which allusion has been made,
+but it was, nevertheless, a flourishing and united kingdom.
+Henry VII., the founder of the house of Tudor, sat on the throne, and
+was successful in suppressing the power of the feudal nobility, and in
+increasing the royal authority. Kings, in the fifteenth century, were
+the best protectors of the people, and aided them in their struggles
+against their feudal oppressors. England, however, had made but little
+advance in commerce or manufactures, and the people were still rude
+and ignorant. The clergy, as in other countries, were the most
+intelligent and wealthy portion of the population, and, consequently,
+the most influential, although disgraced by many vices.
+
+Italy then, as now, was divided into many independent states, and
+distracted by civil and religious dissensions. The duchy of Milan was
+ruled by Ludovico Moro, son of the celebrated Francis Sforza. Naples,
+called a kingdom, had just been conquered by the French. Florence was
+under the sway of the Medici. Venice, whose commercial importance had
+begun to decline, was controlled by an oligarchy of nobles. The chair
+of St. Peter was filled by pope Alexander VI., a pontiff who has
+obtained an infamous immortality by the vices of debauchery, cruelty,
+and treachery. The papacy was probably in its most corrupt state, and
+those who had the control of its immense patronage, disregarded the
+loud call for reformation which was raised in every corner of
+Christendom. The popes were intent upon securing temporal as well as
+spiritual power, and levied oppressive taxes on both their spiritual
+and temporal subjects.
+
+The great northern kingdoms of Europe, which are now so
+considerable,--Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,--did not, at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, attract much attention. They were
+plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of science or
+religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The monarchs were
+sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, the clergy
+ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet insensible to
+their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom and no appreciation
+of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as Peter and Gustavus
+Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were these northern nations
+destined to be immediately benefited by the impulse which the
+reformation gave, with the exception of Sweden, then the most powerful
+of these kingdoms.
+
+The Greek empire became extinct when Constantinople was taken by the
+Turks, in 1453. On its ruins, the Ottoman power was raised. At the
+close of the fifteenth century, the Turkish arms were very powerful,
+and Europe again trembled before the Moslems. Greece and the whole of
+Western Asia were obedient to the sultan. But his power did not reach
+its culminating point until a century afterwards.
+
+Such were the various states of Europe when the Reformation broke out.
+Maximilian was emperor of Germany, and Charles V. had just inherited,
+from his father, Philip the Fair, who had married a daughter of
+Ferdinand and Isabella, the kingdom of Spain, in addition to the
+dominion of the Netherlands.
+
+By the death of Maximilian, in 1519, the youthful sovereign of Spain
+and the Netherlands came into possession of the Austrian dominions;
+and the electors, shortly after, chose him emperor of Germany.
+
+He was born at Ghent, A. D. 1500, and was educated with great care. He
+early displayed his love of government, and, at fifteen, was present
+at the deliberations of the cabinet. But he had no taste for learning,
+and gave but few marks of that genius which he afterwards evinced. He
+was much attached to his Flemish subjects, and, during the first year
+of his reign, gave great offence to the grandees of Spain and the
+nobles of Germany by his marked partiality for those men who had been
+his early companions.
+
+It is difficult to trace, in the career of Charles V., any powerful
+motives of conduct, separate from the desire of aggrandizement. The
+interests of the church, with which he was identified, and the true
+welfare of his subjects, were, at different times, sacrificed to his
+ambition. Had there been no powerful monarchs on the other thrones of
+Europe, his dreams of power might possibly have been realized. But at
+this period there happened to be a constellation of princes.
+
+[Sidenote: Wars between Charles and Francis.]
+
+The greatest of these, and the chief rival through life of Charles,
+was Francis I. of France. He had even anticipated an election to the
+imperial crown, which would have made him more powerful than even
+Charles himself. The electors feared both, and chose Frederic of
+Saxony; but he declined the dangerous post. Charles, as Archduke of
+Austria, had such great and obvious claims, that they could not be
+disregarded. He was therefore the fortunate candidate. But his
+election was a great disappointment to Francis, and he could not
+conceal his mortification. Peace could not long subsist between two
+envious and ambitious princes. Francis was nearly of the same age as
+Charles, had inherited nearly despotic power, was free from financial
+embarrassments, and ruled over an united and loyal people. He was
+therefore no contemptible match for Charles. In addition, he
+strengthened himself by alliances with the Swiss and Venetians.
+Charles sought the favor of the pope and Henry VIII. of England. The
+real causes of war were mutual jealousies, and passion for military
+glory. The assigned causes were, that Charles did not respect the
+claims of Francis as king of Naples; and, on the other hand, that
+Francis had seized the duchy of Milan, which was a fief of the empire,
+and also retained the duchy of Burgundy, the patrimonial inheritance
+of the emperor.
+
+The political history of Europe, for nearly half a century, is a
+record of the wars between these powerful princes, of their mutual
+disasters, disappointments, and successes. Other contests were
+involved in these, and there were also some which arose from causes
+independent of mutual jealousy, such as the revolt of the Spanish
+grandees, of the peasants in Germany, and of the invasion of the
+empire by the Turks. During the reign of Charles, was also the
+division of the princes of Germany, on grounds of religion--the
+foundation of the contest which, after the death of Charles, convulsed
+Germany for thirty years. But the Thirty Years' War was a religious
+war--was one of the political consequences of the Reformation. The
+wars between Charles and Francis were purely wars of military
+ambition. Charles had greater territories and larger armies; but
+Francis had more money, and more absolute control over his forces.
+Charles's power was checked in Spain by the free spirit of the Cortes,
+and in Germany by the independence of the princes, and by the
+embarrassing questions which arose out of the Reformation.
+
+It would be tedious to read the various wars between Charles and his
+rival. Each of them gained, at different times, great successes, and
+each experienced, in turn, the most humiliating reverses. Francis was
+even taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and confined in a
+fortress at Madrid, until he promised to the victors the complete
+dismemberment of France--an extorted promise he never meant to keep.
+No sooner had he recovered his liberty, than he violated all his
+oaths, and Europe was again the scene of fresh hostilities. The
+passion of revenge was now added to that of ambition, and, as the pope
+had favored the cause of Francis, the generals of Charles invaded
+Italy. Rome was taken and sacked by the constable Bourbon, a French
+noble whom Francis had slighted, and cruelties and outrages were
+perpetrated by the imperial forces which never disgraced Alaric or
+Attila.
+
+Charles affected to be filled with grief in view of the victories of
+his generals, and pretended that they acted without his orders. He
+employed every artifice to deceive indignant Christendom, and
+appointed prayers and processions throughout Spain for the recovery of
+the pope's liberty, which one stroke of his pen could have secured.
+Thus it was, that the most Catholic and bigoted prince in Europe
+seized the pope's person, and sacked his city, at the very time when
+Luther was prosecuting his reform. And this fact shows how much more
+powerfully the emperor was influenced by political, than by religious
+considerations. It also shows the providence of God in permitting the
+only men, who could have arrested the reformation, to spend their
+strength in battling each other, rather than the heresy which they
+deplored. Had Charles been less powerful and ambitious, he probably
+would have contented himself in punishing heretics, and in uniting
+with his natural ally, the pope, in suppressing every insurrection
+which had for its object the rights of conscience and the enjoyment of
+popular liberty.
+
+The war was continued for two years longer between Francis and
+Charles, with great acrimony, but with various success, both parties
+being, at one time, strengthened by alliances, and then again weakened
+by desertions. At last, both parties were exhausted, and were willing
+to accede to terms which they had previously rejected with disdain.
+Francis was the most weakened and disheartened, but Charles was the
+most perplexed. The troubles growing out of the Reformation demanded
+his attention, and the Turks, at this period a powerful nation, were
+about invading Austria. The Spaniards murmured at the unusual length
+of the war, and money was with difficulty obtained.
+
+Hence the peace of Cambray, August 5, 1529; which was very
+advantageous to Charles, in consequence of the impulsive character of
+Francis, and his impatience to recover his children, whom he had
+surrendered to Charles in order to recover his liberty. He agreed to
+pay two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons, and renounce
+his pretensions in the Low Countries and Italy. He, moreover, lost
+reputation, and the confidence of Europe, by the abandonment of his
+allies. Charles remained the arbiter of Italy, and was attentive to
+the interests of all who adhered to him. With less _chivalry_ than his
+rival, he had infinitely more _honor_. Cold, sagacious, selfish, and
+ambitious, he was, however, just, and kept his word. He combined
+qualities we often see in selfish men--a sort of legal and technical
+regard to the letter of the law, with the constant violation of its
+spirit. A Shylock might not enter a false charge upon his books, while
+he would adhere to a most extortionate bargain.
+
+Charles, after the treaty of Cambray was signed, visited Italy with
+all the pomp of a conqueror. At Genoa, he honored Doria with many
+marks of distinction, and bestowed upon the republic new privileges.
+He settled all his difficulties with Milan, Venice, and Florence, and
+reestablished the authority of the Medici. He was then crowned by the
+pope, whom he had trampled on, as King of Lombardy and Emperor of the
+Romans, and hastened into Germany, which imperatively required his
+presence, both on account of dissensions among the princes, which the
+reformation caused, and the invasion of Austria by three hundred
+thousand Turks. He resolved to recover the old prerogatives of the
+emperor of Germany, and crush those opinions which were undermining
+his authority, as well as the power of Rome, with which his own was
+identified.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Spires.]
+
+A Diet of the empire was accordingly summoned at Spires, in order to
+take into consideration the state of religion, the main cause of all
+the disturbances in Germany. It met on the 15th of March, 1529, and
+the greatest address was required to prevent a civil war. All that
+Charles could obtain from the assembled princes was, the promise to
+prevent any further innovations. A decree to that effect was passed,
+against which, however, the followers of Luther protested, the most
+powerful of whom were the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of
+Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Lunenburg, the Prince
+of Anhalt, and the deputies of fourteen imperial cities. This protest
+gave to them the name of _Protestants_--a name ever since retained.
+Soon after, the diet assembled at Augsburg, when the articles of faith
+among the Protestants were read,--known as the Confession of
+Augsburg,--which, however, the emperor opposed. In consequence of his
+decree, the Protestant princes entered into a league at Smalcalde,
+(December 22, 1530,) to support one another, and defend their
+religion. Circumstances continually occurred to convince Charles, that
+the extirpation of heresy by the sword was impossible in Germany, and
+moreover, he saw it was for his interest--to which his eye was
+peculiarly open--to unite all the German provinces in a vigorous
+confederation. Accordingly after many difficulties, and with great
+reluctance, terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremburg,
+(1531,) and ratified in the diet at Ratisbon, shortly after, by which
+it was agreed that no person should be molested in his religion, and
+that the Protestants, on their part, should assist the emperor in
+resisting the invasion of the Turks. The Germans, with their customary
+good faith, furnished all the assistance they promised, and one of the
+best armies ever raised in Germany, amounting to ninety thousand foot,
+and thirty thousand horse, took the field, commanded by the emperor in
+person. But the campaign ended without any memorable event, both
+parties having erred from excessive caution.
+
+[Sidenote: Hostilities between Charles and Francis.]
+
+Francis soon availed himself of the difficulties and dangers of his
+rival, formed an alliance with the Turks, put forth his old claims,
+courted the favor of the German Protestants, and renewed hostilities.
+He marched towards Italy, and took possession of the dominions of the
+duke of Savoy, whom the emperor, at this juncture, was unable to
+assist, on account of his African expedition against the pirate
+Barbarossa. This noted corsair had built up a great power in Tunis and
+Algiers, and committed shameful ravages on all Christian nations.
+Charles landed in Africa with thirty thousand men, took the fortress
+of Goletta, defeated the pirate's army, captured his capital, and
+restored the exiled Moorish king to his throne. In the midst of these
+victories Francis invaded Savoy. Charles was terribly indignant, and
+loaded his rival with such violent invectives that Francis challenged
+him to single combat. The challenge was accepted, but the duel was
+never fought. Charles, in his turn, invaded France, with a large army,
+for that age--forty thousand foot and ten thousand horse; but the
+expedition was unfortunate. Francis acted on the defensive with
+admirable skill, and was fortunate in his general Montmorency, who
+seemed possessed with the spirit of a Fabius. The emperor, at last,
+was compelled to return ingloriously, having lost half of his army
+without having gained a single important advantage. The joy of
+Francis, however, was embittered by the death of the dauphin,
+attributed by some to the infamous Catharine de Medicis, wife of the
+Duke of Orleans, in order to secure the crown to her husband. War did
+not end with the retreat of Charles, but was continued, with great
+personal animosity, until mutual exhaustion led to a truce for ten
+years, concluded at Nice, in 1538. Both parties had exerted their
+utmost strength, and neither had obtained any signal advantage.
+Notwithstanding their open and secret enmity, they had an interview
+shortly after the truce, in which both vied with each other in
+expressions of esteem and friendship, and in the exhibition of
+chivalrous courtesies--a miserable mockery, as shown by the violation
+of the terms of the truce, and the renewal of hostilities in 1541.
+
+[Sidenote: African Wars.]
+
+These were, doubtless, facilitated by Charles's unfortunate expedition
+against Algiers in 1541, by which he gained nothing but disgrace. His
+army was wasted by famine and disease, and a tempest destroyed his
+fleet. All the complicated miseries which war produces were endured by
+his unfortunate troops, but a small portion of whom ever returned.
+Francis, taking advantage of these misfortunes, made immense military
+preparations, formed a league with the Sultan Solyman, and brought
+five armies into the field. He assumed the offensive, and invaded the
+Netherlands, but obtained no laurels. Charles formed a league with
+Henry VIII., and the war raged, with various success, without either
+party obtaining any signal advantage, for three years, when a peace
+was concluded at Crespy, in 1544. Charles, being in the heart of
+France with an invading army, had the apparent advantage but the
+difficulty of retreating out of France in case of disaster, and the
+troubles in Germany, forced him to suspend his military operations.
+The pope, also, was offended because he had conceded so much to the
+Protestants, and the Turks pressed him on the side of Hungary.
+Moreover, he was afflicted with the gout, which indisposed him for
+complicated enterprises. In view of these things, he made peace with
+Francis, formed a strong alliance with the pope, and resolved to
+extirpate the Protestant religion, which was the cause of so many
+insurrections in Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: Council of Trent.]
+
+In the mean time, the pope resolved to assemble the famous Council of
+Trent, the legality of which the Protestants denied. It met in
+December, 1545, and was the last general council which the popes ever
+assembled. It met with a view of healing the dissensions of the
+church, and confirming the authority of the pope. The princes of
+Europe hoped that important reforms would have been made; but nothing
+of consequence was done, and the attention of the divines was directed
+to dogmas rather than morals. The great number of Italian bishops
+enabled the pope to have every thing his own way, in spite of the
+remonstrance of the German, Spanish, and French prelates, and the
+ambassadors of the different monarchs, who also had seats in the
+council. The decrees of this council, respecting articles of faith,
+are considered as a final authority by the Roman church. It denounced
+the reform of Luther, and confirmed the various ecclesiastical
+usurpations which had rendered the reformation necessary. It lasted
+twenty-two years, at different intervals, during the pontificate of
+five popes. The Jesuits, just rising into notice, had considerable
+influence in the council, in consequence of the learning and ability
+of their representatives, and especially of Laynez, the general of the
+order. The Dominicans and Franciscans manifested their accustomed
+animosities and rivalries, and questions were continually proposed and
+agitated, which divided the assembly. The French bishops, headed by
+the Cardinal of Lorraine, were opposed to the high pretensions of the
+Italians, especially of Cardinal Morone, the papal legate; but, by
+artifice and management, the more strenuous adherents of the pope
+attained their ends.
+
+About the time the council assembled, died three distinguished
+persons--Henry VIII. of England, Francis I., and Luther. Charles V.
+was freed from his great rival, and from the only private person in
+his dominions he had reason to fear. He now, in good earnest, turned
+his attention to the internal state of his empire, and resolved to
+crush the Reformation, and, by force, if it were necessary. He
+commenced by endeavoring to amuse and deceive the Protestants, and
+evinced that profound dissimulation, which was one of his
+characteristics. He formed a strict alliance with the pope, made a
+truce with Solyman, and won over to his side Maurice and other German
+princes. His military preparations and his intrigues alarmed the
+Protestants, and they prepared themselves for resistance. Religious
+zeal seconded their military ardor. One of the largest armies, which
+had been raised in Europe for a century, took the field, and Charles,
+shut up in Ratisbon, was in no condition to fight. Unfortunately for
+the Protestants, they negotiated instead of acting. The emperor was in
+their power, but he was one of those few persons who remained haughty
+and inflexible in the midst of calamities. He pronounced the ban of
+the empire against the Protestant princes, who were no match for a man
+who had spent his life in the field: they acted without concert, and
+committed many errors. Their forces decreased, while those of the
+emperor increased by large additions from Italy and Flanders. Instead
+of decisive action, the Protestants dallied and procrastinated,
+unwilling to make peace, and unwilling to face their sovereign. Their
+army melted away, and nothing of importance was effected.
+
+[Sidenote: Treachery of Maurice.]
+
+Maurice, cousin to the Elector of Saxony, with a baseness to which
+history scarcely affords a parallel, deserted his allies, and joined
+the emperor, purely from ambitious motives, and invaded the
+territories of his kinsman with twelve thousand men. The confederates
+made overtures of peace, which being rejected, they separated, and
+most of them submitted to the emperor. He treated them with
+haughtiness and rigor, imposed on them most humiliating terms, forced
+them to renounce the league of Smalcalde, to give up their military
+stores, to admit garrisons into their cities, and to pay large
+contributions in money.
+
+The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, however held out;
+and such was the condition of the emperor, that he could not
+immediately attack them. But the death of Francis gave him leisure to
+invade Saxony, and the elector was defeated at the battle of
+Muhlhausen, (1547,) and taken prisoner. The captive prince approached
+the victor without sullenness or pride. "The fortune of war," said he,
+"has made me your prisoner, most gracious emperor, and I hope to be
+treated ----" Here Charles interrupted him--"And am I, at last,
+acknowledged to be emperor? Charles of Ghent was the only title you
+lately allowed me. You shall be treated as you deserve." At these
+words he turned his back upon him with a haughty air.
+
+[Sidenote: Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse.]
+
+The unfortunate prince was closely guarded by Spanish soldiers, and
+brought to a trial before a court martial, at which presided the
+infamous Duke of Alva, afterwards celebrated for his cruelties in
+Holland. He was convicted of treason and rebellion, and sentenced to
+death--a sentence which no court martial had a right to inflict on the
+first prince of the empire. He was treated with ignominious harshness,
+which he bore with great magnanimity, but finally made a treaty with
+the emperor, by which, for the preservation of his life, he
+relinquished his kingdom to Maurice.
+
+The landgrave was not strong enough to resist the power of Charles,
+after all his enemies were subdued, and he made his submission, though
+Charles extorted the most rigorous conditions, he being required to
+surrender his person, abandon the league of Smalcalde, implore pardon
+on his knees, demolish his fortifications, and pay an enormous fine.
+In short, it was an unconditional submission. Beside infinite
+mortifications, he was detained a prisoner, which, on Charles's part,
+was but injury added to insult--an act of fraud and injustice which
+inspired the prince, and the Protestants, generally, with unbounded
+indignation. The Elector of Brandenburg and Maurice in vain solicited
+for his liberty, and showed the infamy to which he would be exposed if
+he detained the landgrave a prisoner. But the emperor listened to
+their remonstrances with the most provoking coolness, and showed very
+plainly that he was resolved to crush all rebellion, suppress
+Protestantism, and raise up an absolute throne in Germany, to the
+subversion of its ancient constitution.
+
+To all appearances, his triumph was complete. His great rival was
+dead; his enemies were subdued and humiliated; Luther's voice was
+hushed; and immense contributions filled the imperial treasury. He now
+began to realize the dreams of his life. He was unquestionably, at
+that time, the most absolute and powerful prince Europe has ever seen
+since Charlemagne, with the exception of Napoleon.
+
+But what an impressive moral does the history of human greatness
+convey! The hour of triumph is often but the harbinger of defeat and
+shame. "Pride goeth before destruction." Charles V., with all his
+policy and experience, overreached himself. The failure of his
+ambitious projects and the restoration of Protestantism, were brought
+about by instruments the least anticipated.
+
+[Sidenote: Heroism of Maurice..]
+
+[Sidenote: Misfortunes of Charles..]
+
+The cause of Protestantism and the liberties of Germany were
+endangered by the treachery of Maurice, who received, as his reward,
+the great electorate of Saxony. He had climbed to the summit of glory
+and power. Who would suppose that this traitor prince would desert the
+emperor, who had so splendidly rewarded his services, and return to
+the rescue of those princes whom he had so basely betrayed? But who
+can thread the labyrinth of an intriguing and selfish heart? Who can
+calculate the movements of an unprincipled and restless politician?
+Maurice, at length, awoke to the perception of the real condition of
+his country. He saw its liberties being overturned by the most
+ambitious man whom ten centuries had produced. He saw the cause, which
+his convictions told him was the true one, in danger of being wrecked.
+He was, moreover, wounded by the pride, coldness, and undisguised
+selfishness of the emperor. He was indignant that the landgrave, his
+father-in-law, should be retained a prisoner, against all the laws of
+honor and of justice. He resolved to come to the rescue of his
+country. He formed his plans with the greatest coolness, and exercised
+a power of dissimulation that has no parallel in history. But his
+address was even greater than his hypocrisy. He gained the confidence
+of the Protestants, without losing that of the emperor. He even
+obtained the command of an army which Charles sent to reduce the
+rebellious city of Magdeburg, and, while he was besieging the city, he
+was negotiating with the generals who defended it for a general union
+against the emperor. Magdeburg surrendered in 1551. Its chieftains
+were secretly assured that the terms of capitulation should not be
+observed. His next point was, to keep the army together until his
+schemes were ripened, and then to arrest the emperor, whose thoughts
+now centred on the council of Trent. So he proposed sending Protestant
+divines to the council, but delayed their departure by endless
+negotiations about the terms of a safe conduct. He, moreover, formed a
+secret treaty with Henry II., the successor of Francis, whose
+animosity against Charles was as intense as was that of his father.
+When his preparations were completed, he joined his army in Thuringia,
+and took the field against the emperor, who had no suspicion of his
+designs, and who blindly trusted to him, deeming it impossible that a
+man, whom he had so honored and rewarded, could turn against him.
+March 18, 1552, Maurice published his manifesto, justifying his
+conduct; and his reasons were, to secure the Protestant religion, to
+maintain the constitution of the empire, and deliver the Landgrave of
+Hesse from bondage. He was powerfully supported by the French king,
+and, with a rapidly increasing army, marched towards Innspruck, where
+the emperor was quartered. The emperor was thunderstruck when he heard
+the tidings of his desertion, and was in no condition to resist him.
+He endeavored to gain time by negotiations, but these were without
+effect. Maurice, at the head of a large army, advanced rapidly into
+Upper Germany. Castles and cities surrendered as he advanced, and so
+rapid was his progress, that he came near taking the emperor captive.
+Charles was obliged to fly, in the middle of the night, and to travel
+on a litter by torchlight, amid the passes of the Alps. He scarcely
+left Innspruck before Maurice entered it--but too late to gain the
+prize he sought. The emperor rallied his armies, and a vigorous war
+was carried on between the contending parties, to the advantage of the
+Protestants. The emperor, after a while, was obliged to make peace
+with them, for his Spanish subjects were disgusted with the war, his
+funds were exhausted, his forces dispersed, and his territories
+threatened by the French. On the 2d of August, 1552, was concluded the
+peace of Passau, which secured the return of the landgrave to his
+dominions, the freedom of religion to the Protestants, and the
+preservation of the German constitution. The sanguine hopes of the
+emperor were dispelled, and all his ambitious schemes defeated, and he
+left to meditate, in the intervals of the pains which he suffered from
+the gout, on the instability of all greatness, and the vanity of human
+life. Maurice was now extolled as extravagantly as he had been before
+denounced, and his treachery justified, even by grave divines. But
+what is most singular in the whole affair, was, that the French king,
+while persecuting Protestants at home, should protect them abroad. But
+this conduct may confirm, in a signal manner, the great truth of
+history, that God regulates the caprice of human passions, and makes
+them subservient to the accomplishment of his own purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Passau.]
+
+The labors and perplexities of Charles V. were not diminished by the
+treaty of Passau. He continued his hostilities against the French and
+against the Turks. He was obliged to raise the siege of Metz, which
+was gallantly defended by the Duke of Guise. To his calamities in
+France, were added others in Italy. Sienna revolted against his
+government, and Naples was threatened by the Turks. The imperialists
+were unsuccessful in Italy and in Hungary, and the Archduke Ferdinand
+was obliged to abandon Transylvania. But war was carried on in the Low
+Countries with considerable vigor.
+
+Charles, whose only passion was the aggrandizement of his house, now
+projected a marriage of his son, Philip, with Mary, queen of England.
+The queen, dazzled by the prospect of marrying the heir of the
+greatest monarch in Europe, and eager to secure his powerful aid to
+reestablish Catholicism in England, listened to his proposal, although
+it was disliked by the nation. In spite of the remonstrance of the
+house of commons, the marriage treaty was concluded, and the marriage
+celebrated, (1554.)
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Charles V.]
+
+Soon after, Charles formed the extraordinary resolution of resigning
+his dominions to his son, and of retiring to a quiet retreat.
+Diocletian is the only instance of a prince, capable of holding the
+reins of government, who had adopted a similar course. All Europe was
+astonished at the resolution of Charles, and all historians of the
+period have moralized on the event. But it ceases to be mysterious,
+when we remember that Charles was no nearer the accomplishment of the
+ends which animated his existence, than he was thirty years before;
+that he was disgusted and wearied with the world; that he suffered
+severely from the gout, which, at times, incapacitated him for the
+government of his extensive dominions. It was never his habit to
+intrust others with duties and labors which he could perform himself,
+and he felt that his empire needed a more powerful protector than his
+infirmities permitted him to be. He was grown prematurely old, he felt
+his declining health; longed for repose, and sought religious
+consolation. Of all his vast possessions, he only reserved an annual
+pension of one hundred thousand crowns; resigning Spain and the Low
+Countries into the hands of Philip, and the empire of Germany to his
+brother Ferdinand, who had already been elected as King of the Romans.
+He then set out for his retreat in Spain, which was the monastery of
+St. Justus, near Placentia, situated in a lovely vale, surrounded with
+lofty trees, watered by a small brook, and rendered attractive by the
+fertility of the soil, and the delightful temperature of the climate.
+Here he spent his last days in agricultural improvements and religious
+exercises, apparently regardless of that noisy world which he had
+deserted forever, and indifferent to those political storms which his
+restless ambition had raised. Here his grandeur and his worldly hopes
+were buried in preparing himself for the future world. He lived with
+great simplicity, for two years after his retreat, and died (1558,)
+from the effects of the gout, which, added to his great labors, had
+shattered his constitution. He was not what the world would call a
+great genius, like Napoleon; but he was a man of great sagacity,
+untiring industry, and respectable attainments. He was cautious, cold,
+and selfish; had but little faith in human virtue, and was a slave, in
+his latter days, to superstition. He was neither affable nor
+courteous, but was sincere in his attachments, and munificent in
+rewarding his generals and friends. He was not envious nor cruel, but
+inordinately ambitious, and intent on aggrandizing his family. This
+was his characteristic defect, and this, in a man so prominent and so
+favored by circumstances, was enough to keep Europe in a turmoil for
+nearly half a century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Robertson's History of Charles V. Ranke's
+     History of the Reformation. Kohlrausch's History of Germany.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The above-mentioned authors are
+     easily accessible, and are all that are necessary for the
+     student. Robertson's History is a classic, and an immortal
+     work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HENRY VIII.
+
+
+The history of Europe in the sixteenth century is peculiarly the
+history of the wars of kings, and of their efforts to establish
+themselves and their families on absolute thrones. The monotonous, and
+almost exclusive, record of royal pleasures and pursuits shows in how
+little consideration the people were held. They struggled, and toiled,
+and murmured as they do now. They probably had the same joys and
+sorrows as in our times. But, in these times, they have considerable
+influence on the government, the religion, the literature, and the
+social life of nations. In the sixteenth century, this influence was
+not so apparent; but power of all kinds seemed to emanate from kings
+and nobles; at least from wealthy and cultivated classes. When this is
+the case, when kings give a law to society, history is not
+unphilosophical which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Absolute Monarchy.]
+
+The rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is one of
+the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was
+every where a strong tendency to centralization. Provinces, before
+independent, were controlled by a central government. Standing armies
+took the place of feudal armies. Kings took away from nobles the right
+to coin money, administer justice, and impose taxes. The power of the
+crown became supreme and unlimited.
+
+But some monarchs were more independent than others, in proportion as
+the power of nobles was suppressed, or, as the cities sided with the
+central government, or, as provinces were connected and bound
+together. The power of Charles V. was somewhat limited, in Spain, by
+the free spirit of the Cortes, and, in Germany, by the independence of
+the princes of the empire. But, in France and England, the king was
+more absolute, although he did not rule over so great extent of
+territory as did the emperor of Germany; and this is one reason why
+Francis I. proved so strong an antagonist to his more powerful rival.
+
+The history of France, during the reign of this monarch, is also the
+history of Charles V., since they were both engaged in the same wars;
+which wars have already been alluded to. Both of these monarchs failed
+in the objects of their existence. If Charles did not realize his
+dream of universal empire, neither did Francis leave his kingdom, at
+his death, in a more prosperous state than he found it.
+
+Francis I. was succeeded by his son Henry II., a warlike prince, but
+destitute of prudence, and under the control of women. His policy,
+however, was substantially that of his father, and he continued
+hostilities against the emperor of Germany, till his resignation. He
+was a bitter persecutor of the Protestants, and the seeds of
+subsequent civil wars were sown by his zeal. He was removed from his
+throne prematurely, being killed at a tournament, in 1559, soon after
+the death of Charles V. Tournaments ceased with his death.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry VIII.]
+
+The reign of Henry VIII., the other great contemporary of Charles V.,
+merits a larger notice, not only because his reign was the
+commencement of a new era in England, but, also, because the affairs,
+which engaged his attention, are not much connected with continental
+history.
+
+He ascended the throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth year,
+without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation; for his
+manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, and his
+person was handsome. He had made respectable literary attainments, and
+he gave promise of considerable abilities. He was married, soon after
+his accession, to Catharine, daughter of the King of Spain, and the
+first years of his reign were happy, both to himself and to his
+subjects. He had a well-filled treasury, which his father had amassed
+with great care, a devoted people and an obedient parliament. All
+circumstances seemed to conspire to strengthen his power, and to make
+him the arbiter of Europe.
+
+But this state did not last long. The young king was resolved to make
+war on France, but was diverted from his aim by troubles in Scotland,
+growing out of his own rapacity--a trait which ever peculiarly
+distinguished him. These troubles resulted in a war with the Scots,
+who were defeated at the memorable battle of Flodden Field, which Sir
+Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has immortalized. The Scotch commanders,
+Lenox and Argyle, both perished, as well as the valiant King James
+himself. There is scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who had not an
+ancestor slain on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But the victory
+was dearly bought, and Surrey, the English general, afterwards Duke of
+Norfolk, was unable to pursue his advantages.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Cardinal Wolsey.]
+
+About this time, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey began to act a
+conspicuous part in English affairs. His father was a butcher of
+Ipswich; but was able to give his son a good education. He studied at
+Oxford, was soon distinguished for his attainments, and became tutor
+to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The marquis gave him the rich
+living of Limington; but the young parson, with his restless ambition,
+and love of excitement and pleasure, was soon wearied of a country
+life. He left his parish to become domestic chaplain to the treasurer
+of Calais. This post introduced him to Fox, bishop of Winchester, who
+shared with the Earl of Surrey the highest favors of royalty. The
+minister and diplomatist, finding in the young man learning, tact,
+vivacity, and talent for business, introduced him to the king, hoping
+that he would prove an agreeable companion for Henry, and a useful
+tool for himself. But those who are able to manage other people's
+business, generally are able to manage their own. The tool of Fox
+looked after his own interest chiefly. He supplanted his master in the
+loyal favor, and soon acquired more favor and influence at court than
+any of the ministers or favorites. Though twenty years older than
+Henry, he adapted himself to all his tastes, flattered his vanity and
+passions, and became his bosom friend. He gossiped with him about
+Thomas Aquinas, the Indies, and affairs of gallantry. He was a great
+refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and
+display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and
+drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the
+dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed
+craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master
+of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once
+gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York,
+papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and
+lord chancellor. He also obtained the administration and the
+temporalities of the rich abbey of St. Albans, and of the bishoprics
+of Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester. By these gifts, his revenues
+almost equalled those of the crown; and he squandered them in a style
+of unparalleled extravagance. He dressed in purple and gold, supported
+a train of eight hundred persons, and built Hampton Court. He was the
+channel through which the royal favors flowed. But he made a good
+chancellor, dispensed justice, repressed the power of the nobles,
+encouraged and rewarded literary men, and endowed colleges. He was the
+most magnificent and the most powerful subject that England has ever
+seen. Even nobles were proud to join his train of dependants. There
+was nothing sordid or vulgar, however, in all his ostentation. Henry
+took pleasure in his pomp, for it was a reflection of the greatness of
+his own majesty.
+
+[Sidenote: Magnificence of Henry VIII.]
+
+The first years of the reign of Henry VIII., after the battle of
+Flodden Field, were spent in pleasure, and in great public displays of
+magnificence, which charmed the people, and made him a popular idol.
+Among these, the interview of the king with Francis I. is the most
+noted, on the 4th of June, 1520; the most gorgeous pageant of the
+sixteenth century, designed by Wolsey, who had a genius for such
+things. The monarchs met in a beautiful valley, where jousts and
+tournaments were held, and where was exhibited all the magnificence
+which the united resources of France and England could command. The
+interview was sought by Francis to win, through Wolsey, the favor of
+the king, and to counterbalance the advantages which it was supposed
+Charles V. had gained on a previous visit to the king at Dover.
+
+The getting up of the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" created some
+murmurs among the English nobility, many of whom were injured by the
+expensive tastes of Wolsey. Among these was the Duke of Buckingham,
+hereditary high constable of England, and connected with the royal
+house of the Plantagenets. Henry, from motives of jealousy, both on
+account of his birth and fortune, had long singled him out as his
+victim. He was, also, obnoxious to Wolsey, since he would not flatter
+his pride, and he had, moreover, insulted him. It is very easy for a
+king to find a pretence for committing a crime; and Buckingham was
+arrested, tried, and executed, for making traitorous prophecies. His
+real crime was in being more powerful than it suited the policy of the
+king. With the death of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521,
+commenced the bloody cruelty of Henry VIII.
+
+Soon after the death of Buckingham, the king made himself notorious
+for his theological writings against Luther, whose doctrines he
+detested. He ever had a taste for theological disputation, and a love
+of the schoolmen. His tracts against Luther, very respectable for
+talent and learning, though disgraced by coarse and vulgar
+vituperation, secured for him the favor of the pope, who bestowed upon
+him the title of "Defender of the Faith;" and a strong alliance
+existed between them until the divorce of Queen Catharine.
+
+The difficulties and delays, attending this act of cruelty and
+injustice, constitute no small part of the domestic history of England
+during the reign of Henry VIII. Any event, which furnishes subjects of
+universal gossip and discussion, is ever worthy of historical notice,
+inasmuch as it shows prevailing opinions and tastes.
+
+Queen Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain, was eight years
+older than her husband, whom she married in the first year of his
+reign. She had been previously married to his brother Arthur, who died
+of the plague in 1502. For several years after her marriage with
+Henry VIII., her domestic happiness was a subject of remark; and the
+emperor, Charles V., congratulated her on her brilliant fortune. She
+was beautiful, sincere, accomplished; religious, and disinterested,
+and every way calculated to secure, as she had won, the king's
+affections.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn.]
+
+But among her maids of honor there was one peculiarly accomplished and
+fascinating, to whom the king transferred his affections with unwonted
+vehemence. This was Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who,
+from his great wealth, married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the first
+duke of Norfolk. This noble alliance brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into
+close connection with royalty, and led to the appointment of his
+daughter to the high post which she held at the court of Queen
+Catharine. It is probable that the king suppressed his passion for
+some time; and it would have been longer concealed, even from its
+object, had not his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy,
+son of the Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his
+passion; but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or too
+politic, or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It was
+only _as queen of England_, that she would return the passion of her
+royal lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the all-powerful
+cardinal, for assisting in her separation from Percy, whom she loved
+with romantic attachment. The king waited four years, but Anne
+remained inflexibly virtuous. He then meditated the divorce from
+Catharine, as the only way to accomplish the object which now seemed
+to animate his existence. He confided the matter to his favorite
+minister; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the disclosure, and remained
+with him four hours on his knees, to dissuade him from a step which
+he justly regarded as madness. Here Wolsey appears as an honest man
+and a true friend; but royal infatuation knows neither wisdom,
+justice, nor humanity. Wolsey, as a man of the world, here made a
+blunder, and departed from the policy he had hitherto pursued--that of
+flattering the humors of his absolute master. Wolsey, however,
+recommended the king to consult the divines; for Henry pretended that,
+after nearly twenty years of married life, he had conscientious
+scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage. The learned English
+doctors were afraid to pronounce their opinions, and suggested a
+reference to the fathers. But the king was not content with their
+authority; he appealed to the pope, and to the decisions of half of
+the universities of Europe. It seems very singular that a sovereign so
+unprincipled, unscrupulous, and passionate, and yet so absolute and
+powerful as was Henry, should have wasted his time and money in
+seeking countenance to an act on which he was fully determined, and
+which countenance he never could reasonably hope to secure. But his
+character was made up of contradictions. His caprice, violence, and
+want of good faith, were strangely blended with superstition and
+reverence for the authority of the church. His temper urged him to the
+most rigorous measure of injustice; and his injustice produced no
+shame, although he was restrained somewhat by the opinions of the very
+men whom he did not hesitate to murder.
+
+[Sidenote: Queen Catharine.]
+
+Queen Catharine, besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, was
+powerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudiation,
+therefore, could not take place without offending the very persons
+whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate especially the
+Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and all the high
+dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even Wolsey could not in
+honor favor the divorce, although it was his policy to do so. In
+consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal and offence so
+outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must necessarily produce
+throughout the civilized world, Henry long delayed to bring the matter
+to a crisis, being afraid of a war with Charles V., and of the
+anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he hoped to gain him over, for the
+pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio to London, to hold, with his legate
+Wolsey, a court to hear the case. But it was the farthest from his
+intention to grant the divorce, for the pope was more afraid of
+Charles V. than he was of Henry VIII.
+
+[Sidenote: Disgrace and Death of Wolsey.]
+
+The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards
+Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The
+accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of
+royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in
+England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost
+his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and
+his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a
+single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious,
+most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken
+heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my
+God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given
+me over in my gray hairs"--these were the words of the dying cardinal;
+his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human life. But the
+vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or regret to escape him,
+when he heard of the death of his prime minister, and his intimate
+friend for twenty years.
+
+[Sidenote: More--Cranmer--Cromwell.]
+
+Shortly after the disgrace of Wolsey, which happened nearly a year
+before his death, (1529,) three remarkable men began to figure in
+English politics and history. These were Sir Thomas More, Thomas
+Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most
+learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but
+very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral
+elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of
+the great men of his country furnish no superior. His extensive
+erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official station
+which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always the intimate
+friend of the king, and his conversation, so enlivened by wit, and so
+rich and varied in matter, caused his society to be universally
+sought. He discharged his duties with singular conscientiousness and
+ability; and no one ever had cause to complain that justice was not
+rendered him.
+
+Cranmer's elevation was owing to a fortunate circumstance,
+notwithstanding his exalted merit. He happened to say, while tutor to
+a gentleman of the name of Cressy, in the hearing of Dr. Gardiner,
+then secretary to Henry, that the proper way to settle the difficulty
+about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who would settle the
+matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without reference to the
+pope. This remark was reported to the king, and Cranmer was sent to
+reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and was employed in writing a
+treatise to support his opinion. His ability led to further honors,
+until, on the death of Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, he was
+appointed to the vacant see, the first office in dignity and
+importance in the kingdom, and from which no king, however absolute,
+could eject him, except by the loss of life. We shall see that, in all
+matters of religion, Cranmer was the ruling spirit in England until
+the accession of Mary.
+
+Cromwell's origin was even more obscure than that of Wolsey's; but he
+received his education at one of the universities. We first hear of
+him as a clerk in an English factory at Antwerp, then as a soldier in
+the army of the Constable Bourbon when it sacked Rome, then as a clerk
+in a mercantile house in Venice, and then again as a lawyer in
+England, where he attracted the attention of Wolsey, who made him his
+solicitor, and employed him in the dissolution of monasteries. He then
+became a member of the house of commons, where his address and
+business talents were conspicuous. He was well received at court, and
+confirmed in the stewardship of the monasteries, after the disgrace of
+his master. His office brought him often into personal conference with
+the king; and, at one of these, he recommended him to deny the
+authority of the pope altogether, and declare himself supreme head of
+the church. The boldness of this advice was congenial to the temper of
+the king, worried by the opposition of Rome to his intended divorce,
+and Cromwell became a member of the privy council. His fortune was
+thus made by his seasonable advice. All who opposed the king were sure
+to fall, and all who favored him were sure to rise, as must ever be
+the case in an absolute monarchy, where the king is the centre and the
+fountain of all honor and dignity.
+
+With such ministers as Cranmer and Cromwell, the measures of Henry
+were now prompt and bold. Queen Catharine was soon disposed of; she
+was divorced and disgraced, and Anne Boleyn was elevated to her
+throne, (1533.) The anathemas of the pope and the outcry of all Europe
+followed. Sir Thomas More resigned the seals, and retired to poverty
+and solitude. But he was not permitted to enjoy his retirement long.
+Refusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henry, as head of the church
+as well as of the state, he was executed, with other illustrious
+Catholics. The execution of More was the most cruel and uncalled-for
+act of the whole reign, and entailed on its author the execrations of
+all the learned and virtuous men in Europe, most of whom appreciated
+the transcendent excellences of the murdered chancellor, the author of
+the Utopia, and the Boethius of his age.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Pope.]
+
+The fulminations of the pope only excited Henry to more decided
+opposition. The parliament, controlled by Cromwell, acknowledged him
+as the supreme head of the Church of England, and the separation from
+Rome was final and irrevocable. The tenths were annexed to the crown,
+and the bishops took a new oath of supremacy.
+
+The independence of the Church of England, effected in 1535, was
+followed by important consequences, and was the first step to the
+reformation, afterwards perfected by Edward VI. But as the first acts
+of the reformation were prompted by political considerations, the
+reformers in England, during the reign of Henry VIII., should be
+considered chiefly in a political point of view. The separation from
+Rome, during the reign of this prince, was not followed by the
+abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, nor any of the rites and
+ceremonies of that church. Nor was religious toleration secured. Every
+thing was subservient to the royal conscience, and a secular, instead
+of an ecclesiastical pope, still reigned in England.
+
+[Sidenote: Abolition of Monasteries.]
+
+Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English Church,
+imposed new duties and cares: he therefore established a separate
+department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over which he
+placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell--a fit minister to
+such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, and who looked solely
+to the pecuniary interests of his master, was thus placed over the
+highest prelates of the church. But Cromwell, in consulting the
+pecuniary interests of the king, also had an eye to the political
+interests of the kingdom. He was a sagacious and practical man of the
+world, and was disgusted with the vices of the clergy, and especially
+with the custom of sending money to Rome, in the shape of annates and
+taxes. This evil he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the
+country, for the popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He
+then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic
+institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell
+hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a
+great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they
+were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads,
+taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them.
+Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on
+religious grounds, and readily cooeperated with Cromwell; while the
+king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no bounds, listened, with
+glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two favorite ministers. The
+nation was suddenly astounded with the intelligence that parliament
+had passed a bill, giving to the king and his heirs all the monastic
+establishments in the kingdom, which did not exceed two hundred pounds
+a year. Three hundred and eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king
+was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred
+thousand pounds ready money--an immense sum in that age. By this
+spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceedingly unjust and harsh, and
+in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced to
+beggary and misery, while there was scarcely an eminent man in the
+kingdom who did not come in for a share of the plunder. Vast grants of
+lands were bestowed by the king on his favorites and courtiers, in
+order to appease the nation; and thus the foundations of many of the
+great estates of the English nobility were laid. The spoliations,
+however, led to many serious riots and insurrections, especially in
+Lincolnshire. At one place there were forty thousand rebels under
+arms; but they were easily suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression of Monasteries.]
+
+The rapacious king was not satisfied with the plunder he had secured,
+and, in 1539, the final suppression of all the monasteries in England
+was decreed. Then followed the seizure of all the church property in
+England connected with monasteries--shrines, relics, gold and silver
+vessels of immense value and rarity, lands, and churches. Canterbury,
+Bath, Merton, Stratford, Bury St. Edmonds, Glastonbury, and St.
+Albans, suffered most, and many of those beautiful monuments of Gothic
+architecture were levelled with the dust. Their destruction deprived
+the people of many physical accommodations, for they had been
+hospitals and caravansaries, as well as "cages of unclean birds."
+Neither the church nor the universities profited much from the
+confiscation of so much property, and only six new bishoprics were
+formed, and only fourteen abbeys were converted into cathedrals and
+collegiate churches. The king and the nobles were the only gainers by
+the spoil; the people obtained no advantage in that age, although they
+have in succeeding ages.
+
+After renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing the
+monasteries, where were collected the treasures of the middle ages,
+one would naturally suppose that the king would have gone farther, and
+changed the religion of his people. But Henry hated Luther and his
+doctrines, and did not hate the pope, or the religion of which he was
+the sovereign pontiff. He loved gold and new wives better than the
+interests of the Catholic church. Reform proceeded no farther in his
+reign; while, on the other hand, he caused a decree to pass both
+houses of his timid, complying parliament, by which the doctrines of
+transubstantiation, the communion of one kind, the celibacy of the
+clergy, masses, and auricular confession, were established; and any
+departure from, or denial of, these subjected the offender to the
+punishment of death.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Anne Boleyn.]
+
+But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of
+monasteries--the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife,
+Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the
+very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the
+gratification of all worldly wishes. She had been very vain, and fond
+of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life were
+marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform doctrines. But
+her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen. She could win,
+but she could not retain, the affections of her royal husband. His
+passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of
+Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor,
+attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now
+became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by the
+divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity and
+freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against her,
+because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step between
+the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was
+committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without
+evidence, and executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had
+honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have
+believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he
+served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman
+who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the
+Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was
+past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom
+of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry VIII.
+
+The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for whose
+sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, and had
+kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, "the fairest,
+discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as the historians
+say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the affections of Henry
+and receive his addresses, while his queen was devoted to her husband.
+But Anne Boleyn had done so before her, and suffered a natural
+retribution.
+
+Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, and died
+two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was
+one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She
+indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful
+predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence
+or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy of preservation.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne of Cleves--Catharine Howard.]
+
+She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round for
+another wife, and besought Francis I. to send the most beautiful
+ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect them, and
+select one according to his taste. But this Oriental notion was not
+indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and
+Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses
+of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this
+royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was
+affianced to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on
+the banks of the Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf.
+
+The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed and
+disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, calling her
+a "great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consummated his marriage,
+although his disgust constantly increased. This mistake of Cromwell
+was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The king vented on him all the
+displeasure which had been gathering in his embittered soul.
+Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had offended an absolute monarch. He
+was accused of heresy and treason,--the common accusations in that age
+against men devoted to destruction,--tried by a servile board of
+judges, condemned, and judicially murdered, in 1540. In his
+misfortunes, he showed no more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere
+of a court is fatal to all moral elevation.
+
+But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and worthy
+woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, granddaughter of the victor
+of Flodden Field, became queen of England. The king now fancied that
+his domestic felicity was complete; but, soon after his marriage, it
+was discovered that his wife had formerly led a dissolute life, and
+had been unfaithful also to her royal master. When the proofs of her
+incontinence were presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears;
+but soon his natural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated
+her crime by death on the scaffold, in 1542.
+
+Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord
+Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. She
+favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep her opinions
+from the king, who would have executed her, had he suspected her real
+views. She survived her husband, who died four years after her
+marriage, in 1547.
+
+[Sidenote: Last Days of Henry.]
+
+The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry
+were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were
+deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He
+was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He
+added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for
+their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had
+left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey
+lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he
+was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the
+most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of
+pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and
+his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most
+inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was
+dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was
+impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into
+fits of madness and frenzy.
+
+In his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of
+the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given
+offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales,
+and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died
+before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the
+good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several
+thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his
+disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and
+the glory of their country.
+
+Tyrannical as was Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. He did
+not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament
+authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent
+measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the
+parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as
+did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for
+resistance, and the king had every thing after his own way.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Henry VIII.]
+
+By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his temper
+was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. The moroseness
+he exhibited in his latter days was partly the effect of physical
+disease, brought about, indeed, by intemperance and gluttony. He was
+faithful to his wives, so long as he lived with them; and, while he
+doted on them, listened to their advice. But few of his advisers dared
+tell him the truth; and Cranmer himself can never be exculpated from
+flattering his perverted conscience. No one had the courage to tell
+him he was dying but one of the nobles of the court. He died, in great
+agony, June, 1547, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, and the
+fifty-sixth of his age, and was buried, with great pomp, in St. George
+Chapel, Windsor Castle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The best English histories of the reign of
+     Henry VIII. are the standard ones of Hume and Lingard. The
+     Pictorial History, in spite of its pictures, is also
+     excellent. Burnet should be consulted in reference to
+     ecclesiastical matters, and Hallam, in reference to the
+     constitution. See also the lives of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More,
+     and Cranmer. The lives of Henry's queens have been best
+     narrated by Agnes Strickland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EDWARD VI. AND MARY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: War with Scotland.]
+
+Henry VIII. was succeeded by his son, Edward VI., a boy of nine years
+of age, learned, pious, and precocious. Still he was a boy; and, as
+such, was a king but in name. The history of his reign is the history
+of the acts of his ministers.
+
+The late king left a will, appointing sixteen persons, mostly members
+of his council, to be guardians of his son, and rulers of the nation
+during his minority. The Earl of Hertford, being uncle of the king,
+was unanimously named protector.
+
+The first thing the council did was to look after themselves, that is,
+to give themselves titles and revenues. Hertford became Duke of
+Somerset; Essex, Marquis of Northampton; Lisle, Earl of Warwick; the
+Chancellor Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. At the head of these
+nobles was Somerset. He was a Protestant, and therefore prosecuted
+those reforms which Cranmer had before projected. Cranmer, as member
+of the council, archbishop of Canterbury, and friend of Somerset, had
+ample scope to prosecute his measures.
+
+The history of this reign is not important in a political point of
+view, and relates chiefly to the completion of the reformation, and to
+the squabbles and jealousies of the great lords who formed the council
+of regency.
+
+The most important event, of a political character, was a war with
+Scotland, growing out of the attempts of the late king to unite both
+nations under one government. In consequence, Scotland was invaded by
+the Duke of Somerset, at the head of eighteen thousand men. A great
+battle was fought, in which ten thousand of the Scots were slain. But
+the protector was compelled to return to England, without following up
+the fruits of victory, in consequence of cabals at court. His brother,
+Lord Seymour, a man of reckless ambition, had married the queen
+dowager, and openly aspired to the government of the kingdom. He
+endeavored to seduce the youthful king, and he had provided arms for
+ten thousand men.
+
+The protector sought to win his brother from his treasonable designs
+by kindness and favors; but, all his measures proving ineffectual, he
+was arrested, tried, and executed, for high treason.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebellions and Discontents.]
+
+But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother; and this was
+the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity by his suppression
+of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the country had witnessed
+since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred years before. The discontent
+of the people appears to have arisen from their actual suffering. Coin
+had depreciated, without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was
+cheap, because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular
+discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers
+introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. The
+priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it broke out
+into a flame.
+
+The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a law which
+he caused to be passed against enclosures; and, as he lost influence,
+his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, at last, was obliged
+to resign his protectorship; and Warwick, who had suppressed the
+rebellion, formed the chief of a new council of regency. He was a man
+of greater talents than Somerset, and equal ambition, and more fitted
+for stormy times.
+
+As soon as his power was established, and the country was at peace,
+and he had gained friends, he began to execute those projects of
+ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of Northumberland
+having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired to the extinct title and
+the estates, and procured for himself a grant of the same, with the
+title of duke. But there still remained a bar to his elevation; and
+this was the opposition of the Duke of Somerset, who, though disgraced
+and unpopular, was still powerful. It is unfortunate to be in the way
+of a great man's career, and Somerset paid the penalty of his
+opposition--the common fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times.
+He was accused of treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.)
+
+[Sidenote: Rivalry of the Great Nobles.]
+
+Northumberland, as the new dictator, seemed to have attained the
+highest elevation to which a subject could aspire. In rank, power, and
+property, he was second only to the royal family, but his ambition
+knew no bounds, and he began his intrigues to induce the young king,
+whose health was rapidly failing, and who was zealously attached to
+Protestantism, to set aside the succession of his sister Mary to the
+throne, really in view of the danger to which the reformers would be
+subjected, but under pretence of her declared illegitimacy, which
+would also set aside the claims of the Princess Elizabeth. Mary, Queen
+of Scots, was to be set aside on the ground of the will of the late
+king, and the succession would therefore devolve on the Lady Jane
+Grey, granddaughter of the Duke of Suffolk and of the French queen,
+whom he hoped to unite in marriage with his son. This was a
+deeply-laid scheme, and came near being successful, since Edward
+listened to it with pleasure. Northumberland then sought to gain over
+the judges and other persons of distinction, and succeeded by bribery
+and intimidation. At this juncture, the young king died, possessed of
+all the accomplishments which could grace a youth of sixteen, but
+still a tool in the hands of his ministers.
+
+[Sidenote: Religious Reforms.]
+
+Such were the political movements of this reign--memorable for the
+rivalries of the great nobles. But it is chiefly distinguished for the
+changes which were made in the church establishment, and the
+introduction of the principles of the continental reformers. No
+changes of importance were ever made beyond what Cranmer and his
+associates effected. Indeed, all that an absolute monarch could do,
+was done, and done with prudence, sagacity, and moderation. The people
+quietly--except in some rural districts--acquiesced in the change.
+Most of the clergy took the new oath of allegiance to Edward VI., as
+supreme head of the church; and very few suffered from religious
+persecution. There is no period in English history when such important
+changes were made, with so little bloodshed. Cranmer always watched
+the temper of the nation, and did nothing without great caution. Still
+a great change was effected--no less than a complete change from
+Romanism to Protestantism. But it was not so radical a reform as the
+Puritans subsequently desired, since the hierarchy and a liturgy, and
+clerical badges and dresses, were retained. It was the fortune of
+Cranmer, during the six years of Edward's reign, to effect the two
+great objects of which the English church has ever since been
+proud--the removal of Roman abuses, and the establishment of the creed
+of Luther and Calvin; and this without sweeping away the union of
+church and state, which, indeed, was more intimate than before the
+reformation. The papal power was completely subverted. Nothing more
+remained to be done by Cranmer. He had compiled the Book of Common
+Prayer, abolished the old Latin service, the worship of images, the
+ceremony of the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars
+into communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service,
+caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the laity,
+added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies for the
+clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and magnificently
+endowed schools and universities.
+
+The Reformation is divested of much interest, since it was the work of
+_authority_, rather than the result of _popular convictions_. But
+Cranmer won immortal honor for his skilful management, and for making
+no more changes than he could sustain. A large part of the English
+nation still regard his works as perfect, and are sincerely and
+enthusiastically attached to the form which he gave to his church.
+
+The hopes of his party were suddenly dispelled by the death of the
+amiable prince whom he controlled, 6th of July, 1553. The succession
+to the throne fell to the Princess Mary, or, as princesses were then
+called, the _Lady_ Mary; nor could all the arts of Northumberland
+exclude her from the enjoyment of her rights. This ambitious nobleman
+contrived to keep the death of Edward VI. a secret two days, and
+secure from the Mayor and Alderman of London a promise to respect the
+will of the late king. In consequence, the Lady Jane Grey was
+proclaimed Queen of England. "So far was she from any desire of this
+advancement, that she began to act her part of royalty with many
+tears, thus plainly showing to those who had access to her, that she
+was forced by her relations and friends to this high, but dangerous
+post." She was accomplished, beautiful, and amiable, devoted to her
+young husband, and very fond of Plato, whom she read in the original.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Northumberland.]
+
+But Mary's friends exerted themselves, and her cause--the cause of
+legitimacy, rather than that of Catholicism--gained ground.
+Northumberland was unequal to this crisis, and he was very feebly
+sustained. His forces were suppressed, his schemes failed, and his
+hopes fled. From rebellion, to the scaffold, there is but a step; and
+this great nobleman suffered the fate of Somerset, his former rival.
+His execution confirms one of the most striking facts in the history
+of absolute monarchies, when the idea of legitimacy is firmly
+impressed on the national mind; and that is, that no subject, or
+confederacy of subjects, however powerful, stand much chance in
+resisting the claims or the will of a legitimate prince. A nod or a
+word, from such a king, can consign the greatest noble to hopeless
+impotence. And he can do this from the mighty and mysterious force of
+ideas alone. Neither king nor parliament can ever resist the
+omnipotence of popular ideas. When ideas establish despots on their
+thrones, they are safe. When ideas demand their dethronement, no
+forces can long sustain them. The age of Queen Mary was the period of
+the most unchecked absolutism in England. Mary was apparently a
+powerless woman when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen by the party
+of Northumberland, and still she had but to signify her intentions to
+claim her rights, and the nation was prostrate at her feet. The
+Protestant party dreaded her accession; but loyalty was a stronger
+principle than even Protestantism, and she was soon firmly established
+in the absolute throne of Henry VIII.
+
+Then almost immediately followed a total change in the administration,
+which affected both the political and religious state of the country.
+Those who had languished in confinement, on account of their religion,
+obtained their liberty, and were elevated to power. Gardiner, Bonner,
+and other Catholic bishops, were restored to their sees, while
+Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper Coverdale, and other eminent
+Protestants, were imprisoned. All the statutes of Edward VI.
+pertaining to religion were repealed, and the queen sent assurances to
+the pope of her allegiance to his see. Cardinal Pole, descended from
+the royal family of England, and a man of great probity, moderation,
+and worth, was sent as legate of the pope. Gardiner, Bishop of
+Winchester, was made lord chancellor, and became the prime minister.
+He and his associates recommended violent councils; and a reign,
+unparalleled in England for religious persecution, commenced.
+
+[Sidenote: Marriage of the Queen.]
+
+Soon after the queen's accession, she married Philip, son of the
+Emperor Charles, and heir of the Spanish monarchy. This marriage,
+brought about by the intrigues of the emperor, and favored by the
+Catholic party, was quite acceptable to Mary, whose issue would
+inherit the thrones of Spain and England. But ambitious matches are
+seldom happy, especially when the wife is much older than the husband,
+as was the fact in this instance. Mary, however, was attached to
+Philip, although he treated her with great indifference.
+
+This Spanish match, the most brilliant of that age, failed, however,
+to satisfy the English, who had no notion of becoming the subjects of
+the King of Spain. In consequence of this disaffection, a rebellion
+broke out, in which Sir Thomas Wyatt was the most conspicuous, and in
+which the Duke of Suffolk, and even the Lady Jane and her husband,
+were implicated, though unjustly. The rebellion was easily suppressed,
+and the leaders sent to the Tower. Then followed one of the most
+melancholy executions of this reign--that of the Lady Jane Grey, who
+had been reprieved three months before. The queen urged the plea of
+self-defence, and the safety of the realm--the same that Queen
+Elizabeth, in after times, made in reference to the Queen of the
+Scots. Her unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she
+suffered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband--two
+illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of
+their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of Suffolk,
+the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved his fate,
+according to the ideas of his age. The Princess Elizabeth expected
+also to be sacrificed, both because she was a Protestant and the next
+heiress to the throne. But she carefully avoided giving any offence,
+and managed with such consummate prudence, that she was preserved for
+the future glory and welfare of the realm.
+
+[Sidenote: Religious Persecution.]
+
+The year 1555 opened gloomily for the Protestants. The prisons were
+all crowded with the victims of religious persecution, and bigoted
+inquisitors had only to prepare their fagots and stakes. Over a
+thousand ministers were ejected from their livings, and such as
+escaped further persecution fled to the continent. No fewer than two
+hundred and eighty-eight persons, among whom were five bishops,
+twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were burned
+for religious opinions, besides many thousands who suffered various
+other forms of persecution. The constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and
+Hooper has immortalized their names on the list of illustrious
+martyrs: but the greatest of all the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop
+of Canterbury. The most artful and insinuating promises were held out
+to him, to induce him to retract. Life and dignities were promised
+him, if he would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he
+yielded to the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid,
+heartbroken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were
+stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. But,
+when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suffered
+patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life was
+useful; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his memory from
+shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great author of the English
+Reformation, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his
+age; but he was timid, politic, and time-serving. The Reformation
+produced no perfect characters in any country. Some great defect
+blemished the lives of all the illustrious men who have justly earned
+imperishable glory. But the character of such men as Cranmer, and
+Ridley, and Latimer, present an interesting contrast to those of
+Gardiner and Bonner. The former did show, however, some lenity in the
+latter years of this reign of Mary; but the latter, the Bishop of
+London, gloated to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed.
+He even whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once
+pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in
+the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he might
+realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel is religious
+intolerance.
+
+But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is
+attributed to Mary, but which, in strict justice, should be ascribed
+to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a popular
+and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The fires of
+Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, opened
+the eyes of the nation to the spirit of the old religion, and also
+caused the flight of many distinguished men to Frankfort and Geneva,
+where they learned the principles of both religious and civil liberty.
+"The blood of martyrs proved the seed of the church"--a sublime truth,
+revealed to Cranmer and Ridley amid the fires which consumed their
+venerable bodies; and not to them merely, but to all who witnessed
+their serenity, and heard their shouts of triumph when this mortal
+passed to immortality. Heretics increased with the progress of
+persecution, and firm conviction took the place of a blind confession
+of dogmas. "It was not," says Milman, "until Christ was lain in his
+rock-hewn sepulchre, that the history of Christianity commenced." We
+might add, it was not until the fires of Smithfield were lighted, that
+great spiritual ideas took hold of the popular mind, and the intense
+religious earnestness appeared which has so often characterized the
+English nation. The progress which man makes is generally seen through
+disaster, suffering, and sorrow. This is one of the fundamental truths
+which history teaches.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Mary.]
+
+The last years of the reign of Mary were miserable to herself, and
+disastrous to the nation. Her royal husband did not return her warm
+affections, and left England forever. She embarked in a ruinous war
+with France, and gained nothing but disgrace. Her health failed, and
+her disposition became gloomy. She continued, to the last, most
+intolerant in her religious opinions, and thought more of restoring
+Romanism, than of promoting the interests of her kingdom. Her heart
+was bruised and broken, and her life was a succession of sorrows. It
+is fashionable to call this unfortunate queen the "bloody Mary," and
+not allow her a single virtue; but she was affectionate, sincere,
+high-minded, and shrunk from the dissimulation and intrigue which
+characterized "the virgin queen"--the name given to her masculine but
+energetic successor. Mary was capable of the warmest friendship; was
+attentive and considerate to her servants, charitable to the poor, and
+sympathetic with the unfortunate, when not blinded by her religious
+prejudices. She had many accomplishments, and a very severe taste, and
+was not addicted to oaths, as was Queen Elizabeth and her royal
+father. She was, however, a bigoted Catholic; and how could partisan
+historians see or acknowledge her merits?
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Elizabeth.]
+
+But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthusiasm
+the accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. With her
+reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of Europe. Who does
+not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protestantism was established in
+England, when illustrious poets and philosophers adorned the
+literature of the country, when commerce and arts received a great
+impulse, when the colonies in North America were settled, and when a
+constellation of great statesmen raised England to a pitch of glory
+not before attained?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--See Hume's, and Lingard's, and other standard
+     Histories of England; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens
+     of England; Burnet's History of the Reformation; Life of
+     Cranmer; Fox's Book of Martyrs. These works contain all the
+     easily-accessible information respecting the reigns of
+     Edward and Mary, which is important.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ELIZABETH.
+
+
+Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn, was in her
+twenty-sixth year when she ascended the throne. She was crowned the
+15th of June, 1559, and soon assembled her parliament and selected her
+ministers. After establishing her own legitimacy, she set about
+settling the affairs of the church, but only restored the Protestant
+religion as Cranmer had left it. Indeed, she ever retained a fondness
+for ceremonial, and abhorred a reform spirit among the people. She
+insisted on her supremacy, as head of the church, and on conformity
+with her royal conscience. But she was not severe on the Catholics,
+and even the gluttonous and vindictive Bonner was permitted to end his
+days in peace.
+
+As soon as the Protestant religion was established, the queen turned
+her attention towards Scotland, from which much trouble was expected.
+
+[Sidenote: Mary, Queen of Scots.]
+
+Scotland was then governed by Mary, daughter of James V., and had
+succeeded her father while a mere infant, eight days after her birth,
+(1542.) In 1558, she married the dauphin, afterwards King of France,
+by which marriage she was Queen of France as well as of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: John Knox.]
+
+According to every canonical law of the Roman church, the claim of
+Mary Stuart to the English throne was preferable to that of her cousin
+Elizabeth. Her uncles, the Guises, represented that Anne Boleyn's
+marriage had never been lawful, and that Elizabeth was therefore
+illegitimate. In an evil hour, she and her husband quartered the arms
+of England with their own, and assumed the titles of King and Queen of
+Scotland and England. And Elizabeth's indignation was further excited
+by the insult which the pope had inflicted, in declaring her birth
+illegitimate. She, therefore, resolved to gratify, at once, both her
+ambition and her vengeance, encouraged by her ministers, who wished to
+advance the Protestant interest in the kingdom. Accordingly,
+Elizabeth, with consummate art, undermined the authority of Mary in
+Scotland, now distracted by religious as well as civil commotions.
+Mary was a Catholic, and had a perfect abhorrence and disgust of the
+opinions and customs of the reformers, especially of John Knox, whose
+influence in Scotland was almost druidical. The Catholics resolved to
+punish with fire and sword, while the Protestants were equally intent
+on defending themselves with the sword. And it so happened that some
+of the most powerful of the nobility were arrayed on the side of
+Protestantism. But the Scotch reformers were animated with a zeal
+unknown to Cranmer and his associates. The leaders had been trained at
+Geneva, under the guidance of Calvin, and had imbibed his opinions,
+and were, therefore, resolved to carry the work of reform after the
+model of the Genevan church. Accordingly, those pictures, and statues,
+and ornaments, and painted glass, and cathedrals, which Cranmer
+spared, were furiously destroyed by the Scotch reformers, who
+considered them as parts of an idolatrous worship. The antipathy to
+bishops and clerical vestments was equally strong, and a sweeping
+reform was carried on under the dictatorship of Knox. Elizabeth had no
+more sympathy with this bold, but uncouth, reformer and his movements,
+than had Mary herself, and never could forgive him for his book,
+written at Geneva, aimed against female government, called the "First
+Blast of a Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." But Knox
+cared not for either the English or the Scottish queens, and zealously
+and fearlessly prosecuted his work, and gained over to his side the
+moral strength of the kingdom. Of course, a Catholic queen resolved to
+suppress his doctrines; but nearly the whole Scottish nobility rallied
+around his standard, marching with the Bible in one hand, and the
+sword in the other. The queen brought in troops from France to support
+her insulted and tottering government, which only increased the zeal
+of the Protestant party, headed by the Earls of Argyle, Arran, Morton,
+and Glencairn, and James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrews, who styled
+themselves "Lords of the Congregation." A civil war now raged in
+Scotland, between the queen regent, who wished to suppress the
+national independence, and extinguish the Protestant religion, and the
+Protestants, who comprised a great part of the nation, and who were
+resolved on the utter extirpation of Romanism and the limitation of
+the regal power. The Lords of the Congregation implored the aid of
+England, which Elizabeth was ready to grant, both from political and
+religious motives. The Protestant cause was in the ascendant, when the
+queen regent died, in 1560. The same year died Francis II., of France;
+and Mary, now a widow, resolved to return to her own kingdom. She
+landed at Leith, August, 1561, and was received with the grandest
+demonstration of joy. For a time, affairs were tolerably tranquil,
+Mary having intrusted the great Protestant nobles with power. She was
+greatly annoyed, however, by Knox, who did not treat her with the
+respect due to a queen, and who called her Jezebel; but the reformer
+escaped punishment on account of his great power.
+
+[Sidenote: Marriage of Mary--Darnley.]
+
+In 1565, Mary married her cousin, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of
+Lennox,--a match exceedingly distasteful to Elizabeth, who was ever
+jealous of Mary, especially in matrimonial matters, since the Scottish
+queen had not renounced her pretensions to the throne of her
+grandfather, Henry VII. The character of Elizabeth now appears in its
+worst light; and meanness and jealousy took the place of that
+magnanimity which her admirers have ascribed to her. She fomented
+disturbances in Scotland, and incited the queen's natural brother, the
+Prior of St. Andrews, now Earl of Murray, to rebellion, with the
+expectation of obtaining the government of the country. He formed a
+conspiracy to seize the persons of Mary and her husband. The plot was
+discovered, and Murray fled to England; but it was still unremittingly
+pursued, till at length it was accomplished.
+
+Darnley, the consort of Mary, was a man of low tastes, profligate
+habits, and shallow understanding. Such a man could not long retain
+the affections of the most accomplished woman of her age, accustomed
+to flattery, and bent on pursuing her own pleasure, at any cost.
+Disgust and coldness therefore took place. Darnley, enraged at this
+increasing coldness, was taught to believe that he was supplanted in
+the queen's affections by an Italian favorite, the musician Rizzio,
+whom Mary had made her secretary. He therefore signed a bond, with
+certain lords, for the murder of the Italian, who seems to have been a
+man of no character. One evening, as the queen was at supper, in her
+private apartment, with the countess of Argyle and Rizzio, the Earl of
+Morton, with one hundred and sixty men, took possession of the palace
+of Holyrood, while Darnley himself showed the way to a band of
+ruffians to the royal presence. Rizzio was barbarously murdered in the
+presence of the queen, who endeavored to protect him.
+
+Darnley, in thus perpetrating this shocking murder, was but the tool
+of some of the great lords, who wished to make him hateful to the
+queen, and to the nation, and thus prepare the way for his own
+execution. And they succeeded. A plot was contrived for the murder of
+Darnley, of which Murray was probably the author. Shortly after, the
+house, in which he slept, was blown up by gunpowder, in the middle of
+the night.
+
+[Sidenote: Bothwell--Civil War in Scotland.]
+
+The public voice imputed to the Earl of Bothwell, a great favorite of
+the queen, the murder of Darnley. Nor did the queen herself escape
+suspicion. "But no inquiry or research," says Scott, "has ever been
+able to bring us either to that clear opinion upon the guilt of Mary
+which is expressed by many authors, or guide us to that triumphant
+conclusion in favor of her innocence of all accession, direct or
+tacit, to the death of her husband, which others have maintained with
+the same obstinacy." But whatever doubt exists as to the queen's
+guilt, there is none respecting her ministers--Maitland, Huntley,
+Morton, and Argyle. Still they offered a reward of two thousand pounds
+for the discovery of the murderers. The public voice accused Bothwell
+as the principal: and yet the ministers associated with him, and the
+queen, entirely exculpated him. He was brought to a trial, on the
+formal accusation of the Earl of Lennox, in the city of Edinburgh,
+which he was permitted to obtain possession of. In a place guarded by
+his own followers, it was not safe for any witnesses to appear against
+him, and he was therefore acquitted, though the whole nation believed
+him guilty.
+
+Mary was rash enough to marry, shortly after, the man whom public
+opinion pronounced to be the murderer of her husband; and Murray, her
+brother, was so ambitious and treacherous, as to favor the marriage,
+with the hope that the unpopularity of the act would lead to the
+destruction of the queen, and place him at the helm of state. No
+sooner was Mary married to Bothwell, than Murray and other lords threw
+off the mask, pretended to be terribly indignant, took up arms against
+the queen, with the view of making her prisoner, and with the pretence
+of delivering her from her husband. Bothwell escaped to Norway, and
+the queen surrendered herself, at Carberry Hill, to the insurgent
+army, the chiefs of which instantly assumed the reins of government,
+and confined the queen in the castle of Lochleven, and treated her
+with excessive harshness. Shortly after, (1567,) she resigned her
+crown to her infant son, and Murray, the prime mover of so many
+disturbances, became regent of the kingdom. Murray was a zealous
+Protestant, and had the support of Knox in all his measures, and the
+countenance of the English ministry. Abating his intrigue and
+ambition, he was a most estimable man, and deserved the affections of
+the nation, which he retained until his death. M'Crie, in his Life of
+Knox, represents him as a model of Christian virtue and integrity, and
+every way worthy of the place he held in the affections of his party.
+
+[Sidenote: Captivity of Queen Mary.]
+
+The unfortunate queen suffered great unkindness in her lonely
+confinement, and Knox, with the more zealous of his party, clamored
+for her death, as an adulteress and a murderer. She succeeded in
+escaping from her prison, raised an army, marched against the regent,
+was defeated at the battle of Langside, fled to England, and became,
+May, 1568, the prisoner-guest of her envious rival. Elizabeth obtained
+the object of her desires. But the captivity of Mary, confined in
+Tutbury Castle, against all the laws of hospitality and justice, gave
+rise to incessant disturbances, both in England and Scotland, until
+her execution, in 1587. And these form no inconsiderable part of the
+history of England for seventeen years. Scotland was the scene of
+anarchy, growing out of the contentions and jealousies of rival
+chieftains, who stooped to every crime that appeared to facilitate
+their objects. In 1570, the regent Murray was assassinated. He was
+succeeded by his enemy, the Earl of Lennox, who, in his turn, was shot
+by an assassin. The Earl of Mar succeeded him, but lived only a year.
+Morton became regent, the reward of his many crimes but retribution at
+last overtook him, being executed when James assumed the sovereignty.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Mary.]
+
+Meanwhile, the unfortunate Mary pined in hopeless captivity. It was
+natural for her to seek release, and also for her friends to help her.
+Among her friends was the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in
+England, and a zealous Catholic. He aspired to her hand; but Elizabeth
+chose to consider his courtship as a treasonable act, and Norfolk was
+arrested. On being afterwards released, he plotted for the liberation
+of Mary, and his intrigues brought him to the block. The unfortunate
+captive, wearied and impatient, naturally sought the assistance of
+foreign powers. She had her agents in Rome, France, Spain, and the Low
+Countries. The Catholics in England espoused her cause, and a
+conspiracy was formed to deliver her, assassinate Elizabeth, and
+restore the Catholic religion. From the fact that Mary was privy to
+that part of it which concerned her own deliverance, she was brought
+to trial as a criminal, found guilty by a court incompetent to sit on
+her case, and executed without remorse, 8th February, 1587.
+
+Few persons have excited more commiseration than this unfortunate
+queen, both on account of her exalted rank, and her splendid
+intellectual accomplishments. Whatever obloquy she merited for her
+acts as queen of Scotland, no one can blame her for meditating escape
+from the power of her zealous but more fortunate rival; and her
+execution is the greatest blot in the character of the queen of
+England, at this time in the zenith of her glory.
+
+Next to the troubles with Scotland growing out of the interference of
+Elizabeth, the great political events of the reign were the long and
+protracted war with Spain, and the Irish rebellion. Both of these
+events were important.
+
+Spain was at this time governed by Philip II., son of the emperor
+Charles, one of the most bigoted Catholics of the age, and allied with
+Catharine de Medicis of France for the entire suppression of
+Protestantism. She incited her son Charles IX. to the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew, and Philip established the inquisition in Flanders. This
+measure provoked an insurrection, to suppress which the Duke of Alva,
+one of the most celebrated of the generals of Charles V., was sent
+into the Netherlands with a large army, and almost unlimited powers.
+The cruelties of Alva were unparalleled. In six years, eighteen
+thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner, and Alva
+counted on the entire suppression of Protestantism by the mere force
+of armies. He could count the physical resources of the people, but he
+could not estimate the degree of their resistance when animated by the
+spirit of liberty or religion. Providence, too, takes care of those
+who strive to take care of themselves. A great leader appeared among
+the suffering Hollanders, almost driven to despair--the celebrated
+William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. He appeared as the champion of
+the oppressed and insulted people; they rallied around his standard,
+fought with desperate bravery, opened the dikes upon their cultivated
+fields, expelled their invaders, and laid the foundation of their
+liberties. But they could not have withstood the gigantic power of the
+Spanish monarchy, then in the fulness of its strength, and the most
+powerful in Europe, had it not been for aid rendered by Elizabeth. She
+compassionated their sufferings, and had respect for their cause. She
+entered into an alliance, defensive and offensive, and the Netherlands
+became the great theatre of war, even after they had thrown off the
+Spanish yoke. Although the United Provinces in the end obtained their
+liberty, they suffered incredible hardships, and lost some of the
+finest of their cities, Antwerp among the rest, long the rival of
+Amsterdam, and the scene of Rubens's labors.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Preparations of Philip II.]
+
+The assistance which Elizabeth rendered to the Hollanders, of course,
+provoked the resentment of Philip II., and this was increased by the
+legalized piracies of Sir Francis Drake, in the West Indies, and on
+the coasts of South America. This commander, in time of peace,
+insisted on a right to visit those ports which the Spaniards had
+closed, which, by the law of nations, is piracy. Philip, according to
+all political maxims, was forced to declare war with England, and he
+made immense preparations to subdue it. But the preparations of
+Elizabeth to resist the powerful monarch were also great, and Drake
+performed brilliant exploits on the sea, among other things,
+destroying one hundred ships in the Bay of Cadiz, and taking immense
+spoil. The preparations of the Spanish monarch were made on such a
+gigantic scale, that Elizabeth summoned a great council of war to meet
+the emergency, at which the all-accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh took a
+leading part. His advice was to meet the Spaniards on the sea.
+Although the royal navy consisted, at this time, of only thirty-six
+sail, such vigorous measures were prosecuted, that one hundred and
+ninety-one ships were collected, manned by seventeen thousand four
+hundred seamen. The merchants of London granted thirty ships and ten
+thousand men, and all England was aroused to meet the expected danger.
+Never was patriotism more signally evinced, never were more decisive
+proofs given of the popularity of a sovereign. Indeed, Elizabeth was
+always popular with the nation; and with all her ceremony, and state,
+and rudeness to the commons, and with all their apparent servility,
+she never violated the laws, or irritated the people by oppressive
+exactions. Many acts of the Tudor princes seem to indicate the reign
+of despotism in England, but this despotism was never grievous, and
+had all the benignity of a paternal government. Capricious and
+arbitrary as Elizabeth was, in regard to some unfortunate individuals
+who provoked her hatred or her jealousy, still she ever sedulously
+guarded the interests of the nation, and listened to the counsel of
+patriotic and able ministers. When England was threatened with a
+Spanish invasion, there was not a corner of the land which did not
+rise to protect a beloved sovereign; nor was there a single spot,
+where a landing might be effected, around which an army of twenty
+thousand could not be rallied in forty-eight hours.
+
+[Sidenote: Spanish Armada.]
+
+But Philip, nevertheless, expected the complete conquest of England;
+and, as his "Invincible Armada" of one hundred and thirty ships, left
+the mouth of the Tagus, commanded by Medina Sidonia, and manned by the
+noblest troops of Spain, he fancied his hour of triumph was at hand.
+But his hopes proved dreams, like most of the ambitious designs of
+men. The armada met with nothing but misfortunes, both from battle and
+from storms. Only fifty ships returned to Spain. An immense booty was
+divided among the English sailors, and Elizabeth sent, in her turn, a
+large fleet to Spain, the following year, (1589,) under the command of
+Drake, which, after burning a few towns, returned ingloriously to
+England, with a loss of ten thousand men. The war was continued with
+various success till 1598, when a peace was negotiated. The same year,
+died Philip II., and Lord Burleigh, who, for forty years, directed the
+councils of Elizabeth, and to whose voice she ever listened, even when
+opposed by such favorites as Leicester and Essex. Burleigh was not a
+great genius, but was a man admirably adapted to his station and his
+times,--was cool, sagacious, politic, and pacific, skilful in the
+details of business competent to advise, but not aspiring to command.
+He was splendidly rewarded for his services, and left behind him three
+hundred distinct landed estates.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Rebellion.]
+
+Meanwhile the attention of the queen was directed to the affairs of
+Ireland, which had been conquered by Henry II. in the year 1170, but
+over which only an imperfect sovereignty had been exercised. The Irish
+princes and nobles, divided among themselves, paid the exterior marks
+of obedience, but kept the country in a constant state of
+insurrection.
+
+The impolitic and romantic projects of the English princes for
+subduing France, prevented a due attention to Ireland, ever miserably
+governed. Elizabeth was the first of the English sovereigns to
+perceive the political importance of this island, and the necessity
+for the establishment of law and order. Besides furnishing governors
+of great capacity, she founded the university of Dublin, and attempted
+to civilize the half-barbarous people. Unfortunately, she also sought
+to make them Protestants, against their will, which laid the
+foundation of many subsequent troubles, not yet removed. A spirit of
+discontent pervaded the country, and the people were ready for
+rebellion. Hugh O'Neale, the head of a powerful clan, and who had been
+raised to the dignity of Earl of Tyrone, yet attached to the barbarous
+license in which he had been early trained, fomented the popular
+discontents, and excited a dangerous rebellion. Hostilities, of the
+most sanguinary character, commenced. The queen sent over her
+favorite, the Earl of Essex, with an army of twenty thousand men, to
+crush the rebellion. He was a brave commander, but was totally
+unacquainted with the country and the people he was expected to
+subdue, and was, consequently, unsuccessful. But his successor, Lord
+Mountjoy, succeeded in restoring the queen's authority, though at the
+cost of four millions and a half, an immense sum in that age, while
+poor Ireland was devastated with fire and sword, and suffered every
+aggravation of accumulated calamities.
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Essex.]
+
+Meanwhile, Essex, who had returned to England against the queen's
+orders, was treated with coldness, deprived of his employments, and
+sentenced to be confined. This was more than the haughty favorite
+could bear, accustomed as he had been to royal favor. At first, he
+acquiesced in his punishment, with every mark of penitence, and
+Elizabeth was beginning to relax in her severity for she never
+intended to ruin him; but he soon gave vent to his violent temper,
+indulged in great liberties of speech, and threw off all appearance of
+duty and respect. He even engaged in treasonable designs, encouraged
+Roman Catholics at his house, and corresponded with James VI. of
+Scotland about his succession. His proceedings were discovered, and he
+was summoned before the privy council. Instead of obedience, he armed
+himself and his followers, and, in conjunction with some discontented
+nobles, and about three hundred gentlemen, attempted to excite an
+insurrection in London, where he was very popular with the citizens.
+He was captured and committed to the Tower, with the Earl of
+Southampton. These rash but brave noblemen were tried by their peers,
+and condemned as guilty of high treason. In this trial, the celebrated
+Bacon appeared against his old patron, and likened him to the Duke of
+Guise. The great lawyer Coke, who was attorney-general, compared him
+to Catiline.
+
+Essex disdained to sue the queen for a pardon, and was privately
+beheaded in the Tower. He merited his fate, if the offence of which he
+was guilty deserved such a punishment. It is impossible not to be
+interested in the fate of a man so brave, high-spirited, and generous,
+the idol of the people, and the victor in so many enterprises. Some
+historians maintain that Elizabeth relented, and would have saved her
+favorite, had he only implored her clemency; but this statement is
+denied by others; nor have we any evidence to believe that Essex,
+caught with arms against the sovereign who had honored him, could have
+averted his fate.
+
+Elizabeth may have wept for the death of the nobleman she had loved.
+It is certain that, after his death, she never regained her spirits,
+and that a deep melancholy was visible in her countenance. All her
+actions showed a deeply-settled inward grief, and that she longed for
+death, having tasted the unsubstantial nature of human greatness. She
+survived the execution of Essex two years, but lived long enough to
+see the neglect into which she was every day falling, and to feel
+that, in spite of all her glory and power, she was not exempted from
+drinking the cup of bitterness.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Elizabeth.]
+
+Whatever unamiable qualities she evinced as a woman, in spite of her
+vanity, and jealousy, and imperious temper, her reign was one of the
+most glorious in the annals of her country. The policy of Burleigh was
+the policy of Sir Robert Walpole--that of peace, and a desire to
+increase the resources of the kingdom. Her taxes were never
+oppressive, and were raised without murmur; the people were loyal and
+contented; the Protestant religion was established on a firm
+foundation; and a constellation of great men shed around her throne
+the bright rays of immortal genius.
+
+The most unhappy peculiarity of her reign was the persecution of the
+Non-conformists, which, if not sanguinary, was irritating and severe.
+For some time after the accession of Elizabeth, the Puritans were
+permitted to indulge in their peculiarities, without being excluded
+from the established church; but when Elizabeth felt herself secure,
+then they were obliged to conform, or suffered imprisonment, fines,
+and other punishments. The original difficulty was their repugnance to
+the surplice, and to some few forms of worship, which gradually
+extended to an opposition to the order of bishops; to the temporal
+dignities of the church; to the various titles of the hierarchy; to
+the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts; to the promiscuous access of
+all persons to the communion table; to the liturgy; to the observance
+of holydays; to the cathedral worship; to the use of organs; to the
+presentation of living by patrons; and finally, to some of the
+doctrines of the established church. The separation of the Puritans
+from the Episcopal church, took place in 1566; and, from that time to
+the death of Elizabeth, they enjoyed no peace, although they sought
+redress in the most respectful manner, and raised no opposition to the
+royal authority. Thousands were ejected from their livings, and
+otherwise punished, for not conforming to the royal conscience. But
+persecution and penal laws fanned a fanatical spirit, which, in the
+reign of Charles, burst out into a destructive flame, and spread
+devastation and ruin through all parts of the kingdom.
+
+If the queen and her ministers did not understand the principles of
+religious toleration, they pursued a much more enlightened policy in
+regard to all financial and political subjects, than during any former
+reign. The commercial importance of England received a new impulse.
+The reign of Henry VIII. was a reign of spoliation. The king was
+enriched beyond all former precedent, but his riches did not keep pace
+with his spendthrift habits. The value of the abbey lands which Henry
+seized amounted, a century after his death, to six million pounds. The
+lands of the abbey of St. Alban's alone rented for two hundred
+thousand pounds. The king debased the coin, confiscated chapels and
+colleges, as well as monasteries, and raised money by embargoes,
+monopolies, and compulsory loans.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements Made in the Reign of Elizabeth.]
+
+But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, paid off the old ones,
+restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual
+revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the
+rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her
+frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant
+only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her
+economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were
+passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial
+industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation
+followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir
+Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company
+was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was
+discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade
+commenced--a traffic which has been productive of more human misery,
+and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any
+other event in the history of modern times.
+
+During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable;
+chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden
+trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and
+woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries,
+apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the
+damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory
+of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the
+soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the
+orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the
+prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays,
+which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us
+almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of
+philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of
+the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser
+dedicated to Elizabeth his "Fairy Queen," one of the most truly
+poetical compositions that genius ever produced. The age produced also
+great divines; but these did not occupy so prominent a place in the
+nation's eye as during the succeeding reigns.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections.]
+
+While the virgin queen was exercising so benign an influence on the
+English nation, great events, though not disconnected with English
+politics, were taking place on the continent. The most remarkable of
+these was the persecution of the Huguenots. The rise and fortunes of
+this sect, during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX.,
+Henry III., and Henry IV., now demand our attention. If a newspaper
+had, in that age, been conducted upon the principles it now is, the
+sufferings of the Huguenots would always be noticed. It is our
+province to describe just what a modern newspaper would have alluded
+to, had it been printed three hundred years ago. It would not have
+been filled with genealogies of kings, but with descriptions of great
+popular movements. And this is history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For the history of this reign, see Hume,
+     Lingard, and Hallam; Miss Strickland's Queens of England;
+     Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; M'Crie's Life of Knox;
+     Robertson's History of Scotland; Macaulay's Essay on Nares's
+     Life of Burleigh; Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; Neale's
+     History of the Puritans. Kenilworth may also be profitably
+     read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV.
+
+
+The history of France, from the death of Francis I. to the accession
+of Henry IV. is virtually the history of religious contentions and
+persecutions, and of those civil wars which grew out of them. The
+Huguenotic contest, then, is a great historical subject, and will be
+presented in connection with the history of France, until the death of
+Henry IV., the greatest of the French monarchs, and long the
+illustrious head of the Protestant party.
+
+The reform doctrines first began to spread in France during the reign
+of Francis I. As early as 1523, he became a persecutor, and burned
+many at the stake, among whom the descendants of the Waldenses were
+the most numerous. In 1540, sentence was pronounced against them by
+the parliament of Aix. Their doctrines were the same in substance as
+those of the Swiss reformers.
+
+While this persecution was raging, John Calvin fled from France to
+Ferrara, from which city he proceeded to Geneva. This was in the year
+1536, when his theological career commenced by the publication of his
+Institutes, which were dedicated to Francis I., one of the most
+masterly theological works ever written, although compended from the
+writings of Augustine. The Institutes of Calvin, the great text-book
+of the Swiss and French reformers, were distasteful to the French
+king, and he gave fresh order for the persecution of the Protestants.
+Notwithstanding the hostility of Francis, the new doctrines spread,
+and were embraced by some of the most distinguished of the French
+nobility. The violence of persecution was not much arrested during the
+reign of Henry II., and, through the influence of the Cardinal of
+Lorraine, the inquisition was established in the kingdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Catharine de Medicis.]
+
+The wife of Henry II. was the celebrated Catharine de Medicis; and she
+was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited her husband
+to the most cruel atrocities. Francis II. continued the persecution,
+and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the ruler of the nation.
+
+The power of the queen mother was much increased when Francis II.
+died, and when his brother, Charles IX., a boy of nine years of age,
+succeeded to the French crown. She exercised her power by the most
+unsparing religious persecution recorded in the history of modern
+Europe. There had been some hope that Protestantism would be
+established in France; but it did not succeed, owing to the violence
+of the persecution. It made, however, a desperate struggle before it
+was overcome.
+
+At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the Cardinal
+of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Constable
+Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of the Spaniards,
+and a great majority of the nation.
+
+The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of
+Henry IV., the Prince of Conde, his brother, and Admiral Coligny; and
+they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and the
+Protestants of Germany and England.
+
+[Sidenote: Civil War in France.]
+
+Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with various
+success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance did not lead
+to liberty. Civil war in France did not secure the object sought.
+Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could always assemble a
+large army, they maintained their ground. Their conduct was not marked
+by the religious earnestness which characterized the Puritans, or by
+the same strength of religious principle. Moreover, political motives
+were mingled with religious. The contest was a struggle for the
+ascendency of rival chiefs, as well as for the establishment of
+reformed doctrines. The Bourbons hated the Guises, and the Guises
+resolved to destroy the Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and
+warfare, the Duke of Guise was assassinated, and the King of Navarre,
+as well as the Prince of Conde, were killed.
+
+Charles IX. was fourteen years of age when the young king of
+Navarre,--at that time sixteen years of age,--and his cousin, the
+Prince of Conde, became the acknowledged heads of the Protestant
+party. Their education was learned in the camp and the field of
+battle.
+
+Charles IX., under the influence of his hateful mother, finding that
+civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without
+weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for their
+extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs he gave his
+sister, Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of Navarre, first
+prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age. Admiral Coligny was
+invited to Paris, and treated with distinguished courtesy.
+
+[Sidenote: Massacre of St. Bartholomew.]
+
+It was during the festivities which succeeded the marriage of the King
+of Navarre that Coligny was murdered, and the signal for the horrid
+slaughter of St. Bartholomew was given. At midnight, August 23, 1572,
+the great bell at the Hotel de Ville began to toll; torches were
+placed in the windows, chains were drawn across the streets, and armed
+bodies collected around the hotels. The doors of the houses were
+broken open, and neither age, condition, nor sex was spared, of such
+as were not distinguished by a white cross in the hat. The massacre at
+Paris was followed by one equally brutal in the provinces. Seventy
+thousand people were slain in cold blood. The King of Navarre and the
+Prince of Conde only escaped in consequence of their relationship with
+the king, and by renouncing the Protestant religion.
+
+Most of the European courts expressed their detestation of this
+foulest crime in the history of religious bigotry; but the pope went
+in grand procession to his cathedral, and ordered a _Te Deum_ to be
+sung in commemoration of an event which steeped his cause in infamy to
+the end of time.
+
+The Protestants, though nearly exterminated, again rallied, and the
+King of Navarre and his cousin the Prince of Conde escaped, renounced
+the religion which had been forced on them by fear of death, and
+prosecuted a bloody civil war, with the firm resolution of never
+abandoning it until religious liberty was guarantied.
+
+Meanwhile, Charles IX. died, as it was supposed, by poison. His last
+hours were wretched, and his remorse for the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew filled his soul with agony. He beheld spectres, and
+dreamed horrid dreams; his imagination constantly saw heaps of livid
+bodies, and his ears were assailed with imaginary groans. He became
+melancholy and ferocious, while his kingdom became the prey of
+factions and insurrections. But he was a timid and irresolute king,
+and was but the tool of his infamous mother, the grand patroness of
+assassins, against whom, on his death bed, he cautioned the king of
+Navarre.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry III.--Henry IV.]
+
+He was succeeded by his brother, the King of Poland, under the title
+of Henry III. The persecutions of the Huguenots were renewed, and the
+old scenes of treachery, assassination, and war were acted over again.
+The cause of religion was lost sight of in the labyrinth of
+contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and factions were
+endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, perished by the sword
+or the dagger. The Prince of Conde, the Duke of Guise, and his
+brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were assassinated. Shortly after,
+died the chief mover of all the troubles, Catharine de Medicis, a
+woman of talents and persuasive eloquence, but of most unprincipled
+ambition, perfidious, cruel, and dissolute. She encouraged the
+licentiousness of the court, and even the worst vices of her sons,
+that she might make them subservient to her designs. All her passions
+were subordinate to her calculations of policy, and every womanly
+virtue was suppressed by the desire of wielding a government which she
+usurped.
+
+Henry III. soon followed her to the grave, being, in turn,
+assassinated by a religious fanatic. His death (1589) secured the
+throne to the king of Navarre, who took the title of Henry IV.
+
+Henry IV., the first of the Bourbon line, was descended from Robert,
+the sixth son of St. Louis, who had married the daughter and heiress
+of John of Burgundy and Agnes of Bourbon. He was thirty-six years of
+age when he became king, and had passed through great experiences and
+many sorrows. Thus far he had contended for Protestant opinions, and
+was the acknowledged leader of the Protestant party in France. But a
+life of contention and bloodshed, and the new career opened to him as
+king of France, cooled his religious ardor, and he did not hesitate to
+accept the condition which the French nobles imposed, before they
+would take the oaths of allegiance. This was, that he should abjure
+Protestantism. "My kingdom," said he, "is well worth a mass." It will
+be ever laid to his reproach, by the Protestants, that he renounced
+his religion for worldly elevation. Nor is it easy to exculpate him on
+the highest principles of moral integrity. But there were many
+palliations for his conduct, which it is not now easy to appreciate.
+It is well known that the illustrious Sully, his prime minister, and,
+through life, a zealous Protestant, approved of his course. It was
+certainly clear that, without becoming a Catholic, he never could
+peaceably enjoy his crown, and France would be rent, for another
+generation, by those civil wars which none lamented more than Henry
+himself. Besides, four fifths of the population were Catholics, and
+the Protestants could not reasonably expect to gain the ascendency.
+All they could expect was religious toleration, and this Henry was
+willing to grant. It should also be considered that the king, though
+he professed the reform doctrines, was never what may be called a
+religious man, being devoted to pleasure, and to schemes of ambition.
+It is true he understood and consulted the interests of his kingdom,
+and strove to make his subjects happy. Herein consists his excellence.
+As a magnanimous, liberal-minded, and enterprising man, he surpassed
+all the French kings. But it is ridiculous to call him a religious
+man, or even strongly fixed in his religious opinions. "Do you," said
+the king to a great Protestant divine, "believe that a man may be
+saved by the Catholic religion?" "Undoubtedly," replied the clergyman,
+"if his life and heart be holy." "Then," said the king, "prudence
+dictates that I embrace the Catholic religion, and not yours; for, in
+that case, according to both Catholics and Protestants, I may be
+saved; but, if I embrace your religion, I shall not be saved,
+according to the Catholics."
+
+But the king's conversion to Catholicism did not immediately result in
+the tranquillity of the distracted country. The Catholics would not
+believe in his sincerity, and many battles had to be fought before he
+was in peaceable enjoyment of his throne. But there is nothing so
+hateful as civil war, especially to the inhabitants of great cities;
+and Paris, at last, and the chief places in the kingdom, acknowledged
+his sway. The king of Spain, the great Catholic prelates, and the
+pope, finally perceived how hopeless was the struggle against a man of
+great military experience, with a devoted army and an enthusiastic
+capital on his side.
+
+The peace of Verviens, in 1598, left the king without foreign or
+domestic enemies. From that period to his death, his life was devoted
+to the welfare of his country.
+
+[Sidenote: Edict of Nantes.]
+
+His first act was the celebrated Edict of Nantes, by which the
+Huguenots had quiet and undisturbed residence, the free exercise of
+their religion, and public worship, except in the court, the army, and
+within five leagues of Paris. They were eligible to all offices, civil
+and military; and all public prosecutions, on account of religion,
+were dropped. This edict also promulgated a general amnesty for
+political offences, and restored property and titles, as before the
+war; but the Protestants were prohibited from printing controversial
+books, and were compelled to pay tithes to the established clergy.
+
+Henry IV., considering the obstacles with which he had to contend, was
+the greatest general of the age; but it is his efforts in civilization
+which entitle him to his epithet of _Great_.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements during the Reign of Henry IV.]
+
+The first thing which demanded his attention, as a civil ruler, was
+the settlement of the finances--ever the leading cause of troubles
+with the French government. These were intrusted to the care of Rosny,
+afterward Duke of Sully, the most able and upright of all French
+financiers--a man of remarkable probity and elevation of sentiment. He
+ever continued to be the minister and the confidant of the king, and
+maintained his position without subserviency or flattery, almost the
+only man on the records of history who could tell, with impunity,
+wholesome truths to an absolute monarch. So wise were his financial
+arrangements, that a debt of three hundred million of livres was paid
+off in eight years. In five years, the taxes were reduced one half,
+the crown lands redeemed, the arsenals stored, the fortifications
+rebuilt, churches erected, canals dug, and improvements made in every
+part of the kingdom. On the death of the king, he had in his treasury
+nearly fifty millions of livres. Under the direction of this able
+minister, the laws were enforced, robbery and vagrancy were nearly
+stopped, and agriculture received a great impulse. But economy was the
+order of the day. The king himself set an illustrious example, and
+even dressed in gray cloth, with a doublet of taffeta, without
+embroidery, dispensed with all superfluity at his table, and dismissed
+all useless servants.
+
+The management and economy of the king enabled him to make great
+improvements, besides settling the deranged finances of the kingdom.
+He built innumerable churches, bridges, convents, hospitals,
+fortresses, and ships. Some of the finest palaces which adorn Paris
+were erected by him. He was also the patron of learning, the benefits
+of which he appreciated. He himself was well acquainted with the
+writings of the ancients. He was particularly fond of the society of
+the learned, with whom he conversed with freedom and affability. He
+increased the libraries, opened public schools, and invited
+distinguished foreigners to Paris, and rewarded them with stipends.
+Lipsius, Scaliger, and De Thou, were the ornaments of his court.
+
+And his tender regard to the happiness and welfare of his subjects was
+as marked as his generous appreciation of literature and science. It
+was his ambition to be the father of his people; and his memorable
+saying, "Yes, I will so manage matters that the poorest peasant in my
+kingdom may eat meat each day in the week, and, moreover, be enabled
+to put a fowl in the pot on a Sunday," has alone embalmed his memory
+in the affections of the French nation, who, of all their monarchs,
+are most partial to Henry IV.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace Scheme of Henry IV.]
+
+But this excellent king was also a philanthropist, and cherished the
+most enlightened views as to those subjects on which rests the
+happiness of nations. Though a warrior, the preservation of a lasting
+peace was the great idea of his life. He was even visionary in his
+projects to do good; for he imagined it was possible to convince
+monarchs that they ought to prefer purity, peace, and benevolence, to
+ambition and war. Hence, he proposed to establish a Congress of
+Nations, chosen from the various states of Europe, to whom all
+international difficulties should be referred, with power to settle
+them--a very desirable object, the most so conceivable; for war is the
+greatest of all national calamities and crimes. The scheme of the
+enlightened Henry, however, did not attract much attention; and, even
+had it been encouraged, would have been set aside in the next
+generation. What would such men as Frederic the Great, or Marlborough,
+or Louis XIV., or Napoleon have cared for such an object? But Henry,
+in his scheme, also had in view the regulation of such forces as the
+European monarchs should sustain, and this arose from his desire to
+preserve the "Balance of Power"--the great object of European
+politicians in these latter times.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Henry IV.]
+
+But Henry was not permitted, by Providence, to prosecute his
+benevolent designs. He was assassinated by a man whom he had never
+injured--by the most unscrupulous of all misguided men--a religious
+bigot. The Jesuit Ravaillac, in a mood, as it is to be hoped,
+bordering on madness, perpetrated the foul deed. But Henry only
+suffered the fate of nearly all the distinguished actors in those
+civil and religious contentions which desolated France for forty
+years. He died in 1610, at the age of fifty-seven, having reigned
+twenty-one years, nine of which were spent in uninterrupted warfare.
+
+By his death the kingdom was thrown into deep and undissembled
+mourning. Many fell speechless in the streets when the intelligence of
+his assassination was known; others died from excess of grief. All
+felt that they had lost more than a father, and nothing was
+anticipated but storms and commotions.
+
+He left no children by his wife, Margaret de Valois, who proved
+inconstant, and from whom he was separated. By his second wife, Mary
+de Medicis, he had three children, the oldest of whom was a child when
+he ascended the throne, by the title of Louis XIII. His daughter,
+Henrietta, married Charles I. of England.
+
+Though great advances were made in France during this reign, it was
+still far from that state of civilization which it attained a century
+afterwards. It contained about fifteen million of inhabitants, and
+Paris about one hundred and fifty thousand. The nobles were numerous
+and powerful, and engrossed the wealth of the nation. The people were
+not exactly slaves, but were reduced to great dependence, were
+uneducated, degraded, and enjoyed but few political or social
+privileges. They were oppressed by the government, by the nobles, and
+by the clergy.
+
+The highest official dignitary was the constable, the second the
+keeper of the seals, the third the chamberlain, then the six or eight
+marshals, then the secretary of state, then gentlemen of the
+household, and military commanders. The king was nearly absolute. The
+parliament was a judicial tribunal, which did not enact laws, but
+which registered the edicts of the king.
+
+Commerce and manufactures were extremely limited, and far from
+flourishing; and the arts were in an infant state. Architecture, the
+only art in which half-civilized nations have excelled, was the most
+advanced, and was displayed in the churches and royal palaces. Paris
+was crowded with uncomfortable houses, and the narrow streets were
+favorable to tumult as well as pestilence. Tapestry was the most
+common and the most expensive of the arts, and the hangings, in a
+single room, often reached a sum which would be equal, in these times,
+to one hundred thousand dollars. The floors of the palaces were spread
+with Turkey carpets. Chairs were used only in kings' palaces, and
+carriages were but just introduced, and were clumsy and awkward. Mules
+were chiefly used in travelling, the horses being reserved for war.
+Dress, especially of females, was gorgeous and extravagant; false
+hair, masks, trailed petticoats, and cork heels ten inches high, were
+some of the peculiarities. The French then, as now, were fond of the
+pleasures of the table, and the hour for dinner was eleven o'clock.
+Morals were extremely low, and gaming was a universal passion, in
+which Henry IV. himself extravagantly indulged. The advice of
+Catharine de Medicis to her son Charles IX. showed her knowledge of
+the French character, even as it exists now: "Twice a week give public
+assemblies, for the specific secret of the French government is, to
+keep the people always cheerful; for they are so restless you must
+occupy them, during peace, either with business or amusement, or else
+they will involve you in trouble."
+
+[Sidenote: France at the Death of Henry IV.]
+
+Such was France, at the death of Henry IV., 1610, one of the largest
+and most powerful of the European kingdoms, though far from the
+greatness it was destined afterwards to attain.
+
+A more powerful monarchy, at this period, was Spain. As this kingdom
+was then in the zenith of its power and glory, we will take a brief
+survey of it during the reign of Philip II., the successor of
+Charles V., a person to whom we have often referred. With his reign
+are closely connected the struggles of the Hollanders to secure their
+civil and religious independence. The Low Countries were provinces of
+Spain, and therefore to be considered in connection with Spanish
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For a knowledge of France during the reign of
+     Henry IV., see James's History of Henry IV.; James's Life of
+     Conde; History of the Huguenots. Rankin's and Crowe's
+     Histories of France are the best in English, but far
+     inferior to Sismondi's, Millot's, and Lacretelle's. Sully's
+     Memoirs throw considerable light on this period, and Dumas's
+     Margaret de Valois may be read with profit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Bigotry of Philip II.]
+
+Spain cannot be said to have been a powerful state until the reign of
+Ferdinand and Isabella; when the crowns of Castile and Arragon were
+united, and when the discoveries of Columbus added a new world to
+their extensive territories. Nor, during the reign of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, was the power of the crown as absolute as during the sway of
+the Austrian princes. The nobles were animated by a bold and free
+spirit, and the clergy dared to resist the encroachments of royalty,
+and even the usurpations of Rome. Charles V. succeeded in suppressing
+the power of the nobles, and all insurrections of the people, and laid
+the foundation for the power of his gloomy son, Philip II. With Philip
+commenced the grandeur of the Spanish monarchy. By him, also, were
+sown the seeds of its subsequent decay. Under him, the inquisition was
+disgraced by ten thousand enormities, Holland was overrun by the Duke
+of Alva, and America conquered by Cortes and Pizarro. It was he who
+built the gorgeous palaces of Spain, and who, with his Invincible
+Armada, meditated the conquest of England. The wealth of the Indies
+flowed into the royal treasury, and also enriched all orders and
+classes. Silver and gold became as plenty at Madrid as in old times at
+Jerusalem under the reign of Solomon. But Philip was a different
+prince from Solomon. His talents and attainments were respectable, but
+he had a jealous and selfish disposition, and exerted all the energies
+of his mind, and all the resources of his kingdom, to crush the
+Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe.
+
+Among the first acts of his reign was the effort to extinguish
+Protestantism in the Netherlands, an assemblage of seigniories, under
+various titles, subject to his authority. The opinions of Luther and
+Calvin made great progress in this country, and Philip, in order to
+repress them, created new bishops, and established the Inquisition.
+The people protested, and these protests were considered as
+rebellious.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of the Netherlands.]
+
+At the head of the nobility was William, the Prince of Orange, on whom
+Philip had conferred the government of Holland, Zealand, Friesland,
+and Utrecht, provinces of the Netherlands. He was a haughty but
+resolute and courageous character, and had adopted the opinions of
+Calvin, for which he lost the confidence of Philip. In the prospect of
+destruction, he embraced the resolution of delivering his country from
+the yoke of a merciless and bigoted master. Having reduced the most
+important garrisons of Holland and Zealand, he was proclaimed
+stadtholder, and openly threw off his allegiance to Spain.
+Hostilities, of course, commenced. Alva, the general of Philip, took
+the old city of Haerlem, and put fifteen hundred to the sword, among
+whom were all the magistrates, and all the Protestant clergy.
+
+Don John, Archduke of Austria, and the brother of Philip, succeeded
+the Duke of Alva, during whose administration the seven United
+Provinces formed themselves into a confederation, and chose the Prince
+of Orange to be the general of their armies, admiral of their fleets,
+and chief magistrate, by the title of _stadtholder_. But William was
+soon after assassinated by a wretch who had been bribed by the
+exasperated Philip, and Maurice, his son, received his title,
+dignities, and power. His military talents, as the antagonist of the
+Duke of Parma, lieutenant to Philip, in the Netherlands, secured him a
+high place in the estimation of warriors. To protect this prince and
+the infant republic of Holland, Queen Elizabeth sent four thousand men
+under the Earl of Leicester, her favorite; and, with this assistance,
+the Hollanders maintained their ground against the most powerful
+monarch in Europe, as has been already mentioned in the chapter on
+Elizabeth.
+
+After the loss of the Netherlands, the next great event of his reign
+was the acquisition of Portugal, to which he laid claim on the death
+of Don Henry, in 1581. There were several other claimants, but Philip,
+with an army of twenty thousand, was stronger than any of the others.
+He gained a decisive victory over Don Antonio, uncle to the last
+monarch, and was crowned at Lisbon without opposition.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of the Moriscoes.]
+
+The revolt of the Moriscoes occupies a prominent place in the annals
+of this reign. They were Christianized Moors, but, at heart,
+Mohammedans. A decree had been published that their children should
+frequent the Christian church, that the Arabic should no longer be
+used in writing, that both men and women should wear the Spanish
+costume, that they no longer should receive Mohammedan names, or marry
+without permission. The Moriscoes contended that no particular dress
+involved religious opinions, that the women used the veil according to
+their notions of modesty, that the use of their own language was no
+sin, and that baths were used, not from religious motives, but for the
+sake of cleanliness. These expostulations were, however, without
+effect. Nothing could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed
+cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties,
+and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of
+civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating
+picture of misery and crime. But in this war there was something
+fiendish. A clergyman was roasted over a brazier, and the women,
+wearied with his protracted death, despatched him with their needles
+and knives. The rebels ridiculed the sacrifice of the mass by
+slaughtering a pig on the high altar of a church. These insults were
+retaliated with that cruelty which Spanish bigotry and malice know so
+well how to inflict. Thousands of defenceless women and children were
+murdered in violation of the most solemn treaties. The whole Moorish
+population was finally exterminated, and Granada, with its beautiful
+mountains and fertile valleys, was made a desert. No less than six
+hundred thousand were driven to Africa--an act of great impolicy,
+since the Moriscoes were the most ingenious and industrious part of
+the population; and their exile contributed to undermine that national
+prosperity in which, at that day, every Spaniard gloried. But
+destruction ever succeeds pride: infatuation and blindness are the
+attendants of despotism.
+
+The destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the losses which the
+Spaniards suffered from Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Hawkins, have
+already been mentioned. But the pride of Philip was mortified, rather
+than that his power was diminished. His ambition received a check, and
+he found it impossible to conquer England. His finances, too, became
+deranged; still he remained the absolute master of the richest kingdom
+in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.]
+
+The decline of the Spanish monarchy dates from his death which took
+place in his magnificent palace of the Escurial, in 1598. Under his
+son Philip III., decline became very marked, and future ruin could be
+predicted.
+
+The principal cause of the decline of prosperity was the great
+increase of the clergy, and the extent of their wealth. In the Spanish
+dominions, which included Spain, Naples, Milan, Parma, Sicily,
+Sardinia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Indies, there were
+fifty-four archbishops, six hundred and eighty-four bishops, seven
+thousand hospitals, one hundred thousand abbeys and nunneries, six
+hundred thousand monks, and three hundred and ten thousand secular
+priests--a priest to every ten families. Almost every village had a
+monastery. The diocese of Seville had fourteen thousand priests,
+nearly the present number of all the clergy of the establishment in
+England. The cathedral of Seville gave support and occupation to one
+hundred priests.
+
+And this numerous clergy usurped the power and dignities of the state.
+They also encouraged that frightful inquisition, the very name of
+which conjures up the most horrid images of death and torture. This
+institution, committed to the care of Dominican monks, was instituted
+to put down heresy; that is, every thing in poetry, philosophy, or
+religion, which was distasteful to the despots of the human mind. The
+inquisitors had power to apprehend people even suspected of heresy,
+and, on the testimony of two witnesses, could condemn them to torture,
+imprisonment, and death. Resistance was vain; complaint was ruin.
+Arrests took place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a
+knowledge of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused.
+The most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known
+integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could
+bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. Should the jailer take compassion,
+and bestow a few crumbs of bread or drops of water, he would be
+punished as the greatest of traitors. Even nobles were not exempted
+from the supervision of this court, which was established in every
+village and town in Portugal and Spain, and which, in the single city
+of Toledo, condemned, in one year, seventeen thousand people. This
+institution was tolerated by the king, since he knew very well that
+there ever exists an intimate union between absolutism in religion and
+absolutism in government.
+
+[Sidenote: The Increase of Gold and Silver.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of the Spanish Monarchy.]
+
+Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exercised
+over a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements of
+character, the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury,
+idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence of the
+gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the cultivation
+of those things which money could procure. Then followed a great rise
+in the prices of all kinds of provision and clothing. Houses, lands,
+and manufactures also soon rose in value. Hence money was delusive,
+since, with ten times the increase of specie, there was a
+corresponding decrease in those necessaries of life which gold and
+silver would purchase. Silver and gold are only the medium of trade,
+not the basis of wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon
+the amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous as
+crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The sudden influx
+of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a temporary wealth to
+the kingdom; but when habits of industry were lost, and the culture of
+the soil was neglected, the gold and silver of the Spaniards were
+exchanged for the productive industry of other nations. The Dutch and
+the English, whose manufactures and commerce were in a healthy state,
+became enriched at their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth,
+that is, industry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of
+sentiment, became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and
+amusements, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, pantomimes,
+and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking nation, while
+the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, with the
+exception of that of France. The country became exhausted by war. The
+finances were deranged, and province after province rebelled. Every
+where were military reverses, and a decrease of population. Taxes, in
+the mean while, increased, and a burdened people lamented in vain
+their misfortune and decline. The reign of Philip IV. was the most
+disastrous in the annals of the country. The Catalan insurrection, the
+loss of Jamaica, the Low Countries, and Portugal, were the results of
+his misrule and imbecility. So rapidly did Spain degenerate, that,
+upon the close of the Austrian dynasty, with all the natural
+advantages of the country, the best harbors and sea-coast in Europe,
+the richest soil, and the finest climate, and with the possession of
+the Indies also, the people were the poorest, the most ignorant, and
+the most helpless in Europe. The death of Charles II., a miserable,
+afflicted, superstitious, priest-ridden monarch, left Spain without a
+king, and the vacant throne became the prize of any monarch in Europe
+who could raise and send across the Pyrenees the largest army. It fell
+into the power of Louis XIV., and the Bourbon princes have ever since
+in vain attempted the restoration of the broken monarchy to its former
+glory. But, alas, Spain has, since the spoliation of the Mexicans and
+Peruvians, only a melancholy history--a history of crime, bigotry,
+anarchy, and poverty. The Spaniards committed awful crimes in their
+lust for gold and silver. "They had their request," but God, in his
+retributive justice, "sent leanness into their souls."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     For the history of Spain during the Austrian princes, see a
+     history in Lardner's Encyclopedia; Watson's Life of
+     Philip II.; James's Foreign Statesmen; Schiller's Revolt of
+     the Netherlands; Russell's Modern Europe; Prescott's
+     Conquest of Mexico and Peru.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+During the period we have just been considering, the most marked
+peculiarity was, the struggle between Protestantism and Romanism. It
+is true that objects of personal ambition also occupied the minds of
+princes, and many great events occurred, which were not connected with
+the struggles for religious liberty and light. But the great feature
+of the age was the insurrection of human intelligence. There was a
+spirit of innovation, which nothing could suppress, and this was
+directed, in the main, to matters of religion. The conflict was not
+between church and state, but between two great factions in each. "No
+man asked whether another belonged to the same country as himself, but
+whether he belonged to the same sect." Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox,
+Cranmer, and Bacon were the great pioneers in this march of
+innovation. They wished to explode the ideas of the middle ages, in
+philosophy and in religion. They made war upon the Roman Catholic
+Church, as the great supporter and defender of old ideas. They
+renounced her authority. She summoned her friends and vassals, rallied
+all her forces, and, with desperate energy, resolved to put down the
+spirit of reform. The struggles of the Protestants in England,
+Germany, France, and the Netherlands, alike manifested the same
+spirit, were produced by the same causes, and brought forth the same
+results. The insurrection was not suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Jesuits.]
+
+The hostile movements of Rome, for a while, were carried on by armies,
+massacres, assassinations, and inquisitions. The duke of Alva's
+cruelties in the Netherlands, St. Bartholomew's massacre in France,
+inquisitorial tortures in Spain, and Smithfield burnings in England,
+illustrate this assertion. But more subtle and artful agents were
+required, especially since violence had failed. Men of simple lives,
+of undoubted piety, of earnest zeal, and singular disinterestedness to
+their cause, arose, and did what the sword and the stake could not
+do,--revived Catholicism, and caused a reaction to Protestantism
+itself. These men were Jesuits, the most faithful, intrepid, and
+successful soldiers that ever enlisted under the banners of Rome. The
+rise and fortunes of this order of monks form one of the most
+important and interesting chapters in the history of the human race.
+Their victories, and the spirit which achieved them, are well worth
+our notice. In considering them, it must be borne in mind, that the
+Jesuits have exhibited traits so dissimilar and contradictory, that it
+is difficult to form a just judgment. While they were achieving their
+victories, they appeared in a totally different light from what
+distinguished them when they reposed on their laurels. In short, the
+_earlier_ and the _latter_ Jesuits were entirely different in their
+moral and social aspects, although they had the same external
+organization. The principles of their system were always the same. The
+men who defended them, at first, were marked by great virtues, but
+afterwards were deformed by equally as great vices. It was in the
+early days of Jesuitism that the events we have recorded took place.
+Hence our notice, at present, will be confined to the Jesuits when
+they were worthy of respect, and, in some things, even of admiration.
+Their courage, fidelity, zeal, learning, and intrepidity for half a
+century, have not been exaggerated.
+
+The founder of the order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of
+noble birth, who first appeared as a soldier at the siege of
+Pampeluna, where he was wounded, about the time that Luther was
+writing his theses, and disputing about indulgences. He amused
+himself, on his sick bed, by reading the lives of the saints. His
+enthusiastic mind was affected, and he resolved to pass from worldly
+to spiritual knighthood. He became a saint, after the notions of the
+age; that is, he fasted, wore sackcloth, lived on roots and herbs,
+practised austerities, retired to lonely places, and spent his time in
+contemplation and prayer. The people were attracted by his sanctity,
+and followed him in crowds. His heart burned to convert heretics; and,
+to prepare himself for his mission, he went to the universities, and
+devoted himself to study. There he made some distinguished converts,
+all of whom afterwards became famous. In his narrow cell, at Paris, he
+induced Francis Xavier, Faber, Laynez Bobadilla, and Rodriguez to
+embrace his views, and to form themselves into an association, for the
+conversion of the world. On the summit of Montmartre, these six young
+men, on one star-lit night, took the usual monastic vows of _poverty_,
+_chastity_, and _obedience_, and solemnly devoted themselves to their
+new mission.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Spread of the Jesuit Order.]
+
+They then went to Rome, to induce the pope to constitute them a new
+missionary order. But they were ridiculed as fanatics. Moreover, for
+several centuries, there had been great opposition in Rome against the
+institution of new monastic orders. It was thought that there were
+orders enough; that the old should be reformed, not new ones created.
+Even St. Dominic and St. Francis had great difficulty in getting their
+orders instituted. But Loyola and his companions made extraordinary
+offers. They professed their willingness to go wherever the pope
+should send them, among Turks, heathens, or heretics, instantly,
+without condition, or reward.
+
+How could the pope refuse to license them? His empire was in danger;
+Luther was in the midst of his victories; the power of ideas and truth
+was shaking to its centre the pontifical throne; all the old orders
+had become degenerate and inefficient, and the pope did not know where
+to look for efficient support. The venerable Benedictines were
+revelling in the wealth of their splendid abbeys, while the Dominicans
+and the Franciscans had become itinerant vagabonds, peddling relics
+and indulgences, and forgetful of those stern duties and virtues which
+originally characterized them. All the monks were inexhaustible
+subjects of sarcasm and mockery. They even made scholasticism
+ridiculous, and the papal dogmas contemptible. Erasmus laughed at
+them, and Luther mocked them. They were sensual, lazy, ignorant, and
+corrupt. The pope did not want such soldiers. But the followers of
+Loyola were full of ardor, talent, and zeal; willing to do any thing
+for a sinking cause; able to do any thing, so far as human will can
+avail. And they did not disappoint the pope. Great additions were
+made. They increased with marvellous rapidity. The zealous, devout,
+and energetic, throughout all ranks in the Catholic church, joined
+them. They spread into all lands. They became the confessors of kings,
+the teachers of youth, the most popular preachers, the most successful
+missionaries. In sixteen years after the scene of Montmartre, Loyola
+had established his society in the affections and confidence of
+Catholic Europe, against the voice of universities, the fears of
+monarchs, and the jealousy of the other monastic orders. In sixteen
+years, from the condition of a ridiculed fanatic, whose voice,
+however, would have been disregarded a century earlier or later, he
+became one of the most powerful dignitaries of the church, influencing
+the councils of the Vatican, moving the minds of kings, controlling
+the souls of a numerous fraternity, and making his power felt, even in
+the courts of Japan and China. Before he died, his spiritual sons had
+planted their missionary stations amid Peruvian mines, amid the marts
+of the African slave trade, in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and in
+the cities of Japan and China. Nay, his followers had secured the most
+important chairs in the universities of Europe, and had become
+confessors to the most powerful monarchs, teachers in the best schools
+of Christendom, and preachers in its principal pulpits. They had
+become an organization, instinct with life, endued with energy and
+will, and forming a body which could outwatch Argus with his hundred
+eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred arms. It had forty
+thousand eyes open upon every cabinet and private family in Europe,
+and forty thousand arms extended over the necks of both sovereigns and
+people. It had become a mighty power in the world, inseparably
+connected with the education and the religion of the age, the prime
+mover of all political affairs, the grand prop of absolute monarchies,
+the last hope of the papal hierarchy.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Spread of the Jesuits.]
+
+The sudden growth and enormous resources of the "Society of Jesus"
+impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We almost attribute
+them to the agency of mysterious powers, and forget the operations of
+natural causes. The history of society shows that no body of men ever
+obtained a wide-spread ascendency, except by the exercise of
+remarkable qualities of mind and heart. And this is the reason why the
+Jesuits prospered. When Catholic Europe saw young men, born to fortune
+and honors, voluntarily surrendering their rank and goods, devoting
+themselves to religious duties, spending their days in hospitals and
+schools, wandering, as missionaries, into the most unknown and
+dangerous parts of the world, exciting the young to study, making
+great attainments in all departments of literature and science, and
+shedding a light, wherever they went, by their genius and
+disinterestedness, it was natural that they would be received as
+preachers, teachers, and confessors. That they were characterized,
+during the first fifty years, by such excellencies, has never been
+denied. The Jesuit missionary called forth the praises of Baxter, and
+the panegyric of Leibnitz. He went forth, without fear, to encounter
+the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to him, for he knew
+that the altar, which might stream with his blood, would, in after
+times, be a cherished monument of his fame, and an impressive emblem
+of the power of his religion. Francis Xavier, one of the first
+converts of Loyola, a Spaniard of rank, traversed a tract of more than
+twice the circumference of the globe, preaching, disputing, and
+baptizing, until seventy thousand converts attested the fruits of his
+mission. In perils, fastings, and fatigues, was the life of this
+remarkable man passed, to convert the heathen world; and his labors
+have never been equalled, as a missionary, except by the apostle Paul.
+But China and Japan were not the only scenes of the enterprises of
+Jesuit missionaries. As early as 1634, they penetrated into Canada,
+and, shortly after to the sources of the Mississippi and the prairies
+of Illinois. "My companion," said the fearless Marquette, "is an envoy
+of France, to discover new countries; but I am an ambassador of God,
+to enlighten them with the gospel." But of all the missions of the
+Jesuits, those in Paraguay were the most successful. They there
+gathered together, in _reductions_, or villages, three hundred
+thousand Indians, and these were bound together by a common interest,
+were controlled by a paternal authority, taught useful arts, and
+trained to enjoy the blessings of civilization. On the distant banks
+of the La Plata, while the Spanish colonists were hunting the Mexicans
+and Peruvians with bloodhounds, or the English slave traders were
+consigning to eternal bondage the unhappy Africans, the Jesuits were
+realizing the ideal paradise of More--a Utopia, where no murders or
+robberies were committed, and where the blessed flowers of peace and
+harmony bloomed in a garden of almost primeval loveliness.
+
+[Sidenote: Extraordinary Virtues of the Older Jesuits.]
+
+In that age, the Jesuit excelled in any work to which he devoted his
+attention. He was not only an intrepid missionary, but a most
+successful teacher. Into the work of education he entered heart and
+soul. He taught gratuitously, without any crabbed harshness, and with
+a view to gain the heart. He entered into the feelings of his pupils,
+and taught them to subdue their tempers, and avoid quarrels and oaths.
+He excited them to enthusiasm, perceived their merits, and rewarded
+the successful with presents and favors. Hence the schools of the
+Jesuits were the best in Europe, and were highly praised even by the
+Protestants. The Jesuits were even more popular as preachers than they
+were as teachers; and they were equally prized as confessors. They
+were so successful and so respected, that they soon obtained an
+ascendency in Europe. Veneration secured wealth, and their
+establishments gradually became magnificently endowed. But all their
+influence was directed to one single end--to the building up of the
+power of the popes, whose obedient servants they were. Can we wonder
+that Catholicism should revive?
+
+[Sidenote: The Constitution of the Jesuits.]
+
+Again, their constitution was wonderful, and admirably adapted to the
+ends they had in view. Their vows were indeed substantially the same
+as those of other monks, but there was among them a more practical
+spirit of obedience. All the members were controlled by a single
+will--all were passive, instruments in the hands of the general of the
+order. He appointed presidents of colleges and of religious houses;
+admitted, dismissed, dispensed, and punished at his pleasure. His
+power was irresponsible, and for life. From his will there was no
+appeal. There were among them many gradations in rank, but each
+gradation was a gradation in slavery. The Jesuit was bound to obey
+even his own servant, if required by a superior. Obedience was the
+soul of the institution, absolute, unconditional, and unreserved--even
+the submission of the will, to the entire abnegation of self. The
+Jesuit gloried in being made a puppet, a piece of machinery, like a
+soldier, if the loss of his intellectual independence would advance
+the interests of his order. The _esprit de corps_ was perfectly
+wonderful, and this spirit was one secret of the disinterestedness of
+the body. "_Ad majorem Dei gloriam,_" was the motto emblazoned on
+their standards, and written on their hearts; but this glory of God
+was synonymous with the ascendency of their association.
+
+The unconditional obedience to a single will, which is the genius of
+Jesuitism, while it signally advanced the interests of the body, and
+of the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the most
+detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by man.
+The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a tool, rather
+than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by the orders of his
+superiors, and they alone were responsible for his actions.
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the Jesuits.]
+
+We can easily see how the extraordinary virtues and attainments of the
+early Jesuits, and the wonderful mechanism of their system, would
+promote the growth of the order and the interests of Rome, before the
+suspicions of good people would be aroused. It was a long time after
+their piety had passed to fraud, their simplicity to cunning, their
+poverty to wealth, their humility to pride, and their indifference to
+the world to cabals, intrigues, and crimes, before the change was
+felt. And, moreover, it was more than a century before the fruits of
+the system were fully reaped. With all the excellences of their
+schools and missions, dangerous notions and customs were taught in
+them, which gradually destroyed their efficacy. A bad system often
+works well for a while, but always carries the seeds of decay and
+ruin. It was so with the institution of Loyola, in spite of the
+enthusiasm and sincerity of the early members, and the masterly wisdom
+displayed by the founders. In after times, evils were perceived, which
+had, at first, escaped the eye. It was seen that the system of
+education, though specious, and, in many respects, excellent, was
+calculated to narrow the mind, while it filled it with knowledge.
+Young men, in their colleges, were taught blindly to follow a rigid
+mechanical code; they were closely watched; all books were taken from
+them of a liberal tendency; mutilated editions of such as could not be
+denied only were allowed; truths of great importance were concealed or
+glossed over; exploded errors were revived, and studies recommended
+which had no reference to the discussion of abstract questions on
+government or religion. And the boys were made spies on each other,
+their spirits were broken, and their tastes perverted. The Jesuits
+sought to guard the avenues to thought, not to open them, were jealous
+of all independence of mind, and never sought to go beyond their age,
+or base any movement on ideal standards.
+
+[Sidenote: Evils in the Jesuit System.]
+
+Again, as preachers, though popular and eloquent, they devoted their
+talents to convert men to the _Roman church_ rather than to _God_.
+They were bigoted sectarians; strove to make men Catholics rather than
+Christians. As missionaries, they were content with a mere nominal
+conversion. They gave men the crucifix, but not the Bible, and even
+permitted their converts to retain many of their ancient superstitions
+and prejudices. And thus they usurped the authority of native rulers,
+and sought to impose on China and Japan their despotic yoke. They
+greatly enriched themselves in consequence of the credulity of the
+natives, whom they flattered, and wielded an unlawful power. And this
+is one reason why they were expelled, and why they made no permanent
+conquests among the millions they converted in Japan. They wished not
+only to subjugate the European, but the Asiatic mind. Europe did not
+present a field sufficiently extensive for their cupidity and
+ambition.
+
+Finally, as confessors, they were peculiarly indulgent to those who
+sought absolution, provided their submission was complete. Then it was
+seen what an easy thing it was to bear the yoke of Christ. The
+offender was told that sin consisted in wilfulness, and wilfulness in
+the perfect knowledge of the nature of sin, according to which
+doctrine blindness and passion were sufficient exculpations. They
+invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so
+severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly
+determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of
+being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could
+thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry
+which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They
+tolerated, and some of them justified, crimes, if the same could be
+made subservient to the apparent interests of the church. Their
+principle was to do evil that good might come. Above all, they
+conformed to the inclinations of the great, especially to those of
+absolute princes, on whom they imposed no painful penance, or austere
+devotion. Their sympathies always were with absolutism, in all its
+forms and they were the chosen and trusted agents of the despots of
+mankind, until even the eyes of Europe were open to their vast
+ambition, which sought to erect an independent empire within the
+limits of despotism itself. But the corruptions of the Jesuits, their
+system of casuistry, their lax morality, their disgraceful intrigues,
+their unprincipled rapacity, do not belong to the age we have now been
+considering. These fruits of a bad system had not then been matured;
+and the infancy of the society was as beautiful as its latter days
+were disgraceful and fearful. In a future chapter, we shall glance at
+the decline and fall of this celebrated institution--the best adapted
+to its proposed ends of any system ever devised by the craft and
+wisdom of man.
+
+[Sidenote: The Popes in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+The great patrons of the Jesuits--the popes and their empire in the
+sixteenth century, after the death of Luther--demand some notice. The
+Catholic church, in this century, was remarkable for the reformation
+it attempted within its own body, and for the zeal, and ability, and
+virtue, which marked the character of many of the popes themselves.
+Had it not been for this counter reformation, Protestantism would have
+obtained a great ascendency in Europe. But the Protestants were
+divided among themselves, while the Catholics were united, and
+animated with singular zeal. They put forth their utmost energies to
+reconquer what they had lost. They did not succeed in this, but they
+secured the ascendency, on the whole, of the Catholic cause in Europe.
+For this ascendency the popes are indebted to the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: Nepotism of the Popes.]
+
+At the close of the sixteenth century, the popes possessed a
+well-situated, rich, and beautiful province. All writers celebrated
+its fertility. Scarcely a foot of land remained uncultivated. Corn was
+exported, and the ports were filled with ships. The people were
+courageous, and had great talents for business. The middle classes
+were peaceful and contented, but the nobles, who held in their hands
+the municipal authority, were turbulent, rapacious, and indifferent to
+intellectual culture. The popes were generally virtuous characters,
+and munificent patrons of genius. Gregory XIII. kept a list of men in
+every country who were likely to acquit themselves as bishops, and
+exhibited the greatest caution in appointing them. Sixtus V., whose
+father was an humble gardener, encouraged agriculture and
+manufactures, husbanded the resources of the state, and filled Rome
+with statues. He raised the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, and
+completed the dome of the Cathedral. Clement VIII. celebrated the mass
+himself, and scrupulously devoted himself to religious duties. He was
+careless of the pleasures which formerly characterized the popes, and
+admitted every day twelve poor persons to dine with him. Paul V. had
+equal talents and greater authority, but was bigoted and cold.
+Gregory XIV. had all the severity of an ancient monk. The only
+religious peculiarity of the popes, at the latter end of the sixteenth
+century, which we unhesitatingly condemn, was, their religious
+intolerance. But they saw that their empire would pass away, unless
+they used vigorous and desperate measures to retain it. During this
+period, the great victories of the Jesuits, the establishment of their
+colleges, and the splendid endowments of their churches took place.
+Gregory XV. built, at his own cost, the celebrated church of St.
+Ignatius, at Rome, and instituted the Propaganda, a missionary
+institution, under the control of the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome in the Seventeenth Century.]
+
+The popes, whether good or bad, did not relinquish their nepotism in
+this century, in consequence of which great families arose with every
+pope, and supplanted the old aristocracy. The Barberini family, in one
+pontificate, amassed one hundred and five millions of scudi--as great
+a fortune as that left by Mazarin. But they, enriched under
+Urban VII., had to flee from Rome under Innocent X. Jealousy and
+contention divided and distracted all the noble families, who vied
+with each other in titles and pomp, ceremony and pride. The ladies of
+the Savelli family never quitted their palace walls, except in closely
+veiled carriages. The Visconti decorated their walls with the
+portraits of the popes of their line. The Gaetana dwelt with pride on
+the memory of Boniface VIII. The Colonna and Orsini boasted that for
+centuries no peace had been concluded in Christendom, in which they
+had not been expressly included. But these old families had become
+gradually impoverished, and yielded, in wealth and power, though not
+in pride and dignity, to the Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini,
+Ludovisi, Giustiniani, Chigi, and the Barberini. All these families,
+from which popes had sprung, had splendid palaces, villas, pictures,
+libraries, and statues; and they contributed to make Rome the centre
+of attraction for the elegant and the literary throughout Europe. It
+was still the moral and social centre of Christendom. It was a place
+to which all strangers resorted, and from which all intrigues sprung.
+It was the scene of pleasure, gayety, and grandeur. And the splendid
+fabric, which was erected in the "ages of faith," in spite of all the
+calamities and ravages of time, remained still beautiful and
+attractive. Since the first secession, in the sixteenth century, Rome
+has lost none of her adherents, and those, who remained faithful, have
+become the more enthusiastic in their idolatry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Ranke's History of the Popes. Father Bouhour's
+     Life of Ignatius Loyola. A Life of Xavier, by the same
+     author. Stephens's Essay on Loyola. Charlevoix's History of
+     Paraguay. Pascal's Provincial Letters. Macaulay's Review of
+     Ranke's History of the Popes. Bancroft's chapter, in the
+     History of the United States, on the colonization of Canada.
+     "Secreta Monita." Histoire des Jesuites. "Spiritual
+     Exercises." Dr. Williams's Essay. History of Jesuit
+     Missions. The works on the Jesuits are very numerous; but
+     those which are most accessible are of a violent partisan
+     character. Eugene Sue, in his "Wandering Jew," has given
+     false, but strong, impressions. Infidel writers have
+     generally been the most bitter, with the exception of
+     English and Scotch authors, in the seventeenth century. The
+     great work of Ranke is the most impartial with which the
+     author is acquainted. Ranke's histories should never be
+     neglected, of which admirable translations have been made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THIRTY YEARS WAR.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Political Troubles after the Death of Luther.]
+
+The contests which arose from the discussion of religious ideas did
+not close with the sixteenth century. They were, on the other hand,
+continued with still greater acrimony. Protestantism had been
+suppressed in France, but not in Holland or Germany. In England, the
+struggle was to continue, not between the Catholics and Protestants,
+but between different parties among the Protestants themselves. In
+Germany, a long and devastating war of thirty years was to be carried
+on before even religious liberty could be guaranteed.
+
+This struggle is the most prominent event of the seventeenth century
+before the English Revolution, and was attended with the most
+important religious and political consequences. The event itself was
+one of the chief political consequences of the Reformation. Indeed,
+all the events of this period either originated in, or became mixed up
+with, questions of religion.
+
+From the very first agitation of the reform doctrines, the house of
+Austria devoted against their adherents the whole of its immense
+political power. Charles V. resolved to suppress Protestantism, and
+would have perhaps succeeded, had it not been for the various wars
+which distracted his attention, and for the decided stand which the
+Protestant princes of Germany took respecting Luther and his
+doctrines. As early as 1530, was formed the league of Smalcalde,
+headed by the elector of Saxony, the most powerful of the German
+princes, next to the archduke of Austria. The princes who formed this
+league, resolved to secure to their subjects the free exercise of
+their religion, in spite of all opposition from the Catholic powers.
+But hostilities did not commence until after Luther had breathed his
+last. The Catholics gained a great victory at the battle of Muehlberg,
+when the Elector of Saxony was taken prisoner. With the treaty of
+Smalcalde, the freedom of Germany seemed prostrate forever, and the
+power of Austria reached its meridian. But the cause of liberty
+revived under Maurice of Saxony, once its formidable enemy. All the
+fruits of victory were lost again in the congress of Passau, and the
+diet of Augsburg, when an equitable peace seemed guaranteed to the
+Protestants.
+
+[Sidenote: Diet of Augsburg.]
+
+The diet of Augsburg, 1555, the year of the resignation of Charles V.,
+divided Germany into two great political and religious parties, and
+recognized the independence of each. The Protestants were no longer
+looked upon as rebels, but as men who had a right to worship God as
+they pleased. Still, in reality, all that the Lutherans gained was
+toleration, not equality. The concessions of the Catholics were made
+to necessity, not to justice. Hence, the treaty of Augsburg proved
+only a truce, not a lasting peace. The boundaries of both parties were
+marked out by the sword, and by the sword only were they to be
+preserved.
+
+For a while, however, peace was preserved, and might have continued
+longer, had it not been for the dissensions of Protestants among
+themselves, caused by the followers of Calvin and Luther. The
+Lutherans would not include the Calvinists in their communion, and the
+Calvinists would not accede to the Lutheran church. During these
+dissensions, the Jesuits sowed tares, and the Protestants lost the
+chance of establishing their perfect equality with the Catholics.
+
+Notwithstanding all the bitterness and jealousy which existed between
+sects and parties, still the peace of Germany, in a political sense,
+was preserved during the reign of Ferdinand, the founder of the German
+branch of the house of Austria, and who succeeded his brother
+Charles V. On his death, in 1564, his son Maximilian II., was chosen
+emperor, and during his reign, and until his death, in 1576, Germany
+enjoyed tranquillity. His successor was his son Rodolph, a weak
+prince, and incapable of uniting the various territories which were
+hereditary in his family--Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia,
+Moravia, and Styria. There were troubles in each of these provinces,
+and one after another revolted, until Rodolph was left with but the
+empty title of emperor. But these provinces acknowledged the sway of
+his brother Matthias, who had delivered them from the Turks, and had
+granted the Protestants liberty of conscience. The emperor was weak
+enough to confirm his brother in his usurpation. In 1612, he died, and
+Matthias mounted the imperial throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Commencement of the Thirty Years War.]
+
+It was during the reign of this prince, that the Thirty Years' War
+commenced. In proportion as the reformed religion gained ground in
+Hungary and Bohemia,--two provinces very difficult to rule,--the
+Protestant princes of the empire became desirous of securing and
+extending their privileges. Their demands were refused, and they
+entered into a new confederacy, called the _Evangelical Union_. This
+association was opposed by another, called the _Catholic League_. The
+former was supported by Holland, England, and Henry IV., of France.
+The humiliation of Austria was the great object of Henry in supporting
+the Protestant princes of Germany, and he assembled an army of forty
+thousand men, which he designed to head himself. But, just as his
+preparations were completed, he was assassinated, and his death and
+the dissensions in the Austrian family prevented the war breaking out
+with the fury which afterwards characterized it.
+
+The Emperor Matthias died in 1618, and was succeeded by his cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, who was an inveterate enemy to the
+Protestant cause. His first care was to suppress the insurrection of
+the Protestants, which, just before his accession had broken out in
+Bohemia, under the celebrated Count Mansfeldt. The Bohemians renounced
+allegiance to Ferdinand II., and chose Frederic V., elector palatine,
+for their king. Frederic unwisely accepted the crown, which confirmed
+the quarrel between Ferdinand and the Bohemians. Frederic was seconded
+by all the Protestant princes, except the Elector of Saxony, by two
+thousand four hundred English volunteers, and by eight thousand troops
+from the United Provinces. But Ferdinand, assisted by the king of
+Spain and all the Catholic princes, was more than a match for
+Frederic, who wasted his time and strength in vain displays of
+sovereignty. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, commanded the forces of the
+Catholics, who, with twenty-five thousand troops from the Low
+Countries, invaded Bohemia. The Bohemian forces did not amount to
+thirty thousand, but they intrenched themselves near Prague, where
+they were attacked (1620) and routed, with immense slaughter. The
+battle of Prague decided the fate of Bohemia, put Frederic in
+possession of all his dominions, and invested him with an authority
+equal to what any of his predecessors had enjoyed. All his wishes were
+gratified, and, had he been wise, he might have maintained his
+ascendency in Germany. But he was blinded by his success, and, from a
+rebellion in Bohemia, the war extended through Germany, and afterwards
+throughout Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor Frederic.]
+
+The emperor had regained his dominions by the victorious arms of
+Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. To compensate him, without detriment to
+himself, he resolved to bestow upon him the dominions of the Count
+Palatine of the Rhine, who had injudiciously accepted the crown of
+Bohemia. Frederic must be totally ruined. He was put under the ban of
+the empire, and his territories were devastated by the Spanish general
+Spinola, with an army of twenty-five thousand men.
+
+Apparently there was no hope for Frederic, or the Protestant cause.
+The only Protestant princes capable of arresting the Austrian
+encroachments were the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. But the
+former, John George, preferred the aggrandizement of his house to the
+emancipation of his country, and tamely witnessed the victories of the
+emperor, without raising an arm for the relief of the Protestants, of
+whom he was the acknowledged head. George William of Brandenburg was
+still more shamefully fettered by the fear of Austria, and of losing
+his dominions; and he, too, cautiously avoided committing himself to
+either party.
+
+But while these two great princes ingloriously abandoned Frederic to
+his fate, a single soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his
+sword, Ernest Count Mansfield, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen,
+to defy the whole power of Austria. Undismayed by the reverses of the
+elector palatine, he succeeded in enlisting an army of twenty thousand
+men. With such an army, the cause of Frederic was not irretrievably
+lost. New prospects began to open, and his misfortunes raised up
+unexpected friends. James of England opened his treasures, and
+Christian of Denmark offered his powerful support. Mansfeldt was also
+joined by the Margrave of Baden. The courage of the count palatine
+revived, and he labored assiduously to arouse his Protestant brethren.
+Meanwhile, the generals of the emperor were on the alert, and the
+rising hopes of Frederic were dissipated by the victories of Tilly.
+The count palatine was again driven from his hereditary dominions, and
+sought refuge in Holland.
+
+[Sidenote: Count Wallenstein.]
+
+But, though the emperor was successful, his finances were exhausted,
+and he was disagreeably dependent on Bavaria. Under his circumstances,
+nothing was more welcome than the proposal of Wallenstein, an
+experienced officer, and the richest nobleman in Bohemia.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Wallenstein.]
+
+He offered, at his own expense, and that of his friends, to raise,
+clothe, and maintain an army for the emperor, if he were allowed to
+augment it to fifty thousand men. His project was ridiculed as
+visionary; but the offer was too valuable to be rejected. In a few
+months, he had collected an army of thirty thousand. His reputation,
+the prospect of promotion, and the hope of plunder, attracted
+adventurers from all parts of Germany. Knowing that so large a body
+could not be held together without great resources, and having none of
+his own, he marched his troops into the most fertile territories,
+which had not yet suffered from the war, where they subsisted by
+contributions and plunder, as obnoxious to their friends as they were
+to their enemies. Nothing shows the weakness of the imperial power,
+with all its apparent strength, and the barbarous notions and customs
+of the country, more than this grant to Wallenstein. And, with all his
+heroism and success, he cannot now be viewed in any other light than
+as a licensed robber. He was virtually at the head of a troop of
+banditti, who fought for the sake of plunder, and who would join any
+side which would present the greatest hopes of gain. The genius of
+Schiller, both in his dramas and histories, has immortalized the name
+of this unprincipled hero, and has excited a strange interest in his
+person, his family, and his fortunes. He is represented as "born to
+command. His acute eye distinguished at a glance, from among the
+multitude, such as were competent, and he assigned to each his proper
+place. His praise, from being rarely bestowed, animated and brought
+into full operation every faculty; while his steady, reserved, and
+earnest demeanor secured obedience and discipline. His very appearance
+excited awe and reverence; his figure was proud, lofty, and warlike,
+while his bright, piercing eye expressed profundity of thought,
+combined with gravity and mystery. His favorite study was that of the
+stars, and his most intimate friend was an Italian astrologer. He had
+a fondness for pomp and extravagance. He maintained sixty pages; his
+ante-chamber was guarded by fifty life-guards, and his table never
+consisted of less than one hundred covers. Six barons and as many
+knights were in constant attendance on his person. He never smiled,
+and the coldness of his temperament was proof against sensual
+seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he despised those
+amusements in which so many waste their lives. Terror was the talisman
+with which he worked: extreme in his punishments as in his rewards, he
+knew how to keep alive the zeal of his followers, while no general of
+ancient or modern times could boast of being obeyed with equal
+alacrity. Submission to his will was more prized by him than bravery,
+and he kept up the obedience of his troops by capricious orders. He
+was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short,
+red hair, and small, sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding
+seriousness sat upon his brow, and his munificent presents alone
+retained the trembling crowd of his dependants."
+
+Such was this enterprising nobleman, to whom the emperor Ferdinand
+committed so great authority. And the success of Wallenstein
+apparently justified the course of the emperor. The greater his
+extortions, and the greater his rewards, the greater was the concourse
+to his standard. Such is human nature. It is said that, in seven
+years, Wallenstein exacted not less than sixty millions of dollars
+from one half of Germany--an incredible sum, when the expenditure of
+the government of England, at this time, was less than two million
+pounds a year. His armies flourished, while the states through which
+they passed were ruined. What cared he for the curses of the people,
+or the complaints of princes, so long as his army adored him? It was
+his object to humble all the princes of the empire, and make himself
+so necessary to the emperor that he would gradually sink to become his
+tool. He already was created Duke of Friedland, and generalissimo of
+the imperial armies. Nor had his victorious career met with any severe
+check, but uninterrupted success seemed to promise the realization of
+his vast ambition. Germany lay bleeding at his feet, helpless and
+indignant.
+
+But the greatness and the insolence of Wallenstein raised up enemies
+against him in all parts of the empire. Fear and jealousy increased
+the opposition, even in the ranks of the Catholics. His dismissal was
+demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by Spain.
+Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, felt himself eclipsed by the successful
+general, and was at the head of the cabals against him.
+
+The emperor felt, at this crisis, as Ganganelli did when compelled to
+disband the Jesuits, that he was parting with the man to whom he owed
+all his supremacy. Long was he undecided whether or not he would make
+the sacrifice. But all Germany was clamorous, and the disgrace of
+Wallenstein was ordained.
+
+Would the ambitious chieftain, at the head of one hundred thousand
+devoted soldiers, regard the commands of the emperor? He made up his
+mind to obey, looking to the future for revenge, and feeling that he
+could afford to wait for it. Seni had read in the stars that glorious
+prospects still awaited him. Wallenstein retired to his estates in
+Bohemia, but maintained the pomp and splendor of a prince of the
+empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus.]
+
+Scarcely had he retired from the command of the army before his
+services were again demanded. One hero produces another. A Wellington
+is ever found to oppose a Napoleon. Providence raised up a friend to
+Germany, in its distress, in the person of Gustavus Adolphus, King of
+Sweden. It was not for personal aggrandizement that he lent his
+powerful arm to the Protestant princes, who, thus far, had vainly
+struggled against Maximilian, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Zeal for
+Protestantism, added to strong provocations, induced him to land in
+Germany with fifteen thousand men--a small body to oppose the
+victorious troops of the emperor, but they were brave and highly
+disciplined, and devoted to their royal master. He himself was
+indisputably the greatest general of the age, and had the full
+confidence of the Protestant princes, who were ready to rally the
+moment he obtained any signal advantage. Henceforth, Gustavus Adolphus
+was the hero of the war. He was more than a hero; he was a Christian,
+regardful of the morals of his soldiers, and devoted to the interests
+of spiritual religion. He was frugal, yet generous, serene in the
+greatest danger; and magnanimous beyond all precedent in the history
+of kings. On the 20th of May, 1630, taking his daughter Christiana in
+his arms, then only four years of age, he presented her to the states
+as their future sovereign, and made his farewell address. "Not
+lightly, not wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and you
+in this new and dangerous war. God is my witness that I do not fight
+to gratify my own ambition; but the emperor has wronged me, has
+supported my enemies, persecuted my friends, trampled my religion in
+the dust, and even stretched forth his revengeful arm against my
+crown. The oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by
+God's help, we will give them.
+
+"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed.
+I have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall
+always escape them. Hitherto, Providence has protected me; but I shall
+at last fall in defence of my country and my faith. I commend you to
+the protection of Heaven. Be just, conscientious, and upright, and we
+shall meet again in eternity. For the prosperity of all my subjects, I
+offer my warmest prayer to Heaven; and bid you all a sincere--it may
+be an eternal--farewell."
+
+He had scarcely landed in Germany before his victorious career began.
+France concluded a treaty with him, and he advanced against Tilly, who
+now headed the imperial armies.
+
+[Sidenote: Loss of Magdeburg.]
+
+The tardiness of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg in rendering
+assistance caused the loss of Magdeburg, the most important fortress
+of the Protestants. It was taken by assault, even while Gustavus was
+advancing to its relief. No pen can paint, and no imagination can
+conceive, the horrors which were perpetrated by the imperial soldiers
+in the sack of that unfortunate place. Neither childhood nor helpless
+age--neither youth, beauty, sex, nor rank could disarm the fury of the
+conquerors. No situation or retreat was sacred. In a single church
+fifty-three women were beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with
+throwing children into the flames. Pappenheim's Walloons stabbed
+infants at the breast. The city was reduced to ashes, and thirty
+thousand of the inhabitants were slain.
+
+But the loss of this important city was soon compensated by the battle
+of Leipsic, 1630, which the King of Sweden gained over the imperial
+forces, and in which the Elector of Saxony at last rendered valuable
+aid. The rout of Tilly, hitherto victorious, was complete, and he
+himself escaped only by chance. Saxony was freed from the enemy, while
+Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, were stripped of their
+defenders. Ferdinand was no longer secure in his capital; the freedom
+of Germany was secured. Gustavus was every where hailed as a
+deliverer, and admiration for his genius was only equalled by the
+admiration of his virtues. He rapidly regained all that the
+Protestants had lost, and the fruits of twelve years of war were
+snatched away from the emperor. Tilly was soon after killed, and all
+things indicated the complete triumph of the Protestants.
+
+It was now the turn of Ferdinand to tremble. The only person who could
+save him was dismissed and disgraced. Tilly was dead. Munich and
+Prague were in the hands of the Protestants, while the king of Sweden
+traversed Germany as a conqueror, law giver, and judge. No fortress
+was inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career. The Swedish
+standards were planted in Bavaria, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony,
+and along the banks of the Rhine. Meanwhile the Turks were preparing
+to attack Hungary, and a dangerous insurrection threatened his own
+capital. None came to his assistance in the hour of peril. On all
+sides, he was surrounded by hostile armies, while his own forces were
+dispirited and treacherous.
+
+[Sidenote: Wallenstein Reinstated in Power.]
+
+From such a hopeless state he was rescued by the man whom he had
+injured, but not until he had himself to beg his assistance.
+Wallenstein was in retirement, and secretly rejoiced in the victories
+of the Swedish king, knowing full well that the emperor would soon be
+compelled to summon him again to command his armies. Now he could
+dictate his terms. Now he could humiliate his sovereign, and at the
+same time obtain all the power his ambition craved. He declined
+entering his service unless he had the unlimited command of all the
+armies of Austria and Spain. No commission in the army was to be
+granted by the emperor, without his own approval. He demanded the
+ordinary pay, and an imperial hereditary estate. In short, he demanded
+sovereign authority; and with such humiliating terms the emperor, in
+his necessities, was obliged to comply.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Gustavus Adolphus.]
+
+No sooner did he raise his standard, than it was resorted to by the
+unprincipled, the rapacious, and the needy from all parts of the
+empire. But Wallenstein now resolved to pursue, exclusively, his own
+selfish interests, and directed all his aims to independent
+sovereignty. When his forces were united with those of Maximilian, he
+found himself at the head of sixty thousand men. Then really commenced
+the severity of the contest, for Wallenstein was now stronger than
+Gustavus. Nevertheless, the heroic Swede offered to give his rival
+battle at Nuremburg, which was declined. He then attacked his camp,
+but was repulsed with loss. At last, the two generals met on the
+plains of Lutzen, in Saxony, 1632. During the whole course of the war,
+two such generals had not been pitted against each other, nor had so
+much been staked on the chance of a battle. Victory declared for the
+troops of Gustavus, but the heroic leader himself was killed, in the
+fulness of his glory. It was his fortune to die with an untarnished
+fame. "By an untimely death," says Schiller, "his protecting genius
+rescued him from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting
+moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in the
+plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he
+would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over his grave,
+or maintained his title to the admiration with which posterity regards
+him,--as the first and only just conqueror that the world has
+produced. But it was no longer the benefactor of Germany who fell at
+Lutzen; the beneficent part of his career Gustavus Adolphus had
+already terminated; and now the greatest service which he could render
+to the liberties of Germany was--to die. The all-engrossing power of
+an individual was at an end; the equivocal assistance of an
+over-powerful protector gave place to a more noble self-exertion on
+the part of the estates; and those who formerly were the mere
+instruments of his aggrandizement, now began to work for themselves.
+The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired, unquestionably, to
+establish a power within Germany inconsistent with the liberties of
+the estates. His aim was the imperial crown; and this dignity,
+supported by his power, would be liable to more abuse than had ever
+been feared from the house of Austria. His sudden disappearance
+secured the liberties of Germany, and saved his own reputation, while
+it probably spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in
+arms against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by
+a disadvantageous peace."
+
+After the battle of Lutzen we almost lose sight of Wallenstein, and no
+victories were commensurate with his reputation and abilities. He
+continued inactive in Bohemia, while all Europe was awaiting the
+exploits which should efface the remembrance of his defeat. He
+exhausted the imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and his
+whole conduct seems singular and treacherous. His enemies at the
+imperial court now renewed their intrigues, and his conduct was
+reviewed with the most malicious criticism. But he possessed too great
+power to be openly assailed by the emperor, and measures were
+concerted to remove him by treachery. Wallenstein obtained notice of
+the designs against him, and now, too late, resolved on an open
+revolt. But he was betrayed, and his own generals, on whom he counted,
+deserted him, so soon as the emperor dared to deprive him of his
+command. But he was only removed by assassination, and just at the
+moment when he deemed himself secure against the whole power of the
+emperor. No man, however great, can stand before an authority which is
+universally deemed legitimate, however reduced and weakened that
+authority may be. In times of anarchy and revolution, there is
+confusion in men's minds respecting the persons in whom legitimate
+authority should be lodged, and this is the only reason why rebellion
+is ever successful.
+
+[Sidenote: Assassination of Wallenstein.]
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Westphalia.]
+
+The death of Wallenstein, in 1634, did not terminate the war. It raged
+eleven years longer, with various success, and involved the other
+European powers. France was then governed by Cardinal Richelieu, who,
+notwithstanding his Catholicism, lent assistance to the Protestants,
+with a view of reducing the power of Austria. Indeed, the war had
+destroyed the sentiments which produced it, and political motives
+became stronger than religious. Oxenstiern and Richelieu became the
+master spirits of the contest, and, in the recesses of their cabinets,
+regulated the campaigns of their generals. Battles were lost and won
+on both sides, and innumerable intrigues were plotted by interested
+statesmen. After all parties had exhausted their resources, and
+Germany was deluged with the blood of Spaniards, Hollanders,
+Frenchmen, Swedes, besides that of her own sons, the peace of
+Westphalia was concluded, (1648,)--the most important treaty in the
+history of Europe. All the princes and states of the empire were
+reestablished in the lands, rights, and prerogatives which they
+enjoyed before the troubles in Bohemia, in 1619. The religious
+liberties of the Lutherans and Calvinists were guaranteed, and it was
+stipulated that the Imperial Chamber should consist of twenty-four
+Protestant members and twenty-six Catholic, and that the emperor
+should receive six Protestants into the Aulic Council, the highest
+judicial tribunal in the empire. This peace is the foundation of the
+whole system of modern European politics, of all modern treaties, of
+that which is called the freedom of Germany, and of a sort of balance
+of power among all the countries of Western Europe. Dearly was it
+purchased, by the perfect exhaustion of national energies, and the
+demoralizing sentiments which one of the longest and bloodiest wars in
+human history inevitably introduced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. Coleridge's Translation of
+     Wallenstein. Kohlrausch's History of Germany. See also a
+     history of Germany in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopedia. History of
+     Sweden. Plank on the Political Consequences of the
+     Reformation. The History of Schiller, however is a classic,
+     and is exceedingly interesting and beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN.
+
+
+While Germany was rent with civil commotions, and the power of the
+emperors was limited by the stand taken against it by the Protestant
+princes, France was ruled with an iron hand, and a foundation was laid
+for the despotism of Louis XIV. The energetic genius of Cardinal
+Richelieu, during the whole period of the thirty years' war, affected
+the councils of all the different courts of Europe. He was
+indisputably the greatest statesman of his age and nation. To him
+France is chiefly indebted for the ascendency she enjoyed in the
+seventeenth century. Had Henry IV. lived to the age of Louis XIV.,
+France would probably have been permanently greater, although the
+power of the king might not have been so absolute.
+
+[Sidenote: Regency of Mary de Medicis.]
+
+When Henry IV. died, he left his kingdom to his son Louis XIII., a
+child nine years of age. The first thing to be done was the
+appointment of a regent. The Parliament of Paris, in whom this right
+seems to have been vested, nominated the queen mother, Mary de
+Medicis, and the young king, in a bed of justice,--the greatest of the
+royal prerogatives,--confirmed his mother in the regency. Her regency
+was any thing but favorable to the interests of the kingdom. The
+policy of the late king was disregarded, and a new course of measures
+was adopted. Sully, through whose counsels the reign of Henry IV. had
+been so beneficent, was dismissed. The queen regent had no sympathy
+with his views. Neither the corrupt court nor the powerful aristocracy
+cared any thing for the interests of the people, for the improvement
+of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, for the regulation of the
+finances, or for increasing the productive industry of the country, on
+which its material prosperity ever depends. The greedy courtiers
+obtained from a lavish queen the treasures which the wise care of
+Henry had amassed, and which he thoughtlessly bestowed in order to
+secure their fidelity. The foreign policy also was changed, and a
+strong alliance was made with the pope, with Spain, and with the
+Jesuits.
+
+On the retirement of the able and incorruptible Sully, favorites of no
+talent or worth arose to power. Concini, an Italian, controlled the
+queen regent, and through him all her favors flowed. He was succeeded
+by Luynes, a mere falconer, who made himself agreeable to the young
+king, and usurped the power of Concini, when the king attained his
+majority. He became constable of France, the highest officer in the
+realm, and surpassed all the old nobility in arrogance and cupidity.
+His mismanagement and selfishness led to an insurrection of some of
+the great nobles among whom were Conde and D'Epernon.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu.]
+
+While the kingdom was thus convulsed with civil war, and in every way
+mismanaged, Richelieu, Bishop of Lucon, appeared upon the stage. He
+was a man of high birth, was made doctor of the Sorbonne at the age of
+twenty-two, and, before he was twenty-five, a bishop. During the
+ascendency of Mancini, he attracted the attention of the queen, and
+was selected as secretary of state. Soon after the death of Luynes, he
+obtained a cardinal's hat, and a seat in the council. The moment he
+spoke, his genius predominated, and the monarch, with all his pride,
+bowed to the ascendency of intellect, and yielded, with a good grace,
+to a man whom it was impolitic to resist.
+
+From that moment, in 1622, the reins of empire were in the hands of a
+master, and the king himself, were it not for the splendor of his
+court, would have disappeared from the eye, both of statesmen and
+historians. The reign of anarchy, for a quarter of a century, at
+least, was over, and the way was prepared for the aggrandizement of
+the French monarchy. When Richelieu came into power, universal
+disorder prevailed. The finances were deranged, the Huguenots were
+troublesome, and the nobles were rebellious. Such was the internal
+state of France,--weakened, distracted, and anarchical. She had lost
+her position among the great powers, and Austria threatened to
+overturn the political relations of all the states of Europe. Austria,
+in the early part of the seventeenth century, was, unquestionably, the
+leading power in Christendom, and her ascendency boded no good to the
+liberties which men were beginning to assert.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression of the Huguenots.]
+
+Three great objects animated the genius of Richelieu, and in the
+attainment of these he was successful. These were, the suppression of
+the Huguenots, as a powerful party, the humiliation of the great
+barons, and the reduction of the power of Austria. For these objects
+he perseveringly contended for twenty years; and his struggles and
+intrigues to secure these ends constitute the history of France during
+the reign of Louis XIII. And they affected not only France, but the
+whole continent. His policy was to preserve peace with England and
+Spain,--the hereditary enemies of France,--with Sweden, and with the
+Protestants of Germany, even while he suppressed their religion within
+his own realm. It was the true policy of England to prevent the ruin
+of the Huguenots in France, as before she had aided the Protestants in
+Holland. But, unfortunately, England was then ruled by James and
+Charles, and they were controlled by profligate ministers, who were
+the tools of the crafty cardinal. A feeble assistance was rendered by
+James, but it availed nothing.
+
+In order to annihilate the political power of the Huguenots,--for
+Richelieu cared more for this than for their religious opinions,--it
+was necessary that he should possess himself of the city of La
+Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay, a strong fortress, which had resisted,
+during the reign of Charles IX., the whole power of the Catholics, and
+which continued to be the stronghold of the Huguenots. Here they could
+always retire and be safe, in times of danger. It was strongly
+fortified by sea, as well as by land; and only a vigorous blockade
+could exclude provisions and military stores from the people. But
+England was mistress of the ocean, and supplies from her would always
+relieve the besieged.
+
+After ineffectual but vigorous attempts to take the city by land,
+Richelieu determined to shut up its harbor, first by stakes, and then
+by a boom. Both of these measures failed. But the military genius of
+the cardinal was equal to his talents as a statesman. He remembered
+what Alexander did at the siege of Tyre. So, with a volume of Quintus
+Curtius in his hand, he projected and finished a mole, half a mile in
+length, across a gulf, into which the tide flowed. In some places, it
+was eight hundred and forty feet below the surface of the water, and
+sixty feet in breadth. At first, the besieged laughed at an attempt so
+gigantic and difficult. But the work steadily progressed, and the city
+was finally cut off from communication with the sea. The besieged,
+wasted by famine, surrendered; the fortifications were destroyed, the
+town lost its independence, and the power of the Huguenots was broken
+forever. But no vengeance was taken on the heroic citizens, and they
+were even permitted to enjoy their religion. Fifteen thousand,
+however, perished at this memorable siege.
+
+The next object of Richelieu was the humiliation of Austria. But the
+detail of his military operations would be complicated and tedious,
+since no grand and decisive battles were fought by his generals, and
+no able commanders appeared. Turenne and Conde belonged to the next
+age. The military operations consisted in frontier skirmishes, idle
+sieges, and fitful expeditions, in which, however, the cardinal had
+the advantage, and by which he gained, since he could better afford to
+pay for them. War is always ruinously expensive, and that party
+generally is successful which can the longer furnish resources. It is
+a proof that religious bigotry did not mainly influence him, since he
+supported the Protestant party. All motives of a religious kind were
+absorbed in his prevailing passion to aggrandize the French monarchy.
+Had it not been for the intrigues and forces of Richelieu, the peace
+of Westphalia might not have been secured, and Austria might again
+have overturned the "Balance of Power."
+
+[Sidenote: The Depression of the Great Nobles.]
+
+The third great aim of the minister, and the one which he most
+systematically pursued to the close of his life, was the depression of
+the nobles, whose power was dangerously exercised. They had almost
+feudal privileges, were enormously wealthy, numerous, corrupt, and
+dissolute. His efforts to suppress their power raised up numerous
+conspiracies.
+
+Among the earliest was one supported by the queen mother and Gaston,
+Duke of Orleans, brother to the king, and presumptive heir to the
+throne. Connected with this conspiracy were the Dukes of Bourbon and
+Vendome, the Prince de Chalais, and several others of the highest
+rank. It was intended to assassinate the cardinal and seize the reins
+of government. But he got timely notice of the plot, informed the
+king, and guarded himself. The conspirators were too formidable to be
+punished in a body; so he dissembled and resolved to cut them off in
+detail. He moreover threatened the king with resignation, and
+frightened him by predicting a civil war. In consequence, the king
+gave orders to arrest his brothers, the Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome,
+while the Prince of Chalais was executed. The Duke of Orleans, on the
+confession of Chalais, fled from the kingdom. The queen mother was
+arrested, Bassompierre was imprisoned in the Bastile, and the Duke of
+Guise sent on a pilgrimage to Rome. The powerful D'Epernon sued for
+pardon.
+
+Still Richelieu was not satisfied. He resolved to humble the
+parliament, because it had opposed an ordinance of the king declaring
+the partisans of the Duke of Orleans guilty of treason. It had rightly
+argued that such a condemnation could not be issued without a trial.
+"But," said the artful minister to the weak-minded king, "to refuse to
+verify a declaration which you yourself announced to the members of
+parliament, is to doubt your authority." An extraordinary council was
+convened, and the parliament, which was simply a court of judges, was
+summoned to the royal presence. They went in solemn procession,
+carrying with them the record which showed their refusal to register
+the edict. The king received them with stately pomp. They were
+required to kneel in his presence, and their decree was taken from the
+record and torn in pieces before their eyes, and the leading members
+were suspended and banished.
+
+The Court of Aids, by whom the money edicts were registered, also
+showed opposition. The members left the court when the next edict was
+to be registered. But they were suspended, until they humbly came to
+terms.
+
+"All the malcontents, the queen, the prince, the nobles, the
+parliament, and the Court of Aids hoped for the support of the people,
+and all were disappointed." And this is the reason why they failed and
+Richelieu triumphed. There never have been, among the French,
+disinterestedness and union in the cause of liberty, which never can
+be gained without perseverance and self-sacrifice.
+
+The next usurpation of Richelieu was the erection of a new tribunal
+for trying state criminals, in which no record of its proceedings
+should be preserved, and the members of which should be selected by
+himself. This court was worse than that of the Star Chamber.
+
+Richelieu showed a still more culpable disregard of the forms of
+justice in the trial of Marshal Marrillac, charged with crimes in the
+conduct of the army. He was brought before a commission, and not
+before his peers, condemned, and executed.
+
+In view of this judicial murder, the nobles, generally, were filled
+with indignation and alarm. They now saw that the minister aimed at
+the complete humiliation of their order, and therefore made another
+effort to resist the cardinal. At the head of this conspiracy was the
+Duke of Montmorency, admiral and constable of France, one of the most
+powerful nobles in the kingdom. He was governor of Provence, and
+deeply resented the insult offered to his rank in the condemnation of
+Marrillac. He moreover felt indignant that the king's brother should
+be driven into exile by the hostility of a priest. He therefore joined
+his forces with those of the Duke of Orleans, was defeated, tried, and
+executed for rebellion, against the entreaty and intercession of the
+most powerful families.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of Richelieu.]
+
+The cardinal minister was now triumphant over all his enemies. He had
+destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, extended the boundary
+of France, and decimated the nobles. He now turned his attention to
+the internal administration of the kingdom. He created a national
+navy, protected commerce and industry, rewarded genius, and formed the
+French Academy. He attained a greater pitch of greatness than any
+subject ever before or since enjoyed in his country, greater even than
+was possessed by Wolsey. Wolsey, powerful as he was, lived, like a
+Turkish vizier, in constant fear of his capricious master. But
+Richelieu controlled the king himself. Louis XIII. feared him, and
+felt that he could not reign without him. He did not love the
+cardinal, and was often tempted to dismiss him, but could never summon
+sufficient resolution. Richelieu was more powerful than the queen
+mother, the brothers of the king, the royal mistresses, or even all
+united, since he obtained an ascendency over all, doomed the queen
+mother to languish in exile at Cologne, and compelled the duke of
+Orleans to succumb to him. He was chief of three of the principal
+monastic orders, and possessed enormous wealth. He erected a palace as
+grand as Hampton Court, and appeared in public with great pomp and
+ceremony.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Richelieu.]
+
+But an end came to his greatness. In 1642, a mortal malady wasted him
+away; he summoned to his death bed his royal master; recommended
+Mazarin as his successor; and died like a man who knew no remorse, in
+the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the eighteenth of his reign as
+minister. He was eloquent, but his words served only to disguise his
+sentiments; he was direct and frank in his speech, and yet a perfect
+master of the art of dissimulation; he could not be imposed upon, and
+yet was passionately fond of flattery, which he liked in such large
+doses that it seemed hyperbolical; he was not learned, yet appreciated
+learning in others, and magnificently rewarded it; he was fond of
+pleasure, and easily fascinated by women, and yet was cold, politic,
+implacable, and cruel. But he was a great statesman, and aimed to
+suppress anarchy and preserve law. In view of his labors to preserve
+order, we may almost excuse his severity. "Placed," says Montresor, as
+quoted by Miss Pardoe, "at an equal distance between Louis IX., whose
+aim was to abolish feudality, and the national convention, whose
+attempt was to crush aristocracy, he appeared, like them, to have
+received a mission of blood from heaven." The high nobility, repulsed
+under Louis XI. and Francis I., almost entirely succumbed under
+Richelieu, preparing, by its overthrow, the calm, unitarian, and
+despotic reign of Louis XIV., who looked around him in vain for a
+great noble, and found only courtiers. The great rebellion, which, for
+nearly two centuries, agitated France, almost entirely disappeared
+under the ministry of the cardinal. The Guises, who had touched with
+their hand the sceptre of Henry III., the Condes, who had placed their
+foot on the steps of the throne of Henry IV., and Gaston, who had
+tried upon his brow the crown of Louis XIII.,--all returned, at the
+voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into
+impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in that
+feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle which
+Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but for that
+of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, were not his
+enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he clung tenaciously by
+the side of a king, whom he compelled to live a melancholy, unhappy,
+and isolated life, whom he deprived successively of his friends, of
+his mistresses, and of his family, as a tree is stripped of its
+leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it was because friends,
+mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of the expiring royalty,
+which had need of all its egotism to prevent it from perishing. For it
+was not intestinal struggles merely,--there was also foreign war,
+which had connected itself fatally with them. All those great nobles
+whom he decimated, all those princes of the blood whom he exiled, were
+inviting foreigners to France; and these foreigners, answering eagerly
+to the summons, were entering the country on three different
+sides,--the English by Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the
+Austrians by Artois.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of Richelieu's Policy.]
+
+"He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Re, and by
+besieging La Rochelle; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new
+kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from
+its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing
+dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not
+uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and
+Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his
+hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom.
+Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a
+great general. And when La Rochelle fell before those measures to
+which Schomberg and Bassompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the
+king, 'Sire, I am no prophet, but I assure your majesty that if you
+will condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in
+the month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be on
+your return in the month of August.' And each of these prophecies he
+accomplished in its time and place, and in such wise that, from that
+moment, Louis XIII. vowed to follow forever the counsels of a man by
+which he had so well profited. Finally, he died, as Montesquieu
+asserts, after having made the monarch enact the secondary character
+in the monarchy, but the first in Europe; after having abased the
+king, but after having made his reign illustrious; and after having
+mowed down rebellion so close to the soil, that the descendants of
+those who had composed the league could only form the Fronde, as,
+after the reign of Napoleon, the successors of the La Vendee of '93
+could only execute the Vendee of '32."
+
+Louis XIII. did not long survive this greatest of ministers. Naturally
+weak, he was still weaker by disease. He was reduced to skin and bone.
+In this state, he called a council, nominated his queen, Anne of
+Austria, regent, during the minority of his son Louis XIV., then four
+years of age, and shortly after died, in 1643.
+
+[Sidenote: Richelieu's Policy.]
+
+Mazarin, the new minister, followed out the policy of Richelieu. The
+war with Austria and Spain was continued, which was closed, on the
+Spanish side, by the victory of Rocroi, in 1643, obtained by the
+Prince of Conde, and in which battle twenty-three thousand Frenchmen
+completely routed twenty-six thousand Spaniards, killing eight
+thousand, and taking six thousand prisoners--one of the bloodiest
+battles ever fought. The great Conde here obtained those laurels which
+subsequent disgrace could never take away. The war on the side of
+Germany was closed, in 1648, by the peace of Westphalia. Turenne first
+appeared in the latter campaign of this long war, but gained no signal
+victory.
+
+Cardinal Mazarin, a subtle and intriguing Italian, while he pursued
+the policy of Richelieu, had not his genius or success. He was soon
+involved in domestic troubles. The aristocracy rebelled. Had they been
+united, they would have succeeded; but their rivalries, jealousies,
+and squabbles divided their strength and distracted their councils.
+Their cause was lost, and Mazarin triumphed, more from their divisions
+than from his own strength.
+
+He first had to oppose a clique of young nobles, full of arrogance and
+self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They hoped to
+recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The chief of these
+were the Dukes of Beaufort, Epernon, and Guise. They made use, as
+their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confidential friend of the queen
+regent. And she demanded of the minister that posts of honor and power
+should be given to her friends, which would secure that independence
+which Richelieu had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to
+amuse her, but, she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with
+her, and a conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily
+suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.]
+
+But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of De Retz,
+coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a man of
+boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless discontent.
+To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe a labyrinth.
+He succeeded, however, in keeping the country in perpetual turmoil,
+now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting insurrections
+among the nobles, and then, again, encouraging the parliaments in
+resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every movement was
+directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but committed no
+overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the celebrated
+Duchess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue
+as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde--a civil war which
+ended only in the reestablishment of the monarchy on a firmer
+foundation. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of urchins,
+who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the wits of the
+court called the insurgents _frondeurs_, or slingers, insinuating that
+their force was trifling, and their aim mischief.
+
+[Sidenote: Prince of Conde.]
+
+Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy for six
+years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful nobles, and
+even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The people, too, were on
+the side of the rebels, since they were ground down by taxation, and
+hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. But the rebels took the
+side of the oppressed only for their private advantage, and the
+parliament itself lacked the perseverance and intrepidity necessary to
+secure its liberty. The civil war of the Fronde, though headed by
+discontented nobles, and animated by the intrigues of a turbulent
+ecclesiastic, was really the contest between the parliament and the
+arbitrary power of the government. And the insurrection would have
+been fearful and successful, had the people been firm or the nobles
+faithful to the cause they defended. But the English Revolution, then
+in progress, and in which a king had been executed, shocked the lovers
+of constitutional liberty in France, and reacted then, even as the
+French Revolution afterwards reacted on the English mind. Moreover,
+the excesses which the people perpetrated at Paris, alarmed the
+parliament and the nobles who were allied with it, while it urged on
+the ministers to desperate courses. The prince of Conde, whose
+victories had given him an immortality, dallied with both parties, as
+his interests served. Allied with the court, he could overpower the
+insurgents; but allied with the insurgents, he could control the
+court. Sometimes he sided with the minister and sometimes with the
+insurgents, but in neither case unless he exercised a power and
+enjoyed a remuneration dangerous in any government. Both parties were
+jealous of him, both feared him, both hated him, both insulted him, and
+both courted him. At one time, he headed the royal troops to attack
+Paris, which was generally in the hands of the people and of
+parliament; and then, at another, he fought like a tiger to defend
+himself in Paris against the royal troops. He had no sympathy with
+either the parliament or the people, while he fought for them; and he
+venerated the throne, while he rebelled against it. His name was Louis
+de Bourbon, and he was a prince of the blood. He contended against the
+crown only to wrest from it the ancient power of the great nobles; and
+to gain this object, he thought to make the parliament and the
+Parisian mob his tools. The parliament, sincerely devoted to liberty,
+thought to make the nobles its tools, and only leagued with them to
+secure their services. The crafty Mazarin quietly beheld these
+dissensions, and was sure of ultimate success, even though at one time
+banished to Cologne. And, like a reed, he was ever ready to bend to
+difficulties he could not control. But he stooped to conquer. He at
+last got the Prince of Conde, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the
+Duke of Longueville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of
+it, he said, "He has taken a good haul in the net; he has taken a
+lion, a fox, and a monkey." But the princes escaped from the net, and,
+leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other great
+nobles reached Paris, and were received with acclamations of joy by
+the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the ascendant. But
+the ascendency was no sooner gained than the victors quarrelled with
+themselves, and with the parliament, for whose cause they professed to
+contend. It was in their power, when united, to have deprived the
+queen regent of her authority, and to have established constitutional
+liberty in France. But they would not unite. There was no spirit of
+disinterestedness, nor of patriotism, nor public virtue, without which
+liberty is impossible, even though there were forces enough to batter
+down Mount Atlas. Conde, the victor, suffered himself to be again
+bribed by the court. He would not persevere in his alliance with
+either nobles or the parliament. He did not unite with the nobles
+because he felt that he was a prince. He did not continue with the
+parliament, because he had no sympathy with freedom. The cause of the
+nobles was lost for want of mutual confidence; that of the parliament
+for lack of the spirit of perseverance. The parliament, at length,
+grew weary of war and of popular commotions, and submitted to the
+court. All parties hated and distrusted each other, more than they did
+the iron despotism of Mazarin. The power of insurgent nobles declined.
+De Retz, the arch intriguer, was driven from Paris. The Duchess de
+Longueville sought refuge in the vale of Port Royal; and, in the
+Jansenist doctrines, sought that happiness which earthly grandeur
+could not secure. Conde quitted Paris to join the Spanish armies. The
+rest of the rebellious nobles made humble submission. The people found
+they had nothing to gain from any dominant party, and resigned
+themselves to another long period of political and social slavery. The
+magistrates abandoned, in despair and disgust, their high claims to
+political rights, while the young king, on his bed of justice, decreed
+that parliament should no more presume to discuss or meddle with state
+affairs. The submissive parliament registered, without a murmur, the
+edict which gave a finishing stroke to its liberties. The Fronde war
+was a complete failure, because all parties usurped powers which did
+not belong to them, and were jealous of the rights of each other. The
+nobles wished to control the king, and the magistracy put itself
+forward to represent the commons, when the states general alone was
+the ancient and true representative of the nation, and the body to
+which it should have appealed. The Fronde rebellion was a failure,
+because it did not consult constitutional forms, because it formed
+unnatural alliances, and because it did not throw itself upon the
+force of immortal principles, but sought to support itself by mere
+physical strength rather than by moral power, which alone is the
+secret and the glory of all great internal changes.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of Mazarin.]
+
+The return of Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of
+Louis XIV., was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to restore
+the public finances; his second was to secure his personal
+aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had enjoyed,
+and reproved the king, and such a king as Louis XIV., as he would a
+schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives, married them into
+the first families of France; and amassed a fortune of two hundred
+millions of livres, the largest perhaps that any subject has secured
+in modern times. He even aspired to the popedom; but this greatest of
+all human dignities, he was not permitted to obtain. A fatal malady
+seized him, and the physicians told him he had not two months to live.
+Some days after, he was seen in his dressing-gown, among his pictures,
+of which he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed, "Must I quit all
+these? Look at that Correggio, this Venus of Titian, this incomparable
+deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I have loved so
+dearly, and that have cost me so much."
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Mazarin.]
+
+The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with cards. He
+expired in 1661; and no minister after him was intrusted with such
+great power. He died unlamented, even by his sovereign, whose throne
+he had preserved, and whose fortune he had repaired. He had great
+talents of conversation, was witty, artful, and polite. He completed
+the work which Richelieu began; and, at his death, his master was the
+most absolute monarch that ever reigned in France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Miss Pardoe's History
+     of Louis XIV. Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis XIV.
+     Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Memoires
+     de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Memoires du Duc de Saint
+     Simon. Life of Cardinal de Retz, in which the Fronde war is
+     well traced. Memoir of the Duchess de Longueville.
+     Lacretelle's History of France. Rankin's History of France.
+     Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's History, in Lardner's
+     Cyclopedia. Rowring's History of the Huguenots. Lord Mahon's
+     Life of the Prince of Conde. The above works are the most
+     accessible to the American student.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.
+
+
+While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious
+liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, there
+was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the same great
+ends. With the accession of James I. a new era commences in English
+history, marked by the growing importance of the House of Commons, and
+their struggles for civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not
+been entirely silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members
+of them occasionally dared to assert those rights of which Englishmen
+are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing which
+pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the Tower any man
+who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects which she deemed that she
+and her ministers alone had the right to discuss. These forbidden
+subjects were those which pertained to the management of religion, to
+her particular courts, and to her succession to the crown. She never
+made an attack on what she conceived to be the constitution, but only
+zealously defended what she considered as her own rights. And she was
+ever sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had
+asserted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the
+appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to
+extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she showed
+great wisdom; so that, in spite of all her crimes and caprices, she
+ever retained the affections of the English people.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of James I.]
+
+The son of her rival Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne,
+(1603,) under the title of _James I._, and was the first of the Stuart
+kings. He had been king of Scotland under the title of _James VI._,
+and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly in
+consequence of the turbulence of the nobles, and the bigotry of the
+reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English inheritance,
+but was so poor that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent
+him the money. He was crowned, with great ceremony, in Westminster
+Abbey, on the 25th of June.
+
+The first acts of his reign were unpopular; and it was subsequently
+disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. To detail
+these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the events of his
+inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this History.
+Moreover, from this period, modern history becomes very complicated
+and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this work is, an
+allusion to the principal events.
+
+[Sidenote: The Genius of the Reign of James.]
+
+The genius of this reign is the contest between _royal prerogative and
+popular freedom_. The proceedings in parliament were characterized by
+a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, while the
+speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obstinate and stupid
+pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from
+their subjects in former ages of despotism and darkness. The boldness
+of the Commons and the bigotry of the king led to incessant
+disagreement and discontent; and, finally, under Charles I., to open
+rupture, revolution, and strife.
+
+The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of the
+most important and instructive chapters in the history of society and
+the young student cannot make himself too familiar with details, of
+which our limits forbid a description.
+
+The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed until
+after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffering, and
+strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the Stuart dynasty,
+great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to perceive the true
+interests and rights of the people, and a heart and a hand to defend
+them. No period and no nation have ever been more fertile in great men
+than England was from the accession of James I. to the abdication of
+James II., a period of eighty-five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, Coke,
+Bacon, Cecil, Selden, Pym, Wentworth, Hollis, Leighton, Taylor,
+Baxter, Howe, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon,
+Burnet, Shaftesbury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a
+light down to our own times, and will continue to shine through all
+future ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took
+part, more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of
+the seventeenth century. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or
+divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their little island
+the moral centre of the world.
+
+But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of
+James I., before the struggle between prerogative and liberty
+attracted the attention of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+One of the first was the conspiracy against the king, in which Lord
+Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh were engaged. We lament that so great a
+favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, so universal a
+genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, should have even
+been suspected of a treasonable project, and without the excuse of
+some traitors, that they wished to deliver their country from tyranny.
+But there is no perfection in man. Sir Walter was restless and
+ambitious, and had an eye mainly to his own advantage. His wit,
+gallantry, and chivalry were doubtless very pleasing qualities in a
+courtier, but are not the best qualities of a patriot. He was
+disappointed because he could not keep pace with Cecil in the favor of
+his sovereign, and because the king took away the monopolies he had
+enjoyed. Hence, in conjunction with other disappointed politicians, he
+was accused of an attempt to seize the king's person, to change the
+ministry, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against
+Raleigh appeared no less a person than the great Coke, who prosecuted
+him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and condemned
+to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear as the evidence
+of his ambition; and much must be attributed to party animosity.
+Though condemned, he was not executed; but lived to write many more
+books, and make many more voyages, to the great delight both of the
+cultivated and the adventurous. That there was a plot to seize the
+king is clear, and the conspirators were detected and executed.
+Raleigh was suspected of this, and perhaps was privy to it; but the
+proofs of his crime were not apparent, except to the judges, and to
+the attorney-general, Coke, who compared the different plots to
+Samson's foxes, joined in the tails, though their heads were
+separated.
+
+[Sidenote: Gunpowder Plot.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Catholics.]
+
+The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history of the
+kingdom was the Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and other
+disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the king, and
+the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing the sympathies
+of James for their religion, the Catholics had expected toleration, at
+least. But when persecution continued against them, some reckless and
+unprincipled men united in a design to blow up the parliament. Percy,
+a relation of the Earl of Northumberland, was concerned in the plot,
+and many of the other conspirators were men of good families and
+fortunes, but were implacable bigots. They hired a cellar, under the
+parliament house, which had been used for coals; and there they
+deposited thirty-one barrels of gunpowder, waiting several months for
+a favorable time to perpetrate one of the most horrid crimes ever
+projected. It was resolved that Guy Fawkes, one of the number, should
+set fire to the train. They were all ready, and the 5th of November,
+1605, was at hand, the day to which parliament was prorogued; but
+Percy was anxious to save _his_ kinsman from the impending ruin, Sir
+Everard Digby wished to warn some of _his_ friends, and Tresham was
+resolved to give _his_ brother-in-law, Lord Mounteagle, a caution. It
+seems that this peer received a letter so peculiar, that he carried it
+to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and the king detected or
+suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar was explored by the
+lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was found, with all the
+materials for striking a light, near the vault in which the coal and
+the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized, interrogated, tortured,
+and imprisoned; but the wretch would not reveal the names of his
+associates, although he gloried in the crime he was about to commit,
+and alleged, as his excuse, that violent diseases required desperate
+remedies, the maxim of the Jesuits. But most of the conspirators
+revealed their guilt by flight. They might have escaped, had they fled
+from the kingdom; but they hastened only into the country to collect
+their friends, and head an insurrection, which, of course, was easily
+suppressed. The leaders in this plot were captured and executed, and
+richly deserved their fate, although it was clear that they were
+infatuated. But in all crime there is infatuation. It was suspected
+that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the conspiracy; and the whole
+Catholic population suffered reproach from the blindness and folly of
+a few bigots, from whom no sect or party ever yet has been free. But
+there is no evidence that any of the Catholic clergy were even privy
+to the intended crime, which was known only to the absolute plotters.
+Some Jesuits were indeed suspected, arrested, tortured, and executed;
+but no evidence of guilt was brought against them sufficient to
+convict them. But their acquittal was impossible in such a state of
+national alarm and horror. Nothing ever made a more lasting and
+profound impression on the English mind than this intended crime; and
+it strengthened the prejudices against the Catholics even more than
+the persecutions under Queen Mary. Had the crime been consummated, it
+would only have proved a blunder. It would have shocked and irritated
+the nation beyond all self-control; and it is probable that the whole
+Catholic population would have been assassinated, or hunted out, as
+victims for the scaffold, in every corner of England. It proved,
+however, a great misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever
+received in England. Thus God overrules all human wickedness. There
+was one person who suffered, in consequence of the excited suspicions
+of the nation, whose fate we cannot but compassionate; and this person
+was the Earl of Northumberland, who was sentenced to pay a fine of
+thirty thousand pounds, to be deprived of all his offices, and to be
+imprisoned in the Tower for life, and simply because he was the head
+of the Catholic party, and a promoter of toleration. Indeed, penal
+statutes against the Catholics were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic
+was permitted to appear at court, or live in London, or within ten
+miles of it, or remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his
+home, without especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to
+practise surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer
+of any court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator,
+executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child
+baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one
+hundred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was compelled
+to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every recusant was
+outlawed; his house might be broken open; his books and furniture
+destroyed; and his horses and arms taken from him. Such was the severe
+treatment with which the Catholics, even those who were good citizens,
+were treated by our fathers in England; and this persecution was
+defended by some of the greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which
+England has produced. And yet some maintain that there has been no
+progress in society, except in material civilization!
+
+[Sidenote: Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.]
+
+One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency
+which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and
+vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their favorites; but
+they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey,
+Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great men, and worthy of the trust
+reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft,
+with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity,
+reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
+It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his
+secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and Coke was his chief justice.
+But Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and
+were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master.
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness and Fall of Somerset.]
+
+Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early
+been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would
+make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the
+king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall.
+In presenting his lord's shield to the king, his horse fell and threw
+him at James's feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made.
+James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident,
+sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him
+Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been
+neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster
+than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so
+that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of
+the age." Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was
+knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as
+they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied
+with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends.
+He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, was created Viscount
+Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then
+Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as
+lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place as treasurer. Rochester, in
+effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created
+Earl of Somerset, in order that he might marry the Countess of Essex,
+the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English court. She was
+daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of
+Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first
+family in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age of thirteen,
+but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enamored of
+the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she obtained a
+divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and through
+the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he delighted
+to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the ruin of
+all who opposed her wishes. But she proved a beautiful demon, a
+fascinating fury, as might be expected from such an unprincipled
+woman, although ennobled by "the blood of all the Howards." Her reign
+lasted, however, only during the ascendency of her husband. For a
+time, "glorious days were succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks
+and dancings had a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the
+spirit of the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly
+things." But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fashion,
+leaves. Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For
+the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in the
+Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess were
+tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, and,
+after a few years' imprisonment, retired to the country, with his
+lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the Lady Anna
+Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the first duke of
+Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who died on the scaffold,
+a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles II. The origin of the
+noble families of England is curious. Some few are descended from
+successful Norman chieftains, who came over with William the
+Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. Others are the
+descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, or warriors,
+obtained great position, power, and wealth, during former reigns. Many
+owe their greatness to the fact that they are the offspring of the
+illegitimate children of kings, or the descendants of the ignoble
+minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in the peerage on account of
+their great wealth; and a still smaller number for the eminent
+services they have rendered their country like Wellington, Brougham,
+or Ellenborough. A vast majority can boast only the merit or the
+successful baseness of their ancestors. But all of them are
+interlinked by marriages, and therefore share together the glory or
+the shame of their progenitors, so far as glory and shame can be
+transmitted from father to son, independently of all individual virtue
+or vice.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Buckingham.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Bacon.]
+
+Carr was succeeded in the royal favor by Villiers, and he, more
+fortunate, ever retained the ascendency over the mind and heart of
+James, as well as of his son Charles I. George Villiers owed his
+fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, his
+Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. He
+became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy council,
+then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, lord high
+admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of Westminster,
+constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in eyre of the parks
+and forests. "The doting and gloating king" had taught Somerset Latin;
+he attempted to teach Buckingham divinity, and called him ever by the
+name of "Steenie." And never was there such a mixture of finery,
+effeminacy, insolence, and sycophancy in any royal minion before or
+since. Beau Brummell never equalled him in dress, Wolsey in
+magnificence, Mazarin in peculation, Walpole in corruption, Jeffries
+in insolence, or Norfolk in pride. He was the constant companion of
+the king, to whose vices he pandered, and through him the royal favor
+flowed. But no rewards, or favors, or greatness satisfied him; not so
+much because he was ambitious, as because, like a spoiled child, he
+did not appreciate the magnitude of the gifts which were bestowed on
+him. Nor did he ever know his place; but made love to the queen of
+France herself, when he was sent on an embassy. He trampled on the
+constitution, subverted the laws, ground down the people by taxes, and
+taught the king to disregard the affections of his subjects, and to
+view them as his slaves. But such a triumph of iniquity could not be
+endured; and Buckingham was finally assassinated, after he had gained
+an elevation higher than any English subject ever before attained,
+except Wolsey, and without the exercise of any qualities which
+entitled him to a higher position than a master of ceremonies at a
+fashionable ball. It is easy to conceive that such a minion should
+arrive at power under such a monarch as James; but how can we
+understand that such a man as Lord Bacon, the chancellor, the
+philosopher, the statesman, the man of learning, genius, and wisdom,
+should have bowed down to the dust, in vile subserviency, to this
+infamous favorite of the king. Surely, what lessons of the frailty of
+human nature does the reign of James teach us! The most melancholy
+instance of all the singular cases of human inconsistency, at this
+time, is the conduct of the great Bacon himself, who reached the
+zenith of his power during this reign. It is not the receiving of a
+bribe, while exercising the highest judicial authority in the land, on
+which alone his shame rests, but his insolent conduct to his
+inferiors, his acquiescence in wrong, his base and unmanly sycophancy,
+his ingratitude to his friends and patrons, his intense selfishness
+and unscrupulous ambition while climbing to power, and, above all, his
+willingness to be the tool of a despot who trampled on the rights and
+liberties which God had given him to guard; and this in an age of
+light, of awakened intelligence, when even his crabbed rival Coke was
+seeking to explode the abuses of the Dark Ages. But "the difference
+between the soaring angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of
+the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the
+attorney-general, Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the
+Seals." As the author of the Novum Organum, as the pioneer of modern
+science, as the calm and patient investigator of nature's laws, as the
+miner and sapper of the old false systems of philosophy which enslaved
+the human mind, as the writer for future generations, he has received,
+as he has deserved, all the glory which admiring and grateful millions
+can bestow, of his own nation, and of all nations. No name in British
+annals is more illustrious than his, and none which is shaded with
+more lasting shame. Pope alone would have given him an immortality as
+the "wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." The only defence for the
+political baseness of Bacon--and this is insufficient--is, that all
+were base around him. The years when he was in power are among the
+darkest and most disgraceful in English history.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial and Execution of Raleigh.]
+
+Allusion has been made to the reign of favorites; but this was but a
+small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad and at home
+was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were multiplied; the most
+grievous exactions were made; indefensible executions were ordered;
+the laws were perverted; justice was sold; and an ignominious war was
+closed by a still more ignominious peace. The execution of Raleigh was
+a disgrace to the king, the court, and the nation, because the manner
+of it was so cowardly and cruel. He had been convicted, in the early
+part of the reign, of treason, and committed to the Tower. There he
+languished twelve years, amusing himself by writing a universal
+history, and in seeking the elixir of life; for, in the mysteries of
+chemistry, and in the mazes of historical lore, as in the intrigues of
+courts, and dangers of camps, he was equally at home.
+
+He was released from his prison in order to take command of an
+adventurous expedition to Guiana in quest of gold. In a former voyage
+he had visited the banks of the Oronoco in quest of the city of Manoa,
+where precious stones and gold existed in exhaustless treasures. That
+El Dorado he could not find; but now, in prison, he proposed to
+Secretary Winwood an expedition to secure what he had before sought in
+vain. The king wavered a while between his cupidity and fear; for,
+while he longed for gold, as the traveller does for water on the
+desert of Sahara, he was afraid of giving offence to the Spanish
+ambassador. But his cupidity was the stronger feeling, and Raleigh was
+sent with fourteen ships to the coasts of South America. The
+expedition was in every respect unfortunate to Raleigh and to the
+king. The gallant commander lost his private fortune and a promising
+son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied and
+deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to meet a
+disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such times, failure
+is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for offences he never
+committed. The most glaring injustice, harshness, and sophistry were
+resorted to, even by Bacon; but still Raleigh triumphantly defended
+himself. But no innocence or eloquence could save him; and he was
+executed on the sentence which had been pronounced against him for
+treason fifteen years before. To such meanness and cowardice did his
+enemies resort to rid the world of a universal genius, whose crime--if
+crime he ever committed--had long been consigned to oblivion.
+
+[Sidenote: Encroachments of James.]
+
+But we cannot longer dwell on the lives of eminent individuals during
+the reign of James. However interesting may be the details of their
+fortunes, their history dwindles into insignificance when compared
+with the great public injuries which an infatuated monarch inflicted.
+Not cruel in his temper, not stained by personal crimes, quite learned
+in Greek and Latin, but weak and ignorant of his duties as a king, he
+was inclined to trespass on the rights of his subjects. As has been
+already remarked, the genius of his reign was the contest between
+prerogative and liberty. The Commons did not acquiesce in his
+measures, or yield to his wishes, as they did during the reign of
+Elizabeth. He had a notion that the duty of a king was to command, and
+that of the subject was to obey, in all things; that kings ruled by
+divine right, and were raised by the Almighty above all law. But such
+notions were not approved by a parliament which swarmed with Puritans,
+and who were not careful to conceal their views from the king. They
+insisted on their privileges as tenaciously as the king insisted on
+his prerogative, and often came into collision with him. And they
+instituted an inquiry into monopolies, and attacked the monstrous
+abuses of purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by which,
+among other things, the king became guardian to wards, and received
+the profits of their estates during their minority. These feudal
+claims, by which the king, in part, received his revenue, were every
+year becoming less valuable to the crown, and more offensive to the
+people. The king, at length, was willing to compound, and make a
+bargain with the Commons, by which he was to receive two hundred
+thousand pounds a year, instead of the privileges of wardship, and
+other feudal rights. But his necessities required additional grants,
+which the Commons were unwilling to bestow; and the king then resorted
+to the sale of monopolies and even peerages, sent the more turbulent
+of the Commons to prison, and frequently dissolved parliament. He was
+resolved to tax the people if supplies were not granted him, while the
+Commons maintained that no taxation could be allowed without their
+consent. Moreover, the Commons refused to grant such supplies as the
+king fancied he needed, unless certain grievances were redressed,
+among which was the High Commission Court, an arbitrary tribunal,
+which fined and imprisoned without appeal. But James, though pressed
+for money, stood firm to his notions of prerogative, and supplied his
+most urgent necessities by illegal means. People were dragged to the
+Star Chamber, on all kinds of accusations, that they might be
+sentenced to pay enormous fines; new privileges and monopolies were
+invented, and new dignities created. Baronets, who are hereditary
+knights, were instituted, and baronetcies were sold for one thousand
+pounds each.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel between James and Parliament.]
+
+But the monopolies which the king granted, in order to raise money,
+did not inflame the Commons so much as the projected marriage between
+the prince of Wales and the infanta of Spain. James flattered himself
+that this Spanish match, to arrange which he had sent Buckingham to
+the court of Madrid, would procure the restitution of the Palatinate
+to the elector, who had been driven from his throne. But the Commons
+thought differently. They, as well as the people generally, were
+indignant in view of the inactivity of the government in not sending
+aid to the distressed Protestants of Germany; and the loss of the
+Palatinate was regarded as a national calamity. They saw no good which
+would accrue from an alliance with the enemies and persecutors of
+these Protestants; but, on the other hand, much evil. As the
+constitutional guardians, therefore, of the public welfare and
+liberty, they framed a remonstrance to the king, representing the
+overgrown power of Austria as dangerous to the liberties of Europe,
+and entreated his majesty to take up arms against Spain, which was
+allied with Austria, and by whose wealth Austrian armies were
+supported.
+
+James was inflamed with indignation at this remonstrance, which
+militated against all his maxims of government; and he forthwith wrote
+a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, commanding him to
+admonish the members "not to presume to meddle with matters of state
+which were beyond their capacity, and especially not to touch on his
+son's marriage." The Commons, not dismayed, and conscious of strength,
+sent up a new remonstrance in which they affirmed that they _were_
+entitled to interpose with their counsel in all matters of state, and
+that entire freedom of speech was their ancient and undoubted right,
+transmitted from their ancestors. The king, in reply, told the
+Commons, that "their remonstrance was more like a denunciation of war,
+than an address of dutiful subjects, and that their pretension to
+inquire into state affairs was a plenipotence to which none of their
+ancestors, even during the weakest reigns, had ever dared to aspire."
+He farther insinuated that their privileges were derived from royal
+favor. On this, the Commons framed another protest,--that the
+liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are
+the ancient and undoubted birthright of Englishmen, and that every
+member has the right of freedom of speech. This protest they entered
+upon their journals, upon which James lost all temper, ordered the
+clerk to bring him the journals, erased the protestation with his own
+hand, in presence of the judges and the council, and then dissolved
+the parliament.
+
+Nothing else of note occurred in this reign, except the prosecution of
+the Spanish match, which was so odious to the nation that Buckingham,
+to preserve his popularity, broke off the negotiations, and by a
+system of treachery and duplicity as hateful as were his original
+efforts to promote the match. War with Spain was the result of the
+insult offered to the infanta and the court. An alliance was now made
+with France, and Prince Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of
+Henry IV. The Commons then granted abundant supplies for war, to
+recover the Palatinate; and liberty of conscience was granted by the
+monarch, on the demands of Richelieu, to the Catholics--so long and,
+perseveringly oppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of James I.]
+
+Shortly after, (March 27, 1625,) King James died at Theobalds, his
+favorite palace, from a disease produced by anxiety, gluttony, and
+sweet wines, after a reign in England of twenty-two years; and his
+son, Charles I., before the breath was out of his body, was proclaimed
+king in his stead.
+
+The course pursued by James I. was adopted by his son; and, as their
+reigns were memorable for the same struggle, we shall consider them
+together until revolution gave the victory to the advocates of
+freedom.
+
+Charles I. was twenty-five years of age when he began his reign. In a
+moral and social point of view he was a more respectable man than his
+father, but had the same absurd notions of the royal prerogative, the
+same contempt of the people, the same dislike of constitutional
+liberty, and the same resolution of maintaining the absolute power of
+the crown, at any cost. He was moreover, perplexed by the same
+embarrassments, was involved in debt, had great necessities, and was
+dependent on the House of Commons for aid to prosecute his wars and
+support the dignity of the crown. But he did not consider the changing
+circumstances and spirit of the age, and the hostile and turbulent
+nature of his people. He increased, rather than diminished, the odious
+monopolies which irritated the nation during the reign of his father;
+he clung to all the old feudal privileges; he retained the detestable
+and frivolous Buckingham as his chief minister; and, when Buckingham
+was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and
+unscrupulous; he insisted on taxing the people without their consent,
+threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebellion. In
+all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every allowance
+for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man would have seen the
+rising storm, and might possibly have averted it. But Charles never
+dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury on his devoted head, and
+consigned him to the martyr's grave. We pity his fate, but lament
+still more his blindness. And so great was this blindness, that it
+almost seems as if Providence had marked him out to be a victim on the
+altar of human progress.
+
+With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most exciting
+period of English history, and a period to which historians have given
+more attention than to any other great historical era, the French
+Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe the leading events
+in this exciting age and reign would be, in this connection, absurd;
+and yet some notice of them cannot be avoided.
+
+[Sidenote: The Struggle of Classes.]
+
+For more than ten centuries, great struggles have been going on in
+society between the dominant orders and sects. The victories gained by
+the oppressed millions, over their different masters, constitute what
+is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of the people have
+occasionally arisen from orders to which they did not belong. When,
+then, any great order defended the cause of the people against the
+tyranny and selfishness of another order, then the people have
+advanced a step in civil and social freedom.
+
+When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, "the clergy sought,
+on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and the poor
+man had no other asylum than the churches, no other protectors than
+the priests; and, as the priests offered food to the moral nature of
+man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the preponderance passed
+from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid of the church, royalty also
+rose above feudalism, and aided the popular cause.
+
+The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to enslave the
+kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from humiliated nobles
+and from the people, became the dominant power in Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Popular Power.]
+
+In these struggles between nobles and the clergy, and between the
+clergy and kings, the people had acquired political importance. They
+had obtained a knowledge of their rights and of their strength; and
+they were determined to maintain them. They liked not the tyranny of
+either nobles, priests, or kings; but they bent all their energies to
+suppress the power of the latter, since the two former had been
+already humiliated.
+
+The struggle of the people against royalty is preeminently the genius
+of the English Revolution. It is to be doubted whether any king could
+have resisted the storm of popular fury which hurled Charles from his
+throne. But no king could have managed worse than he, no king could be
+more unfortunately and unpropitiously placed; and his own imprudence
+and folly hastened the catastrophe.
+
+The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, spirit, and
+popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived the difficulties
+and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate or generous effort to
+relieve him from them. Some of the more turbulent rejoiced in them.
+They knew that kings, like other men, were selfish, and that it was
+not natural for people to part with their privileges and power without
+a struggle, even though this power was injurious to the interests of
+society. In the Middle Ages, barons, bishops, and popes had fought
+desperately in the struggle of classes; and it was only from their
+necessities that either kings or people had obtained what they
+demanded. King Charles, no more than Pope Boniface VIII., would
+surrender, as a boon to man, without compulsion, his supposed
+omnipotence.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel between the King and the Commons.]
+
+The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his father, and
+by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but would not pay for.
+They granted him, to meet his difficulties and maintain his honor, the
+paltry sum of one hundred and forty thousand pounds, and the duties of
+tonnage and poundage, not for life, as was customary, but for a year.
+Nothing could be more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money
+was soon spent, and the king wanted more, and had a right to expect
+more. But, if the Commons granted what the king required, he would be
+made independent of them, and he would rule tyrannically, as the kings
+of England did before him. So they resolved not to grant necessary
+supplies to carry on the government, unless the king would part with
+the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those old feudal
+privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of the people.
+Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. Few kings, in his age,
+would have seen its necessity. But necessity there was. Civil war was
+inevitable, without a compromise, provided both parties were resolved
+on maintaining their ground. But Charles fancied that the Commons
+could be browbeaten and intimidated into submission; and, moreover, in
+case he was brought into collision with his subjects, he fancied that
+he was stronger than they, and could put down the spirit of
+resistance. In both of these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons
+were firm, and were stronger than he was, because they had the
+sympathy of the people. They believed conscientiously, especially the
+Puritans, that he was wrong; that God gave him no divine right to
+enslave them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles
+of justice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and
+religious liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed
+that their rights were inalienable and absolute; that, among them,
+they could not be taxed without their own consent; and that their
+constitutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in
+debate. These notions of the people were _ideas_. On ideas all
+governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt
+they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of
+Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support
+given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could
+he do? What could Louis XVI. do one hundred and fifty years
+afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without
+the loyalty of the people, is a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion,
+unless he have physical force to sustain him; and even then armies
+will rebel, if they feel they are not bound to obey, and if it is not
+for their interest to obey.
+
+Now Charles had neither _loyalty_ nor _force_ to hold him on his
+throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in
+speculations destroyed the former; the House of Commons would not
+grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant
+supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the people
+better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by his
+concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would not make
+the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal to arms.
+
+[Sidenote: The Counsellors of Charles.]
+
+But Charles was not without friends, and some of his advisers were men
+of sagacity and talent. It is true they did not fully appreciate the
+weakness of the king, or the strength of his enemies; but they saw his
+distress, and tried to remove it. They, very naturally in such an age,
+recommended violent courses--to grant new monopolies, to extort fines,
+to exercise all his feudal privileges, to pawn the crown jewels, even,
+in order to raise money; for money, at all events, he must have. They
+advised him to arrest turbulent and incendiary members of the Commons,
+to prorogue and dissolve parliaments, to raise forced loans, to impose
+new duties, to shut up ports, to levy fresh taxes, and to raise armies
+friendly to his cause. In short, they recommended unconstitutional
+measures--measures which both they and the king knew to be
+unconstitutional, but which they justified on the ground of necessity.
+And the king, in his perplexity, did what his ministers advised. But
+every person who was sent to the Tower, every new tax, every sentence
+of the Star Chamber, every seizure of property, every arbitrary
+command, every violation of the liberties of the people, raised up new
+enemies to the king, and inflamed the people with new discontents.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Buckingham--Petition of Right.]
+
+At first the Commons felt that they could obtain what they wanted--a
+redress of grievances, if the king's favorite adviser and minister
+were removed. Besides, they all hated Buckingham--peers, commons, and
+people,--and all sought his downfall. He had no friends among the
+people, as Essex had in the time of Elizabeth. His extravagance, pomp,
+and insolence disgusted all orders; and his reign seemed to be an
+insult to the nation. Even the people regarded him as an upstart,
+setting himself above the old nobility, and enriching himself by royal
+domains, worth two hundred eighty-four thousand three hundred and
+ninety-five pounds. So the Commons violently attacked his
+administration, and impeached him. But he was shielded by the king,
+and even appointed to command an expedition to relieve La Rochelle,
+then besieged by Richelieu. But he was stabbed by a religious fanatic,
+by the name of Felton, as he was about to embark at Portsmouth. His
+body was removed to London, and he was buried with great state in
+Westminster Abbey, much lamented by the king, who lost his early
+friend, one of the worst ministers, but not the worst man, which that
+age despised, (1628.)
+
+Meanwhile the indignant Commons persevered with their work. They
+passed what is called the "Petition of Right,"--a string of
+resolutions which asserted that no freeman ought to be detained in
+prison, without being brought to trial, and that no taxes could be
+lawfully levied, without consent of the Commons--the two great pillars
+of the English constitution, yet truths involved in political
+difficulty, especially in cases of rebellion. The personal liberty of
+the subject is a great point indeed; and the act of _habeas corpus_,
+passed in later times, is a great step in popular freedom; but, if
+never to be suspended, no government could guard against conspiracy in
+revolutionary times.
+
+The Petition of Right, however, obtained the king's assent, though
+unwillingly, grudgingly, and insincerely given; and the Commons,
+gratified for once, voted to the king supplies.
+
+But Charles had no notion of keeping his word, and soon resorted to
+unconstitutional measures, as before. But he felt the need of able
+counsellors. His "dear Steenie" was dead, and he knew not in whom to
+repose confidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Earl of Strafford.]
+
+The demon of despotism raised up an agent in the person of Thomas
+Wentworth, a man of wealth, talents, energy, and indomitable courage;
+a man who had, in the early part of his career, defended the cause of
+liberty; who had even suffered imprisonment sooner than contribute to
+an unlawful loan, and in whom the hopes of the liberal party were
+placed. But he was bribed. His patriotism was not equal to his
+ambition. Seduced by a peerage, and by the love of power, he went over
+to the side of the king, and defended his arbitrary rule as zealously
+as he had before advocated the cause of constitutional liberty. He was
+created Viscount Wentworth, and afterwards earl of Strafford--the most
+prominent man of the royalist party, and the greatest traitor to the
+cause of liberty which England had ever known. His picture, as painted
+by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall of his descendant, Earl
+Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of what history represents him--a
+cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupulous tyrant, with an eye capable of
+reading the secrets of the soul, a brow lowering with care and
+thought, and a lip compressed with determination, and twisted into
+contempt of mankind. If Wentworth did not love his countrymen, he
+loved to rule over them: and he gained his end, and continued the
+prime minister of absolutism until an insulted nation rose in their
+might, and placed his head upon the block.
+
+[Sidenote: John Hampden.]
+
+Under the rule of this minister, whom every one feared, the Puritans
+every where fled, preferring the deserts of America, with freedom, to
+the fair lands of England, with liberty trodden under foot. The reigns
+of both James and Charles are memorable for the resistance and despair
+of this intrepid and religious sect, in which were enrolled some of
+the finest minds and most intelligent patriots of the country. Pym,
+Cromwell, Hazelrig, and even Hampden, are said to have actually
+embarked; but Providence detained them in England, they having a
+mission of blood to perform there. In another chapter, the Puritans,
+their struggles, and principles, will be more fully presented; and we
+therefore, in this connection, abstain from further notice. It may,
+however, be remarked, that they were the most inflexible enemies of
+the king, and were determined to give him and his minister no rest
+until all their ends were gained. They hated Archbishop Laud even more
+intensely than they hated Wentworth; and Laud, if possible, was a
+greater foe to religious and civil liberty. Strafford and Laud are
+generally coupled together in the description of the abuses of
+arbitrary power. The churchman, however, was honest and sincere, only
+his views were narrow and his temper irritable. His vices were those
+of the bigot--such as disgraced St. Dominic or Torquemada, but faults
+which he deemed excellencies. He was an enthusiast in high churchism
+and toryism; and his zeal in defence of royal prerogative and the
+divine rights of bishops has won for him the panegyrics of his
+friends, as well as the curses of his enemies. For Strafford, too,
+there is admiration, but only for his talents, his courage, his
+strength--the qualities which one might see in Milton's Satan, or in
+Carlyle's picture gallery of heroes.
+
+While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and
+contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the Tower,
+fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new imposition
+called out the energies of a great patriot and a great man, John
+Hampden--a fit antagonist of the haughty Wentworth. This new exaction
+was a tax called _ship money_.
+
+It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General Noy, two
+subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and designed to
+extort money from the inland counties, as well as from the cities, for
+furnishing ships--a demand that Elizabeth did not make, in all her
+power, even when threatened by the Spanish Armada. Clarendon even
+admits that this tax was not for the support of the navy, "but for a
+spring and magazine which should have no bottom, and for an
+everlasting supply on all occasions." And this the nation completely
+understood, and resolved desperately to resist.
+
+Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share assessed on
+him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an illegal tax. He
+was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. Hampden appealed to a
+decision of the judges in regard to the legality of the tax, and the
+king permitted the question to be settled by the laws. The trial
+lasted thirteen days, but ended in the condemnation of Hampden, who
+had shown great moderation, as well as courage, and had won the favor
+of the people. It was shortly after this that Hampden, as some
+historians assert, resolved to leave England with his cousin Oliver
+Cromwell. But the king prevented the ships, in which they and other
+emigrants had embarked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new
+trials and new labors.
+
+[Sidenote: Insurrection in Scotland.]
+
+About a month after Hampden's condemnation, an insurrection broke out
+in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It was produced
+by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the English liturgy on the
+Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterianism by Episcopacy. The
+revolutions in Scotland, from the time of Knox, had been popular; not
+produced by great men, but by the diffusion of great ideas. The people
+believed in the spiritual independence of their church, and not in the
+supremacy of a king. The instant, therefore, that the Episcopal
+worship was introduced, by authority, in the cathedral of Edinburgh,
+there was an insurrection, which rapidly spread through all parts of
+the country. An immense multitude came to Edinburgh to protest against
+the innovation, and crowded all the houses, streets, and halls of the
+city. The king ordered the petitioners home, without answering their
+complaints. They obeyed the injunction, but soon returned in greater
+numbers. An organization of resistance was made, and a provisional
+government appointed. All classes joined the insurgents, who, menaced,
+but united, at last bound themselves, by a solemn league and covenant,
+not to separate until their rights and liberties were secured. A vast
+majority of all the population of Scotland--gentlemen, clergy,
+citizens, and laborers, men, women, and children--assembled in the
+church, and swore fealty to the covenant. Force, of course, was
+necessary to reduce the rebels, and civil war commenced in Scotland.
+But war increased the necessities of the king, and he was compelled to
+make peace with the insurgent army.
+
+Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last
+parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without one,
+and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of the crown
+lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Imposts fallen into
+desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, royal forests extended
+beyond the limits they had in feudal times, fines past all endurance,
+confiscations without end, imprisonments, tortures, and
+executions,--all marked these eleven years. The sum for fines alone,
+in this period, amounted to more than two hundred thousand pounds. The
+forest of Rockingham was enlarged from six to sixty miles in circuit,
+and the earl of Salisbury was fined twenty thousand pounds for
+encroaching upon it. Individuals and companies had monopolies of salt,
+soap, coals, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer,
+distilled liquors, herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth, rags, hops,
+gunpowder, and divers other articles, which, of course, deranged the
+whole trade of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand pounds, and
+had his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an offensive
+book; and his sufferings were not greater than what divers others
+experienced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty.
+
+At last, the king's necessities compelled him to summon another
+parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise money. His army
+clamored for pay; and he was overburdened with debts.
+
+[Sidenote: Long Parliament.]
+
+On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew its
+strength, and was determined now, more than ever, to exercise it. It
+immediately took the power into its own hands, and from remonstrances
+and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities; from the
+denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample on
+the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irritated
+and threatened, and some of their number had been seized and
+imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, and was
+resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The struggle became
+one of desperation on both sides--a struggle for ascendency--and not
+for rights.
+
+One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeachment of
+Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, where, as lord
+lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power and regal audacity; he
+had been summoned by his perplexed and desponding master to assist him
+by his counsels. Reluctantly he obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had
+scarcely arrived in London when the intrepid Pym accused him of high
+treason. The Lords accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister
+was committed to the Tower.
+
+The impeachment of Laud soon followed; but he was too sincere in his
+tyranny to understand why he should be committed. Nor was he feared,
+as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance of the parliament was
+especially directed. A secret committee, invested with immense powers,
+was commissioned to scrutinize his whole life, and his destruction was
+resolved upon. On the 22d of March his trial began, and lasted
+seventeen days, during which time, unaided, he defended himself
+against thirteen accusers, with consummate ability. Indeed, he had
+studied his charges and despised his adversaries. Under ordinary
+circumstances, he would have been acquitted, for there was not
+sufficient evidence to convict him of high treason; but an
+unscrupulous and infuriated body of men were thirsting for his blood,
+and it was proposed to convict him by bill of attainder; that is, by
+act of parliament, on its own paramount authority, with or without the
+law. The bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence
+of the attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the Tower.
+
+Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister; had he been
+magnanimous, he would have stood by him to the last. But he had
+neither the power to save him, nor the will to make adequate
+sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and gave his
+consent to the execution of the main agent of all his aggressions on
+the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Strafford deserved his
+fate, although the manner of his execution was not according to law.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebellion of Ireland.]
+
+A few months after the execution of Strafford, an event occurred which
+proved exceedingly unfortunate to the royal cause; and this was the
+rebellion of Ireland, and the massacre of the Protestant population,
+caused, primarily, by the oppressive government of England, and the
+harsh and severe measures of the late lord lieutenant. In the course
+of a few weeks, the English and Scottish colonies seemed almost
+uprooted; one of the most frightful butcheries was committed that ever
+occurred. The Protestants exaggerated their loss; but it is probable
+that at least fifty thousand were massacred. The local government of
+Dublin was paralyzed. The English nation was filled with deadly and
+implacable hostility, not against the Irish merely, but against the
+Catholics every where. It was supposed that there was a general
+conspiracy among the Catholics to destroy the whole nation; and it was
+whispered that the queen herself had aided the revolted Irish. The
+most vigorous measures were adopted to raise money and troops for
+Ireland. The Commons took occasion of the general spirit of discontent
+and insurrection to prepare a grand remonstrance on the evils of the
+kingdom, which were traced to a "coalition of Papists, Arminian
+bishops and clergymen, and evil courtiers and counsellors." The
+Commons recited all the evils of the last sixteen years, and declared
+the necessity of taking away the root of them, which was the arbitrary
+power of the sovereign. The king, in reply, told the Commons that
+their remonstrance was unparliamentary; that he could not understand
+what they meant by a wicked party; that bishops were entitled to their
+votes in parliament; and that, as to the removal of evil counsellors,
+they must name whom they were. The remonstrance was printed and
+circulated by the Commons, which was of more effect than an army could
+have been.
+
+Thus were affairs rapidly reaching a crisis, when the attempt to seize
+five of the most refractory and able members of parliament consummated
+it. The members were Hollis, Hazelrig, Pym, Hampden, and Strode; and
+they were accused of high treason. This movement of the king was one
+of the greatest blunders and one of the most unconstitutional acts he
+ever committed. The Commons refused to surrender their members; and
+then the king went down to the house, with an armed force, to seize
+them. But Pym and others got intelligence of the design of Charles,
+and had time to withdraw before he arrived. "The baffled tyrant
+returned to Whitehall with his company of bravoes," while the city of
+London sheltered Hampden and his friends. The shops were shut, the
+streets were filled with crowds, and the greatest excitement
+prevailed. The friends of Charles, who were inclined to constitutional
+measures, were filled with shame. It was now feared that the king
+would not respect his word or the constitution, and, with all his
+promises, was still bent on tyrannical courses. All classes, but
+bigoted royalists, now felt that something must be done promptly, or
+that their liberties would be subverted.
+
+Then it was, and not till then, that the Commons openly defied him,
+while the king remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and
+bewildered, "feeling," says Clarendon, "the trouble and agony which
+usually attend generous minds upon their having committed errors;" or,
+as Macaulay says, "the despicable repentance which attends the
+bungling villain, who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that
+he has only committed a folly."
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King from London.]
+
+In a few days, the king fled from Whitehall, which he was never
+destined to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold. He
+went into the country to raise forces to control the parliament, and
+the parliament made vigorous measures to put itself and the kingdom in
+a state of resistance. On the 23d of April, the king, with three
+hundred horse, advanced to Hull, and were refused admission by the
+governor. This was tantamount to a declaration of war. It was so
+considered. Thirty-two Lords, and sixty members of the Commons
+departed for York to join the king. The parliament decreed an army,
+and civil war began.
+
+Before this can be traced we must consider the Puritans, which is
+necessary in order fully to appreciate the Revolution. The reign of
+Charles I. was now virtually ended, and that of the Parliament and
+Cromwell had begun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Puritans.]
+
+Dissensions among the Protestants themselves did not occur until the
+reign of Elizabeth, and were first caused by difficulties about a
+clerical dress, which again led to the advocacy of simpler forms of
+worship, stricter rules of life, more definite forms of faith, and
+more democratic principles of government, both ecclesiastical and
+civil. The first promoters of these opinions were the foreign divines
+who came from Geneva, at the invitation of Cranmer, of whom Peter
+Martyr, Martin Bucer, John a Lasco, were the most distinguished. Some
+Englishmen, also, who had been travelling on the continent, brought
+with them the doctrines of Calvin. Among these was Hooper, who, on
+being nominated to the bishopric of Gloucester, refused to submit to
+the appointed form of consecration and admission. He objected to what
+he called the _Aaronical_ habits--the square cap, tippet, and
+surplice, worn by bishops. But dissent became more marked and
+determined when the exiles returned to England, on the accession of
+Elizabeth, and who were for advancing the reformation according to
+their own standard. The queen and her advisers, generally, were
+content with King Edward's liturgy; but the majority of the exiles
+desired the simpler services of Geneva. The new bishops, most of whom
+had been their companions abroad, endeavored to soften them for the
+present, declaring that they would use all their influence at court to
+secure them indulgence. The queen herself connived at non-conformity,
+until her government was established, but then firmly declared that
+she had fixed her standard, and insisted on her subjects conforming to
+it. The bishops, seeing this, changed their conduct, explained away
+their promises, and became severe towards their dissenting brethren.
+
+The standard of the queen was the Thirty-Nine Articles. She admitted
+that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith, but declared that
+individuals must interpret Scripture as expounded in the articles and
+formularies of the English church, in violation of the great principle
+of Protestantism, which even the Puritans themselves did not fully
+recognize--the right and the duty of every individual to interpret
+Scripture himself, whether his interpretation interfered with the
+Established Church or not.
+
+[Sidenote: Original Difficulties and Differences.]
+
+The first dissenters did not claim this right, but only urged that
+certain points, about which they felt scruples, should be left as
+matters indifferent. On all essential points, they, as well as the
+strictest conformists, believed in the necessity of a uniformity of
+public worship, and of using the sword of the magistrate in defence of
+their doctrines. The standard of conformity, according to the bishops,
+was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the
+Puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods.
+
+At first, many of the Puritans overcame their scruples so far as to
+comply with the required oath and accept livings in the Establishment.
+But they indulged in many irregularities, which, during the first year
+of the reign of Elizabeth, were winked at by the authorities. "Some
+performed," says an old author, "divine service in the chancel, others
+in the body of the church; some in a seat made in the church; some in
+a pulpit, with their faces to the people; some keeping precisely to
+the order of the book; some intermix psalms in metre; some say with a
+surplice, and others without one. The table stands in the body of the
+church in some places, in others it stands in the chancel; in some
+places the table stands altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in
+others in the middle of the chancel, north and south. Some administer
+the communion with surplice and cap, some with a surplice alone,
+others with none; some with chalice, others with a communion cup,
+others with a common cup; some with unleavened bread, and some with
+leavened; some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting; some
+baptize in a font, some in a basin; some sign with the sign of the
+cross, other sign not; some minister with a surplice, others without;
+some with a square cap, others with a round cap; some with a button
+cap, and some with a hat, some in scholar's clothes, some in common
+clothes."
+
+These differences in public worship, which, by many, were considered
+as indifferent matters, and by others were unduly magnified, seem to
+have constituted the chief peculiarity of the early Puritans. In
+regard to the queen's supremacy, the union of church and state, the
+necessity of supporting religion by law, and articles of theological
+belief, there was no disagreement. Most of the non-conformists were
+men of learning and piety, and among the ornaments of the church.
+
+The metropolitan bishop, at this time, was Parker, a great stickler
+for the forms of the church, and very intolerant in all his opinions.
+He and others of the bishops had been appointed as commissioners to
+investigate the causes of dissent, and to suspend all who refused to
+conform to the rubric of the church. Hence arose the famous Court of
+the Ecclesiastical Commission, so much abused during the reigns of
+James and Charles.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution during the Reign of Elizabeth.]
+
+Under the direction of Parker, great numbers were suspended from their
+livings for non-conformity, and sent to wander in a state of
+destitution. Among these were some of the most learned men in the
+church. They had no means of defence or livelihood, and resorted to
+the press in order to vindicate their opinions. For this they were
+even more harshly dealt with; an order was issued from the Star
+Chamber, that no person should print a book against the queen's
+injunctions, upon the penalty of fines and imprisonment; and authority
+was given to church-wardens to search all suspected places where books
+might be concealed. Great multitudes suffered in consequence of these
+tyrannical laws.
+
+But the non-conformists were further molested. They were forbidden to
+assemble together to read the Scriptures and pray, but were required
+to attend regularly the churches of the Establishment, on penalty of
+heavy fines for neglect.
+
+At length, worried, disgusted, and irritated, they resolved upon
+setting up the Genevan service, and upon withdrawing entirely from the
+Church of England. The separation, once made, (1566,) became wider and
+wider, and the Puritans soon after opposed the claims of bishops as a
+superior order of the clergy. They were opposed to the temporal
+dignities annexed to the episcopal office to the titles and office of
+archdeacons, deans, and chapters; to the jurisdiction of spiritual
+courts; to the promiscuous access of all persons to the communion; to
+the liturgy; to the prohibition, in the public service of prayer, by
+the clergyman himself; to the use of godfathers and godmothers; to the
+custom of confirmation; to the cathedral worship and organs; to
+pluralities and non-residency; to the observance of Lent and of the
+holy days; and to the appointment of ministers by the crown, bishops,
+or lay patrons, instead of election by the people.
+
+The schism was now complete, and had grown out of such small
+differences as refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, and to use the
+cross in baptism.
+
+In our times, the Puritans would have been permitted to worship God in
+their own way, but they were not thus allowed in the time of
+Elizabeth. Religious toleration was not then understood or practised;
+and it was the fault of the age, since the Puritans themselves, when
+they obtained the power, persecuted with great severity the Quakers
+and the Catholics. But, during the whole reign of Elizabeth,
+especially the life of Archbishop Parker, they were in a minority, and
+suffered--as minorities ever have suffered--all the miseries which
+unreasonable majorities could inflict.
+
+[Sidenote: Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift.]
+
+Archbishop Grindal, who succeeded Parker in 1575, recommended milder
+measures to the queen; but she had no charity for those who denied the
+supremacy of her royal conscience.
+
+Grindal was succeeded, in 1583, by Dr. Whitgift, the antagonist of the
+learned Dr. Cartwright, and he proved a ruler of the church according
+to her majesty's mind. He commenced a most violent crusade against the
+non-conformists, and was so harsh, cruel, and unreasonable, that
+Cecil--Lord Burleigh--was obliged to remonstrate, being much more
+enlightened than the prelate. "I have read over," said he, "your
+twenty-four articles, and I find them so curiously penned, that I
+think that the Spanish Inquisition used not so many questions to
+entrap the priests." Nevertheless fines, imprisonment, and the gibbet
+continued to do their work in the vain attempt to put down opinions,
+till within four or five years of the queen's death when there was a
+cessation of persecution.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution under James.]
+
+[Sidenote: Puritans in Exile.]
+
+But the Scottish Solomon, as James was called, renewed the severity
+which Elizabeth found it wise to remit. Hitherto, the Puritans had
+been chiefly Presbyterians; but now the Independents arose, who
+carried their views still further, even to wildness and radicalism.
+They were stricter Calvinists, and inclined to republican views of
+civil government. Consequently, they were still more odious than were
+the Presbyterians to an arbitrary government. They were now persecuted
+for their doctrines of faith, as well as for their forms of worship.
+The Church of England retained the thirty-nine articles; but many of
+her leading clergy sympathized with the views of Arminius, and among
+them was the primate himself. So strictly were Arminian doctrines
+cherished, that no person under a dean was permitted to discourse on
+predestination, election, reprobation, efficacy, or universality of
+God's grace. And the king himself would hear no doctrines preached,
+except those he had condemned at the synod of Dort. But this act was
+aimed against the Puritans, who, of all parties, were fond of
+preaching on what was called "the Five Points of Calvinism." But they
+paid dearly for their independence. James absolutely detested them,
+regarded them as a sect insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth,
+and punished them with the greatest severity. Their theological
+doctrines, their notions of church government, and, above all, their
+spirit of democratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop
+Bancroft, who succeeded Whitgift in 1604, went beyond all his
+predecessors in bigotry, but had not their commanding intellects. His
+measures were so injudicious, so vexatious, so annoying, so severe,
+and so cruel, that the Puritans became, if possible, still more
+estranged. With the popular discontents, and with the progress of
+persecution, their numbers increased, both in Scotland and England.
+With the increase of Puritanism was also a corresponding change in the
+Church of England, since ceremony and forms increased almost to a
+revival of Catholicism. And this reaction towards Rome, favored by the
+court, incensed still more the Puritans, and led to language
+unnecessarily violent and abusive on their side. Their controversial
+tracts were pervaded with a spirit of bitterness and treason which, in
+the opinion of James, fully justified the imprisonments, fines, and
+mutilations which his minister inflicted. The Puritans, in despair,
+fled to Holland, and from thence to New England, to establish, amid
+its barren hills and desolate forests, that worship which alone they
+thought would be acceptable to God. Persecution elevated them, and
+none can deny that they were characterized by moral virtues and a
+spirit of liberty which no people ever before or since exhibited.
+Almost their only fault was intolerance respecting the opinions and
+pleasures of many good people who did not join their ranks.
+
+James's death did not remit their sufferings; but, by this time, they
+had so multiplied that they became a party too formidable to be
+crushed. The High Commission Court and the Star Chamber still filled
+the prisons and pillories with victims; but every sentence of these
+courts fanned the flame of discontent, and hastened the catastrophe
+which was rapidly approaching. The volcano, over whose fearful brink
+the royal family and the haughty hierarchy were standing, was now
+sending forth those frightful noises which indicated approaching
+convulsions.
+
+During the years that Charles dispensed with the parliaments, when
+Laud was both minister and archbishop, the persecution reached its
+height, and also popular discontent. During this period, the greatest
+emigration was made to New England, and even Hampden and Cromwell
+contemplated joining their brethren in America. Arianism and Popery
+advanced with Puritanism, and all parties prepared for the approaching
+contest. The advocates of royal usurpation became more unreasonable,
+the friends of popular liberty became more violent. Those who had the
+power, exercised it without reflection. The history of the times is
+simply this--despotism striving to put Puritanism and liberty beneath
+its feet, and Puritanism aiming to subvert the crown.
+
+But the greatest commotions were in Scotland, where the people were
+generally Presbyterians; and it was the zeal of Archbishop Laud in
+suppressing these, and attempting to change the religion of the land,
+which precipitated the ruin of Charles I.
+
+[Sidenote: Troubles in Scotland.]
+
+Ever since the time of Knox, Scotland had been the scene of violent
+religious animosities. In that country, the reformation, from the
+first, had been a popular movement. It was so impetuous, and decided
+under the guidance of the uncompromising Knox, that even before the
+dethronement of Mary, it was complete. In the year 1592, through the
+influence of Andrew Melville, the Presbyterian government was fairly
+established, and King James is said to have thus expressed himself: "I
+praise God that I was born in the time of the light of the gospel, and
+in such a place as to be king of the purest kirk in the world." The
+Church of Scotland, however, had severe struggles from the period of
+its institution, 1560, to the year 1584, when the papal influence was
+finally destroyed by the expulsion of the earl of Arran from the
+councils of the young king. Nor did these struggles end even there.
+James, perceiving that Episcopacy was much more consonant with
+monarchy than Presbyterianism, attempted to remodel the Scottish
+church on the English basis, which attempt resulted in discontent and
+rebellion. James, however, succeeded in reducing to contempt the
+general assemblies of the Presbyterian church, and in confirming
+Archbishop Spotswood in the chief administration of ecclesiastical
+affairs, which, it must be confessed, were regulated with great
+prudence and moderation.
+
+When Charles came to the throne, he complained of the laxity of the
+Scotch primate, and sent him a set of rules by which he was to
+regulate his conduct. Charles also added new dignities to his see, and
+ordained that he, as primate, should take precedence over all the
+temporal lords, which irritated the proud Scotch nobility. He moreover
+contemplated the recovery of tithes and church lands for the benefit
+of the Episcopal government, and the imposition of a liturgy on the
+Scotch nation, a great majority of whom were Presbyterians. This was
+the darling scheme of Laud, who believed that there could scarcely be
+salvation out of his church, and which church he strove to make as
+much like the Catholic as possible, and yet maintain independence of
+the pope. But nothing was absolutely done towards changing the
+religion of Scotland until Charles came down to Edinburgh (1633) to be
+crowned, when a liturgy was prepared for the Scotch nation, subjected
+to the revision of Laud, but which was not submitted to or seen by,
+the General Assembly, or any convocation of ministers in Scotland.
+Nothing could be more ill timed or ill judged than this conflict with
+the religious prejudices of a people zealously attached to their own
+forms of worship. The clergy united with the aristocracy, and both
+with the people, in denouncing the conduct of the king and his
+ministers as tyrannical and unjust. The canons, especially, which Laud
+had prepared, were, in the eyes of the Scotch, puerile and
+superstitious; they could not conceive why a Protestant prelate should
+make so much account of the position of the font or of the communion
+table, turned into an altar. Indeed, his liturgy was not much other
+than an English translation of the Roman Missal, and excited the
+detestation of all classes. Yet it was resolved to introduce it into
+the churches, and the day was fixed for its introduction, which was
+Easter Sunday, 1637. But such a ferment was produced, that the
+experiment was put off to Sunday, 23d of July. On that day, the
+archbishops and bishops, lords of session, and magistrates were all
+present, by command, in the Church of St. Giles. But no sooner had the
+dean opened the service book, and begun to read out of it, than the
+people, who had assembled in great crowds, began to fill the church
+with uproar. The bishop of Edinburgh, who was to preach, stepped into
+the pulpit, and attempted to appease the tumultuous people. But this
+increased the tumult, when an old woman, seizing a stool, hurled it at
+the bishop's head. Sticks, stones, and dirt followed the stool, with
+loud cries of "Down with the priest of Baal!" "A pape, a pape!"
+"Antichrist!" "Pull him down!" This was the beginning of the
+insurrection, which spread from city to village, until all Scotland
+was in arms, and Episcopacy, as an established religion, was
+subverted. In February, 1638, the covenant was drawn up in Edinburgh,
+and was subscribed to by all classes, in all parts of Scotland; and,
+in November, the General Assembly met in Glasgow, the first that had
+been called for twenty years, and Presbyterianism was reestablished in
+the kingdom, if not legally, yet in reality.
+
+From the day on which the Convocation opened, until the conquest of
+the country by Cromwell, the Kirk reigned supreme, there being no
+power in the government, or in the country, able or disposed to resist
+or question its authority. This was the golden age of Presbyterianism,
+when the clergy enjoyed autocratic power --a sort of Druidical
+ascendency over the minds and consciences of the people, in affairs
+temporal as well as spiritual.
+
+[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Puritanism in England.]
+
+Puritanism did not pervade the English, as it did the Scotch mind,
+although it soon obtained an ascendency. Most of the great political
+chieftains who controlled the House of Commons, and who clamored for
+the death of Strafford and Laud, were Puritans. But they were not all
+Presbyterians. In England, after the flight of the king from
+Whitehall, the Independents attracted notice, and eventually seized
+the reins of government. Cromwell was an Independent.
+
+The difference between these two sects was chiefly in their views
+about government, civil and ecclesiastical. Both Presbyterians and
+Independents were rigid Calvinists, practised a severe morality, were
+opposed to gay amusements, disliked organs and ceremonies, strictly
+observed the Sabbath, and attached great importance to the close
+observance of the Mosaic ritual. The Presbyterians were not behind the
+Episcopalians in hatred of sects and a free press. They had their
+model of worship, and declared it to be of divine origin. They looked
+upon schism as the parent of licentiousness, insisted on entire
+uniformity, maintained the divine right of the clergy to the
+management of ecclesiastical affairs, and claimed the sword of the
+magistrate to punish schismatics and heretics. They believed in the
+union of church and state, but would give the clergy the ascendency
+they possessed in the Middle Ages. They did not desire the entire
+prostration of royal authority, but only aimed to limit and curtail
+it.
+
+The Independents wished a total disruption of church and state, and
+disliked synods almost as much as they did bishops. They believed that
+every congregation was a distinct church, and had a right to elect the
+pastor. They preferred the greatest variety of sects to the ascendency
+of any one, by means of the civil sword. They rejected all spiritual
+courts, and claimed the right of each church to reject, punish, or
+receive members. In politics, they wished a total overthrow of the
+government--monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy; and were averse to any
+peace which did not secure complete toleration of opinions, and the
+complete subversion of the established order of things.
+
+[Sidenote: Conflicts among the Puritans.]
+
+Between the Presbyterians and the Independents, therefore, there could
+not be any lasting sympathy or alliance. They only united to crush the
+common foe; and, when Charles was beheaded, and Cromwell installed in
+power, they turned their arms against each other.
+
+The great religious contest, after the rise of Cromwell, was not
+between the Puritans and the Episcopalians, but between the different
+sects of Puritans themselves. At first, the Independents harmonized
+with the Presbyterians. Their theological and ethical opinions were
+the same, and both cordially hated and despised the government of the
+Stuarts. But when the Presbyterians obtained the ascendency, the
+Independents were grieved and enraged to discover that religious
+toleration was stigmatized as the parent of all heresy and schism.
+While in power, the Presbyterians shackled the press, and their
+intolerance brought out John Milton's famous tract on the liberty of
+unlicensed printing--one of the most masterly arguments which the
+advocates of freedom have ever made. The idea that any dominant
+religious sect should be incorporated with the political power, was
+the fatal error of Presbyterianism, and raised up enemies against it,
+after the royal power was suppressed. Cromwell was persuaded that the
+cause of religious liberty would be lost unless Presbyterianism, as
+well as Episcopacy, was disconnected with the state; and hence one
+great reason of his assuming the dictatorship. And he granted a more
+extended toleration than had before been known in England, although it
+was not perfect. The Catholics and the Quakers were not partakers of
+the boon which he gave to his country; so hard is it for men to learn
+the rights of others, when they have power in their own hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Puritans.]
+
+The Restoration was a victory over both the Independents and the
+general swarm of sectaries which an age of unparalleled religious
+excitement had produced. It is difficult to conceive of the intensity
+of the passions which inflamed all parties of religious disputants.
+But if the Puritan contest developed fanatical zeal, it also brought
+out the highest qualities of mind and heart which any age has
+witnessed. With all the faults and weaknesses of the Puritans, there
+never lived a better class of men,--men of more elevated piety, more
+enlarged views, or greater disinterestedness, patriotism, and moral
+worth. They made sacrifices which our age can scarcely appreciate, and
+had difficulties to contend with which were unparalleled in the
+history of reform. They made blunders which approximated to crimes,
+but they made them in their inexperience and zeal to promote the cause
+of religion and liberty. They were conscientious men--men who acted
+from the fear of God, and with a view to promote the highest welfare
+of future generations. They launched their bark boldly upon an unknown
+sea, and heroically endured its dangers and sufferings, with a view of
+conferring immortal blessings on their children and country. More
+prudent men would have avoided the perils of an unknown navigation;
+but, by such men, a great experiment for humanity would not have been
+tried. It may have failed, but the world has learned immortal wisdom
+from the failure. But the Puritans were not mere adventurers or
+martyrs. They have done something of lasting benefit to mankind, and
+they have done this by the power of faith, and by loyalty to their
+consciences, perverted as they were in some respects. The Puritans
+were not agreeable companions to the idle, luxurious, or frivolous;
+they were rigid ever, to austerity; their expressions degenerated into
+cant, and they were hostile to many innocent amusements. But these
+were peculiarities which furnished subjects of ridicule merely, and
+did not disgrace or degrade them. These were a small offset to their
+moral wisdom, their firm endurance, their elevation of sentiment,
+their love of liberty, and their fear of God. Such are the men whom
+Providence ordains to give impulse to society, and effect great and
+useful reforms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now return to consider the changes which they attempted in
+government. The civil war, of which Cromwell was the hero, now claims
+our attention.
+
+The refusal of the governor of Hull to admit the king was virtually
+the declaration of war, for which both parties had vigorously
+prepared.
+
+The standard of the king was first raised in Nottingham, while the
+head-quarters of the parliamentarians were in London. The first action
+of any note was the battle of Edge Hill, (October 23, 1642,) but was
+undecisive. Indeed, both parties hesitated to plunge into desperate
+war, at least until, by skirmishings and military manoeuvres, they
+were better prepared for it.
+
+The forces of the belligerents, at this period, were nearly equal but
+the parliamentarians had the ablest leaders. It was the misfortune of
+the king to have no man of commanding talents, as his counsellor,
+after the arrest of Strafford. Hyde, afterwards lord chancellor, and
+Earl of Clarendon, was the ablest of the royalist party. Falkland and
+Culpeper were also eminent men; but neither of them was the equal of
+Pym or Hampden.
+
+[Sidenote: John Hampden.]
+
+The latter was doubtless the ablest man in England at this time, and
+the only one who could have saved it from the evils which afterwards
+afflicted it. On him the hopes and affections of the nation centred.
+He was great in council and great in debate. He was the acknowledged
+leader of the House of Commons. He was eloquent, honest, unwearied,
+sagacious, and prudent. "Never had a man inspired a nation with
+greater confidence: the more moderate had faith in his wisdom; the
+more violent in his devoted patriotism; the more honest in his
+uprightness; the more intriguing in his talents." He spared neither
+his fortune nor his person, as soon as hostilities were inevitable. He
+subscribed two thousand pounds to the public cause, took a colonel's
+commission, and raised a regiment of infantry, so well known during
+the war for its green uniform, and the celebrated motto of its
+intrepid leader,--"_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_." He possessed the
+talents of a great statesman and a great general, and all the united
+qualities requisite for the crisis in which he appeared--"the valor
+and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the
+humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale,
+the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others could conquer; he alone
+could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who
+turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his
+watched the Scottish army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But
+it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had succeeded
+the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency,
+and burning for revenge; it was when the vices and ignorance, which
+the old tyranny had generated, threatened the new freedom with
+destruction, that England missed that sobriety, that self-command,
+that perfect soundness of judgment, that perfect rectitude of
+intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel,
+or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone."[1]
+
+               [Footnote 1: Macaulay.]
+
+[Sidenote: Oliver Cromwell.]
+
+This great man was removed by Providence from the scene of violence
+and faction at an early period of the contest. He was mortally wounded
+in one of those skirmishes in which the detachments of both armies had
+thus far engaged, and which made the campaigns of 1642-3 so undecided,
+so tedious, and so irritating--campaigns in which the generals of both
+armies reaped no laurels, and which created the necessity for a
+greater genius than had thus far appeared. That genius was Oliver
+Cromwell. At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of
+horse, and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. He
+was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hampden, and had
+secured the attention of the members in spite of his slovenly
+appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. Under his
+rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not perceived, except by
+two or three penetrating intellects; but they were shortly to appear,
+and to be developed, not in the House of Commons, but on the field of
+battle. The rise of Oliver Cromwell can scarcely be dated until the
+death of John Hampden; nor were the eyes of the nation fixed on him,
+as their deliverer, until some time after. The Earl of Essex was still
+the commander of the forces, while the Earl of Bedford, Lord
+Manchester, Lord Fairfax, Skippon, Sir William Waller, Leslie, and
+others held high posts. Cromwell was still a subordinate; but genius
+breaks through all obstacles, and overleaps all boundaries. The time
+had not yet come for the exercise of his great military talents. The
+period of negotiation had not fully passed, and the king, at his
+head-quarters at Oxford, "that seat of pure, unspotted loyalty," still
+hoped to amuse the parliament, gain time, and finally overwhelm its
+forces. Prince Rupert--brave, ardent, reckless, unprincipled--still
+ravaged the country without reaping any permanent advantage. The
+parliament was perplexed and the people were disappointed. On the
+whole, the king's forces were in the ascendant, and were augmenting;
+while plots and insurrections were constantly revealing to the
+parliamentarians the dangers which threatened them. Had not an able
+leader, at this crisis, appeared among the insurgents, or had an able
+general been given to Charles, it is probable that the king would have
+secured his ends; for popular enthusiasm without the organization
+which a master spirit alone can form, soon burns itself out.
+
+[Sidenote: The King at Oxford.]
+
+The state of the contending parties, from the battle of Edge Hill, for
+nearly two years, was very singular and very complicated. The king
+remained at Oxford, distracted by opposing counsels, and perplexed by
+various difficulties. The head-quarters of his enemies, at London,
+were no less the seat of intrigues and party animosities. The
+Presbyterians were the most powerful, and were nearly as distrustful
+of the Independents as they were of the king, and feared a victory
+over the king nearly as much as they did a defeat by him, and the
+dissensions among the various sects and leaders were no secret in the
+royalist camp, and doubtless encouraged Charles in his endless
+intrigues and dissimulations. But he was not equal to decisive
+measures, and without them, in revolutionary times, any party must be
+ruined. While he was meditating and scheming, he heard the news of an
+alliance between Scotland and the parliament, in which the
+Presbyterian interest was in the ascendency. This was the first great
+blow he received since the commencement of the war, and the united
+forces of his enemies now resolved upon more vigorous measures.
+
+At the opening of the campaign, the parliament had five armies--that
+of the Scots, of twenty-one thousand; that of Essex, ten thousand five
+hundred; that of Waller, five thousand one hundred; that of
+Manchester, fourteen thousand; and that of Fairfax, five thousand five
+hundred--in all, about fifty-six thousand men, of whom the committee
+of the two kingdoms had the entire disposal. In May, Essex and Waller
+invested Oxford, while Fairfax, Manchester, and the Scots met under
+the walls of York. Thus these two great royalist cities were attacked
+at once by all the forces of parliament. Charles, invested by a
+stronger force, and being deprived of the assistance of the princes,
+Rupert and Maurice, his nephews, who were absent on their marauding
+expeditions, escaped from Oxford, and proceeded towards Exeter. In the
+mean time, he ordered Prince Rupert to advance to the relief of York,
+which was defended by the marquis of Newcastle. The united royalist
+army now amounted to twenty-six thousand men, with a numerous and well
+appointed cavalry; and this great force obliged the armies of the
+parliament to raise the siege of York. Had Rupert been contented with
+this success, and intrenched himself in the strongest city of the
+north of England, he and Newcastle might have maintained their ground;
+but Rupert, against the advice of Newcastle, resolved on an engagement
+with the parliamentary generals, who had retreated to Marston Moor, on
+the banks of the Ouse, five miles from the city.
+
+The next day after the relief of York was fought the famous battle of
+Marston Moor, (July 2, 1644,) the bloodiest in the war, which resulted
+in the entire discomfiture of the royalist forces, and the ruin of the
+royal interests at the north. York was captured in a few days. Rupert
+retreated to Lancashire to recruit his army, and Newcastle, disgusted
+with Rupert, and with the turn affairs had taken, withdrew beyond
+seas. The Scots soon stormed the town of Newcastle, and the whole
+north of England fell into the hands of the victors.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell after the Battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of the Independents.]
+
+This great battle was decided by the ability of Cromwell, now
+lieutenant-general in the army of the parliament. He had distinguished
+himself in all subordinate stations, in the field of battle, in
+raising forces, and in councils of war, for which he had been promoted
+to serve as second under the Earl of Manchester. But his remarkable
+military genius was not apparent to the parliament until the battle of
+Marston Moor, and on him the eyes of the nation now began to be
+centred. He was now forty-five years of age, in the vigor of his
+manhood, burning with religious enthusiasm, and eager to deliver his
+country from the tyranny of Charles I., and of all kings. He was an
+Independent and a radical, opposed to the Episcopalians, to the
+Presbyterians, to the Scots, to all moderate men, to all moderate
+measures, to all jurisdiction in matters of religion, and to all
+authority in political affairs, which did not directly emanate from
+the people, who were called upon to regulate themselves by their
+individual reason. He was the idol of the Independent party, which now
+began to gain the ascendency in that stormy crisis. For three years,
+the Presbyterians had been in the ascendant, but had not realized the
+hopes or expectations of the enthusiastic advocates of freedom. By
+turns imperious and wavering, fanatical and moderate, they sought to
+curtail and humble the king, not to ruin him; to depress Episcopacy,
+but to establish another religion by the sword of the magistrate.
+Their leaders were timid, insincere, and disunited; few among them had
+definite views respecting the future government of the realm: and they
+gradually lost the confidence of the nation. But the Independents
+reposed fearlessly on the greatness and grandeur of their abstract
+principles, and pronounced, without a scruple, those potent words
+which kindled a popular enthusiasm--equality of rights, the just
+distribution of property, and the removal of all abuses. Above all,
+they were enthusiasts in religion, as well as in liberty, and devoutly
+attached to the doctrines of Calvin. They abominated all pleasures and
+pursuits which diverted their minds from the contemplation of God, or
+the reality of a future state. Cromwell himself lived in the ecstasy
+of religious excitement. His language was the language of the Bible,
+and its solemn truths were not dogmas, but convictions to his ardent
+mind. In the ardor of his zeal and the frenzy of his hopes, he fondly
+fancied that the people of England were to rise in simultaneous
+confederation, shake off all the old shackles of priests and kings,
+and be governed in all their actions, by the principles of the Bible.
+A sort of Jewish theocracy was to be restored on earth, and he was to
+be the organ of the divine will, as was Joshua of old, when he led the
+Israelites against the pagan inhabitants of the promised land. Up to
+this time, no inconsistencies disgraced him. His prayers and his
+exhortations were in accordance with his actions, and the most
+scrutinizing malignity could attribute nothing to him but sincerity
+and ardor in the cause which he had so warmly espoused. As magistrate,
+as member of parliament, as farmer, or as general, he slighted no
+religious duties, and was devoted to the apparent interests of
+England. Such a man, so fervent, enthusiastic, honest, patriotic, and
+able, of course was pointed out as a future leader, especially when
+his great military talents were observed at Marston Moor. From the
+memorable 2d of July he became the most marked and influential man in
+England. Hampden had offered up his life as a martyr, and Pym, the
+great lawyer and statesman, had died from exhaustion. Essex had won no
+victory commensurate with the public expectations, and Waller lost his
+army by desertions and indecisive measures. Both Essex and Manchester,
+with their large estates, their aristocratic connections, and their
+Presbyterian sympathies, were afraid of treating the king too well.
+The battle of Newbury, which shortly after was gained by the
+parliamentarians, was without decisive results, in consequence of the
+indecision of Manchester. The parliament and the nation looked for
+another leader, who would pursue his advantages, and adopt more
+vigorous measures. At this point, the Presbyterians would have made
+peace with the king, who still continued his insincere negotiations;
+but it was too late. The Independents had gained the ascendency, and
+their voice was for war--no more dallying, no more treaties, no more
+half measures, but uncompromising war. It was plain that either the
+king or the Independents must be the absolute rulers of England.
+
+Then was passed (April 3, 1645) the famous Self-Denying Ordinance, by
+which all members of parliament were excluded from command in the
+army, an act designed to get rid of Essex and Manchester, and prepare
+the way for the elevation of Cromwell. Sir Thomas Fairfax was
+appointed to the supreme command, and Cromwell was despatched into the
+inland counties to raise recruits. But it was soon obvious that the
+army could do nothing without him, although it was remodelled and
+reenforced; and even Fairfax and his officers petitioned parliament
+that Cromwell might be appointed lieutenant-general again, and
+commander-in-chief of the horse; which request was granted, and
+Cromwell rejoined the army, of which he was its hope and idol.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Naseby.]
+
+He joined it in time to win the most decisive battle of the war, the
+battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645. The forces of both armies were nearly
+balanced, and the royalists were commanded by the king in person,
+assisted by his ablest generals. But the rout of the king's forces was
+complete, his fortunes were prostrated, and he was driven, with the
+remnants of his army, from one part of the kingdom to the other, while
+the victorious parliamentarians were filled with exultation and joy.
+Cromwell, however, was modest and composed, and ascribed the victory
+to the God of battles, whose servant, he fancied, he preeminently was.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Parliamentary Army.]
+
+The parliamentary army continued its successes. Montrose gained the
+battle of Alford; Bridgewater surrendered to Fairfax; Glasgow and
+Edinburgh surrendered to Montrose; Prince Rupert was driven from
+Bristol, and, as the king thought, most disgracefully, which
+misfortune gave new joy to the parliament, and caused new
+thanksgivings from Cromwell, who gained the victory. From Bristol, the
+army turned southward, and encountered what royalist force there was
+in that quarter, stormed Bridgewater, drove the royalist generals into
+Cornwall, took Winchester, battered down Basing House, rich in
+provisions, ammunition, and silver plate, and completely prostrated
+all the hopes of the king in the south of England. Charles fled from
+Oxford, secretly, to join the Scottish army.
+
+By the 24th of June, 1646, all the garrisons of England and Wales,
+except those in the north, were in the hands of the parliament. In
+July, the parliament sent their final propositions to the king at
+Newcastle, which were extremely humiliating, and which he rejected.
+Negotiations were then entered into between the parliament and the
+Scots, which were long protracted, but which finally ended in an
+agreement, by the Scots, to surrender the king to the parliament, for
+the payment of their dues. They accordingly marched home with an
+instalment of two hundred thousand pounds, and the king was given up,
+not to the Independents, but to the Commissioners of parliament, in
+which body the Presbyterian interest predominated.
+
+At this juncture, (January, 1647,) Cromwell, rather than the king, was
+in danger of losing his head. The Presbyterians, who did not wish to
+abolish royalty, but establish uniformity with their mode of worship,
+began to be extremely jealous of the Independents, who were bent on
+more complete toleration of opinions, and who aimed at a total
+overthrow of many of the old institutions of the country. So soon as
+the king was humbled, and in their hands, it was proposed to disband
+the army which had gloriously finished the war, and which was chiefly
+composed of the Independents, and to create a new one on a
+Presbyterian model. The excuse was, that the contest was ended, while,
+indeed, the royalists were rather dispersed and humbled, than subdued.
+It was voted that, in the reduced army, no one should have, except
+Fairfax, a higher rank than colonel, a measure aimed directly at
+Cromwell, now both feared and distrusted by the Presbyterians. But the
+army refused to be disbanded without payment of its arrears, and,
+moreover, marched upon London, in spite of the vote of the parliament
+that it should not come within twenty-five miles. Several irritating
+resolutions were passed by the parliament, which only had the effect
+of uniting the army more strongly together, in resistance against
+parliament, as well as against the king. The Lords and Commons then
+voted that the king should be brought nearer London, and new
+negotiations opened with him, which were prevented from being carried
+into effect by the seizure of the king at Holmby House, by Cornet
+Joyce, with a strong party of horse belonging to Whalley's regiment,
+probably at the instigation of Cromwell and Ireton. His majesty was
+now in the hands of the army, his worst enemy, and, though treated
+with respect and deference, was really guarded closely, and watched by
+the Independent generals. The same day, Cromwell left London in haste,
+and joined the army, knowing full well that he was in imminent danger
+of arrest. He was cordially received, and forthwith the army resolved
+not to disband until all the national grievances were redressed, thus
+setting itself up virtually against all the constituted authorities.
+Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and Hammond, with other high officers, then
+waited on the king, and protested that they had nothing to do with the
+seizure of his person, and even invited him to return to Holmby House.
+But the king never liked the Presbyterians, and was willing to remain
+with the army instead, especially since he was permitted to have
+Episcopal chaplains, and to see whomsoever he pleased.
+
+[Sidenote: Seizure of the King.]
+
+The generals of the army were not content with the seizure of his
+majesty's person, but now caused eleven of the most obnoxious of the
+Presbyterian leaders of parliament to be accused, upon which they hid
+themselves, while the army advanced towards London. The parliament, at
+first, made a show of resistance, but soon abandoned its course, and
+now voted that the army should be treated with more respect and care.
+It was evident now to all persons where the seat of power rested.
+
+In the mean time, the king was removed from Newmarket to Kingston,
+from Hatfield to Woburn Abbey, and thence to Windsor Castle, which was
+the scene of new intrigues and negotiations on his part, and on the
+part of parliament, and even on the part of Cromwell. This was the
+last chance the king had. Had he cordially sided now with either the
+Presbyterians or the Independents, his subsequent misfortunes might
+have been averted. But he hated both parties, and trifled with both,
+and hoped to conquer both. He was unable to see the crisis of his
+affairs, or to adapt himself to it. He was incapable of fair dealing
+with any party. His duplicity and dissimulation were fully made known
+to Cromwell and Ireton by a letter of the king to his wife, which they
+intercepted; and they made up their minds to more decided courses. The
+king was more closely guarded; the army marched to the immediate
+vicinity of London; a committee of safety was named, and parliament
+was intimidated into the passing of a resolution, by which the city of
+London and the Tower were intrusted to Fairfax and Cromwell. The
+Presbyterian party was forever depressed, its leading members fled to
+France, and the army had every thing after its own way. Parliament
+still was ostensibly the supreme power in the land; but it was
+entirely controlled by the Independent leaders and generals.
+
+[Sidenote: Triumph of the Independents.]
+
+The victorious Independents then made their celebrated proposals to
+the king, as the Presbyterians had done before them; only the
+conditions which the former imposed were more liberal, and would have
+granted to the king powers almost as great as are now exercised by the
+sovereign. But he would not accept them, and continued to play his
+game of kingcraft.
+
+Shortly after, the king contrived to escape from Windsor to the Isle
+of Wight, with the connivance of Cromwell. At Carisbrook Castle, where
+he quartered himself, he was more closely guarded than before. Seeing
+this, he renewed his negotiations with the Scots, and attempted to
+escape. But escape was impossible. He was now in the hands of men who
+aimed at his life. A strong party in the army, called the _Levellers_,
+openly advocated his execution, and the establishment of a republic;
+and parliament itself resolved to have no further treaty with him. His
+only hope was now from the Scots, and they prepared to rescue him.
+
+Although the government of the country was now virtually in the hands
+of the Independents and of the army, the state of affairs was
+extremely critical, and none other than Cromwell could have extricated
+the dominant party from the difficulties. In one quarter was an
+imprisoned and intriguing king in league with the Scots, while the
+royalist party was waiting for the first reverse to rise up again with
+new strength in various parts of the land. Indeed, there were several
+insurrections, which required all the vigor of Cromwell to suppress.
+The city of London, which held the purse-strings, was at heart
+Presbyterian, and was extremely dissatisfied with the course affairs
+were taking. Then, again, there was a large, headstrong, levelling,
+mutineer party in the army, which clamored for violent courses, which
+at that time would have ruined every thing. Finally, the Scotch
+parliament had voted to raise a force of forty thousand men, to invade
+England and rescue the king. Cromwell, before he could settle the
+peace of the country, must overcome all these difficulties. Who, but
+he, could have triumphed over so many obstacles, and such apparent
+anarchy?
+
+The first thing Cromwell did was to restore order in England; and
+therefore he obtained leave to march against the rebels, who had
+arisen in various parts of the country. Scarcely were these subdued,
+before he heard of the advance of the Scottish army, under the Duke of
+Hamilton. A second civil war now commenced, and all parties witnessed
+the result with fearful anxiety.
+
+The army of Hamilton was not as large as he had hoped. Still he had
+fifteen thousand men, and crossed the borders, while Cromwell was
+besieging Pembroke, in a distant part of the kingdom. But Pembroke
+soon surrendered; and Cromwell advanced, by rapid marches, against the
+Scottish army, more than twice as large as his own. The hostile forces
+met in Lancashire. Hamilton was successively defeated at Preston,
+Wigan, and Warrington. Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter,
+August 25, 1648, and his invading army was completely annihilated.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Invades Scotland.]
+
+Cromwell then resolved to invade, in his turn, Scotland itself, and,
+by a series of military actions, to give to the army a still greater
+ascendency. He was welcomed at Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle, the
+head of an opposing faction, and was styled "the Preserver of
+Scotland." That country was indeed rent with most unhappy divisions,
+which Lieutenant-General Cromwell remedied in the best way he could;
+and then he rapidly retraced his steps, to compose greater
+difficulties at home. In his absence, the Presbyterians had rallied,
+and were again negotiating with the king on the Isle of Wight, while
+Cromwell was openly denounced in the House of Lords as ambitious,
+treacherous, and perfidious. Fairfax, his superior in command, but
+inferior in influence, was subduing the rebel royalists, who made a
+firm resistance at Colchester, and all the various parties were
+sending their remonstrances to parliament.
+
+Among these was a remarkable one from the regiments of Ireton,
+Ingoldsby, Fleetwood, Whalley, and Overton, which imputed to
+parliament the neglect of the affairs of the realm, called upon it to
+proclaim the sovereignty of the people and the election of a supreme
+magistrate, and threatened to take matters into their own hands. This
+was in November, 1646; but, long before this, a republican government
+was contemplated, although the leaders of the army had not joined in
+with the hue and cry which the fanatical Levellers had made.
+
+[Sidenote: Seizure of the King a Second Time.]
+
+In the midst of the storm which the petition from the army had raised,
+the news arrived that the king had been seized a second time, and had
+been carried a prisoner to Hurst Castle, on the coast opposite the
+island, where he was closely confined by command of the army.
+Parliament was justly indignant, and the debate relative to peace was
+resumed with redoubled earnestness. It is probable that, at this
+crisis, so irritated was parliament against the army, peace would have
+been made with the king, and the Independent party suppressed, had not
+most decisive measures been taken by the army. A rupture between the
+parliament and the army was inevitable. But Cromwell and the army
+chiefs had resolved upon their courses. The mighty stream of
+revolution could no longer be checked. Twenty thousand men had vowed
+that parliament should be purged. On the morning of December 6,
+Colonel Pride and Colonel Rich, with troops, surrounded the House of
+Commons; and, as the members were going into the house, the most
+obnoxious were seized and sent to prison, among whom were Primrose,
+who had lost his ears in his contest against the crown, Waller,
+Harley, Walker, and various other men, who had distinguished
+themselves as advocates of constitutional liberty. None now remained
+in the House of Commons but some forty Independents, who were the
+tools of the army, and who voted to Cromwell their hearty thanks. "The
+minority had now become a majority,"--which is not unusual in
+revolutionary times,--and proceeded to the work, in good earnest,
+which he had long contemplated.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial of the King.]
+
+This was the trial of the king, whose apartments at Whitehall were now
+occupied by his victorious general, and whose treasures were now
+lavished on his triumphant soldiers.
+
+On the 17th of December, 1648, in the middle of the night, the
+drawbridge of the Castle of Hurst was lowered, and a troop of horse
+entered the yard. Two days after, the king was removed to Windsor. On
+the 23d, the Commons voted that he should be brought to trial. On the
+20th of January, Charles Stuart, King of England, was brought before
+the Court of High Commission, in Westminster Hall, and placed at the
+bar, to be tried by this self-constituted body for his life. In the
+indictment, he was charged with being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer.
+To such an indictment, and before such a body, the dignified but
+unfortunate successor of William the Conqueror demurred. He refused to
+acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. But the solemn mockery of
+the trial proceeded nevertheless, and on the 27th, sentence of death
+was pronounced upon the prisoner--that prisoner the King of England, a
+few years before the absolute ruler of the state. On January 30, the
+bloody sentence was executed, and the soul of the murdered king
+ascended to that God who pardons those who put their trust in him, in
+spite of all their mistakes, errors, and delusions. The career of
+Charles I. is the most melancholy in English history. That he was
+tyrannical, that he disregarded the laws by which he swore to rule,
+that he was narrow, and bigoted, that he was deceitful in his
+promises, that he was bent on overturning the liberties of England,
+and did not comprehend the wants and circumstances of his times, can
+scarcely be questioned. But that he was sincere in his religion,
+upright in his private life, of respectable talents, and good
+intentions, must also be admitted. His execution, or rather his
+martyrdom, made a deep and melancholy impression in all Christian
+countries, and was the great blunder which the republicans made--a
+blunder which Hampden would have avoided. His death, however, removed
+from England a most dangerous intriguer, and, for a while, cemented
+the power of Cromwell and his party, who now had undisputed ascendency
+in the government of the realm. Charles's exactions and tyranny
+provoked the resistance of parliament, and the indignation of the
+people, then intensely excited in discussing the abstract principles
+of civil and religious liberty. The resistance of parliament created
+the necessity of an army, and the indignation of the people filled it
+with enthusiasts. The army flushed with success, forgot its relations
+and duties, and usurped the government it had destroyed, and a
+military dictatorship, the almost inevitable result of revolution,
+though under the name of a republic, succeeded to the despotism of the
+Stuart kings. This republic, therefore, next claims attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The standard Histories of England. Guizot's
+     History of the English Revolution. Clarendon's History of
+     the Rebellion. Forster's Life of the Statesmen of the
+     Commonwealth. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     Essays. Lives of Bacon, Raleigh, Strafford, Laud, Hampden,
+     and Cromwell. These works furnish all the common
+     information. Few American students have the opportunity to
+     investigate Thurlow's State Papers, or Rushworth,
+     Whitelocke, Dugdale, or Mrs. Hutchinson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Protectorate.]
+
+On the day of the king's execution, January 30, 1649, the House of
+Commons--being but the shadow of a House of Commons, yet ostensibly
+the supreme authority in England--passed an act prohibiting the
+proclamation of the Prince of Wales, or any other person, to be king
+of England. On the 6th of February, the House of Peers was decreed
+useless and dangerous, and was also dispensed with. On the next day,
+royalty was formally abolished. The supreme executive power was vested
+in a council of state of forty members, the president of which was
+Bradshaw, the relative and friend of Milton, who employed his immortal
+genius in advocating the new government. The army remained under the
+command of Fairfax and Cromwell; the navy was controlled by a board of
+admiralty, headed by Sir Harry Vane. A greater toleration of religion
+was proclaimed than had ever been known before, much to the annoyance
+of the Presbyterians, who were additionally vexed that the state was
+separated entirely from the church.
+
+The Independents pursued their victory with considerable moderation,
+and only the Duke of Hamilton, and Lords Holland and Capel, were
+executed for treason, while a few others were shut up in the Tower.
+Never was so mighty a revolution accomplished with so little
+bloodshed. But it required all the wisdom and vigor of Fairfax and
+Cromwell to repress the ultra radical spirit which had crept into
+several detachments of the army, and to baffle the movements which the
+Scots were making in favor of Charles Stuart, who had already been
+proclaimed king by the parliament of Scotland, and in Ireland by the
+Marquis of Ormond.
+
+[Sidenote: Storming of Drogheda and Wexford.]
+
+The insurrection in Ireland first required the notice of the new
+English government. Cromwell accepted the conduct of the war, and the
+office of lord lieutenant. Dublin and Derry were the only places which
+held out for the parliament. All other parts of the country were in a
+state of insurrection. On the 15th of August, Cromwell and his
+son-in-law, Ireton, landed near Dublin with an army of six thousand
+foot and three thousand horse only; but it was an army of Ironsides
+and Titans. In six months, the complete reconquest of the country was
+effected. The policy of the conqueror was severe and questionable; but
+it was successful. In the hope of bringing the war to a speedy
+termination, Cromwell proceeded in such a way as to bring terror to
+his name, and curses on his memory. Drogheda and Wexford were not only
+taken by storm, but nearly the whole garrison, of more than five
+thousand men, were barbarously put to the sword. The Irish quailed
+before such a victor, and town after town hastened to make peace.
+Cromwell's excuse for his undeniable cruelties was, the necessity of
+the case, of which we may reasonably suppose him to be a judge.
+Scotland was in array, and English affairs, scarcely settled, demanded
+his presence in London. An imperfect conquest, on the principles of
+Rousseau's philanthropy, did not suit the taste or the notions of
+Cromwell. If he had consumed a few more months than he actually
+employed, either in treaty-making with a deceitful though oppressed
+people, or in battles on the principles of the military science then
+in vogue, the cause of Independency would have been lost; and that
+cause, associated with that of liberty, in the eyes of Cromwell, was
+of more value than the whole Irish nation, or any other nation.
+Cromwell was a devotee to a cause. Principles, with him, were every
+thing; men were nothing in comparison. To advance the principles for
+which he fought, he scrupled to use no means or instruments. In this
+he may have erred. But this policy was the secret of his success. We
+cannot justify his cruelties in war, because it is hard to justify the
+war itself. But if we acknowledge its necessity, we should remember
+that such a master of war as was Cromwell knew his circumstances
+better than we do or can know. To his immortal glory it can be said
+that he never inflicted cruelty when he deemed it unnecessary; that he
+never fought for the love of fighting; and that he stopped fighting
+when the cause for which he fought was won. And this is more than can
+be said of most conquerors, even of those imbued with sentimental
+horror of bloodshed. Our world is full of cant. Cromwell's language
+sometimes sounds like it, especially when he speaks of the "hand of
+the Lord" in "these mighty changes," who "breaketh the enemies of his
+church in pieces."
+
+When the conquest of Ireland was completed, Cromwell hastened to
+London to receive the thanks of parliament and the acclamations of the
+people; and then he hurried to Scotland to do battle with the Scots,
+who had made a treaty with the king, and were resolved to establish
+Presbyterianism and royalty. Cromwell now superseded Fairfax, and was
+created captain-general of the forces of the commonwealth. Cromwell
+passed the borders, reached Edinburgh without molestation, and then
+advanced on the Scotch army of twenty-seven thousand men, under
+Lesley, at Dunbar, where was fought a most desperate battle, but which
+Cromwell gained with marvellous intrepidity and skill. Three thousand
+men were killed, and ten thousand taken prisoners, and the hopes of
+the Scots blasted. The lord-general made a halt, and the whole army
+sang the one hundred and seventeenth psalm, and then advanced upon the
+capital, which opened its gates. Glasgow followed the example; the
+whole south of Scotland submitted; while the king fled towards the
+Highlands, but soon rallied, and even took the bold resolution of
+marching into England, while Cromwell was besieging Perth. Charles
+reached Worcester before he was overtaken, established himself with
+sixteen thousand men, but was attacked by Cromwell, was defeated, and
+with difficulty fled. He reached France, however, and quietly rested
+until he was brought back by General Monk.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Worcester.]
+
+With the battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, which Cromwell called
+his "crowning mercy," ended his military life. From that day to the
+time when be became protector, the most noticeable point in his
+history is his conduct towards the parliament. And this conduct is the
+most objectionable part of his life and character; for in this he
+violated the very principles he originally professed, and committed
+the same usurpations which he condemned in Charles I. Here he was not
+true to himself or his cause. Here he laid himself open to the censure
+of all posterity; and although he had great excuses, and his course
+has many palliations, still it would seem a mockery of all moral
+distinctions not to condemn in him what we would condemn in another,
+or what Cromwell himself condemned in the murdered king. It is true he
+did not, at once, turn usurper, not until circumstances seemed to
+warrant the usurpation--the utter impossibility of governing England,
+except by exercising the rights and privileges of an absolute monarch.
+On the principles of expediency, he has been vindicated, and will be
+vindicated, so long as his cause is advocated by partisan historians,
+or expediency itself is advocated as a rule of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Cromwell.]
+
+After the battle of Worcester, Cromwell lost, in a measure, his
+democratic sympathies, and naturally, in view of the great excesses of
+the party with which he had been identified. That he desired the
+public good we cannot reasonably doubt; and he adapted himself to
+those circumstances which seemed to advance it, and which a spirit of
+wild democratic license assuredly did not. So far as it contributed to
+overturn the throne of the Stuarts, and the whole system of public
+abuses, civil and ecclesiastical, Cromwell favored it. But no further.
+When it seemed subversive of law and order, the grand ends of all
+civil governments, then he opposed it. And in this he showed that he
+was much more conservative in his spirit than has often been supposed;
+and, in this conservatism he resembled Luther and other great
+reformers, who were not unreflecting incendiaries, as is sometimes
+thought--men who destroy, but do not reconstruct. Luther, at heart,
+was a conservative, and never sought a change to which he was not led
+by strong inward tempests--forced to make it by the voice of his
+conscience, which he ever obeyed, and loyalty to which so remarkably
+characterized the early reformers, and no class of men more than the
+Puritans. Cromwell abhorred the government of Charles, because it was
+not a government which respected justice, and which set at defiance
+the higher laws of God. It was not because Charles violated the
+constitution, it was because he violated truth and equity, and the
+nation's good, that he opposed him. Cromwell usurped his prerogatives,
+and violated the English constitution; but he did not transgress those
+great primal principles of truth, for which constitutions are made. He
+looked beyond constitutions to abstract laws of justice; and it never
+can be laid to his charge that he slighted these, or proved a weak or
+wicked ruler. He quarrelled with parliament, because the parliament
+wished to perpetuate its existence unlawfully and meanly, and was
+moreover unwilling and unable to cope with many difficulties which
+constantly arose. It may be supposed that Cromwell may thus have
+thought: "I will not support the parliament, for it will not maintain
+law; it will not legislate wisely or beneficently; it seeks its own,
+not the nation's good. And therefore I take away its existence, and
+rule myself; for I have the fear of God before my eyes, and am
+determined to rule by his laws, and to advance his glory." Deluded he
+was; blinded by ambition he may have been but he sought to elevate his
+country; and his efforts in her behalf are appreciated and praised by
+the very men who are most severe on his undoubted usurpation.
+
+[Sidenote: The Rump Parliament.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dispersion of the Parliament.]
+
+Shortly after the Long Parliament was purged, at the instigation of
+Cromwell, and had become the Rump Parliament, as it was derisively
+called, it appointed a committee to take into consideration the time
+when their powers should cease. But the battle of Worcester was fought
+before any thing was done, except to determine that future parliaments
+should consist of four hundred members, and that the existing members
+should be returned, in the next parliament, for the places they then
+represented. At length, in December, 1651, it was decided, through the
+urgent entreaties of Cromwell, but only by a small majority, that the
+present parliament should cease in November, 1654. Thus it was obvious
+to Cromwell that the parliament, reduced as it was, and composed of
+Independents, was jealous of him, and also was aiming to perpetuate
+its own existence, against all the principles of a representative
+government. Such are men, so greedy of power themselves, so censorious
+in regard to the violation of justice by others, so blind to the
+violation of justice by themselves. Cromwell was not the man to permit
+the usurpation of power by a body of forty or sixty Independents,
+however willing he was to assume it himself. Beside, the Rump
+Parliament was inefficient, and did not consult the interests of the
+country. There was general complaint. But none complained more
+bitterly than Cromwell himself. Meeting Whitelock, who then held the
+great seal, he said that the "army was beginning to have a strange
+distaste against them; that their pride, and ambition, and
+self-seeking; their engrossing all places of honor and profit to
+themselves and their friends; their daily breaking into new and
+violent parties; their delays of business, and design to perpetuate
+themselves, and continue the power in their own hands; their meddling
+in private matters between party and party, their injustice and
+partiality; the scandalous lives of some of them, do give too much
+ground for people to open their mouths against them; and unless there
+be some power to check them, it will be impossible to prevent our
+ruin." These things Whitelock admitted, but did not see how they could
+be removed since both he and Cromwell held their commissions from this
+same parliament, which was the supreme authority. But Cromwell thought
+there was nothing to hope, and every thing to fear, from such a body
+of men; that they would destroy what the Lord had done. "We all forget
+God," said he, "and God will forget us. He will give us up to
+confusion, and these men will help it on, if left to themselves." Then
+he asked the great lawyer and chancellor, "What if a man should take
+upon himself to be king?"--evidently having in view the regal power.
+But Whitelock presented such powerful reasons against it, that
+Cromwell gave up the idea, though he was resolved to destroy the
+parliament. He then held repeated conferences with the officers of the
+army, who sympathized with him, and who supported him. At last, while
+parliament was about to pass an obnoxious bill, Cromwell hurried to
+the House, taking with him a file of musketeers, having resolved what
+he would do. These he left in the lobby, and, taking his seat,
+listened a while to the discussion, and then rose, and addressed the
+House. Waxing warm, he told them, in violent language, "that they were
+deniers of justice, were oppressive, profane men, were planning to
+bring in Presbyterians, and would lose no time in destroying the cause
+they had deserted." Sir Harry Vane and Sir Peter Wentworth rose to
+remonstrate, but Cromwell, leaving his seat, walked up and down the
+floor, with his hat on, reproached the different members, who again
+remonstrated. But Cromwell, raising his voice, exclaimed, "You are no
+parliament. Get you gone. Give way to honester men." Then, stamping
+with his feet, the door opened, and the musketeers entered, and the
+members were dispersed, after giving vent to their feelings in the
+language of reproach. Most of them wore swords, but none offered
+resistance to the man they feared, and tamely departed.
+
+Thus was the constitution utterly subverted, and parliament, as well
+as the throne, destroyed. Cromwell published, the next day, a
+vindication of his conduct, setting forth the incapacity, selfishness
+and corruption of the parliament, in which were some of the best men
+England ever had, including Sir Harry Vane, Algernon Sydney, and Sir
+Peter Wentworth.
+
+His next step was to order the continuance of all the courts of
+justice, as before, and summon a new parliament, the members of which
+were nominated by himself and his council of officers. The army, with
+Cromwell at the head, was now the supreme authority.
+
+The new parliament, composed of one hundred and twenty persons,
+assembled on the 4th of July, when Cromwell explained the reason of
+his conduct, and set forth the mercies of the Lord to England. This
+parliament was not constitutional, since it was not elected by the
+people of England, but by Cromwell, and therefore would be likely to
+be his tool. But had the elections been left free, the Presbyterians
+would have been returned as the largest party, and they would have
+ruined the cause which Cromwell and the Independents sought to
+support. In revolutions, there cannot be pursued half measures.
+Revolutions are the contest between parties. The strongest party gains
+the ascendency, and keeps it if it can--never by old, constituted
+laws. In the English Revolution the Independents gained this
+ascendency by their valor, enthusiasm, and wisdom. And their great
+representative ruled in their name.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Assumes the Protectorship.]
+
+The new members of parliament reappointed the old Council of State, at
+the head of which was Cromwell, abolished the High Court of Chancery,
+nominated commissioners to preside in courts of justice, and proceeded
+to other sweeping changes, which alarmed their great nominator, who
+induced them to dissolve themselves and surrender their trust into his
+hands, under the title of Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland. On the 16th of December, he was installed in his great
+office, with considerable pomp, in the Court of Chancery, and the new
+constitution was read, which invested him with all the powers of a
+king. It, however, ordained that he should rule with the aid of a
+parliament, which should have all the functions and powers of the old
+parliaments, should be assembled within five months, should last three
+years, and should consist of four hundred and sixty members. It
+provided for the maintenance of the army and navy, of which the
+protector was the head, and decided that the great officers of state
+should be chosen by approbation of parliament. Religious toleration
+was proclaimed, and provision made for the support of the clergy.
+
+[Sidenote: The Dutch War.]
+
+Thus was the constitution of the nation changed, and a republic
+substituted for a monarchy, at the head of which was the ablest man of
+his age. And there was need of all his abilities. England then was
+engaged in war with the Dutch, and the internal state of the nation
+demanded the attention of a vigorous mind and a still more vigorous
+arm.
+
+The Dutch war was prosecuted with great vigor, and was signalized by
+the naval victories of Blake, Dean, and Monk over the celebrated Van
+Tromp and De Ruyter, the Dutch admirals. The war was caused by the
+commercial jealousies of the two nations, and by the unwillingness of
+the Prince of Orange, who had married a daughter of Charles I., to
+acknowledge the ambassador of the new English republic. But the
+superiority which the English sailors evinced, soon taught the Dutch
+how dangerous it was to provoke a nation which should be its ally on
+all grounds of national policy, and peace was therefore honorably
+secured after a most successful war.
+
+The war being ended, the protector had more leisure to attend to
+business at home. Sir Matthew Hale was made chief justice, and
+Thurloe, secretary of state; disorganizers were punished; an
+insurrection in Scotland was quelled by General Monk; and order and
+law were restored.
+
+Meanwhile, the new parliament, the first which had been freely elected
+for fourteen years, soon manifested a spirit of opposition to
+Cromwell, deferred to vote him supplies, and annoyed him all in its
+power. Still he permitted the members to discuss trifling subjects and
+waste their time for five months; but, at the earliest time the new
+constitution would allow, he summoned them to the Painted Chamber,
+made them a long speech, reminded them of their neglect in attending
+to the interests of the nation, while disputing about abstract
+questions, even while it was beset with dangers and difficulties, and
+then dissolved them, (January 22, 1656.)
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell Rules without a Parliament.]
+
+For the next eighteen months, he ruled without a parliament and found
+no difficulty in raising supplies, and supporting his now unlimited
+power. During this time, he suppressed a dangerous insurrection in
+England itself, and carried on a successful and brilliant war against
+Spain, a power which he hated with all the capacity of hatred of which
+his nation has shown itself occasionally so capable. In the naval war
+with Spain, Blake was again the hero. During the contest the rich
+island of Jamaica was conquered from the Spanish, a possession which
+England has ever since greatly valued.
+
+Encouraged by his successes, Cromwell now called a third parliament,
+which he opened the 17th of September, 1656, after ejecting one
+hundred of the members, on account of their political sentiments. The
+new House voted for the prosecution of the Spanish war, granted ample
+supplies, and offered to Cromwell the title of king. But his council
+violently opposed it, and Cromwell found it expedient to relinquish
+this object of his heart. But his protectorate was continued to him,
+and he was empowered to nominate his successor.
+
+In a short time, however, the spirit of the new parliament was
+manifested, not only by violent opposition to the protector, but in
+acts which would, if carried out, have subverted the government again,
+and have plunged England in anarchy. It was plain that the protector
+could not rule with a real representation of the nation. So he
+dissolved it; and thus ended the last effort of Cromwell to rule with
+a parliament; or, as his advocates say, to restore the constitution of
+his country. It was plain that there was too much party animosity and
+party ambition to permit the protector, shackled by the law, to carry
+out his designs of order and good government. Self-preservation
+compelled him to be suspicious and despotic, and also to prohibit the
+exercise of the Catholic worship, and to curtail the religious rights
+of the Quakers, Socinians, and Jews. The continual plottings and
+political disaffections of these parties forced him to rule on a
+system to which he was not at first inclined. England was not yet
+prepared for the civil and religious liberty at which the advocates of
+revolution had at first aimed.
+
+So Cromwell now resolved to rule alone. And he ruled well. His armies
+were victorious on the continent, and England was respected abroad,
+and prospered at home. The most able and upright men were appointed to
+office. The chairs of the universities were filled with illustrious
+scholars, and the bench adorned with learned and honest judges. He
+defended the great interests of Protestantism on the Continent, and
+formed alliances which contributed to the political and commercial
+greatness of his country. He generously assisted the persecuted
+Protestants in the valleys of Piedmont, and refused to make treaties
+with hostile powers unless the religious liberties of the Protestants
+were respected. He lived at Hampton Court, the old palace of Cardinal
+Wolsey, in simple and sober dignity; nor was debauchery or riot seen
+at his court. He lived simply and unostentatiously, and to the last
+preserved the form, and perhaps the spirit, of his early piety. He
+surrounded himself with learned men, and patronized poets and
+scholars. Milton was his familiar guest, and the youthful Dryden was
+not excluded from his table. An outward morality, at least, was
+generally observed, and the strictest discipline was kept at his
+court.
+
+Had Cromwell's life been prolonged to threescore and ten, the history
+of England might have been different for the next two hundred years.
+But such was not his fortune. Providence removed him from the scene of
+his conflicts and his heroism not long after the dissolution of his
+last parliament. The death of a favorite daughter preyed upon his
+mind, and the cares of government undermined his constitution. He died
+on the 3d of September, 1658, the anniversary of his great battles of
+Worcester and Dunbar, in the sixtieth year of his age.
+
+Two or three nights before he died, he was heard to ejaculate the
+following prayer, in the anticipation of his speedy departure; "Lord,
+though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with
+thee, through thy grace; and I may, I will come to thee, for thy
+people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to
+do them good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high
+value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. Lord,
+however Thou disposest of me, continue and go on to do good to them.
+Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and,
+with the work of reformation, go on to deliver them, and make the name
+of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy
+instrument to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to
+trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And
+pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake.
+And give me a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen."
+
+Thus closed the career of Oliver Cromwell, the most remarkable man in
+the list of England's heroes. His motives and his honesty have often
+been impeached, and sometimes by the most excellent and
+discriminating, but oftener by heated partisans, who had no sympathy
+with his reforms or opinions. His genius, however, has never been
+questioned, nor his extraordinary talent, for governing a nation in
+the most eventful period of its history. And there is a large class,
+and that class an increasing one, not confined to Independents or
+republicans, who look upon him as one habitually governed by a stern
+sense of duty, as a man who feared God and regarded justice, as a man
+sincerely devoted to the best interests of his country, and deserving
+of the highest praises of all enlightened critics. No man has ever
+been more extravagantly eulogized, or been the subject of more
+unsparing abuse and more cordial detestation. Some are incapable of
+viewing him in any other light than as a profound hypocrite and
+ambitious despot, while others see in him nothing but the saint and
+unspotted ruler. He had his defects; for human nature, in all
+instances, is weak; but in spite of these, and of many and great
+inconsistencies, from which no sophistry can clear him, his great and
+varied excellences will ever entitle him to the rank accorded to him
+by such writers as Vaughan and Carlyle.
+
+[Sidenote: Regal Government Restored.]
+
+With the death of Cromwell virtually ended the republic. "Puritanism
+without its king, is kingless, anarchic, falls into dislocation,
+staggers, and plunges into even deeper anarchy." His son Richard,
+according to his will, was proclaimed protector in his stead. But his
+reign was short. Petitions poured in from every quarter for the
+restoration of parliament. It was restored, and also with it royalty
+itself. General Monk advanced with his army from Scotland, and
+quartered in London. In May, 1660, Charles II. was proclaimed king at
+the gates of Westminster Hall. The experiment of a republic had been
+tried, and failed. Puritanism veiled its face. It was no longer the
+spirit of the nation. A great reaction commenced. Royalty, with new
+but disguised despotism, resumed its sway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Carlyle's, Dr. Vaughan's, and D'Aubigne's Life
+     of Cromwell. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's
+     History of England. Godwin's Commonwealth. The common
+     histories of England. Milton's prose writings may be
+     profitably read in this connection, and the various reviews
+     and essays which have of late been written, on the character
+     of Cromwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Restoration.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great Public Rejoicings.]
+
+Few events in English history have ever been hailed with greater
+popular enthusiasm than the restoration of Charles II. On the 25th of
+May, 1660, he landed near Dover, with his two brothers, the Dukes of
+York and Gloucester. On the 29th of May, he made his triumphal entry
+into London. It was his birthday, he was thirty years of age, and in
+the full maturity of manly beauty, while his gracious manners and
+captivating speech made him the favorite of the people, as well as of
+the old nobility. The season was full of charms, and the spirits of
+all classes were buoyant with hope. Every thing conspired to give a
+glow to the popular enthusiasm. A long line of illustrious monarchs
+was restored. The hateful fires of religious fanaticism were
+apparently extinguished. An accomplished sovereign, disciplined in the
+school of adversity, of brilliant talents, amiable temper, fascinating
+manners, and singular experiences, had returned to the throne of his
+ancestors, and had sworn to rule by the laws, to forget old offences,
+and promote liberty of conscience. No longer should there be a
+government of soldiers, nor the rule of a man hostile to those
+pleasures and opinions which had ever been dear to the English people.
+With the return of the exiled prince, should also return joy, peace,
+and prosperity. For seventeen years, there had been violent political
+and social animosities, war, tyranny, social restraints, and religious
+fanaticism. But order and law were now to be reestablished, and the
+reign of cant and hypocrisy was now to end. Justice and mercy were to
+meet together in the person of a king who was represented to have all
+the virtues and none of the vices of his station and his times. So
+people reasoned and felt, of all classes and conditions. And why
+should they not rejoice in the restoration of such blessings? The ways
+were strewn with flowers, the bells sent forth a merry peal, the
+streets were hung with tapestries; while aldermen with their heavy
+chains, nobles in their robes of pomp, ladies with their silks and
+satins, and waving handkerchiefs, filling all the balconies and
+windows; musicians, dancers, and exulting crowds,--all welcomed the
+return of Charles. Never was there so great a jubilee in London; and
+never did monarch receive such addresses of flattery and loyalty.
+"Dread monarch," said the Earl of Manchester, in the House of Lords,
+"I offer no flattering titles. You are the desire of three kingdoms,
+the strength and stay of the tribes of the people." "Most royal
+sovereign," said one of the deputations, "the hearts of all are filled
+with veneration for you, confidence in you, longings for you. All
+degrees, and ages, and sexes, high, low, rich and poor, men, women,
+and children, join in sending up to Heaven one prayer, 'Long live King
+Charles II.;' so that the English air is not susceptible of any other
+sound, bells, bonfires, peals of ordnance, shouts, and acclamations of
+the people bear no other moral; nor can his majesty conceive with what
+joy, what cheerfulness, what lettings out of the soul, what
+expressions of transported minds, a stupendous concourse of people
+attended the proclamation of their most potent, most mighty, and most
+undoubted king." Such was the adulatory language addressed by the
+English people to the son of the king they had murdered, and to a man
+noted for every frivolity and vice that could degrade a sovereign.
+What are we to think of that public joy, and public sycophancy, after
+so many years of hard fighting for civil and religious liberty? For
+what were the battles of Naseby and Worcester? For what the Solemn
+League and Covenant? For what the trial and execution of Charles I.?
+For what the elevation of Cromwell? Alas! for what were all the
+experiments and sufferings of twenty years, the breaking up of old and
+mighty customs, and twenty years of blood, usurpation, and change?
+What were the benefits of the Revolution? Or, had it no benefits? How
+happened it that a whole nation should simultaneously rise and expel
+their monarch from a throne which his ancestors had enjoyed for six
+hundred years, and then, in so short a time, have elevated to this old
+throne, which was supposed to be subverted forever, the son of their
+insulted, humiliated, and murdered king? and this without bloodshed,
+with every demonstration of national rejoicings, and with every
+external mark of repentance for their past conduct. Charles, too, was
+restored without any of those limitations by which the nation sought
+to curtail the power of his father. The nation surrendered to him more
+absolute power than the most ambitious kings, since the reign of John,
+had ever claimed,--more than he ever dared to expect. How shall we
+explain these things? And what is the moral which they teach?
+
+[Sidenote: Reaction to Revolutionary Principles.]
+
+One fact is obvious,--that a great reaction had taken place in the
+national mind as to revolutionary principles. It is evident that a
+great disgust for the government of Cromwell had succeeded the
+antipathy to the royal government of Charles. All classes as ardently
+desired the restoration, as they had before favored the rebellion.
+Even the old parliamentarians hailed the return of Charles,
+notwithstanding it was admitted that the protectorate was a vigorous
+administration; that law and order were enforced; that religious
+liberty was proclaimed; that the rights of conscience were respected;
+that literature and science were encouraged; that the morals of the
+people were purified; that the ordinances of religion were observed;
+that vice and folly were discouraged; that justice was ably
+administered; that peace and plenty were enjoyed; that prosperity
+attended the English arms abroad; and that the nation was as much
+respected abroad as it was prosperous at home. These things were
+admitted by the very people who rejoiced in the restoration. And yet,
+in spite of all these substantial blessings, the reign of Cromwell was
+odious. Why was this?
+
+It can only be explained on the supposition that there were
+_unendurable evils_ connected with the administration of Cromwell,
+which more than balanced the benefits he conferred; or, that
+expectations were held out by Charles of national benefits greater
+than those conferred by the republic; or, that the nation had so
+retrograded in elevation of sentiment as to be unable to appreciate
+the excellences of Cromwell's administration.
+
+There is much to support all of these suppositions. In regard to the
+evils connected with the republic, it is certain that a large standing
+army was supported, and was necessary to uphold the government of the
+protector, in order to give to it efficiency and character. This army
+was expensive, and the people felt the burden. They always complain
+under taxation, whether necessary or not. Taxes ever make any
+government unpopular, and made the administration of Cromwell
+especially so. And the army showed the existence of a military
+despotism, which, however imperatively called for, or rendered
+unavoidable by revolution, was still a hateful fact. The English never
+have liked the principle of a military despotism. And it was a bitter
+reflection to feel that so much blood and treasure had been expended
+to get rid of the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts, only to introduce a
+still more expensive and arbitrary government, under the name of a
+republic. Moreover, the eyes of the people were opened to the moral
+corruptions incident to the support of a large army, without which the
+power of Cromwell would have been unsubstantial. He may originally
+have desired to establish his power on a civil basis, rather than a
+military one; but his desires were not realized. The parliaments which
+he assembled were unpractical and disorderly. He was forced to rule
+without them. But the nation could not forget this great insult to
+their liberties, and to those privileges which had ever been dear to
+them. The preponderance of the civil power has, for several centuries,
+characterized the government; and no blessings were sufficiently great
+to balance the evil, in the eye of an Englishman, of the preponderance
+of a military government, neither the excellence of Cromwell's life,
+nor the glory and greatness to which he raised the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: Excellences in Charles's Government.]
+
+Again, much was expected of Charles II., and there was much in his
+character and early administration to produce content. His manners
+were agreeable. He had no personal antipathies or jealousies. He
+selected, at first, the wisest and best of all parties to be his
+counsellors and ministers. He seemed to forget old offences. He was
+fond of pleasure; was good-natured and affable. He summoned a free
+parliament. His interests were made to appear identical with those of
+the people. He promised to rule by the laws. He did not openly
+infringe on the constitution. And he restored, what has ever been so
+dear to the great body of the nation, the Episcopal Church in all its
+beauty and grandeur, while he did not recommence the persecution of
+Puritans until some time had elapsed from his restoration. Above all,
+he disbanded the army, which was always distasteful to the
+people,--odious, onerous, and oppressive. The civil power again
+triumphed over that of the military, and circumstances existed which
+rendered the subversion of liberty very difficult. Many adverse events
+transpired during his unfortunate and disgraceful reign; but these, in
+the early part of it, had not, of course, been anticipated.
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of the Puritan Experiment.]
+
+There is also force in the third supposition, that the nation had
+retrograded in moral elevation. All writers speak of a strong reaction
+to the religious fervor of the early revolutionists. The moral
+influence of the army had proved destructive to the habits and
+sentiments of the people. A strong love of pleasure and demoralizing
+amusements existed, when Charles was recalled. A general laxity of
+morals was lamented by the wisest and best of the nation. The
+religious convictions of enthusiasts survived their sympathies.
+Hypocrisy and cant succeeded fervor and honesty. Infidelity lurked in
+many a bosom in which devotional ardor had once warmly burned.
+Distrust of all philanthropy and all human virtue was as marked, as
+faith in the same previously had been. The ordinances of religion
+became irksome, and it was remembered with bitterness that the
+Puritans, in the days of their ascendency, had cruelly proscribed the
+most favorite pleasures and time-honored festivals of old England. But
+the love of them returned with redoubled vigor. May-poles,
+wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing,
+betting, rope-dancing, romping under the mistletoe on Christmas,
+eating boars' heads, attending the theatres, health-drinking,--all
+these old-fashioned ways, in which the English sought merriment, were
+restored. The evil was chiefly in the excess to which these pleasures
+were carried; and every thing, which bore any resemblance to the
+Puritans, was ridiculed and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not
+love Puritanism, or any thing pertaining to it, after the deep
+religious excitement had passed away. The people were ashamed of
+prayer-meetings, of speaking through their noses, of wearing their
+hair straight, of having their garments cut primly, of calling their
+children by the name of Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Obadiah, &c.; and, in
+short, of all customs and opinions peculiar to the Extreme Puritans.
+So general was the disgust of Puritanism, so eager were all to indulge
+in the pleasures that had been forbidden under the reign of Cromwell,
+so sick were they of the very name of republicanism, that Puritanism
+may be said to have proved, in England, a signal failure.
+
+Such were some of the reasons of popular acclamation on the
+restoration of Charles II., and which we cannot consider entirely
+without force. A state of mind existed in England as favorable to the
+encroachments of royalty, as, twenty years before, it had been
+unfavorable.
+
+Charles was not a high-minded, or honest, or patriotic king; and
+therefore we might naturally expect the growth of absolutism during
+his reign. The progress of absolutism is, indeed, one of its features.
+This, for a time, demands our notice.
+
+On the restoration of Charles II., his subjects made no particular
+stipulations respecting their liberties, which were incautiously
+intrusted to his hands. But, at first, he did not seem inclined to
+grasp at greater powers than what the constitution allowed him. He had
+the right to appoint the great officers of state, the privilege of
+veto on legislative enactments, the control of the army and navy, the
+regulation of all foreign intercourse, and the right of making peace
+and war. But the constitution did not allow him to rule without a
+parliament, or to raise taxes without its consent. The parliament
+might grant or withhold supplies at pleasure, and all money bills
+originated and were discussed in the House of Commons alone. These
+were the great principles of the English constitution, which Charles
+swore to maintain.
+
+[Sidenote: Repeal of the Triennial Bill.]
+
+The first form in which the encroaching temper of the king was
+manifested was, in causing the Triennial Bill to be repealed. This was
+indeed done by the parliament, but through the royal influence. This
+bill was not that a parliament should be assembled every three years,
+but that the interval between one session and another should not
+exceed that period. But this wise law, which had passed by acclamation
+during the reign of Charles I., and for which even Clarendon had
+voted, was regarded by Charles II. as subversive of the liberty of his
+crown; and a supple, degenerate and sycophantic parliament gratified
+his wishes.
+
+About the same time was passed the Corporation Act, which enjoined all
+magistrates, and persons of trust in corporations, to swear that they
+believed it unlawful, under any pretence whatever to take arms against
+the king. The Presbyterians refused to take this oath; and they were
+therefore excluded from offices of dignity and trust. The act bore
+hard upon all bodies of Dissenters and Roman Catholics, the former of
+whom were most cruelly persecuted in this reign.
+
+[Sidenote: Secret Alliance with Louis XIV.]
+
+The next most noticeable effort of Charles to extend his power
+independently of the law, was his secret alliance with Louis XIV. This
+was not known to the nation, and even but to few of his ministers, and
+was the most disgraceful act of his reign. For the miserable stipend
+of two hundred thousand pounds a year, he was ready to compromise the
+interests of the kingdom, and make himself the slave of the most
+ambitious sovereign in Europe. He became a pensioner of France, and
+yet did not feel his disgrace. Clarendon, attached as he was to
+monarchy, and to the house of Stuart, could not join him in his base
+intrigues; and therefore lost, as was to be expected, the royal favor.
+He had been the companion and counsellor of Charles in the days of his
+exile; he had attempted to enkindle in his mind the desire of great
+deeds and virtues; he had faithfully served him as chancellor and
+prime minister; he was impartial and incorruptible; he was as much
+attached to Episcopacy, as he was to monarchy; he had even advised
+Charles to rule without a parliament; and yet he was disgraced because
+he would not comply with all the wishes of his unscrupulous master.
+But Clarendon was, nevertheless, unpopular with the nation. He had
+advised Charles to sell Dunkirk, the proudest trophy of the
+Revolution, and had built for himself a splendid palace, on the site
+of the present Clarendon Hotel, in Albemarle Street, which the people
+called _Dunkirk House_. He was proud, ostentatious, and dictatorial,
+and was bitterly hostile to all democratic influences. He was too good
+for one party, and not good enough for the other, and therefore fell
+to the ground; but he retired, if not with dignity, at least with
+safety. He retreated to the Continent, and there wrote his celebrated
+history of the Great Rebellion, a partial and bitter history, yet a
+valuable record of the great events of the age of revolution which he
+had witnessed and detested.
+
+Charles received the bribe of two hundred thousand pounds from the
+French king, with the hope of being made independent of his
+parliament, and with the condition of assisting Louis XIV. in his
+aggressive wars on the liberties of Europe, especially those of
+Holland. He was, at heart an absolutist, and rejoiced in the victories
+of the "Grand Monarch." But this supply was scarcely sufficient even
+for his pleasures, much less to support the ordinary pomp of a
+monarchy, and the civil and military powers of the state. So he had to
+resort to other means.
+
+[Sidenote: Venality and Sycophancy of Parliament.]
+
+It happened, fortunately for his encroachments, but unfortunately for
+the nation, that the English parliament, at that period, was more
+corrupt, venal, base, and sycophantic than at any period under the
+Tudor kings, or at any subsequent period under the Hanoverian princes.
+The House of Commons made no indignant resistance; it sent up but few
+spirited remonstrances; but tamely acquiesced in the measures of
+Charles and his ministers. Its members were bought and sold with
+unblushing facility, and even were corrupted by the agents of the
+French king. One member received six thousand pounds for his vote.
+Twenty-nine of the members received from five hundred to twelve
+hundred pounds a year. Charles I. attempted to rule by opposition to
+the parliament; Charles II. by corrupting it. Hence it was nearly
+silent in view of his arbitrary spirit, his repeated encroachments,
+and his worthless public character.
+
+Among his worst acts was his shutting up the Exchequer, where the
+bankers and merchants had been in the habit of depositing money on the
+security of the funds, receiving a large interest of from eight to ten
+per cent. By closing the Exchequer, the bankers, unable to draw out
+their money, stopped payment; and a universal panic was the
+consequence, during which many great failures happened. By this base
+violation of the public faith, Charles obtained one million three
+hundred thousand pounds. But it undermined his popularity more than
+any of his acts, since he touched the pockets of the people. The
+odium, however, fell chiefly on his ministers, especially those who
+received the name of the _Cabal_, from the fact that the initials of
+their names spelt that odious term of reproach, not unmerited in their
+case.
+
+These five ministers were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and
+Lauderdale, and they were the great instruments of his tyranny. None
+of them had the talents or audacity of Strafford, or the narrowness
+and bigotry of Laud; but their counsels were injurious to the nation.
+
+Clifford and Arlington were tolerably respectable but indifferent to
+the glory and shame of their country; while Buckingham, Ashley, and
+Lauderdale were profligate, unprincipled, and dishonest to a great
+degree. They aided Charles to corrupt the parliament and deceive the
+nation. They removed all restraints on his will, and pandered to his
+depraved tastes. It was by their suggestion that the king shut up the
+Exchequer. They also favored restrictions on the press.
+
+[Sidenote: Restrictions on the Press.]
+
+These restrictions were another abomination in the reign of Charles,
+but one ever peculiar to a despotic government. No book could be
+printed out of London, York, or the Universities. But these were not
+made wholly with a view of shackling the mind, but to prevent those
+libels and lampoons which made the government ridiculous in the eyes
+of the people.
+
+Nothing caused more popular indignation, during this reign, than the
+Forfeiture of the Corporation of the City of London. The power of the
+democracy resided, at this time, with the corporations, and as long as
+they were actuated by the spirit of liberty, there was no prospect of
+obtaining a parliament entirely subservient to the king. It was
+determined to take away their charters; and the infamous Judge
+Jeffreys was found a most subservient tool of royalty in undermining
+the liberties of the country. The corporation of London, however,
+received back its charter, after having yielded to the king the right
+of conferring the appointments of mayor, recorder, and sheriffs.
+
+Among other infringements on the constitution was the fining of jurors
+when they refused to act according to the direction of the judges.
+Juries were constantly intimidated, and their privileges were
+abridged. A new parliament, moreover, was not convoked after three
+years had elapsed from the dissolution of the old one, which
+infringement was the more reprehensible, since the king had nothing to
+fear from the new House of Commons, the members of which vied with
+each other in a base compliancy with the royal will.
+
+But their sycophancy was nothing compared with what the bishops and
+clergy of the Established Church generally evinced. Absolute
+non-resistance was inculcated from the pulpits, and the doctrine
+ridiculed that power emanated from the people. The divine rights of
+kings, and the divine ordination of absolute power were the themes of
+divines, while Oxford proclaimed doctrines worthy of Mariana and the
+Jesuits.
+
+Thus various influences contributed to make Charles II. absolute in
+England--the Courts of Justice, the Parliaments, the Universities, and
+the Church of England. Had he been as ambitious as he was fond of
+pleasure, as capable of ruling as he was capable of telling stories at
+the dinner table, he would, like Louis XIV., have reared an absolute
+throne in England. But he was too easy, too careless, too fond of
+pleasure to concentrate his thoughts on devising means to enslave his
+subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: Habeas Corpus Act.]
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that all his subjects were
+indifferent to his encroachments, in spite of the great reaction which
+had succeeded to liberal sentiments. Before he died, the spirit of
+resistance was beginning to be seen, and some checks to royal power
+were imposed by parliament itself. The Habeas Corpus Act, the most
+important since the declaration of Magna Charta, was passed, and
+through the influence of one of his former ministers, Ashley, now
+become Earl of Shaftesbury, who took the popular side, after having
+served all sides, but always with a view of advancing his own
+interests, a man of great versatility of genius, of great sagacity,
+and of varied learning. Had Charles continued much longer on the
+throne, it cannot be doubted that the nation would have been finally
+aroused to resist his spirit of encroachment, for the principles of
+liberty had not been proclaimed in vain.
+
+Charles II. was a tyrant, and one of the worst kings that ever sat on
+the English throne. His leading defect was want of earnestness of
+character, which made him indifferent to the welfare of his country.
+England, during his reign, was reduced to comparative insignificance
+in the eyes of foreigners, and was neither feared nor respected. Her
+king was neither a powerful friend nor an implacable enemy, and left
+the Continental Powers to pursue their own ends unmolested and
+unrebuked. Most of the administrations of the English kings are
+interlinked with the whole system of European politics. But the reign
+of Charles is chiefly interesting in relation to the domestic history
+of England. This history is chiefly the cabals of ministers, the
+intrigues of the court, the pleasures and follies of the king, the
+attacks he made on the constitution without any direct warfare with
+his parliament and the system of religious persecution, which was most
+intolerant.
+
+The king was at heart a Catholic; and yet the persecution of the
+Catholics is one of the most signal events of the times. We can
+scarcely conceive, in this age, of the spirit of distrust and fear
+which pervaded the national mind in reference to the Catholics. Every
+calumny was believed. Every trifling offence was exaggerated, and by
+nearly all classes in the community, by the Episcopalians, as well as
+by the Presbyterians and the Independents.
+
+[Sidenote: Titus Oates.]
+
+The most memorable of all the delusions and slanders of the times was
+produced by the perjuries of an unprincipled wretch called Titus
+Oates, who took advantage of the general infatuation to advance his
+individual interests. Like an artful politician, he had only to appeal
+to a dominant passion or prejudice, and he was sure of making his
+fortune. Like a cunning, popular orator, he had only to inflame the
+passions of the people, and he would pass as a genius and a prophet.
+Few are so abstractedly and coldly intellectual as not to be mainly
+governed by their tastes or passions. Even men of strong intellect
+have frequently strong prejudices, and one has only to make himself
+master of these, in order to lead those who are infinitely their
+superiors. There is no proof that all who persecuted the Catholics in
+Charles's time were either weak or ignorant. But there is evidence of
+unbounded animosity, a traditional hatred, not much diminished since
+the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes. The whole nation was ready to
+believe any thing against the Catholics, and especially against their
+church, which was supposed to be persecuting and diabolical in all its
+principles and in all its practice. In this state of the popular mind,
+Oates made his hideous revelations.
+
+[Sidenote: Oates's Revelations.]
+
+He was a broken-down clergyman of the Established Church, and had lost
+caste for disgraceful irregularities. But he professed to hate the
+Catholics, and such a virtue secured him friends. Among these was the
+Rev. Dr. Tonge, a man very weak, very credulous, and full of fears
+respecting the intrigues of the Catholics but honest in his fears.
+Oates went to this clergyman, and a plan was concerted between them,
+by which Oates should get a knowledge of the supposed intrigues of the
+Church of Rome. He professed himself a Catholic, went to the
+Continent, and entered a Catholic seminary, but was soon discharged
+for his scandalous irregularities. But he had been a Catholic long
+enough for his purposes. He returned to London, and revealed his
+pretended discoveries, among which he declared that the Jesuits had
+undertaken to restore the Catholic religion in England by force; that
+they were resolved to take the king's life, and had actually offered a
+bribe of fifteen thousand pounds to the queen's physician; that they
+had planned to burn London, and to set fire to all the shipping in the
+Thames; that they were plotting to make a general massacre of the
+Protestants; that a French army was about to invade England; and that
+all the horrors of St. Bartholomew were to be again acted over!
+Ridiculous as were these assertions, they were believed, and without a
+particle of evidence; so great was the national infatuation. The king
+and the Duke of York both pronounced the whole matter a forgery, and
+laughed at the credulity of the people, but had not sufficient
+generosity to prevent the triumph of the libellers. But Oates's
+testimony was not enough to convict any one, the law requiring two
+witnesses. But, in such a corrupt age, false witnesses could easily be
+procured. An infamous wretch, by the name of Bedloe, was bribed, a man
+who had been imprisoned in Newgate for swindling. Others equally
+unscrupulous were soon added to the list of informers, and no
+calumnies, however gross and absurd, prevented the people from
+believing them.
+
+It happened that a man, by the name of Coleman, was suspected of
+intrigues. His papers were searched, and some passages in them,
+unfortunately, seemed to confirm the statements of Oates. To impartial
+eyes, these papers simply indicated a desire and a hope that the
+Catholic religion would be reestablished, in view of the predilections
+of Charles and James, and the general posture of affairs, just as some
+enthusiastic Jesuit missionary in the valley of the Mississippi may be
+supposed to write to his superior that America is on the eve of
+conversion to Catholicism.
+
+[Sidenote: Penal Laws against Catholics.]
+
+But the general ferment was still more increased by the disappearance
+of an eminent justice of the peace, who had taken the depositions of
+Oates against Coleman. Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey was found dead, and
+with every mark of violence, in a field near London, and was probably
+murdered by some fanatical persons in the communion of the Church of
+Rome. But if so, the murder was a great blunder. It was worse than a
+crime. The whole community were mad with rage and fear. The old penal
+laws were strictly enforced against the Catholics. The jails were
+filled with victims. London wore the appearance of a besieged city.
+The houses of the Catholics were every where searched, and two
+thousand of them imprisoned. Posts were planted in the street, that
+chains might be thrown across them on the first alarm. The military,
+the train bands, and the volunteers were called out. Forty thousand
+men were kept under guard during the night. Numerous patrols paraded
+the streets. The gates of the Palace were closed, and the guards of
+the city were doubled. Oates was pronounced to be the savior of his
+country, lodged at Whitehall and pensioned with twelve hundred pounds
+a year.
+
+Then flowed more innocent blood than had been shed for a long period.
+Catholics who were noble, and Catholics who were obscure, were alike
+judicially murdered; and the courts of justice, instead of being
+places of refuge, were disgraced by the foulest abominations. Every
+day new witnesses were produced of crimes which never happened, and
+new victims were offered up to appease the wrath of a prejudiced
+people. Among these victims of popular frenzy was the Earl of
+Stafford, a venerable and venerated nobleman of sixty-nine years of
+age, against whom sufficient evidence was not found to convict him;
+and whose only crime was in being at the head of the Catholic party.
+Yet he was found guilty by the House of Peers, fifty-five out of
+eighty-six having voted for his execution. He died on the scaffold,
+but with the greatest serenity, forgiving his persecutors, and
+compassionating their delusions. A future generation, during the reign
+of George IV., however, reversed his attainder, and did justice to his
+memory, and restored his descendants to their rank and fortune.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of Dissenters.]
+
+If no other illustrious victims suffered, persecution was nevertheless
+directed into other channels. Parliament passed an act that no person
+should sit in either House, unless he had previously taken the oath of
+allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration that the
+worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled
+from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, from receiving any
+legacy, and from acting as executors or administrators of estates.
+This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole Catholic population, had
+repeatedly miscarried, but, under influence of the panic which Oates
+and his confederates created, was now triumphantly passed. Charles
+himself gave his royal assent because he was afraid to stem the
+torrent of popular infatuation. And the English nation permitted one
+hundred and thirty years to elapse before the civil disabilities of
+the Catholics were removed, and then only by the most strenuous
+exertions of such a statesman as Sir Robert Peel.
+
+It is some satisfaction to know that justice at last overtook the
+chief authors of this diabolical infatuation. During the reign of
+James II., Oates and others were punished as they deserved. Oates's
+credit gradually passed away. He was fined, imprisoned, and whipped at
+the pillory until life itself had nearly fled. He died unlamented and
+detested, leaving behind him, to all posterity an infamous notoriety.
+
+But the sufferings of the Catholics, during this reign, were more than
+exceeded by the sufferings of Dissenters, who were cruelly persecuted.
+All the various sects of the Protestants were odious and ridiculous in
+the eyes of the king. They were regarded as hostile in their
+sympathies, and treasonable in their designs. They were fined,
+imprisoned, mutilated, and whipped. An Act of Uniformity was passed,
+which restored the old penal laws of Elizabeth, and which subjected
+all to their penalty who did not use the Book of Common Prayer, and
+adhere strictly to the ritual of the Church of England. The
+oligarchical power of the bishops was restored, and two thousand
+ministers were driven from their livings, and compelled to seek a
+precarious support. Many other acts of flagrant injustice were passed
+by a subservient parliament, and cruelly carried into execution by
+unfeeling judges. But the religious persecution of dissenters was not
+consummated until the reign of James under whose favor or direction
+the inhuman Jeffreys inflicted the most atrocious crimes which have
+ever been committed under the sanction of the law. But these will be
+more appropriately noticed under the reign of James II. Charles was
+not so cruel in his temper, or bigoted in his sentiments, as his
+brother James. He was rather a Gallio than a persecutor. He would
+permit any thing rather than suffer himself to be interrupted in his
+pleasures. He was governed by his favorites and his women. He had not
+sufficient moral elevation to be earnest in any thing, even to be a
+bigot in religion. He vacillated between the infidelity of Hobbes and
+the superstitions of Rome. He lived a scoffer, and died a Catholic.
+His temper was easy, but so easy as not to prevent the persecution and
+ruin of his best supporters, when they had become odious to the
+nation. If he was incapable of enmity, he was also incapable of
+friendship. If he hated no one with long-continued malignity, it was
+only because it was too much trouble to hate perseveringly. But he
+loved with no more constancy than he hated. He had no patriotism, and
+no appreciation of moral excellence. He would rather see half of the
+merchants of London ruined, and half of the Dissenters immured in
+gloomy prisons, than lose two hours of inglorious dalliance with one
+of his numerous concubines. A more contemptible prince never sat on
+the English throne, or one whose whole reign was disgraced by a more
+constant succession of political blunders and social crimes. And yet
+he never fully lost his popularity, nor was his reign felt to be as
+burdensome as was that of the protector, Cromwell, thus showing how
+little the moral excellence of rulers is ordinarily appreciated or
+valued by a wilful or blinded generation. We love not the rebukers of
+our sins, or the opposers of our pleasures. We love those who prophesy
+smooth things, and "cry peace, when there is no peace." Such is man in
+his weakness and his degeneracy; and only an omnipotent power can
+change this ordinary temper of the devotees to pleasure and inglorious
+gains.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of Russell and Sydney.]
+
+Among the saddest events during the reign of Charles, were the
+executions of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney. They were concerned,
+with a few other great men, in a conspiracy, which had for its object
+the restoration of greater liberty. They contemplated an insurrection,
+known by the name of the _Rye House Plot_; but it was discovered, and
+Russell and Sydney became martyrs. The former was the son of the Earl
+of Bedford, and the latter was the brother of the Earl of Leicester.
+Russell was a devoted Churchman, of pure morals, and greatly beloved
+by the people. Sydney was a strenuous republican, and was opposed to
+any particular form of church government. He thought that religion
+should be like a divine philosophy in the mind, and had great
+veneration for the doctrines of Plato. Nothing could save these
+illustrious men. The Duke of York and Jeffreys declared that, if they
+were not executed, there would be no safety for themselves. They both
+suffered with great intrepidity, and the friends of liberty have ever
+since cherished their memory with peculiar fondness.
+
+[Sidenote: Manners and Customs of England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Milton--Dryden.]
+
+Mr. Macaulay, in his recent History, has presented the manners and
+customs of England during the disgraceful reign of Charles II. It is
+impossible, in this brief survey, to allude to all those customs; but
+we direct particularly the attention of readers to them, as described
+in his third chapter, from which it would appear, that a most manifest
+and most glorious progress has been made since that period in all the
+arts of civilization, both useful and ornamental. In those times,
+travelling was difficult and slow, from the badness of the roads and
+the imperfections of the carriages. Highwaymen were secreted along the
+thoroughfares, and, in mounted troops, defied the law, and distressed
+the whole travelling community. The transmission of letters by post
+was tardy and unfrequent, and the scandal of coffee-houses supplied
+the greatest want and the greatest luxury of modern times, the
+newspaper. There was great scarcity of books in the country places,
+and the only press in England north of the Trent seems to have been at
+York. Literature was but feebly cultivated by country squires or
+country parsons, and female education was disgracefully neglected. Few
+rich men had libraries as large or valuable as are now common to
+shopkeepers and mechanics; while the literary stores of a lady of the
+manor were confined chiefly to the prayer-book and the receipt-book.
+And those works which were produced or read were disgraced by
+licentious ribaldry, which had succeeded religious austerity. The
+drama was the only department of literature which compensated authors,
+and this was scandalous in the extreme. We cannot turn over the pages
+of one of the popular dramatists of the age without being shocked by
+the most culpable indecency. Even Dryden was no exception to the rule;
+and his poetry, some of which is the most beautiful in the language,
+can hardly be put into the hands of the young without danger of
+corrupting them. Poets and all literary men lived by the bounty of the
+rich and great, and prospered only as they pandered to depraved
+passions. Many, of great intellectual excellence, died from want and
+mortification; so that the poverty and distress of literary men became
+proverbial, and all worldly-wise people shunned contact with them as
+expensive and degrading. They were hunted from cocklofts to cellars by
+the minions of the law, and the foulest jails were often their only
+resting-place. The restoration of Charles proved unfortunate to one
+great and immortal genius, whom no temptations could assail, and no
+rewards could bribe. He "possessed his soul in patience," and "soared
+above the Aonian mount," amid general levity and profligacy. Had he
+written for a pure, classic, and learned age, he could not have
+written with greater moral beauty. But he lived when no moral
+excellence was appreciated, and his claims on the gratitude of the
+world are beyond all estimation, when we remember that he wrote with
+the full consciousness, like the great Bacon, that his works would
+only be valued or read by future generations. Milton was, indeed,
+unmolested; but he was sadly neglected in his blindness and in his
+greatness. But, like all the great teachers of the world, he was
+sustained by something higher than earthly applause, and labored, like
+an immortal artist, from the love which his labor excited,--labored to
+realize the work of art which his imagination had conceived, as well
+as to propagate ideas and sentiments which should tend to elevate
+mankind. Dryden was his contemporary, but obtained a greater homage,
+not because he was more worthy, but because he adapted his genius to
+the taste of a frivolous and corrupt people. He afterwards wrote more
+unexceptionably, composed lyrics instead of farces, and satires
+instead of plays. In his latter days, he could afford to write in a
+purer style; and, as he became independent, he reared the
+superstructure of his glorious fame. But Dryden spent the best parts
+of his life as a panderer to the vices of the town, and was an idol
+chiefly, in Wills's Coffee House, of lampooners, and idlers, and
+scandal-mongers. Nor were there many people, in the church or in the
+state, sufficiently influential and noble to stem the torrent. The
+city clergy were the most respectable, and the pulpits of London were
+occupied with twelve men who afterwards became bishops, and who are
+among the great ornaments of the sacred literature of their country.
+Sherlock, Tillotson, Wake, Collier, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
+Fowler, Sharp, Tennison, and Beveridge made the Established Church
+respected in the town; but the country clergy, as a whole, were
+ignorant and depressed. Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent
+to bring up a family comfortably or respectably. The clergyman was
+disdained even by the county attorney, was hardly tolerated at the
+table of his patron, and could scarcely marry beyond the rank of a
+cook or housekeeper. And his poverty and bondage continued so long
+that, in the times of Swift, the parson was a byword and a jest among
+the various servants in the households of the great. Still there were
+eminent clergymen amid the general depression of their order, both in
+and out of the Established Church. Besides the London preachers were
+many connected with the Universities and Cathedrals; and there were
+some distinguished Dissenters, among whom Baxter, Howe, and Alleine if
+there were no others, would alone have made the name of Puritan
+respectable.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of the People.]
+
+The saddest fact, in connection with the internal history of England,
+at this time, was the condition of the people. They had small wages,
+and many privations. They had no social rank, and were disgraced by
+many vices. They were ignorant and brutal. The wages of laborers only
+averaged four shillings a week, while those of mechanics were not
+equal to what some ordinarily earn, in this country and in these
+times, in a single day. Both peasants, and artisans were not only ill
+paid, but ill used, and they died, miserably and prematurely, from
+famine and disease. Nor did sympathy exist for the misfortunes of the
+poor. There were no institutions of public philanthropy. Jails were
+unvisited by the ministers of mercy, and the abodes of poverty were
+left by a careless generation to be dens of infamy and crime. Such was
+England two hundred years ago; and there is no delusion more
+unwarranted by sober facts than that which supposes that those former
+times were better than our own, in any thing which abridges the labors
+or alleviates the miseries of mankind. "It is now the fashion to place
+the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of
+comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman;
+when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of
+which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster
+in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential
+lanes of our towns; and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns
+than they now die on the coast of Guinea. But we too shall, in our
+turn, be outstripped, and, in our turn, envied. There is constant
+improvement, as there also is constant discontent; and future
+generations may talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as a time when
+England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together
+by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the
+poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Of all the works which have yet appeared,
+     respecting this interesting epoch, the new History of
+     Macaulay is the most brilliant and instructive. Indeed, the
+     student scarcely needs any other history, in spite of
+     Macaulay's Whig doctrines. He may sacrifice something to
+     effect; and he may give us pictures, instead of philosophy;
+     but, nevertheless, his book has transcendent merit, and will
+     be read, by all classes, so long as English history is
+     prized. Mackintosh's fragment, on the same period, is more
+     philosophical, and possesses very great merits. Lingard's
+     History is very valuable on this reign, and should be
+     consulted. Hume, also, will never cease to please. Burnet is
+     a prejudiced historian, but his work is an authority. The
+     lives of Milton, Dryden, and Clarendon should also be read
+     in this connection. Hallam has but treated the
+     constitutional history of these times. See also Temple's
+     Works; the Life of William Lord Russell; Rapin's History.
+     Pepys, Dalrymple, Rymeri Foedera, the Commons' Journal, and
+     the Howell State Trials are not easily accessible, and not
+     necessary, except to the historian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+REIGN OF JAMES II.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of James II.]
+
+Charles II. died on the 6th of February, 1685, and his brother, the
+Duke of York, ascended his throne, without opposition, under the title
+of _James II._ As is usual with princes, on their accession, he made
+many promises of ruling by the laws, and of defending the liberties of
+the nation. And he commenced his administration under good auspices.
+The country was at peace, he was not unpopular, and all classes and
+parties readily acquiesced in his government.
+
+He retained all the great officers who had served under his brother
+that he could trust; and Rochester became prime minister, Sunderland
+kept possession of the Seals, and Godolphin was made lord chamberlain.
+He did not dismiss Halifax, Ormond, or Guildford, although he disliked
+and distrusted them, but abridged their powers, and mortified them by
+neglect.
+
+The Commons voted him one million two hundred thousand pounds, and the
+Scottish parliament added twenty-five thousand pounds more, and the
+Customs for life. But this sum he did not deem sufficient for his
+wants, and therefore, like his brother, applied for aid to Louis XIV.,
+and consented to become his pensioner and vassal, and for the paltry
+sum of two hundred thousand pounds. James received the money with
+tears of gratitude, hoping by this infamous pension to rule the nation
+without a parliament. It was not, of course, known to the nation, or
+even to his ministers, generally.
+
+He was scarcely crowned before England was invaded by the Duke of
+Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., and Scotland by the Duke of
+Argyle, with a view of ejecting James from the throne.
+
+Both these noblemen were exiles in Holland, and both were justly
+obnoxious to the government for their treasonable intentions and acts.
+Argyle was loath to engage in an enterprise so desperate as the
+conquest of England; but he was an enthusiast, was at the head of the
+most powerful of the Scottish clans, the Campbells, and he hoped for a
+general rising throughout Scotland, to put down what was regarded as
+idolatry, and to strike a blow for liberty and the Kirk.
+
+Having concerted his measures with Monmouth, he set sail from Holland,
+the 2d of May, 1685, in spite of all the efforts of the English
+minister, and landed at Kirkwall, one of the Orkney Islands. But his
+objects were well known, and the whole militia of the land were put
+under arms to resist him. He, however, collected a force of two
+thousand five hundred Highlanders, and marched towards Glasgow; but he
+was miserably betrayed and deserted. His forces were dispersed, and he
+himself was seized while attempting to escape in disguise, brought to
+Edinburgh, and beheaded. His followers were treated with great
+harshness, but the rebellion was completely suppressed.
+
+[Sidenote: Monmouth Lands in England.]
+
+Monmouth had agreed to sail in six days from the departure of Argyle;
+but he lingered at Brussels, loath to part from a beautiful mistress,
+the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. It was a month before he set sail from
+the Texel, with about eighty officers and one hundred and fifty
+followers--a small force to overturn the throne. But he relied on his
+popularity with the people, and on a false and exaggerated account of
+the unpopularity of James. He landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, about
+the middle of June, and forthwith issued a flaming proclamation,
+inviting all to join his standard, as a deliverer from the cruel
+despotism of a Catholic prince, whom he accused of every crime--of the
+burning of London, of the Popish Plot, of the condemnation of Russell
+and Sydney, of poisoning the late king, and of infringements on the
+constitution. In this declaration, falsehood was mingled with truth,
+but well adapted to inflame the passions of the people. He was
+supported by many who firmly believed that his mother, Lucy Walters,
+was the lawful wife of Charles II. He, of course, claimed the English
+throne, but professed to waive his rights until they should be settled
+by a parliament. The adventurer grossly misunderstood the temper of
+the people, and the extent to which his claims were recognized. He was
+unprovided with money, with generals, and with troops. He collected a
+few regiments from the common people, and advanced to Somersetshire.
+At Taunton his reception was flattering. All classes welcomed him as a
+deliverer from Heaven, and the poor rent the air with acclamations and
+shouts. His path was strewed with flowers, and the windows were
+crowded with ladies, who waved their handkerchiefs, and even waited
+upon him with a large deputation. Twenty-six lovely maidens presented
+the handsome son of Charles II. with standards and a Bible, which he
+kissed, and promised to defend.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Sedgemoor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Monmouth.]
+
+But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of Albemarle--the
+son of General Monk, who restored Charles II.--advanced against him
+with the militia of the country, and Monmouth was supported only by
+the vulgar, the weak, and the credulous. Not a single nobleman joined
+his standard, and but few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders.
+He lost time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who
+followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of England,
+where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. But all men of
+station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged and dismayed, he
+reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture Bristol, then the second
+city in the kingdom. He was again disappointed. He was forced, from
+unexpected calamities, to abandon the enterprise. He then turned his
+eye to Wilts; but when he arrived at the borders of the county, he
+found that none of the bodies on which he had calculated had made
+their appearance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which
+ended favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton,
+natural son of Charles II., distinguished himself against his half
+brother; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridgewater.
+Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at Sedgemoor. Here
+was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal to the rebels, "the last
+deserving the name of _battle_, that has been fought on English
+ground." Monmouth, when all was lost, fled from the field, and
+hastened to the British Channel, hoping to gain the Continent. He was
+found near the New Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and
+fatigue. He was sent, under a strong guard, to Ringwood; and all that
+was left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he
+clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He
+abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant who
+never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a friend, when
+even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from a man he
+both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, lodged in the
+Tower, and executed in a bungling manner by "Jack Ketch"--the name
+given for several centuries to the public executioner. He was buried
+under St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower, where reposed the headless
+bodies of so many noted saints and political martyrs--the great
+Somerset, and the still greater Northumberland, the two Earls of
+Essex, and the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and other great men who figured
+in the reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors.
+
+Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most signal
+vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. No mercy was
+shown, on the part of government, to any party or person.
+
+Of the agents of James in punishing all concerned in the rebellion,
+there were two, preeminently, whose names are consigned to an infamous
+immortality. The records of English history contain no two names so
+loathsome and hateful as Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffreys.
+
+The former was left, by Feversham, in command of the royal forces at
+Bridgewater, after the battle of Sedgemoor. He had already gained an
+unenviable notoriety, as governor of Tangier, where he displayed the
+worst vices of a tyrant and a sensualist; and his regiment had
+imitated him in his disgraceful brutality. But this leader and these
+troops were now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. One hundred
+captives were put to death during the week which succeeded the battle.
+His irregular butcheries, however, were not according to the taste of
+the king. A more systematic slaughter, under the sanctions of the law,
+was devised, and Jeffreys was sent into the Western Circuit, to try
+the numerous persons who were immured in the jails of the western
+counties.
+
+Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench,
+was not deficient in talent, but was constitutionally the victim of
+violent passions. He first attracted notice as an insolent barrister
+at the Old Bailey Court, who had a rare tact in cross-examining
+criminals and browbeating witnesses. According to Macaulay, "impudence
+and ferocity sat upon his brow, while all tenderness for the feelings
+of others, all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were
+obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the
+rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The
+profusion of his maledictions could hardly be rivalled in the Fish
+Market or Bear Garden. His yell of fury sounded, as one who often
+heard it said, like the thunder of the judgment day. He early became
+common serjeant, and then recorder of London. As soon as he obtained
+all the city could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass
+and his tongue of venom to the court." He was just the man whom
+Charles II. wanted as a tool. He was made chief justice of the highest
+court of criminal law in the realm, and discharged its duties entirely
+to the satisfaction of a king resolved on the subjection of the
+English nation. His violence, at all times, was frightful; but when he
+was drunk, it was terrific: and he was generally intoxicated. His
+first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sydney. On the death
+of Charles, he obtained from James a peerage, and a seat in the
+Cabinet, a signal mark of royal approbation. In prospect of yet
+greater honors, he was ready to do whatever James required. James
+wished the most summary vengeance inflicted on the rebels, and
+Jeffreys, with his tiger ferocity, was ready to execute his will.
+
+[Sidenote: Brutality of Jeffreys.]
+
+Nothing is more memorable than those "bloody assizes" which he held in
+those counties through which Monmouth had passed. Nothing is
+remembered with more execration. Nothing ever equalled the brutal
+cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar
+violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and
+I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of
+villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting
+Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the
+rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were accused, to be hanged or
+burned; and the excess of his barbarities called forth pity and
+indignation even from devoted loyalists. He boasted that he had hanged
+more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest.
+On a single circuit, he hanged three hundred and fifty; some of these
+were people of great worth, and many of them were innocent; while many
+whom he spared from an ignominious death, were sentenced to the most
+cruel punishments--to the lash of the pillory, to imprisonment in the
+foulest jails, to mutilation, to banishment, and to heavy fines.
+
+King James watched the conduct of the inhuman Jeffreys with delight,
+and rewarded him with the Great Seal. The Old Bailey lawyer had now
+climbed to the greatest height to which a subject could aspire. He was
+Lord Chancellor of England--the confidential friend and agent of the
+king, and his unscrupulous instrument in imposing the yoke of bondage
+on an insulted nation.
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Dissenters.]
+
+At this period, the condition of the Puritans was deplorable. At no
+previous time was persecution more inveterate, not even under the
+administration of Laud and Strafford. The persecution commenced soon
+after the restoration of Charles II., and increased in malignity until
+the elevation of Jeffreys to the chancellorship. The sufferings of no
+class of sectaries bore any proportion to theirs. They found it
+difficult to meet together for prayer or exhortation even in the
+smallest assemblies. Their ministers were introduced in disguise.
+Their houses were searched. They were fined, imprisoned, and banished.
+Among the ministers who were deprived of their livings, were Gilpin,
+Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who
+still, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, enjoy a
+wide-spread reputation as standard writers on theological subjects.
+These great lights of the seventeenth century were doomed to privation
+and poverty, with thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been
+educated at the Universities, and were among the best men in the
+kingdom. All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated
+them more than Charles II. and James II. Under their sanction,
+complying parliaments passed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty.
+The laws which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were
+reenacted and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two
+thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to
+conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Conventicle Act
+ordained that if any person, above sixteen years of age, should be
+present at any religious meeting, in any other manner than allowed by
+the Church of England, he should suffer three months' imprisonment, or
+pay a fine of five pounds, that six months imprisonment and ten pounds
+fine should be inflicted as a penalty for the second offence, and
+banishment for the third. Married women taken at "conventicles," were
+sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is calculated that
+twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy prisons, and
+that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during their
+imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the jails,
+added to cruel treatment.
+
+Among the illustrious men who suffered most unjustly, was Richard
+Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He was minister at
+Kidderminster, where he was content to labor in an humble sphere,
+having refused a bishopric. He had written one hundred and forty-five
+distinct treatises, in two hundred volumes, which were characterized
+for learning and talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor
+commanding virtues could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys;
+and, in fifteen years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings
+drew tears from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friendship he had been
+honored. "But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of judges,
+was cruelly insulted by the worst." When he wished to plead his cause,
+the drunken chief justice replied, "O Richard, Richard, thou art an
+old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a
+cart, every one of which is as full of sedition as an egg is full of
+meat. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of
+the brotherhood in corners, and a doctor of divinity at your elbow;
+but, by the grace of God, I will crush you all."
+
+Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential or
+learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the Baptists,
+and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius--the most
+successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. The Pilgrim's
+Progress is the most popular religious work ever published, full of
+genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of the Calvinistic
+theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. This book shows
+the triumph of genius over learning, and the people's appreciation of
+exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate tinker, a travelling
+preacher, who spent the best part of his life between the houses of
+the poor and the county jails, the object of reproach and ignominy,
+now, however, takes a proud place, in the world's estimation, with the
+master minds of all nations--with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. He
+has arisen above the prejudices of the great and fashionable; and the
+learned and aristocratic Southey has sought to be the biographer of
+his sorrows and the expounder of his visions. The proud bishops who
+disdained him, the haughty judges who condemned him, are now chiefly
+known as his persecutors, while he continues to be more honored and
+extolled with every succeeding generation.
+
+[Sidenote: George Fox.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution of the Quakers.]
+
+Another illustrious victim of religious persecution in that age,
+illustrious in our eyes, but ignoble in the eyes of his
+contemporaries, was George Fox, the founder of the sect of the
+Quakers. He, like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education.
+Like him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own
+soul--from inward experiences--from religious contemplations. He was a
+man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual action.
+His first studies were the mysteries of theology--the great questions
+respecting duty and destiny; and these agitated his earnest mind
+almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought consolation from the
+clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his soul. Like an old
+Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfrequented solitudes, where he
+gave loose to his imagination, and where celestial beings came to
+comfort him. He despised alike the reasonings of philosophers, the
+dogmas of divines, and the disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose
+above all their prejudices, and sought light and truth from original
+sources. His peace was based on the conviction that God's Holy Spirit
+spoke directly to his soul; and this was above reason, above
+authority, a surer guide than any outward or written revelation. While
+this divine voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with
+them, for they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the
+Scriptures were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and
+literally to be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his
+life, nor to save a world, because he was directly commanded to
+abstain from swearing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of
+expediency, and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him
+assured him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all
+tribulations. He believed in the power of justice to protect itself,
+and reposed on the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an
+omnipotent weapon. He disdained force to accomplish important ends,
+and sought no control over government, except by intelligence. He
+believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis of all great and
+permanent revolutions; these he was ever ready to declare; these were
+sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms; these would be
+revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all forms and pompous
+ceremonials in the worship of God, for they seemed useless and
+idolatrous. God was a Spirit, and to be worshipped in spirit and in
+truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of
+prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected
+to splendid places for the worship of God, and dispensed with
+steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless,
+being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but
+to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the
+Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all
+titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
+Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the
+Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too,
+would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he
+fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the
+church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity
+and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar
+star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar
+genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty
+and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of
+conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in
+all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the
+notion of special divine illumination?
+
+No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at
+nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They
+shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men
+attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical
+theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties
+attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor
+their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism
+could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
+They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But
+they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their
+faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they belonged to the
+humbler classes, although some men illustrious for birth and wealth
+joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was
+William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the
+glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flourishing and
+virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the
+wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their
+enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk
+of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and
+vengeance.
+
+James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with
+fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges
+and the bishops were ready to cooeperate with his ministers in imposing
+a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment
+they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even
+judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools.
+
+[Sidenote: Despotic Power of James.]
+
+His power, to all appearance, was consolidated; and he now began,
+without disguise, to advance the two great objects which were dearest
+to his heart--the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the
+imposition of a despotic yoke. He wished to be, like Louis XIV., a
+despotic and absolute prince; and, to secure this end, he was ready to
+violate the constitution of his country. The three inglorious years of
+his reign were a succession of encroachments and usurpations.
+
+Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue without
+an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary power, the
+court procured addresses from public bodies, in which the king was
+thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs and excise.
+
+In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under the
+last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted bodies.
+So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all who were
+imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired universal
+toleration, this act would merit our highest praises; but it was soon
+evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the expense of all
+the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee to the Church of
+Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he could but advance the
+interests of a party, to which nearly the whole nation was bitterly
+opposed. Roman Catholics were proscribed by the laws. The Test Act
+excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the
+Established Church. The laws were unjust, but still they were the laws
+which James had sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed them, and
+kept his faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in good time
+have been modified.
+
+[Sidenote: Favor Extended to Catholics.]
+
+But James would not wait for constitutional measures. He resolved to
+elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the
+church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great
+majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics
+to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential
+advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal
+nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy
+Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure
+the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from
+office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was
+turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre
+of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He
+united with Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was
+sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When
+opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or
+dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.
+
+[Sidenote: High Commission Court.]
+
+Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even
+in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a
+prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly
+defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all
+offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic
+body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and
+tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were
+compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been
+infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly
+illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held
+office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times,
+for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so
+requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers
+accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
+As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the
+constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy
+counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted
+to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ
+Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a
+notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been
+done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who
+was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a
+sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to
+restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy
+the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a
+tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated High
+Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great
+object of the revolutionists who brought Charles I. to the block--the
+most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The
+members of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try
+all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions,
+notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents--Jeffreys,
+the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester;
+the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President;
+and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned
+Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not
+suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do
+so by the king--a man who had committed no crime, but simply
+discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his
+spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to
+two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous
+clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray
+their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two
+greatest corporations in the land,--the Universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge,--institutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in
+their crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel
+with these great bodies, because they would not approve of his
+measures to overturn the church with which they were connected, and
+which it was their duty and interest to uphold. The king had commanded
+Cambridge to bestow the degree of master of arts on a Benedictine
+monk, which was against the laws of the University and of parliament.
+The University refused to act against the law, and, in consequence,
+the vice-chancellor and the senate, which consisted of doctors and
+masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission. The
+vice-chancellor, Pechell, was deprived of his office and emoluments,
+which were of the nature of freehold property. But this was not the
+worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on imposing a Roman
+Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen College, one of the
+richest and most venerable of the University of Oxford, against even
+the friendly remonstrances of his best friends, even of his Catholic
+counsellors, and not only against the advice of his friends, but
+against all the laws of the land and of the rights of the University;
+for the proposed president, Farmer, was a Catholic, and was not a
+fellow of the college, and therefore especially disqualified. He was
+also a man of depraved morals. The fellows refused to elect Farmer,
+and chose John Hough instead. They were accordingly cited to the
+infamous court of which Jeffreys was the presiding and controlling
+genius. Their election was set aside, but Farmer was not confirmed,
+being too vile even for Jeffreys to sustain.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Universities.]
+
+The king was exceedingly enraged at the opposition he received from
+the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he summoned
+the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them to obey him in the
+matter of a president. They still held out in opposition, and the
+king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to resort to bolder
+measures. A special commission was instituted. Hough was forcibly
+ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, against the voice of all
+the fellows but two. But the blinded king was not yet content. The
+fellows were expelled from the University by a royal edict, and the
+high commissioner pronounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever
+holding any church preferment.
+
+But these severities were blunders, and produced a different effect
+from what was anticipated. The nation was indignant; the Universities
+lost all reverence; the clergy, in a body, were alienated; and the
+whole aristocracy were filled with defiance.
+
+[Sidenote: Magdalen College.]
+
+But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all
+opposition; and, now that the fellows of Magdalen College were
+expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one day
+twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman Catholic
+bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to the
+extremities of the kingdom; and bitter resentment took the place of
+former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old friends even, as a
+tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. And, indeed, he seemed
+like one completely infatuated, bent on the ruin of that church which
+even James I. and the other Stuart kings regarded as the surest and
+firmest pillar of the throne.
+
+The bishops of the English Church had in times past, as well as the
+Universities, inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience; and
+oppression must be very grievous indeed which would induce them to
+oppose the royal will. But James had completely alienated them, and
+they, reluctantly, at last, threw themselves into the ranks of
+opposition. Had they remained true to him, he might still have held
+his sceptre; but it was impossible that any body of men could longer
+bear his injustice and tyranny.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of the Seven Bishops.]
+
+From motives as impossible to fathom, as it is difficult to account
+for the actions of a madman, he ordered that the Declaration of
+Indulgence, an unconstitutional act, should be read publicly from all
+the pulpits in the kingdom. The London clergy, the most respectable
+and influential in the realm, made up their minds to disregard the
+order, and the bishops sustained them in their refusal. The archbishop
+and six bishops accordingly signed a petition to the king, which
+embodied the views of the London clergy. It was presented to the
+tyrant, by the prelates in a body, at his palace. He chose to consider
+it as a treasonable and libellous act--as nothing short of rebellion.
+The conduct of the prelates was generally and enthusiastically
+approved by the nation, and especially by the Dissenters, who now
+united with the members of the Established Church. James had recently
+courted the Dissenters, not wishing to oppose too many enemies at a
+time. He had conferred on them many indulgences, and had elevated some
+of them to high positions, with the hope that they would unite with
+him in breaking down the Establishment. But while some of the more
+fanatical were gained over, the great body were not so easily
+deceived. They knew well enough that, after crushing the Church of
+England, he would crush them. And they hated Catholicism and tyranny
+more than they did Episcopacy, in spite of their many persecutions.
+Some of the more eminent of the Dissenters took a noble stand, and
+their conduct was fully appreciated by the Established clergy. For the
+first time, since the accession of Elizabeth, the Dissenters and the
+Episcopalians treated each other with that courtesy and forbearance
+which enlightened charity demands. The fear of a common enemy united
+them. But time, also, had, at length, removed many of their mutual
+asperities.
+
+Nothing could exceed the vexation of James when he found that not only
+the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were
+sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have
+yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a
+bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most
+clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the
+bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most
+interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried at the
+Court of the King's Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were
+employed as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted
+to by the servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a
+verdict of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts
+and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, whom the
+king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe London, partook of the
+enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All classes were united in
+expressions of joy that the tyrant for once was baffled. The king was
+indeed signally defeated; but his defeat did not teach him wisdom. It
+only made him the more resolved to crush the liberties of the Church,
+and the liberties of the nation. But it also arrayed against him all
+classes and all parties of Protestants, who now began to form
+alliances, and devise measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the
+very courts which James had instituted to crush liberty proved
+refractory. Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his
+resignation as one of the Lord Commissioners. The very meanness of his
+spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection peculiarly
+alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble. The Court
+of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the Established Church,
+especially when its odious character was loudly denounced by all
+classes in the kingdom--even by some of the agents of tyranny itself.
+The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness.
+
+[Sidenote: Tyranny and Infatuation of James.]
+
+But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parliament was
+necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free parliament it was
+impossible to obtain. He resolved to bring together, by corruption and
+intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent
+distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a parliament,
+and might be willing to register any edict he proposed. And,
+accordingly, every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, was made
+to understand that he must support the throne or lose his office. He
+set himself vigorously to pack a parliament. A committee of seven
+privy counsellors sat at Whitehall for the purpose of regulating the
+municipal corporations. Father Petre was made a privy councillor.
+Committees, after the model of the one at Whitehall, were established
+in all parts of the realm. The lord lieutenants received written
+orders to go down to their respective counties, and superintend the
+work of corruption and fraud. But half of them refused to perform the
+ignominious work, and were immediately dismissed from their posts,
+which were posts of great honor and consideration. Among these were
+the great Earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Pembroke, Rutland,
+Bridgewater, Thanet, Northampton, Abingdon, and Gainsborough, whose
+families were of high antiquity, wealth, and political influence. Nor
+could those nobles, who consented to conform to the wishes and orders
+of the king, make any progress in their counties, on account of the
+general opposition of the gentry. The county squires, as a body, stood
+out in fierce resistance. They refused to send up any men to
+parliament who would vote away the liberties and interests of the
+nation. The justices and deputy lieutenants declared that they would
+sustain, at all hazard, the Protestant religion. And these persons
+were not odious republicans, but zealous royalists, now firmly united
+and resolved to oppose unlawful acts, though commanded by the king.
+
+James and his ministers next resolved to take away the power of the
+municipal corporations. The boroughs were required to surrender their
+charters. But a great majority firmly refused to part with their
+privileges. They were prosecuted and intimidated, but still they held
+out. Oxford, by a vote of eighty to two, voted to defend its
+franchises. Other towns did the same. Meanwhile, all the public
+departments were subjected to a strict inquisition, and all, who would
+not support the policy of the king, were turned out of office, and
+among them were some who had been heretofore the zealous servants of
+the crown.
+
+[Sidenote: Organized Opposition.]
+
+It was now full time for the organization of a powerful confederacy
+against the king. It was obvious, to men of all parties, and all
+ranks, that he meditated the complete subversion of English liberties.
+The fundamental laws of the kingdom had been systematically violated.
+The power of dispensing with acts of parliament had been strained, so
+that the king had usurped nearly all legislative authority. The courts
+of justice had been filled with unscrupulous judges, who were ready to
+obey all the king's injunctions, whether legal or illegal. Roman
+Catholics had been elevated to places of dignity in the Established
+Church. An infamous and tyrannical Court of High Commission had been
+created; persons, who could not legally set foot in England, had been
+placed at the head of colleges, and had taken their seat at the royal
+council-board. Lord lieutenants of counties, and other servants of the
+crown, had been dismissed for refusing to obey illegal commands; the
+franchises of almost every borough had been invaded; the courts of
+justice were venal and corrupt; an army of Irish Catholics, whom the
+nation abhorred, had been brought over to England; even the sacred
+right of petition was disregarded, and respectful petitioners were
+treated as criminals; and a free parliament was prevented from
+assembling.
+
+Under such circumstances, and in view of these unquestioned facts, a
+great conspiracy was set on foot to dethrone the king and overturn the
+hateful dynasty.
+
+Among the conspirators were some of the English nobles, the chief of
+whom was the Earl of Devonshire, and one of the leaders of the Whig
+party. Shrewsbury and Danby also joined them, the latter nobleman
+having been one of the most zealous advocates of the doctrine of
+passive obedience which many of the High Churchmen and Tories had
+defended in the reign of Charles II. It was under his administration,
+as prime minister, that a law had been proposed to parliament to
+exclude all persons from office who refused to take an oath, declaring
+that they thought resistance in all cases unlawful. Compton, the
+Bishop of London, who had been insolently treated by the court, joined
+the conspirators, whose designs were communicated to the Prince of
+Orange by Edward Russell and Henry Sydney, brothers of those two great
+political martyrs who had been executed in the last reign. The Prince
+of Orange, who had married a daughter of James II., agreed to invade
+England with a well-appointed army.
+
+[Sidenote: William, Prince of Orange.]
+
+William of Orange was doubtless the greatest statesman and warrior of
+his age, and one of the ablest men who ever wore a crown. He was at
+the head of the great Protestant party in Europe, and was the
+inveterate foe of Louis XIV. When a youth, his country had been
+invaded by Louis, and desolated and abandoned to pillage and cruelty.
+It was amid unexampled calamities, when the population were every
+where flying before triumphant armies, and the dikes of Holland had
+been opened for the ravages of the sea in order to avoid the more
+cruel ravages of war, that William was called to be at the head of
+affairs. He had scarcely emerged from boyhood; but his boyhood was
+passed in scenes of danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents
+were most precociously developed. His tastes were warlike; but he was
+a warrior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military
+glory, but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure
+the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambitious
+monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating principle of his
+existence; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly the policy and
+enterprises of the French king, even to the disadvantage of his native
+country and the country which adopted him.
+
+William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which the
+discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the
+Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of
+the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had long been
+fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny of James. He was a
+sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising genius, and a consummate
+statesman. But he delayed taking any decisive measures until affairs
+were ripe for his projects--until the misgovernment and encroachments
+of James drove the nation to the borders of frenzy. He then obtained
+the consent of the States General for the meditated invasion of
+England, and made immense preparations, which, however, were carefully
+concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape,
+however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who
+remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and
+offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not
+believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a
+spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence.
+Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of
+William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, and
+supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend of the
+Prince of Orange. Then he made haste to fit out a fleet; and thirty
+ships of the line were put under the command of Lord Dartmouth. An
+army of forty thousand men--the largest that any king of England had
+ever commanded--was also sent to the seaboard; a force more than
+sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion.
+
+[Sidenote: Critical Condition of James.]
+
+At the same time, the king made great concessions. He abolished the
+Court of High Commission. He restored the charter of the city of
+London. He permitted the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen
+College, to make any reforms he pleased. He would not, however, part
+with an iota of his dispensing power, and still hoped to rout William,
+and change the religion of his country. But all his concessions were
+too late. Whigs and Tories, Dissenters and Churchmen, were ready to
+welcome their Dutch deliverer. Nor had James any friends on whom he
+could rely. His prime minister, Sunderland, was in treaty with the
+conspirators, and waiting to betray him. Churchill, who held one of
+the highest commissions in the army, and who was under great
+obligations to the king, was ready to join the standard of William.
+Jeffreys, the lord chancellor, was indeed true in his allegiance, but
+his crimes were past all forgiveness by the nation; and even had he
+rebelled,--and he was base enough to do so,--his services would have
+been spurned by William and all his adherents.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of England by William.]
+
+On the 29th of October, 1688, the armament of William put to sea; but
+the ships had scarcely gained half the distance to England when they
+were dispersed and driven back to Holland by a violent tempest. The
+hopes of James revived; but they were soon dissipated. The fleet of
+William, on the 1st of November, again put to sea. It was composed of
+more than six hundred vessels, five hundred of which were men of war,
+and they were favored by auspicious gales. The same winds which
+favored the Dutch ships retarded the fleet of Dartmouth. On the 5th of
+November, the troops of William disembarked at Brixham, near Torbay in
+Devonshire, without opposition. On the 6th, he advanced to Newton
+Abbot, and, on the 9th, reached Exeter. He was cordially received, and
+magnificently entertained. He and his lieutenant-general, Marshal
+Schomberg, one of the greatest commanders in Europe, entered Exeter
+together in the grand military procession, which was like a Roman
+triumph. Near him also was Bentinck, his intimate friend and
+counsellor, the founder of a great ducal family. The procession
+marched to the splendid Cathedral, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and Burnet
+preached a sermon.
+
+Thus far all things had been favorable, and William was fairly
+established on English ground. Still his affairs were precarious, and
+James's condition not utterly hopeless or desperate. In spite of the
+unpopularity of the king, his numerous encroachments, and his
+disaffected army, the enterprise of William was hazardous. He was an
+invader, and the slightest repulse would have been dangerous to his
+interests. James was yet a king, and had the control of the army, the
+navy, and the treasury. He was a legitimate king, whose claims were
+undisputed. And he was the father of a son, and that son,
+notwithstanding the efforts of the Protestants to represent him as a
+false heir, was indeed the Prince of Wales. William had no claim to
+the throne so long as that prince was living. Nor had the nobles and
+gentry flocked to his standard as he had anticipated. It was nearly a
+week before a single person of rank or consequence joined him.
+Devonshire was in Derbyshire, and Churchill had still the confidence
+of his sovereign. The forces of the king were greatly superior to his
+own. And James had it in his power to make concessions which would
+have satisfied a great part of the nation.
+
+But William had not miscalculated. He had profoundly studied the
+character of James, and the temper of the English. He knew that a
+fatal blindness and obstinacy had been sent upon him, and that he
+never would relinquish his darling scheme of changing the religion of
+the nation; and he knew that the nation would never acquiesce in that
+change; that Popery was hateful in their sight. He also trusted to his
+own good sword, and to fortunate circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
+
+And he was not long doomed to suspense, which is generally so
+difficult to bear. In a few days, Lord Cornbury, colonel of a
+regiment, and son of the Earl of Clarendon, and therefore a relative
+of James himself, deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined him
+in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer that
+ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, who commanded
+at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at the prince's disposal,
+with the fortress which he was intrusted to guard. His army swelled in
+numbers and importance. Devonshire raised the standard of rebellion at
+Chatsworth. London was in a ferment. James was with his army at
+Salisbury, but gave the order to retreat, not daring to face the
+greatest captain in Europe. Soon after, he sent away the queen and the
+Prince of Wales to France, and made preparations for his own
+ignominious flight--the very thing his enemies desired, for his life
+was in no danger, and his affairs even then might have been
+compromised, in spite of the rapid defection of his friends, and the
+advance of William, with daily augmenting forces, upon London. On the
+11th of December, the king fled from London, with the intention of
+embarking at Sheerness, and was detained by the fishermen of the
+coast; but, by an order from the Lords, was set at liberty, and
+returned to the capital. William, nearly at the same time, reached
+London, and took up his quarters at St. James's Palace. It is needless
+to add, that the population of the city were friendly to his cause,
+and that he was now virtually the king of England. It is a
+satisfaction also to add, that the most infamous instrument of royal
+tyranny was seized in the act of flight, at Wapping, in the mean
+disguise of a sailor. He was discovered by the horrible fierceness of
+his countenance. Jeffreys was committed to the Tower; and the Tower
+screened him from a worse calamity, for the mob would have torn him in
+pieces. Catholic priests were also arrested, and their chapels and
+houses destroyed.
+
+Meanwhile parliament assembled and deliberated on the state of
+affairs. Many propositions were made and rejected. The king fled a
+second time, and the throne was declared vacant. But the crown was not
+immediately offered to the Prince of Orange, although addresses were
+made to him as a national benefactor. Many were in favor of a regency.
+Another party was for placing the Princess Mary on the throne, and
+giving to William, during her life, the title of king, and such a
+share of the administration as she chose to give him.
+
+But William had risked every thing for a throne, and nothing less than
+the crown of England would now content him. He gave the convention to
+understand that, much as he esteemed his wife, he would never accept a
+subordinate and precarious place in her government; "that he would not
+submit to be tied to the apron-strings of the best of wives;" that,
+unless he were offered the crown for life, he should return to
+Holland.
+
+It was accordingly settled by parliament that he should hold the regal
+dignity conjointly with his wife, but that the whole power of the
+government should be placed in his hands. And the Princess Mary
+willingly acceded, being devoted to her husband, and unambitious for
+herself.
+
+[Sidenote: Consummation of the Revolution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Declaration of Rights.]
+
+Thus was consummated the English Revolution of 1688, bloodless, but
+glorious. A tyrant was ejected from an absolute throne, and a noble
+and magnanimous prince reigned in his stead, after having taken an
+oath to observe the laws of the realm--an oath which he never
+violated. Of all revolutions, this proved the most beneficent. It
+closed the long struggle of one hundred and fifty years. Royal
+prerogative bowed before the will of the people, and true religious
+and civil liberty commenced its reign. The Prince of Orange was called
+to the throne by the voice of the nation, as set forth in an
+instrument known as the Declaration of Rights. This celebrated act of
+settlement recapitulated the crimes and errors of James, and merely
+asserted the ancient rights and liberties of England--that the
+dispensing power had no legal existence; that no money could be raised
+without grant of parliament; and that no army could be kept up in time
+of peace without its consent; and it also asserted the right of
+petition, the right of electors to choose their representatives
+freely, the right of parliament to freedom of debate, and the right of
+the nation to a pure and merciful administration of justice. No new
+rights were put forth, but simply the old ones were reestablished.
+William accepted the crown on the conditions proposed, and swore to
+rule by the laws. "Not a single flower of the crown," says Macaulay,
+"was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The
+Declaration of Rights, although it made nothing law which was not law
+before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to
+the Dissenters; of the law which secured the independence of judges;
+of the law which limited the duration of parliaments; of the law which
+placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries; of the
+law which abolished the sacramental test; of the law which relieved
+the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities; of the law which reformed
+the representative system; of every good law which has been passed
+during one hundred and sixty years; of every good law which may
+hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the
+public weal, and satisfy the demands of public opinion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's
+     Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution
+     of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James--a beautiful
+     fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History
+     of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's
+     Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of
+     William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the
+     condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of
+     England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge
+     Jeffreys.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+LOUIS XIV.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Louis XIV.]
+
+We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of
+Louis XIV.--a man who filled a very large space in the history of
+Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign forms an
+epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to liberty or
+civilization, but because, for more than half a century, he was the
+central mover of European politics. His reign commemorates the triumph
+in France, of despotic principles, the complete suppression of popular
+interests, and almost the absorption of national interests in his own
+personal aggrandizement. It commemorates the ascendency of fashion,
+and the great refinement of material life. The camp and the court of
+Louis XIV. ingulphed all that is interesting in the history of France
+during the greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned
+seventy-two years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are
+supposed to have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His
+palaces consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed as
+a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights were
+dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, during
+his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the central
+orb around which every other light revolved, and to contribute to his
+glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most emphatically, the
+state. He was France. A man, therefore, who, in the eye of
+contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so powerful, and so absolute,
+claims a special notice. It is the province of history to record great
+influences, whether they come from the people, from great popular
+ideas, from literature and science, or from a single man. The lives of
+individuals are comparatively insignificant in the history of the
+United States; but the lives of such men as Caesar, Cromwell, and
+Napoleon, furnish very great subjects for the pen of the philosophical
+historian, since great controlling influences emanated from them,
+rather than from the people whom they ruled.
+
+[Sidenote: His Power and Resources.]
+
+Louis XIV. was not a great general, like Henry IV., nor a great
+statesman, like William III., nor a philosopher, like Frederic the
+Great, nor a universal genius, like Napoleon; but his reign filled the
+eyes of contemporaries, and circumstances combined to make him the
+absolute master of a great empire. Moreover, he had sufficient talent
+and ambition to make use of fortunate opportunities, and of the
+resources of his kingdom, for his own aggrandizement. But France,
+nevertheless, was sacrificed. The French Revolution was as much the
+effect of his vanity and egotism, as his own power was the fruit of
+the policy of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. By their labors in the
+cause of absolutism, he came in possession of armies and treasures.
+But armies and treasures were expended in objects of vain ambition,
+for the gratification of selfish pleasures, for expensive pageants,
+and for gorgeous palaces. These finally embarrassed the nation, and
+ground it down to the earth by the load of taxation, and maddened it
+by the prospect of ruin, by the poverty and degradation of the people,
+and, at the same time, by the extravagance and insolence of an
+overbearing aristocracy. The aristocracy formed the glory and pride of
+the throne and both nobles and the throne fell, and great was the fall
+thereof.
+
+Our notice of Louis XIV. begins, not with his birth, but at the time
+when he resolved to be his own prime minister, on the death of
+Cardinal Mazarin, (1661.)
+
+Louis XIV. was then twenty-three years of age--frank, beautiful,
+imperious, and ambitious. His education had been neglected, but his
+pride and selfishness had been stimulated. During his minority, he had
+been straitened for money by the avaricious cardinal; but avaricious
+for his youthful master, since, at his death, besides his private
+fortune, which amounted to two hundred millions of livres, he left
+fifteen millions of livres, not specified in his will, which, of
+course, the king seized, and thus became the richest monarch of
+Europe. He was married, shortly before the death of Mazarin, to the
+Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain. But,
+long before his marriage, he had become attached to Mary de Mancini,
+niece of Mazarin, who returned his love with passionate ardor. She
+afterwards married Prince Colonna, a Roman noble, and lived a most
+abandoned life.
+
+The enormous wealth left by Cardinal Mazarin was, doubtless, one
+motive which induced Louis XIV., though only a young man of
+twenty-three, to be his own prime minister. Henceforth, to his death,
+all his ministers made their regular reports to him, and none were
+permitted to go beyond the limits which he prescribed to them.
+
+He accepted, at first, the ministers whom the dying cardinal had
+recommended. The most prominent of these were Le Tellier, De Lionne,
+and Fouquet. The last was intrusted with the public chest, who found
+the means to supply the dissipated young monarch with all the money he
+desired for the indulgence of his expensive tastes and ruinous
+pleasures.
+
+[Sidenote: Habits and Pleasures of Louis.]
+
+The thoughts and time of the king, from the death of Mazarin, for six
+or seven years, were chiefly occupied with his pleasures. It was then
+that the court of France was so debauched, splendid, and far-famed. It
+was during this time that the king was ruled by La Valliere, one of
+the most noted of all his favorites, a woman of considerable beauty
+and taste, and not so unprincipled as royal favorites generally have
+been. She was created a duchess, and her children were legitimatized,
+and also became dukes and princes. Of these the king was very fond,
+and his love for them survived the love for their unfortunate mother,
+who, though beautiful and affectionate, was not sufficiently
+intellectual to retain the affections with which she inspired the most
+selfish monarch of his age. She was supplanted in the king's
+affections by Madame de Montespan, an imperious beauty, whose
+extravagances and follies shocked and astonished even the most
+licentious court in Europe; and La Valliere, broken-hearted,
+disconsolate, and mortified, sought the shelter of a Carmelite
+convent, in which she dragged out thirty-six melancholy and dreary
+years, amid the most rigorous severities of self-inflicted penance, in
+the anxious hope of that heavenly mansion where her sins would be no
+longer remembered, and where the weary would be at rest.
+
+It was during these years of extravagance and pleasure that Versailles
+attracted the admiring gaze of Christendom, the most gorgeous palace
+which the world has seen since the fall of Babylon. Amid its gardens
+and groves, its parks and marble halls, did the modern Nebuchadnezzar
+revel in a pomp and grandeur unparalleled in the history of Europe,
+surrounded by eminent prelates, poets, philosophers, and statesmen,
+and all that rank and beauty had ennobled throughout his vast
+dominions. Intoxicated by their united flatteries, by all the incense
+which sycophancy, carried to a science, could burn before him, he
+almost fancied himself a deity, and gave no bounds to his
+self-indulgence, his vanity, and his pride. Every thing was
+subordinate to his pleasure and his egotism--an egotism alike
+regardless of the tears of discarded favorites, and the groans of his
+overburdened subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: His Military Ambition.]
+
+But Louis, at last, palled with pleasure, was aroused from the
+festivities of Versailles by dreams of military ambition. He knew
+nothing of war, of its dangers, its reverses, or of its ruinous
+expenses; but he fancied it would be a beautiful sport for a wealthy
+and absolute monarch to engage in the costly game. He cast his eyes on
+Holland, a state extremely weak in land forces, and resolved to add it
+to the great kingdom over which he ruled.
+
+The only power capable of rendering effectual assistance to Holland,
+when menaced by Louis XIV., was England; but England was ruled by
+Charles II., and all he cared for were his pleasures and independence
+from parliamentary control. The French king easily induced him to
+break his alliance with the Dutch by a timely bribe, while, at the
+same time, he insured the neutrality of Spain, by inflaming the
+hereditary prejudices of the Spanish court against the Low Countries.
+
+War, therefore, without even a decent pretence, and without
+provocation, was declared against Holland, with a view of annexing the
+Low Countries to France.
+
+Before the Dutch were able to prepare for resistance, Louis XIV.
+appeared on the banks of the Rhine with an army of one hundred and
+twenty thousand, marshalled by such able generals as Luxembourg,
+Conde, and Turenne. The king commanded in person, and with all the
+pomp of an ancient Persian monarch, surrounded with women and nobles.
+Without any adequate force to resist him, his march could not but be
+triumphant. He crossed the Rhine,--an exploit much celebrated, by his
+flatterers, though nothing at all extraordinary,--and, in the course
+of a few weeks, nearly all the United Provinces had surrendered to the
+royal victor. The reduction of Holland and Zealand alone was necessary
+to crown his enterprise with complete success. But he wasted time in
+vain parade at Utrecht, where he held his court, and where his
+splendid army revelled in pleasure and pomp. Amsterdam alone, amid the
+general despondency and consternation which the French inundation
+produced, was true to herself, and to the liberties of Holland; and
+this was chiefly by means of the gallant efforts of the Prince of
+Orange.
+
+[Sidenote: William, Prince of Orange.]
+
+At this time, (1672,) he was twenty-two years of age, and had received
+an excellent education, and shown considerable military abilities. In
+consequence of his precocity of talent, his unquestioned patriotism,
+and the great services which his family had rendered to the state, he
+was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the republic, and
+was encouraged to aspire to the office of stadtholder, the highest in
+the commonwealth. And his power was much increased after the massacre
+of the De Witts--the innocent victims of popular jealousy, who, though
+patriotic and illustrious, inclined to a different policy than what
+the Orange party advocated. William advised the States to reject with
+scorn the humiliating terms of peace which Louis XIV. offered, and to
+make any sacrifice in defence of their very last ditch. The heroic
+spirit which animated his bosom he communicated to his countrymen, on
+the borders of despair, and in the prospect of national ruin; and so
+great was the popular enthusiasm, that preparations were made for
+fifty thousand families to fly to the Dutch possessions in the East
+Indies, and establish there a new empire, in case they were
+overwhelmed by their triumphant enemy.
+
+Never, in the history of war, were such energies put forth as by the
+Hollanders in the hour of their extremity. They opened their dikes,
+and overflowed their villages and their farms. They rallied around the
+standard of their heroic leader, who, with twenty-two thousand men,
+kept the vast armies of Conde and Turenne at bay. Providence, too,
+assisted men who were willing to help themselves. The fleets of their
+enemies were dispersed by storms, and their armies were driven back by
+the timely inundation.
+
+The heroism of William called forth universal admiration. Louis
+attempted to bribe him, and offered him the sovereignty of Holland,
+which offer he unhesitatingly rejected. He had seen the lowest point
+in the depression of his country, and was confident of ultimate
+success.
+
+The resistance of Holland was unexpected, and Louis, wearied with the
+campaign, retired to Versailles, to be fed with the incense of his
+flatterers, and to publish the manifestoes of his glory and success.
+
+The states of Europe, jealous of the encroachments of Louis, at last
+resolved to come to the assistance of the struggling republic of
+Holland. Charles II. ingloriously sided with the great despot of
+Europe; but the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Brandenburg, and
+the King of Spain declared war against France. Moreover, the Dutch
+gained some signal naval battles. The celebrated admirals De Ruyter
+and Van Tromp redeemed the ancient glories of the Dutch flag. The
+French were nearly driven out of Holland; and Charles II., in spite of
+his secret treaties with Louis, was compelled to make peace with the
+little state which had hitherto defied him in the plenitude of his
+power.
+
+[Sidenote: Second Invasion of Holland.]
+
+But the ambitious King of France was determined not to be baffled in
+his scheme, since he had all the mighty resources of his kingdom at
+his entire disposal, and was burning with the passion of military
+aggrandizement. So he recommenced preparations for the conquest of
+Holland on a greater scale than ever, and assembled four immense
+armies. Conde led one against Flanders, and fought a bloody but
+indecisive battle with the Prince of Orange, in which twelve thousand
+men were killed on each side. Turenne commanded another on the side of
+Germany, and possessed himself of the Palatinate, gained several
+brilliant successes, but disgraced them by needless cruelties.
+Manheim, and numerous towns and villages, were burnt, and the country
+laid waste and desolate. The elector was so overcome with indignation,
+that he challenged the French general to single combat, which the
+great marshal declined.
+
+Louis himself headed a third army, and invaded Franche Comte, which he
+subdued in six weeks. The fourth army was sent to the frontiers of
+Roussillon, but effected nothing of importance.
+
+[Sidenote: Dutch War.]
+
+This great war was prosecuted for four years longer, in which the
+contending parties obtained various success. The only decisive effect
+of the contest was to reduce the strength of all the contending
+powers. Some great battles were fought, but Holland still held out
+with inferior forces. Louis lost the great Turenne, who was killed on
+the eve of a battle with the celebrated Montecuculi, who commanded the
+German armies; but, in a succeeding campaign, this loss was
+compensated by the surrender of Valenciennes, by the victories of
+Luxembourg over the Prince of Orange, and by another treaty of peace
+with Charles II.
+
+At last, all the contending parties were exhausted, and Louis was
+willing to make terms of peace. He had not reduced Holland, but, on
+account of his vast resources, he had obtained considerable
+advantages. The treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, secured to him Franche
+Comte, which he had twice conquered, and several important cities and
+fortresses in Flanders. He considerably extended his dominions, in
+spite of a powerful confederacy, and only retreated from the field of
+triumph to meditate more gigantic enterprises.
+
+For nine years, Europe enjoyed a respite from the horrors of war,
+during which Louis XIV. acted like a universal monarch. During these
+nine years, he indulged in his passion of palace building, and
+surrounded himself with every pleasure which could intoxicate a mind
+on which, already, had been exhausted all the arts of flattery, and
+all the resources of wealth.
+
+The man to whom Louis was most indebted for the means to prosecute his
+victories and build his palaces, was Colbert, minister of finance, who
+succeeded Fouquet. France was indebted to this able and patriotic
+minister for her richest manufactures of silks, laces, tapestries, and
+carpets, and for various internal improvements. He founded the Gobelin
+tapestries; erected the Royal Library, the colonnade of the Louvre,
+the Royal Observatory, the Hotel of the Invalids, and the palaces of
+the Tuileries, Vincennes, Meudon, and Versailles. He encouraged all
+forms of industry, and protected the Huguenots. But his great services
+were not fully appreciated by the king, and he was obnoxious to the
+nobility, who envied his eminence, and to the people, because he
+desired the prosperity of France more than the gratification of their
+pleasures. He was succeeded by Louvois, who long retained a great
+ascendency by obsequious attention to all the king's wishes.
+
+[Sidenote: Madame Montespan.]
+
+At this period, the reigning favorite at court was Madame de
+Montespan--the most infamous and unprincipled, but most witty and
+brilliant of all the king's mistresses, and the haughtiest woman of
+her age. Her tastes were expensive, and her habits extravagant and
+luxurious. On her the sovereign showered diamonds and rubies. He could
+refuse her nothing. She received so much from him, that she could
+afford to endow a convent--the mere building of which cost one million
+eight hundred thousand livres. Her children were legitimatized, and
+declared princes of the blood. Through her the royal favors flowed.
+Ambassadors, ministers, and even prelates, paid their court to her. On
+her the reproofs of Bossuet fell without effect. Secure in her
+ascendency over the mind of Louis, she triumphed over his court, and
+insulted the nation. But, at last, he grew weary of her, although she
+remained at court eighteen years, and she was dismissed from
+Versailles, on a pension of a sum equal to six hundred thousand
+dollars a year. She lived twenty-two years after her exile from court,
+and in great splendor, sometimes hoping to regain the ascendency she
+had once enjoyed, and at others in those rigorous penances which her
+church inflicts as the expiation for sin. To the last, however, she
+was haughty and imperious, and kept up the vain etiquette of a court.
+Her husband, whom she had abandoned, and to whom, after her disgrace,
+she sought to be reconciled, never would hear her name mentioned; and
+the king, whom, for nearly twenty years, she had enthralled, heard of
+her death with indifference, as he was starting for a hunting
+excursion. "Ah, indeed," said Louis XIV., "so the marchioness is dead!
+I should have thought that she would have lasted longer. Are you
+ready, M. de la Rochefoucauld? I have no doubt that, after this last
+shower, the scent will lie well for the dogs. Let us be off at once."
+
+[Sidenote: Madame de Maintenon.]
+
+As the Marchioness de Montespan lost her power over the royal egotist,
+Madame de Maintenon gained hers. She was the wife of the poet Scarron,
+and was first known to the king as the governess of the children of
+Montespan. She was an estimable woman on the whole, very intellectual,
+very proper, very artful, and very ambitious. No person ever had so
+great an influence over Louis XIV. as she; and hers was the ascendency
+of a strong mind over a weak one. She endeavored to make peace at
+court, and to dissuade the king from those vices to which he had so
+long been addicted. And she partially reclaimed him, although, while
+her counsels were still regarded, Louis was enslaved by Madame de
+Fontanges--a luxurious beauty, whom he made a duchess, and on whom he
+squandered the revenues of a province. But her reign was short. Mere
+physical charms must soon yield to the superior power of intellect and
+wit, and, after her death, the reign of Madame de Maintenon was
+complete. As the king could not live without her, and as she refused
+to follow the footsteps of her predecessors, the king made her his
+wife. And she was worthy of his choice; and her influence was, on the
+whole, good, although she befriended the Jesuits, and prompted the
+king to many acts of religious intolerance. It was chiefly through her
+influence, added to that of the Jesuits, that the king revoked the
+edict of Nantes, and its revocation was attended by great sufferings
+and privations among the persecuted Huguenots. He had, on ascending
+the throne, in 1643, confirmed the privileges of the Protestants; but,
+gradually, he worried them by exactions and restraints, and, finally,
+in 1685, by the revocation of the edict which Henry IV. had passed, he
+withdrew his protection, and subjected them to a more bitter
+persecution than at any preceding period. All the Protestant ministers
+were banished, or sent to the galleys, and the children of Protestants
+were taken from their parents, and committed to the care of their
+nearest Catholic relations, or such persons as judges appointed. All
+the terrors of military execution, all the artifices of priestcraft,
+were put forth to make converts and such as relapsed were subjected to
+cruel torments. A twentieth part of them were executed, and the
+remainder hunted from place to place. By these cruelties, France was
+deprived of nearly six hundred thousand of the best people in the
+land--a great misfortune, since they contributed, in their dispersion
+and exile, to enrich, by their agriculture and manufactures, the
+countries to which they fled.
+
+From this period of his reign to his death, Louis XIV. was a religious
+bigot, and the interests of the Roman Church, next to the triumph of
+absolutism, became the great desire of his life. He was punctual and
+rigid in the outward ceremonials of his religion, and professed to
+regret the follies and vices of his early life. Through the influence
+of his confessor, the Jesuit La Chaise, and his wife, Madame de
+Maintenon, he sent away Montespan from his court, and discouraged
+those gayeties for which it had once been distinguished. But he was
+always fond of ceremony of all kinds, and the etiquette of his court
+was most irksome and oppressive, and wearied Madame de Maintenon
+herself, and caused her to exclaim, in a letter to her brother, "Save
+those who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfortunate
+than those who envy them."
+
+The favorite minister of the king at this time was Louvois, a very
+able but extremely prodigal man, who plunged Louis XIV. into
+innumerable expenses, and encouraged his taste both for palaces and
+war. It was probably through his intrigues, in order to make himself
+necessary to the king, that a general war again broke out in Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: League of Augsburg.]
+
+In 1687 was formed the famous League of Augsburg, by which the leading
+princes of Europe united in a great confederacy to suppress the power
+and encroachments of the French king. Louvois intrigued to secure the
+election of the Cardinal de Furstemberg to the archbishopric of
+Cologne, in opposition to the interests of Bavaria, the natural ally
+of France, conscious that, by so doing, he must provoke hostilities.
+But this act was only the occasion, not the cause, of war. Louis had
+enraged the Protestant world by his persecution of the Huguenots. He
+had insulted even the pope himself by sending an ambassador to Rome,
+with guards and armed attendants equal to an army, in order to enforce
+some privileges which it was not for the interest or the dignity of
+the pope to grant; he had encouraged the invasion of Germany by the
+Turks; he had seized Strasburg, the capital of Alsace; he bombarded
+Genoa, because they sold powder to the Algerines, and compelled the
+doge to visit him as a suppliant; he laid siege to some cities which
+belonged to Spain; and he prepared to annex the Low Countries to his
+dominions. Indeed, he treated all other powers as if he were the
+absolute monarch of Europe, and fear and jealousy united them against
+them. Germany, Spain, and Holland, and afterwards England, Denmark,
+Sweden, and Savoy, cooeperated together to crush the common enemy of
+European liberties.
+
+Louis made enormous exertions to resist this powerful confederacy.
+Four hundred thousand men were sent into the field, divided into four
+armies. Two of these were sent into Flanders, one into Catalonia, and
+one into Germany, which laid waste the Palatinate with fire and sword.
+Louvois gave the order, and Louis sanctioned it, which was executed
+with such unsparing cruelty that all Europe was filled with
+indignation and defiance.
+
+[Sidenote: Opposing Armies and Generals.]
+
+The forces of Louis were immense, but those of the allies were
+greater. The Spaniards, Dutch, and English, had an army of fifty
+thousand men in Flanders, eleven thousand of whom were commanded by
+the Earl of Marlborough. The Germans sent three more armies into the
+field; one commanded by the Elector of Bavaria, on the Upper Rhine;
+another by the Duke of Lorraine, on the Middle Rhine; and a third by
+the Elector of Brandenburg, on the Lower Rhine; and these, in the
+first campaign, obtained signal successes. The next year, the Duke of
+Savoy joined the allies, whose army was commanded by Victor Amadeus;
+but he was beaten by Marshal Catinat, one of the most distinguished of
+the French generals. Luxembourg also was successful in Flanders, and
+gained the great battle of Charleroi over the Germans and Dutch: The
+combined fleet of the English and Dutch was also defeated by the
+French at the battle of Beachy Head. In the next campaign, Prince
+Eugene and the Duke of Schomberg distinguished themselves in checking
+the victorious career of Catinat; but nothing of importance was
+effected. The following spring, William III. and Louis XIV., the two
+great heads of the contending parties, took the field themselves; and
+Louis, with the aid of Luxembourg, took Namur, in spite of the efforts
+of William to succor it. Some other successes were gained by the
+French, and Louis retired to Versailles to celebrate the victories of
+his generals. The next campaign witnessed another splendid victory
+over William and the allies, by Luxembourg, at Neerwinden, when twelve
+thousand men were killed; and also another, by Catinat, at Marsaglia,
+in Italy, over the Duke of Savoy. The military glory of Louis was now
+at its height; but, in the campaign of 1694-95, he met with great
+reverses. Luxembourg, the greatest of his generals, died. The allies
+retook Huy and Namur, and the French king, exhausted by the long war,
+was forced to make peace. The treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, secured the
+tranquillity of Europe for four years--long enough only for the
+contending parties to recover their energies, and prepare for a more
+desperate contest. Louis XIV., however, now acted on the defensive.
+The allied powers were resolved on his complete humiliation.
+
+[Sidenote: War of the Spanish Succession.]
+
+War broke out again in 1701, and in consequence of the accession of
+Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., to the throne of Spain. This great
+war of the Spanish Succession, during which Marlborough so greatly
+distinguished himself, claims a few explanatory remarks.
+
+Charles II., King of Spain, and the last of the line of the Austrian
+princes, being without an heir, and about to die, selected as his
+successor Leopold of Bavaria, a boy five years of age, whose
+grandmother was Maria Theresa. But there were also two other
+claimants--the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., whose claim
+rested in being the grandson of Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV.,
+and sister of Charles II., and the Emperor of Germany, whose mother
+was the daughter of Philip III. The various European states looked
+with extreme jealousy on the claims of the Emperor of Germany and the
+Duke of Anjou, because they feared that the balance of power would be
+seriously disturbed if either an Austrian or a Bourbon prince became
+King of Spain. They, therefore, generally supported the claims of the
+Bavarian prince, especially England and Holland.
+
+But the Prince of Bavaria suddenly died, as it was supposed by poison,
+and Louis XIV. so successfully intrigued, that his grandson was
+nominated by the Spanish monarch as heir to his throne. This incensed
+Leopold II. of Germany, and especially William III., who was resolved
+that the house of Bourbon should be no further aggrandized.
+
+On the accession of the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne, in 1701,
+a grand alliance was formed, headed by the Emperor of Germany and the
+King of England, to dethrone him. Louis XIV. long hesitated between
+his ambition and the interests of his kingdom; but ambition triumphed.
+He well knew that he could only secure a crown to his grandson by a
+desperate contest with indignant Europe. Austria, Holland, Savoy, and
+England were arrayed against France. And this war of the Spanish
+Succession was the longest, the bloodiest, and the most disastrous war
+in which Louis was ever engaged. It commenced the last year of the
+reign of William III., and lasted thirteen years.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+The great hero of this war was doubtless the Duke of Marlborough,
+although Prince Eugene gained with him as imperishable glories as war
+can bestow. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, cannot be said to be
+one of those geniuses who have impressed their minds on nations and
+centuries; but he was a man who gave great lustre to the British name,
+and who attained to a higher pitch of military fame than any general
+whom England has produced since Oliver Cromwell, with the exception of
+Wellington.
+
+He was born in 1650, of respectable parents, and was page of honor to
+the Duke of York, afterwards James II. While a mere boy, his bent of
+mind was discernible, and he solicited and obtained from the duke an
+ensign's commission, and rapidly passed through the military grades of
+lieutenant, captain, major, and colonel. During the infamous alliance
+between Louis XIV. and Charles II., he served under Marshal Turenne,
+and learned from him the art of war. But he also distinguished himself
+as a diplomatic agent of Charles II., in his intrigues with Holland
+and France. Before the accession of James II., he was created a
+Scottish peer, by the title of Baron Churchill. He followed his royal
+patron in his various peregrinations, and, when he succeeded to the
+English throne, he was raised to an English peerage. But Marlborough
+deserted his patron on the landing of William III., and was made a
+member of his Privy Council, and lord of the bed-chamber. Two days
+before the coronation of William, he was made Earl of Marlborough; but
+was not intrusted with as high military command as his genius and
+services merited, William being apparently jealous of his fame. On the
+accession of Anne, he was sent to the Continent with the supreme
+command of the English armies in the war with Louis about the Spanish
+Succession. His services in the campaign of 1702 secured a dukedom,
+and deservedly, for he contended against great obstacles--against the
+obstinacy and stupidity of the Dutch deputies; against the timidity of
+the English government at home; and against the veteran armies of
+Louis, led on by the celebrated Villars. But neither the campaigns of
+1702 or 1703 were marked by any decisive battles. In 1704 was fought
+the celebrated battle of Blenheim, by which the French power was
+crippled, and the hopes of Louis prostrated.
+
+The campaign of 1703 closed disastrously for the allies. Europe was
+never in greater peril. Bavaria united with France and Spain to crush
+Austria. The Austrians had only twenty thousand men, while the
+Bavarians had forty-five thousand men in the centre of Germany, and
+Marshal Tallard was posted, with forty-five thousand men, on the Upper
+Rhine. Marshal Villeroy opposed Marlborough in the Netherlands.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Blenheim.]
+
+But Marlborough conceived the bold project of marching his troops to
+the banks of the Danube, and there uniting with the Imperialists under
+Prince Eugene, to cut off the forces of the enemy before they could
+unite. So he left the Dutch to defend themselves against Villeroy,
+rapidly ascended the Rhine, before any of the enemy dreamed of his
+designs. From Mentz, he proceeded with forty thousand men to
+Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg to Donauworth, on the Danube, where
+his troops, which had effected a junction with the Austrians and
+Prussians, successfully engaged the Bavarians. But the Bavarians and
+the French also succeeded in uniting their forces; and both parties
+prepared for a desperate conflict. There were about eighty thousand
+men on each side. The French and Bavarians were strongly intrenched at
+the village of Blenheim; and Marlborough, against the advice of most
+of his generals, resolved to attack their fortified camp before it was
+reenforced by a large detachment of troops which Villeroy had sent. "I
+know the danger," said Marlborough; "but a battle is absolutely
+necessary." He was victorious. Forty thousand of the enemy were killed
+or taken prisoners; Tallard himself was taken, and every trophy was
+secured which marks a decisive victory. By his great victory, the
+Emperor of Austria was relieved from his fears, the Hungarians were
+overawed, Bavaria fell under the sway of the emperor, and the armies
+of Louis were dejected and discouraged. Marlborough marched back again
+to Holland without interruption, was made a prince of the empire, and
+received pensions and lands from the English government, which made
+him one of the richest and greatest of the English nobility. The
+palace of Blenheim was built, and he received the praises and plaudits
+of the civilized world.
+
+The French were hardly able to cope with Marlborough during the next
+campaign, but rallied in 1706, during which year the great battle of
+Ramillies was fought, and won by Marlborough. The conquest of Brabant,
+and the greater part of Spanish Flanders, resulted from this victory;
+and Louis, crippled and humiliated, made overtures of peace. Though
+equitable, they were rejected; the allies having resolved that no
+peace should be made with the house of Bourbon while a prince of that
+house continued to sit upon the throne of Spain. Louis appealed now,
+in his distress, to the national honor, sent his plate to the mint,
+and resolved, in his turn, to contend, to the last extremity, with his
+enemies, whom success had intoxicated.
+
+The English, not content with opposing Louis in the Netherlands and in
+Germany, sent their armies into Spain, also, who, united with the
+Austrians, overran the country, and nearly completed its conquest. One
+of the most gallant and memorable exploits of the war was the siege
+and capture of Barcelona by the Earl of Peterborough, the city having
+made one of the noblest and most desperate defences since the siege of
+Numantia.
+
+[Sidenote: Exertions and Necessities of Louis.]
+
+The exertions of Louis were equal to his necessities; and, in 1707, he
+was able to send large armies into the field. None of his generals
+were able to resist the Duke of Marlborough, who gained new victories,
+and took important cities; but, in Spain, the English met with
+reverses. In 1708, Louis again offered terms of peace, which were
+again rejected. His country was impoverished, his resources were
+exhausted, and a famine carried away his subjects. He agreed to yield
+the whole Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria, without any
+equivalent; to cede to the emperor his conquests on the Rhine, and to
+the Dutch the great cities which Marlborough had taken; to acknowledge
+the Elector of Brandenburg as King of Prussia, and Anne as Queen of
+England; to remove the Pretender from his dominions; to acknowledge
+the succession of the house of Hanover; to restore every thing
+required by the Duke of Savoy; and agree to the cessions made to the
+King of Portugal.
+
+And yet these conditions, so honorable and advantageous to the allies,
+were rejected, chiefly through the influence of Marlborough, Eugene,
+and the pensionary Heinsius, who acted from entirely selfish motives.
+Louis was not permitted to cherish the most remote hope of peace
+without surrendering the strongest cities of his dominions as pledges
+for the entire evacuation of the Spanish monarchy by his grandson.
+This he would not agree to. He threw himself, in his distress, upon
+the loyalty of his people. Their pride and honor were excited; and, in
+spite of all their misfortunes, they prepared to make new efforts.
+Again were the French defeated at the great battle of Malplaquet, when
+ninety thousand men contended on each side; and again did Louis sue
+for peace. Again were his overtures rejected, and again did he rally
+his exhausted nation. Some victories in Spain were obtained over the
+confederates; but the allies gradually were hemming him around, and
+the king-hunt was nearly up, when unexpected dissensions among the
+allies relieved him of his enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Treaty of Utrecht.]
+
+These dissensions were the struggles between the Whigs and Tories in
+England; the former maintaining that no peace should be made; the
+latter, that the war had been carried far enough, and was prolonged
+only to gratify the ambition of Marlborough. The great general, in
+consequence, lost popularity; and the Tories succeeded in securing a
+peace, just as Louis was on the verge of ruin. Another campaign, had
+the allies been united, would probably have enabled Marlborough to
+penetrate to Paris. That was his aim; that was the aim of his party.
+But the nation was weary of war, and at last made peace with Louis. By
+the treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) Philip V. resumed the throne of Spain,
+but was compelled to yield his rights to the crown of France in case
+of the death of a sickly infant, the great-grandson of Louis XIV., who
+was heir apparent to the throne; but, in other respects, the terms
+were not more favorable than what Louis had offered in 1706, and very
+inadequate to the expenses of the war. The allies should have yielded
+to the overtures of Louis before, or should have persevered. But party
+spirit, and division in the English cabinet and parliament, prevented
+the consummation which the Whigs desired, and Louis was saved from
+further humiliation and losses.
+
+[Sidenote: Last Days of Louis.]
+
+But his power was broken. He was no longer the autocrat of Europe, but
+a miserable old man, who had lived to see irreparable calamities
+indicted on his nation, and calamities in consequence of his ambition.
+His latter years were melancholy. He survived his son and his
+grandson. He saw himself an object of reproach, of ridicule, and of
+compassion. He sought the religious consolation of his church, but was
+the victim of miserable superstition, and a tool of the Jesuits. He
+was ruled by his wife, the widow of the poet Scarron, whom his
+children refused to honor. His last days were imbittered by
+disappointments and mortifications, disasters in war, and domestic
+afflictions. No man ever, for a while, enjoyed a prouder preeminence.
+No man ever drank deeper of the bitter cup of disappointed ambition
+and alienated affections. No man ever more fully realized the vanity
+of this world. None of the courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, he
+could trust, and all his experiences led to a disbelief in human
+virtue. He saw, with shame, that his palaces, his wars, and his
+pleasures, had consumed the resources of the nation, and had sowed the
+seeds of a fearful revolution. He lost his spirits; his temper became
+soured; mistrust and suspicion preyed upon his mind. His love of pomp
+survived all his other weaknesses, and his court, to the last, was
+most rigid in its wearisome formalities. But the pageantry of
+Versailles was a poor antidote to the sorrows which bowed his head to
+the ground, except on those great public occasions when his pride
+triumphed over his grief. Every day, in his last years, something
+occurred to wound his vanity, and alienate him from all the world but
+Madame de Maintenon, the only being whom he fully trusted, and who did
+not deceive him. Indeed, the humiliated monarch was an object of pity
+as well as of reproach, and his death was a relief to himself, as well
+as to his family. He died in 1715, two years after the peace of
+Utrecht, not much regretted by the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: His Character.]
+
+Louis XIV. cannot be numbered among the monsters of the human race who
+have worn the purple of royalty. His chief and worst vice was egotism,
+which was born with him, which was cultivated by all the influences of
+his education, and by all the circumstances of his position. This
+absorbing egotism made him insensible to the miseries he inflicted,
+and cherished in his soul the notion that France was created for him
+alone. His mistresses, his friends, his wives, his children, his
+court, and the whole nation, were viewed only as the instruments of
+his pride and pleasure. All his crimes and blunders proceeded from his
+extraordinary selfishness. If we could look on him without this moral
+taint, which corrupted and disgraced him, we should see an indulgent
+father and a generous friend. He attended zealously to the duties of
+his station, and sought not to shake off his responsibilities. He
+loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not forget the affairs of
+the realm. He rewarded literature, and appreciated merit. He honored
+the institutions of religion, and, in his latter days, was devoted to
+its duties, so far as he understood them. He has been foolishly
+panegyrized, and as foolishly censured. Still his reign was baneful,
+on the whole, especially to the interests of enlightened Christianity
+and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted Catholic, and sought to
+erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an absolute and universal
+throne. He failed; and instead of bequeathing to his successors the
+power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts, a distracted empire,
+and a discontented people. He bequeathed to France the revolution
+which hurled her monarch from his throne, but which was overruled for
+her ultimate good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Voltaire's and Miss
+     Pardoe's Histories of the Reign of Louis XIV. James's Life
+     of Louis XIV. Memoires du Duc de St. Simon. The Abbe
+     Millot's History. D'Anquetil's Louis XIV., sa Cour, et le
+     Regent. Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's and Rankin's
+     Histories of France. Lord Mahon's War of the Spanish
+     Succession. Temple's Memoirs. Coxe's Life of Marlborough.
+     Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Sevigne's Letters.
+     Russell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is
+     one of the most interesting ever written. It may have too
+     much gossip for what is called the "dignity of history;" but
+     that fault, if fault it be, has been made by Macaulay also,
+     and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by those most
+     incapable of appreciating philosophical history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+WILLIAM AND MARY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: William and Mary.]
+
+From Louis XIV. we turn to consider the reign of his illustrious
+rival, William III., King of England, who enjoyed the throne
+conjointly with Mary, daughter of James II.
+
+The early life and struggles of this heroic prince have been already
+alluded to, in the two previous chapters, and will not be further
+discussed. On the 12th day of February, 1689, he arrived at Whitehall,
+the favorite palace of the Stuart kings, and, on the 11th of April, he
+and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Their reign is chiefly memorable for the war with Louis XIV., the
+rebellion in Ireland, fomented by the intrigues of James II., and for
+the discussion of several great questions pertaining to the liberties
+and the prosperity of the English nation, questions in relation to the
+civil list, the Place Bill, the Triennial Bill, the liberty of the
+press, a standing army, the responsibility of ministers, the veto of
+the crown, the administration of Ireland, the East India Company, the
+Bank of England, and the funded debt. These topics make the domestic
+history of the country, especially in a constitutional point of view,
+extremely important.
+
+The great struggle with Louis XIV. has already received all the notice
+which the limits of this work will allow, in which it was made to
+appear that, if Louis XIV. was the greater king, William III. was the
+greater man; and, although his military enterprises were, in one
+sense, unsuccessful, since he did not triumph in splendid victories,
+still he opposed successfully what would have been, without his
+heroism, an overwhelming torrent of invasion and conquest, in
+consequence of vastly superior forces. The French king was eventually
+humbled, and the liberties of continental Europe were preserved.
+
+Under the wise, tolerant, and liberal administration of William, the
+British empire was preserved from disunion, and invaluable liberties
+and privileges were guaranteed.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Rebellion.]
+
+Scarcely was he seated on the throne, which his wife inherited from
+the proud descendants of the Norman Conqueror, when a rebellion in
+Ireland broke out, and demanded his presence in that distracted and
+unfortunate country.
+
+The Irish people, being Roman Catholics, had sympathized with
+James II. in all his troubles, and were resolved to defend his cause
+against a Calvinistic king. In a short time after his establishment at
+St. Germain's, through the bounty of the French king, he began to
+intrigue with the disaffected Irish chieftains. The most noted of
+these was Tyrconnel, who contrived to deprive the Protestants of Lord
+Mountjoy, their most trusted and able leader, by sending him on a
+mission to James II., by whose influence he was confined, on his
+arrival at Paris, in the Bastile. Tyrconnel then proceeded to disarm
+the Protestants, and recruit the Catholic army, which was raised in
+two months to a force of forty thousand men, burning to revenge their
+past injuries, and recover their ancient possessions and privileges.
+James II. was invited by the army to take possession of his throne. He
+accepted the invitation, and, early in 1689, made his triumphal entry
+into Dublin, and was received with a pomp and homage equal to his
+dignity. But James did not go to Ireland merely to enjoy the homage
+and plaudits of the Irish people, but to defend the last foothold
+which he retained as King of England, trusting that success in Ireland
+would eventually restore to him the throne of his ancestors. And he
+was cordially, but not powerfully, supported by the French king, who
+was at war with England, and who justly regarded Ireland as the most
+assailable part of the British empire.
+
+The Irish parliament, in the interest of James, passed an act of
+attainder against all Protestants who had assisted William, among whom
+were two archbishops, one duke, seventeen earls, eighteen barons, and
+eighty-three clergymen. By another act, Ireland was made independent
+of England. The Protestants were every where despoiled and insulted.
+
+But James was unequal to the task he had assumed, incapable either of
+preserving Ireland or retaking England. He was irresolute and
+undecided. He could not manage an Irish House of Commons any better
+than he could an English one. He debased the coin, and resorted to
+irritating measures to raise money.
+
+At last he concluded to subdue the Protestants in Ulster, and advanced
+to lay siege to Londonderry, upon which depended the fate of the north
+of Ireland. It was bravely defended by the inhabitants, and finally
+relieved by the troops sent over from England under the command of
+Kirke--the same who inflicted the cruelties in the west of England
+under James II. But William wanted able officers, and he took them
+indiscriminately from all parties. Nine thousand people miserably
+perished by famine and disease in the town, before the siege was
+raised, one of the most memorable in the annals of war.
+
+Ulster was now safe, and the discomfiture of James was rapidly
+effected. Old Marshal Schomberg was sent into Ireland with sixteen
+thousand veteran troops, and, shortly after, William himself (June 14,
+1690) landed at Carrickfergus, near Belfast, with additional men, who
+swelled the Protestant army to forty thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: King James in Ireland.]
+
+The contending forces advanced to the conflict, and on the 1st of July
+was fought the battle of the Boyne, in which Schomberg was killed, but
+which resulted in the defeat of the troops of James II. The
+discomfited king fled to Dublin, but quitted it as soon as he had
+entered it, and embarked hastily at Waterford for France, leaving the
+Earl of Tyrconnel to contend with vastly superior forces, and to make
+the best terms in his power.
+
+The country was speedily subdued, and all the important cities and
+fortresses, one after the other, surrendered to the king. Limerick
+held out the longest, and made an obstinate resistance, but finally
+yielded to the conqueror; and with its surrender terminated the final
+efforts of the old Irish inhabitants to regain the freedom which they
+had lost. Four thousand persons were outlawed, and their possessions
+confiscated. Indeed, at different times, the whole country has been
+confiscated, with the exception of the possessions of a few families
+of English blood. In the reign of James I., the whole province of
+Ulster, containing three millions of acres, was divided among the new
+inhabitants. At the restoration, eight millions of acres, and, after
+the surrender of Limerick, one million more of acres, were
+confiscated. During the reign of William and Mary, the Catholic Irish
+were treated with extreme rigor, and Ireland became a field for
+place-hunters. All important or lucrative offices in the church, the
+state, and the army, were filled with the needy dependants of the
+great Whig families. Injustice to the nation was constantly exercised,
+and penal laws were imposed by the English parliament, and in
+reference to matters which before came under the jurisdiction of the
+Irish parliament. But, with all these rigorous measures, Ireland was
+still ruled with more mildness than at any previous period in its
+history, and no great disturbance again occurred until the reign of
+George III.
+
+But the reign of William III., however beneficial to the liberties of
+England and of Europe, was far from peaceful. Apart from his great
+struggle with the French king, his comfort and his composure of mind
+were continually disturbed by domestic embarrassments, arising from
+the jealousies between the Whigs and Tories, the intrigues of
+statesmen with the exiled family, and discussions in parliament in
+reference to those great questions which attended the settlement of
+the constitution. A bill was passed, called the _Place Bill_,
+excluding all officers of the crown from the House of Commons, which
+showed the jealousy of the people respecting royal encroachments. A
+law also was passed, called the _Triennial Bill_, which limited the
+duration of parliament to three years, but which, in a subsequent
+reign, was repealed, and one substituted which extended the duration
+of a parliament to seven years. An important bill was also passed
+which regulated trials in case of treason, in which the prisoner was
+furnished with a copy of the indictment, with the names and residences
+of jurors, with the privilege of peremptory challenge, and with full
+defence of counsel. This bill guaranteed new privileges and rights to
+prisoners.
+
+[Sidenote: Freedom of the Press.]
+
+The great question pertaining to the Liberty of the Press was
+discussed at this time--one of the most vital questions which affect
+the stability of government on the one side, and the liberties of the
+people on the other. So desirable have all governments deemed the
+control of the press by themselves, that parliament, when it abolished
+the Star Chamber, in the reign of Charles I., still assumed its powers
+respecting the licensing of books. Various modifications were, from
+time to time, made in the laws pertaining to licensing books, until,
+in the reign of William, the liberty of the press was established
+nearly upon its present basis.
+
+William, in general, was in favor of those movements which proved
+beneficial in after times, or which the wisdom of a subsequent age saw
+fit to adopt. Among these was the union of England and Scotland, which
+he recommended. Under his auspices, the affairs of the East India
+Company were considered and new charters granted; the Bank of England
+was erected; benevolent action for the suppression of vice and for the
+amelioration of the condition of the poor took place; the coinage was
+adjusted and financial experiments were made.
+
+The crown, on the whole, lost power during this reign, which was
+transferred to the House of Commons. The Commons acquired the complete
+control of the purse, which is considered paramount to all other
+authority. Prior to the Revolution, the supply for the public service
+was placed at the disposal of the sovereign, but the definite sum of
+seven hundred thousand pounds, yearly, was placed at the disposal of
+William, to defray the expense of the civil list and his other
+expenses, while the other contingent expenses of government, including
+those for the support of the army and navy, were annually appropriated
+by the Commons.
+
+[Sidenote: Act of Settlement--Death of William III.]
+
+The most important legislative act of this reign was the Act of
+Settlement, March 12, 1701, which provided that England should be
+freed from the obligation of engaging in any war for the defence of
+the foreign dominions of the king; that all succeeding kings must be
+of the communion of the Church of England; that no succeeding king
+should go out of the British dominions without consent of parliament;
+that no person in office, or pensioner, should be a member of the
+Commons; that the religious liberties of the people should be further
+secured; that the judges should hold office during good behavior, and
+have their salaries ascertained; and that the succession to the throne
+should be confined to Protestant princes.
+
+King William reigned in England thirteen years, with much ability, and
+sagacity, and prudence, and never attempted to subvert the
+constitution, for which his memory is dear to the English people. But
+most of his time, as king, was occupied in directing warlike
+operations on the Continent, and in which he showed a great jealousy
+of the genius of Marlborough, whose merits he nevertheless finally
+admitted. He died March 8, 1702, and was buried in the sepulchre of
+the kings of England.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of William.]
+
+Notwithstanding the animosity of different parties against
+William III., public opinion now generally awards to him, considering
+the difficulties with which he had to contend, the first place among
+the English kings. He had many enemies and many defects. The Jacobites
+hated him because "he upset their theory of the divine rights of
+kings; the High Churchmen because he was indifferent to the forms of
+church government; the Tories because he favored the Whigs; and the
+Republicans because he did not again try the hopeless experiment of a
+republic." He was not a popular idol, in spite of his great services
+and great qualities, because he was cold, reserved, and unyielding;
+because he disdained to flatter, and loved his native better than his
+adopted country. But his faults were chiefly offences against good
+manners, and against the prejudices of the nation. He distrusted human
+nature, and disdained human sympathy. He was ambitious, and his
+ambition was allied with selfishness. He permitted the slaughter of
+the De Witts, and never gave Marlborough a command worthy of his
+talents. He had no taste for literature, wit, or the fine arts. His
+favorite tastes were hunting, gardening and upholstery. That he was,
+however, capable of friendship, is attested by his long and devoted
+attachment to Bentinck, whom he created Earl of Portland, and
+splendidly rewarded with rich and extensive manors in every part of
+the land. His reserve and coldness may in part be traced to his
+profound knowledge of mankind, whom he feared to trust. But if he was
+not beloved by the nation, he secured their eternal respect by being
+the first to solve the problem of constitutional monarchy, and by
+successfully ruling, at a very critical period, the Dutch, the
+English, the Scotch, and the Irish, who had all separate interests and
+jealousies; by yielding, when in possession of great power, to
+restraints he did not like; and by undermining the intrigues and power
+of so mighty an enemy of European liberties as Louis XIV. His heroism
+shone brilliantly in defeat and disaster, and his courage and exertion
+never flagged when all Europe desponded, and when he himself labored
+under all the pains and lassitude of protracted disease. He died
+serenely, but hiding from his attendants, as he did all his days, the
+profoundest impressions which agitated his earnest and heroic soul.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke.]
+
+Among the great men whom he encouraged and rewarded, may be mentioned
+the historian Burnet, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury, and Tillotson
+and Tennison, whom he elevated to archiepiscopal thrones. Dr. South
+and Dr. Bentley also adorned this age of eminent divines. The great
+poets of the period were Prior, Dryden, Swift, and Pope, who, however,
+are numbered more frequently among the wits of the reign of Anne.
+Robert Boyle distinguished himself for experiments in natural science,
+and zeal for Christian knowledge; and Christopher Wren for his genius
+in architectural art. But the two great lights of this reign were,
+doubtless, Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke, to whom the realm of
+natural and intellectual philosophy is more indebted than to any other
+men of genius from the time of Bacon. The discoveries of Newton are
+scarcely without a parallel, and he is generally regarded as the
+greatest mathematical intellect that England has produced. To him the
+world is indebted for the binomial theorem, discovered at the age of
+twenty-two; for the invention of fluxions; for the demonstration of
+the law of gravitation; and for the discovery of the different
+refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise on Optics and his
+_Principia_, in which he brought to light the new theory of the
+universe, place him at the head of modern philosophers--on a high
+vantage ground, to which none have been elevated, of his age, with the
+exception of Leibnitz and Galileo. But his greatest glory was his
+modesty, and the splendid tribute he rendered to the truths of
+Christianity, whose importance and sublime beauty he was ever most
+proud to acknowledge in an age of levity and indifference.
+
+John Locke is a name which almost exclusively belongs to the reign of
+William III., and he will also ever be honorably mentioned in the
+constellation of the very great geniuses and Christians of the world.
+His treatises on Religious Toleration are the most masterly ever
+written, while his Essay on the Human Understanding is a great system
+of truth, as complete, original, and logical, in the department of
+mental science, as was the system of Calvin in the realm of theology.
+Locke's Essay has had its enemies and detractors, and, while many
+eminent men have dissented from it, it nevertheless remains, one of
+the most enduring and proudest monuments of the immortal and
+ever-expanding intellect of man.
+
+[Sidenote: Anne.]
+
+On the death of William III., (1702,) the Princess Anne, daughter of
+James II., peaceably ascended the throne. She was thirty-seven years
+of age, a woman of great weaknesses, and possessing but few
+interesting qualities. Nevertheless, her reign is radiant with the
+glory of military successes, and adorned with every grace of fancy,
+wit, and style in literature. The personal talent and exclusive
+ambition of William suppressed the national genius; but the incapacity
+of Anne gave scope for the commanding abilities of Marlborough in the
+field, and Godolphin in the cabinet.
+
+The memorable events connected with her reign of twelve years, were,
+the war of the Spanish succession, in which Marlborough humbled the
+pride of Louis XIV.; the struggles of the Whigs and Tories; the union
+of Scotland with England; the discussion and settlement of great
+questions pertaining to the constitution, and the security of the
+Protestant religion; and the impulse which literature received from
+the constellation of learned men who were patronized by the
+government, and who filled an unusual place in public estimation.
+
+In a political point of view, this reign is but the continuation of
+the reign of William, since the same objects were pursued, the same
+policy was adopted, and the same great characters were intrusted with
+power. The animating object of William's life was the suppression of
+the power of Louis XIV.; and this object was never lost sight of by
+the English government under the reign of Anne.
+
+Hence the great political event of the reign was the war of the
+Spanish succession, which, however, pertains to the reign of Louis as
+well as to that of Anne. It was during this war that the great battles
+of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet attested the genius of the
+greatest military commander that England had ever sent into the field.
+It was this war which exhausted the energies and resources of all the
+contending states of Europe, and created a necessity for many years of
+slumbering repose. It was this war which completed the humiliation of
+a monarch who aspired to the sovereignty of Europe, which preserved
+the balance of power, and secured the liberties of Europe. Yet it was
+a war which laid the foundation of the national debt, inflamed the
+English mind with a mad passion for military glory, which demoralized
+the nation, and fostered those international jealousies and enmities
+which are still a subject of reproach to the two most powerful states
+of Europe. This war made England a more prominent actor on the arena
+of European strife, and perhaps contributed to her political
+aggrandizement. The greatness of the British empire begins to date
+from this period, although this greatness is more to be traced to
+colonial possessions, manufactures, and commercial wealth, than to the
+victories of Marlborough.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+It will ever remain an open question whether or not it was wise in the
+English nation to continue so long the struggle with Louis XIV. In a
+financial and material point of view, the war proved disastrous. But
+it is difficult to measure the real greatness of a country, and solid
+and enduring blessings, by pounds, shillings, and pence. All such
+calculations, however statistically startling, are erroneous and
+deceptive. The real strength of nations consists in loyalty,
+patriotism, and public spirit; and no sacrifices can be too great to
+secure these unbought blessings--"this cheap defence." If the
+victories of Marlborough secured these, gave dignity to the British
+name, and an honorable and lofty self-respect to the English people,
+they were not dearly purchased. But the settlement of these questions
+cannot be easily made.
+
+As to the remarkable genius of the great man who infused courage into
+the English mind, there can be no question. Marlborough, in spite of
+his many faults, his selfishness and parsimony, his ambition and
+duplicity, will ever enjoy an enviable fame. He was not so great a
+moral hero as William, nor did he contend against such superior forces
+as the royal hero. But he was a great hero, nevertheless. His glory
+was reached by no sudden indulgence of fortune, by no fortunate
+movements, by no accidental circumstances. His fame was progressive.
+He never made a great mistake; he never lost the soundness of his
+judgment. No success unduly elated him, and no reverses discouraged
+him. He never forgot the interests of the nation in his own personal
+annoyances or enmities. He was magnanimously indulgent to those Dutch
+deputies who thwarted his measures, criticized his plans, and lectured
+him on the art of war. The glory of his country was the prevailing
+desire of his soul. He was as great in diplomacy and statesmanship as
+on the field of Blenheim. He ever sacrificed his feelings as a
+victorious general to his duty as a subject. His sagacity was only
+equalled by his prudence and patience, and these contributed, as well
+as his personal bravery, to his splendid successes, which secured for
+him magnificent rewards--palaces and parks, peerages, and a nation's
+gratitude and praise.
+
+But there is a limit to all human glory. Marlborough was undermined by
+his political enemies, and he himself lost the confidence of the queen
+whom he had served, partly by his own imperious conduct, and partly
+from the overbearing insolence of his wife. From the height of popular
+favor, he descended to the depth of popular hatred. He was held up, by
+the sarcasm of the writers whom he despised, to derision and obloquy;
+was accused of insolence, cruelty, ambition, extortion, and avarice,
+discharged from his high offices, and obliged to seek safety by exile.
+He never regained the confidence of the nation, although, when he
+died, parliament decreed him a splendid funeral, and a grave in
+Westminster Abbey.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Marlborough.]
+
+In private life, he was amiable and kind; was patient under
+contradiction, and placid in manners; had great self-possession, and
+extraordinary dignity. His person was beautiful, and his address
+commanding. He was feared as a general, but loved as a man. He never
+lost his affections for his home, and loved to idolatry his imperious
+wife, his equal, if not superior, in the knowledge of human nature.
+These qualities as a man, a general, and a statesman, in spite of his
+defects, have immortalized his name, and he will, for a long time to
+come, be called, and called with justice, the _great_ Duke of
+Marlborough.
+
+Scarcely less than he, was Lord Godolphin, the able prime minister of
+Anne, with whom Marlborough was united by family ties, by friendship,
+by official relations, and by interest. He was a Tory by profession,
+but a Whig in his policy. He rose with Marlborough, and fell with him,
+being an unflinching advocate for the prosecution of the war to the
+utmost limits, for which his government was distasteful to the Tories.
+His life was not stainless; but, in an age of corruption, he ably
+administered the treasury department, and had control of unbounded
+wealth, without becoming rich--the highest praise which can ever be
+awarded to a minister of finance. It was only through the cooeperation
+of this sagacious and far-sighted statesman that Marlborough himself
+was enabled to prosecute his brilliant military career.
+
+[Sidenote: Whigs and Tories.]
+
+It was during his administration that party animosity was at its
+height--the great struggle which has been going on, in England, for
+nearly two hundred years, between the Whigs and Tories. These names
+originated in the reign of Charles II., and were terms of reproach.
+The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to
+the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of
+the _Whigs_; and the country party pretended to find a resemblance
+between the courtiers and the Popish banditti of Ireland, to whom the
+appellation of _Tory_ was affixed. The High Church party and the
+advocates of absolutism belonged to the Tories; the more liberal party
+and the advocates of constitutional reform, to the Whigs. The former
+were conservative, the latter professed a sympathy with improvements.
+But the leaders of both parties were among the greatest nobles in the
+realm, and probably cared less for any great innovation than they did
+for themselves. These two great parties, in the progress of society,
+have changed their views, and the opinions once held by the Whigs were
+afterwards adopted by the Tories. On the whole, the Whigs were in
+advance in liberality of mind, and in enlightened plans of government.
+But both parties, in England, have ever been aristocratic, and both
+have felt nearly an equal disgust of popular influences. Charles and
+James sympathized with the Tories more than with the Whigs; but
+William III. was supported by the Whigs, who had the ascendency in his
+reign. Queen Anne was a Tory, as was to be expected from a princess of
+the house of Stuart; but, in the early part of her reign, was obliged
+to yield to the supremacy of the Whigs. The advocates for war were
+Whigs, and those who desired peace were Tories. The Whigs looked to
+the future glory of the country; the Tories, to the expenses which war
+created. The Tories at last got the ascendency, and expelled
+Godolphin, Marlborough, and Sunderland from power.
+
+Of the Tory leaders, Harley, (Earl of Oxford,) St. John, (Lord
+Bolingbroke,) the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Ormond, the Earl
+of Rochester, and Lord Dartmouth, were the most prominent, but this
+Tory party was itself divided, in consequence of jealousies between
+the chiefs, the intrigues of Harley, and the measureless ambition of
+Bolingbroke. Under the ascendency of the Tories the treaty of Utrecht
+was made, now generally condemned by historians of both Whig and Tory
+politics. It was disproportioned to the success of the war, although
+it secured the ends of the grand alliance.
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. Henry Sacheverell.]
+
+One of the causes which led to the overthrow of the Whigs was the
+impeachment and trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an event which excited
+intense interest at the time, and, though insignificant in itself,
+touched some vital principles of the constitution.
+
+This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation for
+learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, an
+outrageous Whig; but, finding his services disregarded, he became a
+violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and scurrilous
+rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the valuable
+living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his railings against
+the late king and the revolution at last attracted the notice of
+government; and for two sermons which he printed, and in which he
+inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive obedience,
+consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused the great
+principle of religious toleration, he was formally impeached. All
+England was excited by the trial. The queen herself privately
+attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted for his loyalty, and
+persecuted for defending his church. The finest orators and lawyers of
+the day put forth all their energies. Bishop Atterbury wrote for
+Sacheverell his defence, which was endorsed by a conclave of High
+Church divines. The result of the trial was the condemnation of the
+doctor, and with it the fall of his adversaries. He was suspended for
+three years, but his defeat was a triumph. He was received, in college
+halls and private mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the
+reverence of a saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The
+great body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles,
+took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers developed
+some great principles--led to the assertion of the doctrines of
+toleration; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of the state and
+church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be curbed and
+suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by opposing the bigoted
+Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justified the revolution, and
+upheld the conquest by William III. And their speeches are upon
+record, that they asserted the great principles of civil and religious
+liberty, in the face of all the authority, dignity, and wisdom of the
+realm. It is true they lost as a party, on account of the bigotry of
+the times; but they furnished another pillar to uphold the
+constitution, and adduced new and powerful arguments in support of
+constitutional liberty. The country gained, if they, as a party, lost;
+and though Sacheverell was lauded by his church, his conviction was a
+triumph to the friends of freedom. Good resulted in many other ways.
+Political leaders learned moral wisdom; they saw the folly of
+persecuting men for libels, when such men had the sympathy of the
+people; that such persecutions were undignified, and that, while they
+gained their end, they lost more by victory than by defeat. The trial
+of Sacheverell, while it brought to view more clearly some great
+constitutional truths, also more effectually advanced the liberty of
+the press; for, surely, restriction on the press is a worse evil, than
+the violence and vituperation of occasional libels.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of Scotland and England.]
+
+The great domestic event of this reign was doubtless the union of
+Scotland and England; a consummation of lasting peace between the two
+countries, which William III. had proposed. Nothing could be more
+beneficent for both the countries; and the only wonder is, that it was
+not done before, when James II. ascended the English throne; and
+nothing then, perhaps, prevented it, but the bitter jealousy which had
+so long existed between these countries; a jealousy, dislike, and
+prejudice which have hardly yet passed away.
+
+Scotland, until the reign of James II., was theoretically and
+practically independent of England, but was not so fortunately placed,
+as the latter country, for the development of energies. The country
+was smaller, more barren, and less cultivated. The people were less
+civilized; and had less influence on the political welfare of the
+state. The aristocracy were more powerful, and were more jealous of
+royal authority. There were constant feuds and jealousies between
+dominant classes, which checked the growth in political importance,
+wealth, and civilization. But the people were more generally imbued
+with the ultra principles of the Reformation, were more religious, and
+cherished a peculiar attachment to the Presbyterian form of church
+government, and a peculiar hatred of every thing which resembled Roman
+Catholicism. They were, moreover, distinguished for patriotism, and
+had great jealousy of English influences.
+
+James II. was the legitimate King of Scotland, as well as of England;
+but he soon acquired a greater love for England, than he retained for
+his native country; and England being the greater country, the
+interests of Scotland were frequently sacrificed to those of England.
+
+Queen Anne, as the daughter of James II., was also the legitimate
+sovereign of Scotland; and, on her decease, the Scotch were not bound
+to acknowledge the Elector of Hanover as their legitimate king.
+
+[Sidenote: Duke of Hamilton.]
+
+Many ardent and patriotic Scotchmen, including the Duke of Hamilton
+and Fletcher of Saltoun, deemed it a favorable time to assert, on the
+death of Queen Anne, their national independence, since the English
+government was neither just nor generous to the lesser country.
+
+Under these circumstances, there were many obstacles to a permanent
+union, and it was more bitterly opposed in Scotland than in England.
+The more patriotic desired complete independence. Many were jealous of
+the superior prosperity of England. The people in the Highlands and
+the north of Scotland were Jacobinical in their principles, and were
+attached to the Stuart dynasty. The Presbyterians feared the influence
+of English Episcopacy, and Scottish peers deprecated a servile
+dependence on the parliament of England.
+
+But the English government, on the whole, much as it hated Scotch
+Presbyterianism and Scotch influence, desired a union, in order to
+secure the peaceful succession of the house of Hanover, for the north
+of Scotland was favorable to the Stuarts, and without a union, English
+liberties would be endangered by Jacobinical intrigues. English
+statesmen felt this, and used every measure to secure this end.
+
+The Scotch were overreached. Force, bribery, and corruption were
+resorted to. The Duke of Hamilton proved a traitor, and the union was
+effected--a union exceedingly important to the peace of both
+countries, but especially desirable to England. Important concessions
+were made by the English, to which they were driven only by fear. They
+might have ruled Scotland as they did Ireland, but for the intrepidity
+and firmness of the Scotch, who while negotiations were pending,
+passed the famous Act of Security, by which the Scottish parliament
+decreed the succession in Scotland, on the death of the queen, open
+and elective; the independence and power of parliaments; freedom in
+trade and commerce; and the liberty of Scotland to engage or not in
+the English continental wars. The English parliament retaliated,
+indeed, by an act restricting the trade of Scotland, and declaring
+Scotchmen aliens throughout the English dominions. But the conflicts
+between the Whigs and Tories induced government to repeal the act; and
+the commissioners for the union secured their end.
+
+It was agreed, in the famous treaty they at last effected, that the
+two kingdoms of England and Scotland be united into one, by the name
+of _Great Britain_.
+
+That the succession to the United Kingdom shall remain to the Princess
+Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being
+Protestants; and that all Papists, and persons marrying Papists, shall
+be excluded from, and be forever incapable of inheriting, the crown of
+Great Britain;
+
+That the whole people of Great Britain shall be represented by one
+parliament, in which sixteen peers and forty-five commoners, chosen
+for Scotland, should sit and vote;
+
+That the subjects of the United Kingdom shall enjoy an entire freedom
+and intercourse of trade and navigation, and reciprocal communication
+of all other rights, privileges, and advantages belonging to the
+subjects of either kingdom;
+
+That the laws, in regard to public rights and civil government, shall
+be the same in both countries, but that no alteration shall be made in
+the laws respecting private rights, unless for the evident utility of
+the subjects residing in Scotland;
+
+That the Court of Session, and all other courts of judicature in
+Scotland, remain as before the union, subject, however, to such
+regulations as may be made by the parliament of Great Britain.
+
+Beside these permanent regulations, a sum of three hundred and
+ninety-eight thousand pounds was granted to Scotland, as an equivalent
+to the augmentation of the customs and excise.
+
+By this treaty, the Scotch became identified with the English in
+interest. They lost their independence; but they gained security and
+peace; and rose in wealth and consequence. The nation moreover, was
+burdened by the growth of the national debt. The advantage was mutual,
+but England gained the greater advantage by shifting a portion of her
+burdens on Scotland, by securing the hardy people of that noble
+country to fight her battles, and by converting a nation of enemies
+into a nation of friends.
+
+We come now to glance at those illustrious men who adorned the
+literature of England in this brilliant age, celebrated for political
+as well as literary writings.
+
+Of these, Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Bentley, Warburton, Arbuthnot,
+Gay, Pope, Tickell, Halifax, Parnell, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Steele,
+and Berkeley, were the most distinguished. Dryden belonged to the
+preceding age; to the period of license and gayety--the greatest but
+most immoral of all the great poets of England, from the time of
+Milton to that of Pope.
+
+[Sidenote: Wits of Queen Anne's Reign.]
+
+The wits of Queen Anne's reign were political writers as well as
+poets, and their services were sought for and paid by the great
+statesmen of the times, chiefly of the Tory party. Marlborough
+neglected the poets, and they contributed to undermine his power.
+
+Of these wits the most distinguished and respectable was Addison, born
+1672. He was well educated, and distinguished himself at Oxford, and
+was a fellow of Magdalen College. His early verses, which would now be
+pronounced very inferior, however attracted the notice of Dryden, then
+the great autocrat of letters, and the oracle of the literary clubs.
+At the age of twenty-seven, Addison was provided with a pension from
+the Whig government, and set out on his travels. He was afterwards
+made secretary to Lord Halifax, and elected a member of the House of
+Commons, but was never able to make a speech. He, however, made up for
+his failure as an orator by his power as a writer, being a perfect
+master of elegant satire. He was also charming in private
+conversation, and his society was much sought by eminent statesmen,
+scholars, and noblemen. In 1708, he became secretary for Ireland, and,
+while he resided at Dublin, wrote those delightful papers on which his
+fame chiefly rests. Not as the author of Rosamond, nor of Latin
+verses, nor of the treatise on Medals, nor of Letters from Italy, nor
+of the tragedy of Cato, would he now be known to us. His glory is
+derived from the Tatler and Spectator--an entirely new species of
+writing in his age, original, simple, and beautiful, but chiefly
+marked for polished and elegant satire against the follies and bad
+taste of his age. Moreover, his numbers of the Spectator are
+distinguished for elevation of sentiment, and moral purity, without
+harshness, and without misanthropy. He wrote three sevenths of that
+immortal production, and on every variety of subject, without any
+attempt to be eloquent or _intense_, without pedantry and without
+affectation. The success of the work was immense, and every one who
+could afford it, had it served on the breakfast table with the tea and
+toast. It was the general subject of conversation in all polite
+circles, and did much to improve the taste and reform the morals of
+the age. There was nothing which he so severely ridiculed as the show
+of learning without the reality, coxcombry in conversation,
+extravagance in dress, female flirts and butterflies, gay and
+fashionable women, and all false modesty and affectation. But he
+blamed without bitterness, and reformed without exhortation, while he
+exalted what was simple, and painted in most beautiful colors the
+virtues of contentment, simplicity, sincerity, and cheerfulness.
+
+His latter days were imbittered by party animosity, and the malignant
+stings of literary rivals. Nor was he happy in his domestic life,
+having married a proud countess, who did not appreciate his genius. He
+also became addicted to intemperate habits. Still he was ever honored
+and respected, and, when he died, was buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+[Sidenote: Swift.]
+
+Next to Addison in fame, and superior in genius, was Swift, born in
+Ireland, in 1677, educated at Dublin, and patronized by Sir William
+Temple. He was rewarded, finally, with the deanery of St. Patrick's.
+He was very useful to his party by his political writings; but his
+fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and his Gulliver's Travels, marked
+and disgraced by his savage sarcasm on woman, and his vilification of
+human nature. He was a great master of venomous satire. He spared
+neither friends nor enemies. He was ambitious, misanthropic and
+selfish. His treatment of woman was disgraceful and heartless in the
+extreme. But he was witty, learned, and natural. He was never known to
+laugh, while he convulsed the circles into which he was thrown. He was
+rough to his servants, insolent to inferiors, and sycophantic to men
+of rank. His distinguishing power was his unsparing and unscrupulous
+sarcasm and his invective was as dreadful as the personal ridicule of
+Voltaire. As a poet he was respectable, and as a writer he was
+original. He was indifferent to literary fame, and never attempted any
+higher style of composition than that in which he could excel. His
+last days were miserable, and he lingered a long while in hopeless and
+melancholy idiocy.
+
+[Sidenote: Pope--Bolingbroke--Gay--Prior.]
+
+Pope properly belongs to a succeeding age, though his first writings
+attracted considerable attention during the life of Addison, who first
+raised him from obscurity. He is the greatest, after Dryden, of all
+the second class poets of his country. His Rape of the Lock, the most
+original of his poems, established his fame. But his greatest works
+were the translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Dunciad, and his
+Essay on Man. He was well paid for his labors, and lived in a
+beautiful villa at Twickenham, the friend of Bolingbroke, and the
+greatest literary star of his age. But he was bitter and satirical,
+irritable, parsimonious, and vain. As a versifier, he has never been
+equalled. He died in 1744, in the Romish faith, beloved but by few,
+and disliked by the world generally.
+
+[Sidenote: Writers of the Age of Queen Anne.]
+
+Bolingbroke was not a poet, but a man of vast genius, a great
+statesman, and a great writer on history and political philosophy, a
+man of most fascinating manners and conversation, brilliant, witty,
+and learned, but unprincipled and intriguing, the great leader of the
+Tory party. Gay, as a poet, was respectable, but poor, unfortunate, a
+hanger on of great people, and miserably paid for his sycophancy. His
+fame rests on his Fables and his Beggar's Opera. Prior first made
+himself distinguished by his satire called A City Mouse and a Country
+Mouse, aimed against Dryden. He was well rewarded by government, and
+was sent as minister to Paris. Like most of the wits of his time, he
+was convivial, and not always particular in the choice of his
+associates. Humor was the natural turn of his mind. Steele was editor
+of the Spectator and wrote some excellent papers, although vastly
+inferior to Addison's. He is the father of the periodical essay, was a
+man of fashion and pleasure, and had great experience in the follies
+and vanities of the world. It is doubtful whether the writings of the
+great men who adorned the age of Anne will ever regain the ascendency
+they once enjoyed, since they have all been surpassed in succeeding
+times. They had not the fire, enthusiasm, or genius which satisfies
+the wants of the present generation. As poets, they had no greatness
+of fancy; and as philosophers, they were cold and superficial. Nor did
+they write for the people, but for the great, with whom they sought to
+associate, by whose praises they were consoled, and by whose bread
+they were sustained. They wrote for a class, and that class alone,
+that chiefly seeks to avoid ridicule and abstain from absurdity, that
+never attempts the sublime, and never sinks to the ridiculous; a class
+keen of observation, fond of the satirical, and indifferent to all
+institutions and enterprises which have for their object the elevation
+of the masses, or the triumph of the abstract principles of truth and
+justice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Lord Mahon's History of England, which
+     commences with the peace of Utrecht, is one of the most
+     useful and interesting works which have lately appeared.
+     Smollett's continuation of Hume should be consulted,
+     although the author was greater as a novelist than as an
+     historian. Burnet's history on this period is a standard.
+     Hallam should be read in reference to all constitutional
+     questions. Coxe's Life of Marlborough throws great light on
+     the period, and is very valuable. Macaulay's work will, of
+     course, be read. See, also, Bolingbroke's Letters, and the
+     Duke of Berwick's Memoirs. A chapter in the Pictorial
+     History is very good as to literary history and the progress
+     of the arts and sciences. See, also, Johnson's Lives of the
+     Poets; Nichols's Life of Addison; Scott's Life of Swift;
+     Macaulay's Essay on Addison; and the Spectator and Tatler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Early History of Russia.]
+
+While Louis XIV. was prosecuting his schemes of aggrandizement, and
+William III. was opposing those schemes; while Villeroy, Villars,
+Marlborough, and Eugene were contending, at the head of great armies,
+for their respective masters; a new power was arising at the north,
+destined soon to become prominent among the great empires of the
+world. The political importance of Russia was not appreciated at the
+close of the seventeenth century, until the great resources of the
+country were brought to the view of Europe by the extraordinary genius
+of Peter the Great.
+
+The history of Russia, before the reign of this great prince, has not
+excited much interest, and is not particularly eventful or important.
+The Russians are descended from the ancient Sclavonic race, supposed
+to be much inferior to the Germanic or Teutonic tribes, to whom most
+of the civilized nations of Europe trace their origin.
+
+The first great event in Russian history is the nominal conversion of
+a powerful king to Christianity, in the tenth century, named Vladimir,
+whose reign was a mixture of cruelty, licentiousness, and heroism.
+Seeing the necessity of some generally recognized religion, he sent
+ten of his most distinguished men into all the various countries then
+known, to examine their religious systems. Being semi-barbarians, they
+were disposed to recommend that form which had the most imposing
+ceremonial, and appealed most forcibly to the senses. The
+commissioners came to Mecca, but soon left with contempt, since
+Mohammedanism then made too great demands upon the powers of
+self-control, and prohibited the use of many things to which the
+barbarians were attached. They were no better pleased with the
+Manichean philosophy, which then extensively prevailed in the East;
+for this involved the settlement of abstract ideas, for which
+barbarians had no relish. They disliked Roman Catholicism, on account
+of the arrogant claims of the pope. Judaism was spurned, because it
+had no country, and its professors were scattered over the face of the
+earth. But the lofty minarets of St. Sophia, and the extravagant
+magnificence of the Greek worship, filled the commissioners with
+admiration; and they easily induced Vladimir to adopt the forms of the
+Greek Church; which has ever since been the established religion of
+Russia. But Christianity, in its corrupted form, failed to destroy,
+and scarcely alleviated, the traits of barbarous life. Old
+superstitions and vices prevailed; nor were the Russian territories on
+an equality with the Gothic kingdoms of Europe, in manners, arts
+learning, laws, or piety.
+
+[Sidenote: The Tartar Conquest.]
+
+When Genghis Khan, with his Tartar hordes, overran the world Russia
+was subdued, and Tartar princes took possession of the throne of the
+ancient czars. But the Russian princes, in the thirteenth century,
+recovered their ancient power. Alexander Nevsky performed exploits of
+great brilliancy; gained important victories over Danes, Swedes,
+Lithuanians, and Teutonic knights; and greatly enlarged the boundaries
+of his kingdom. In the fourteenth century, Moscow became a powerful
+city, to which was transferred the seat of government, which before
+was Novgorod. Under the successor of Ivan Kalita, the manners, laws,
+and institutions of the Russians became fixed, and the absolute power
+of the czars was established. Under Ivan III., who ascended the
+Muscovite throne in 1462, the Tartar rule was exterminated, and the
+various provinces and principalities, of which Russia was composed,
+were brought under a central government. The Kremlin, with its mighty
+towers and imposing minarets, arose in all the grandeur of Eastern art
+and barbaric strength. The mines of the country were worked, the roads
+cleared of banditti, and a code of laws established. The veil which
+concealed Russia from the rest of Europe was rent. An army of three
+hundred thousand men was enlisted, Siberia was discovered, the
+printing press introduced, and civilization commenced. But the czar
+was, nevertheless, a brutal tyrant and an abandoned libertine, who
+massacred his son, executed his nobles, and destroyed his cities.
+
+His successors were disgraced by every crime which degrades humanity;
+and the whole population remained in rudeness and barbarism,
+superstition and ignorance. The clergy wielded enormous power; which,
+however, was rendered subservient to the interests of absolutism.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Peter the Great.]
+
+Such was Russia, when Peter, the son of Alexis Michaelovitz, ascended
+the throne, in 1682--a boy, ten years of age. He early exhibited great
+sagacity and talent, but was addicted to gross pleasures. These,
+strangely, did not enervate him, or prevent him from making
+considerable attainments. But he was most distinguished for a military
+spirit, which was treated with contempt by the Regent Sophia, daughter
+of Alexis by a first marriage. As soon, however, as her eyes were open
+to his varied studies and his ambitious spirit, she became jealous,
+and attempted to secure his assassination. In this she failed, and the
+youthful sovereign reigned supreme in Moscow, at the age of seventeen.
+
+No sooner did he assume the reins of empire, than his genius blazed
+forth with singular brilliancy, and the rapid development of his
+powers was a subject of universal wonder. Full of courage and energy,
+he found nothing too arduous for him to undertake; and he soon
+conceived the vast project of changing the whole system of his
+government, and reforming the manners of his subjects.
+
+He first directed his attention to the art of war, and resolved to
+increase the military strength of his empire. With the aid of Le Fort,
+a Swiss adventurer, and Gordon, a Scotch officer, he instituted,
+gradually, a standing army of twenty thousand men, officered, armed,
+and disciplined after the European model; cut off the long beards of
+the soldiers, took away their robes, and changed their Asiatic dress.
+
+He then conceived the idea of a navy, which may be traced to his love
+of sailing in a boat, which he had learned to navigate himself. He
+studied assiduously the art of ship-building, and soon laid the
+foundation of a navy.
+
+His enterprising and innovating spirit created, as it was to be
+expected, considerable disaffection among the partisans of the old
+_regime_--the old officers of the army, and the nobles, stripped of
+many of their privileges. A rebellion was the consequence; which,
+however, was soon suppressed, and the conspirators were executed with
+unsparing cruelty.
+
+He then came to the singular resolution of visiting foreign countries,
+in order to acquire useful information, both in respect to the arts of
+government and the arts of civilization. Many amusing incidents are
+recorded of him in his travels. He journeyed incognito; clambered up
+the sides of ships, ascended the rigging, and descended into the hold;
+he hired himself out as a workman in Holland, lived on the wretched
+stipend which he earned as a ship-carpenter, and mastered all the
+details of ship-building. From Holland he went to England, where he
+was received with great honor by William III.; studied the state of
+manufactures and trades, and sought to gain knowledge on all common
+subjects. From England he went to Austria, intending to go afterwards
+to Italy; but he was compelled to return home, on account of a
+rebellion of the old military guard, called the _Strelitz_, who were
+peculiarly disaffected. But he easily suppressed the discontents, and
+punished the old soldiers with unsparing rigor. He even executed
+thirty with his own hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Peter's Reforms.]
+
+He then turned himself, in good earnest, to the work of reform. His
+passions were military, and he longed to conquer kingdoms and cities.
+But he saw no probability of success, unless he could first civilize
+his subjects, and teach the soldiers the great improvements in the art
+of war. In order to conquer, he resolved first to reform his nation.
+His desires were selfish, but happened to be directed into channels
+which benefited his country. Like Napoleon, his ruling passion was
+that of the aggrandizement of himself and nation. But Providence
+designed that his passions should be made subservient to the welfare
+of his race. It is to his glory that he had enlargement of mind
+sufficient to perceive the true sources of national prosperity. To
+secure this, therefore, became the aim of his life. He became a
+reformer; but a reformer, like Hildebrand, of the despotic school.
+
+The first object of all despots is the improvement of the military
+force. To effect this, he abolished the old privileges of the
+soldiers, disbanded them, and drafted them into the new regiments,
+which he had organized on the European plan.
+
+He found more difficulty in changing the dress of the people, who,
+generally, wore the long Asiatic robe, and the Tartar beard; and such
+was the opposition made by the people, that he was obliged to
+compromise the matter, and compelled all who would wear beards and
+robes to pay a heavy tax, except priests and peasants: having granted
+the indulgence to priests on account of the ceremonial of their
+worship, and to peasants in order to render their costume ignominious.
+
+His next important measure was the toleration of all religions, and
+all sects, with the exception of the Jesuits, whom he hated and
+feared. He caused the Bible to be translated into the Sclavonic
+language; founded a school for the marine, and also institutions for
+the encouragement of literature and art. He abolished the old and
+odious laws of marriage, by which women had no liberty in the choice
+of husbands. He suppressed all useless monasteries; taxed the clergy
+as well as the laity; humiliated the patriarch, and assumed many of
+his powers. He improved the administration of justice, mitigated laws
+in relation to woman, and raised her social rank. He established
+post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous police, hospitals and
+almshouses. He humbled the nobility, and abolished many of their
+privileges; for which the people honored him, and looked upon him as
+their benefactor.
+
+Having organized his army, and effected social reforms, he turned his
+attention to war and national aggrandizement.
+
+[Sidenote: His War with Charles XII.]
+
+[Sidenote: Charles XII.]
+
+His first war was with Sweden, then the most powerful of the northern
+states, and ruled by Charles XII., who, at the age of eighteen, had
+just ascended the throne. The _cause_ of the war was the desire of
+aggrandizement on the part of the czar; the _pretence_ was, the
+restitution of some lands which Sweden had obtained from Denmark
+and Poland. Taking advantage of the defenceless state of
+Sweden,--attacked, at that time, by Denmark on the one side, and by
+Poland on the other,--Peter invaded the territories of Charles with an
+army of sixty thousand men, and laid siege to Narva. The Swedish
+forces were only twenty thousand; but they were veterans, and they
+were headed by a hero. Notwithstanding the great disproportion between
+the contending parties, the Russians were defeated, although attacked
+in their intrenchments, and all the artillery fell into the hands of
+the Swedes. The victory at Narva settled the fame of Charles, but
+intoxicated his mind, and led to a presumptuous self-confidence; while
+the defeat of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make
+still greater exertions--one of the numerous instances, so often seen
+in human life, where defeat is better than victory. But the czar was
+conscious of his strength, and also of his weakness. He knew he had
+unlimited resources, but that his troops were inexperienced; and he
+made up his mind for disasters at the beginning, in the hope of
+victory in the end. "I know very well," said he, "that the Swedes will
+have the advantage over us for a considerable time; but they will
+teach us, at length, to beat them." The Swede, on the other hand, was
+intoxicated with victory, and acquired that fatal presumption which
+finally proved disastrous to himself and to his country. He despised
+his adversary; while Peter, without overrating his victorious enemy,
+was led to put forth new energies, and develop the great resources of
+his nation. He was sure of final success; and he who can be sustained
+by the consciousness of ultimate triumph, can ever afford to wait. It
+is the spirit which sustains the martyr. It constitutes the
+distinguishing element of enthusiasm and exalted heroism.
+
+But Peter not only made new military preparations, but prosecuted his
+schemes of internal improvement, and projected, after his unfortunate
+defeat at Narva, the union, by a canal, of the Baltic and Caspian
+Seas. About this time, he introduced into Russia flocks of Saxony
+sheep, erected linen and paper manufactories, built hospitals, and
+invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, to settle in his kingdom.
+But Charles thought only of war and glory, and did not reconstruct or
+reproduce. He pursued his military career by invading Poland, then
+ruled by the Elector of Saxony; while Peter turned his attention to
+the organization of new armies, melting bells into cannon,
+constructing fleets, and attending to all the complicated cares of a
+mighty nation with the most minute assiduity. He drew plans of
+fortresses, projected military reforms, and inspired his soldiers with
+his own enthusiasm. And his energy and perseverance were soon
+rewarded. He captured Marianburgh, a strong city on the confines of
+Livonia and Ingria, and among the captives was a young peasant girl,
+who eventually became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels
+Peter was much indebted for his great success.
+
+She was the daughter of a poor woman of Livonia; lost her mother at
+the age of three years; and, at that early age, attracted the notice
+of the parish clerk, a Lutheran clergyman: was brought up with his own
+daughters, and married a young sergeant of the army, who was killed in
+the capture of the city. She interested the Russian general, by her
+intense grief and great beauty; was taken into his family, and, soon
+after, won the favor of Prince Menzikoff, the prime minister of the
+czar; became mistress of his palace; there beheld Peter himself,
+captivated him, and was married to him,--at first privately, and
+afterwards publicly. Her rise, from so obscure a position, in a
+distant country town, to be the wife of the absolute monarch of an
+empire of thirty-three millions of people, is the most extraordinary
+in the history of the world. When she enslaved the czar by the power
+of her charms, she was only seventeen years of age; two years after
+the foundations of St. Petersburg were laid.
+
+[Sidenote: Building of St. Petersburg.]
+
+The building of this great northern capital was as extraordinary as
+the other great acts of this monarch. Amid the marshes, at the mouth
+of the Neva, a rival city to the ancient metropolis of the empire
+arose in five months. But one hundred thousand people perished during
+the first year, in consequence of the severity of their labors, and
+the pestilential air of the place. The new city was an object of as
+great disgust to the nobles of Russia and the inhabitants of the older
+cities, as it was the delight and pride of the czar, who made it the
+capital of his vast dominions. And the city was scarcely built, before
+its great commercial advantages were appreciated; and vessels from all
+parts of the world, freighted with the various treasures of its
+different kingdoms and countries, appeared in the harbor of Cronstadt.
+
+Charles XII. looked with contempt on the Herculean labors of his rival
+to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked "that the czar might
+amuse himself as he saw fit in building a city, but that he should
+soon take it from him, and set fire to his wooden house;" a bombastic
+boast, which, like most boasting, came most signally to nought.
+
+[Sidenote: New War with Sweden.]
+
+Indeed, success now turned in favor of Peter, whose forces had been
+constantly increasing, while those of Charles had been decreasing.
+City after city fell into the hands of Peter, and whole provinces were
+conquered from Sweden. Soon all Ingria was added to the empire of the
+czar, the government of which was intrusted to Menzikoff, a man of
+extraordinary abilities raised from obscurity, as a seller of pies in
+the streets of Moscow to be a prince of the empire. His elevation was
+a great mortification to the old and proud nobility. But Peter not
+only endeavored to reward and appropriate merit, but to humble the old
+aristocracy, who were averse to his improvements. And Peter was as
+cold and haughty to them, as he was free and companionable with his
+meanest soldiers. All great despots are indifferent to grades of rank,
+when their own elevation is above envy or the reach of ambition. The
+reward of merit by the czar, if it alienated the affections of his
+nobles, increased the veneration and enthusiasm of the people, who
+are, after all, the great permanent foundation on which absolute power
+rests; illustrated by the empire of the popes, as well as the
+despotism of Napoleon.
+
+While Peter contended, with various success, with the armies of
+Sweden, he succeeded in embroiling Sweden in a war with Poland, and in
+diverting Charles from the invasion of Russia. Had Charles, at first,
+and perseveringly, concentrated all his strength in an invasion of
+Russia, he might have changed the politics of Europe. But he was
+induced to invade Poland, and soon drove the luxurious and cowardly
+monarch from his capital and throne, and then turned towards Russia,
+to play the part of Alexander. But he did not find a Darius in the
+czar, who was ready to meet him, at the head of immense armies.
+
+The Russian forces amounted to one hundred thousand men; the Swedish
+to eighty thousand, and they were veterans. Peter did not venture to
+risk the fate of his empire, by a pitched battle, with such an army of
+victorious troops. So he attempted a stratagem, and succeeded. He
+decoyed the Swedes into a barren and wasted territory; and Charles,
+instead of marching to Moscow, as he ought to have done, followed his
+expected prey where he could get no provisions for his men, or forage
+for his horses. Exhausted by fatigue and famine, his troops drooped in
+the pursuit, and even suffered themselves to be diverted into still
+more barren sections. Under these circumstances, they were defeated in
+a disastrous battle. Charles, struck with madness, refused to retreat.
+Disasters multiplied. The victorious Russians hung upon his rear. The
+Cossacks cut off his stragglers. The army of eighty thousand melted
+away to twenty-five thousand. Still the infatuated Swede dreamed of
+victory, and expected to see the troops of his enemy desert. The
+winter set in with its northern severity, and reduced still further
+his famished troops. He lost time by marches and counter-marches,
+without guides, and in the midst of a hostile population. At last he
+reached Pultowa, a village on the banks of the Vorskla. Peter hastened
+to meet him, with an army of sixty thousand, and one of the bloodiest
+battles in the history of war was fought. The Swedes performed
+miracles of valor. But valor could do nothing against overwhelming
+strength. A disastrous defeat was the result, and Charles, with a few
+regiments, escaped to Turkey.
+
+Had the battle of Pultowa been decided differently; had Charles
+conquered instead of Peter, or had Peter lost his life, the empire of
+Russia would probably have been replunged into its original barbarism,
+and the balance of power, in Europe, been changed.
+
+[Sidenote: War with the Turks.]
+
+But Providence, which ordained the civilization of Russia, also
+ordained that the triumphant czar should not be unduly aggrandized,
+and should himself learn lessons of humility. The Turks, in
+consequence of the intrigues of Charles, and their hereditary
+jealousy, made war upon Peter, and advanced against him with an army
+of two hundred and fifty thousand men. His own army was composed of
+only forty thousand. He was also indiscreet, and soon found himself in
+the condition of Charles at Pultowa. On the banks of the Pruth, in
+Moldavia, he was surrounded by the whole Turkish force, and famine or
+surrender seemed inevitable. It was in this desperate and deplorable
+condition that he was rescued by the Czarina Catharine, by whose
+address a treaty was made with his victorious enemy, and Peter was
+allowed to retire with his army. Charles XII. was indignant beyond
+measure with the Turkish general, for granting such easy conditions,
+when he had the czar in his power; and to his reproaches the vizier of
+the sultan replied, "I have a right to make peace or war; and our law
+commands us to grant peace to our enemies, when they implore our
+clemency." Charles replied with an insult; and, though a fugitive in
+the Turkish camp, he threw himself on a sofa, contemptuously cast his
+eye on all present, stretched out his leg, and entangled his spur in
+the vizier's robe; which insult the magnanimous Turk affected to
+consider an accident.
+
+After the defeat of Peter on the banks of the Pruth, he devoted
+himself with renewed energy to the improvement of his country. He
+embellished St. Petersburg, his new capital, with palaces, churches,
+and arsenals. He increased his army and navy, strengthened himself by
+new victories, and became gradually master of both sides of the Gulf
+of Finland, by which his vast empire was protected from invasion.
+
+[Sidenote: Peter Makes a Second Tour.]
+
+He now reached the exalted height to which he had long aspired. He
+assumed the title of _emperor_, and his title was universally
+acknowledged. He then meditated a second tour of Europe, with a view
+to study the political constitutions of the various states. Thirteen
+years had elapsed, since, as a young enthusiast, he had visited
+Amsterdam and London. He now travelled, a second time, with the
+additional glory of a great name, and in the full maturity of his
+mind. He visited Hamburg, Stockholm, Lubec, Amsterdam, and Paris. At
+this latter place he was much noticed. Wherever he went, his course
+was a triumphal procession. But he disdained flattery, and was wearied
+with pompous ceremonies. He could not be flattered out of his
+simplicity, or the zeal of acquiring useful knowledge. He visited all
+the works of art, and was particularly struck with the Gobelin
+tapestries and the tomb of Richelieu. "Great man," said he,
+apostrophizing his image, "I would give half of my kingdom to learn of
+thee how to govern the other half." His residence in Paris inspired
+all classes with profound respect; and from Paris he went to Berlin.
+There he found sympathy with Frederic William, whose tastes and
+character somewhat resembled his own; and from him he learned many
+useful notions in the art of government. But he was suddenly recalled
+from Berlin by the bad conduct of his son Alexis, who was the heir to
+his throne. He was tried, condemned, disgraced, humiliated, and
+disinherited. He probably would have been executed by his hard and
+rigorous father, had he not died in prison. He was hostile to his
+father's plans of reform, and indecently expressed a wish for his
+death. The conduct of Peter towards him is generally considered harsh
+and unfeeling; but it has many palliations, if the good of his
+subjects and the peace of the realm are more to be desired than the
+life of an ignominious prince.
+
+Peter prosecuted his wars and his reforms. The treaty of Neustadt
+secured to Russia, after twenty years of unbroken war, a vast increase
+of territory, and placed her at the head of the northern powers. The
+emperor also enriched his country by opening new branches of trade,
+constructing canals, rewarding industry, suppressing gambling and
+mendicity, introducing iron and steel manufacture, building cities,
+and establishing a vigorous police.
+
+[Sidenote: Elevation of Catharine.]
+
+After having settled the finances and trade of his empire, subdued his
+enemies at home and abroad, and compelled all the nobles and clergy to
+swear fealty to the person whom he should select as his successor, he
+appointed his wife, Catharine; and she was solemnly crowned empress in
+1724, he himself, at her inauguration, walking on foot, as captain of
+her guard. He could not have made a better choice, as she was, in all
+substantial respects, worthy of the exalted position to which she was
+raised.
+
+In about a year after, he died, leaving behind him his principles and
+a mighty name. Other kings have been greater generals; but few have
+derived from war greater success. Some have commanded larger armies;
+but he created those which he commanded. Many have destroyed; but he
+reconstructed. He was a despot, but ruled for the benefit of his
+country. He was disgraced by violent passions, his cruelty was
+sanguinary, and his tastes were brutal; but his passions did not
+destroy his judgment, nor his appetites make him luxurious. He was
+incessantly active and vigilant, his prejudices were few, and his
+views tolerant and enlightened. He was only cruel when his authority
+was impeached. His best portraiture is in his acts. He found a country
+semi-barbarous, convulsed by disorders, a prey to petty tyrannies,
+weak from disunion, and trembling before powerful neighbors. He left
+it a first-class power, freed in a measure from its barbarous customs,
+improved in social life, in arts, in science, and, perhaps, in morals.
+He left a large and disciplined army, a considerable navy, and
+numerous institutions for the civilization of the people. He left
+more--the moral effect of a great example, of a man in the possession
+of unbounded riches and power, making great personal sacrifices to
+improve himself in the art of governing for the welfare of the
+millions over whom he was called to rule. These virtues and these acts
+have justly won for him the title of Peter the _Great_--a title which
+the world has bestowed upon but few of the great heroes of ancient or
+modern times.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Early History of Sweden.]
+
+The reign of Charles XII. is intimately connected with that of Peter
+the Great; these monarchs being contemporaries and rivals, both
+reigning in northern countries of great extent and comparative
+barbarism. The reign of Peter was not so exclusively military as that
+of Charles, with whom war was a passion and a profession. The interest
+attached to Charles arises more from his eccentricities and brilliant
+military qualities, than from any extraordinary greatness of mind or
+heart. He was barbarous in his manners, and savage in his resentments;
+a stranger to the pleasures of society, obstinate, revengeful,
+unsympathetic, and indifferent to friendship and hatred. But he was
+brave, temperate, generous, intrepid in danger, and firm in
+misfortune.
+
+Before his singular career can be presented, attention must be
+directed to the country over which he reigned, and which will be
+noticed in connection with Denmark; these two countries forming a
+greater part of the ancient Scandinavia, from which our Teutonic
+ancestors migrated, the land of Odin, and Frea, and Thor, those
+half-fabulous deities, concerning whom there are still divided
+opinions; some supposing that they were heroes, and others,
+impersonations of virtues, or elements and wonders of nature.
+The mythology of Greece does not more fully abound with gods and
+goddesses, than that of the old Scandinavia with rude deities,--dwarfs,
+and elfs, and mountain spirits. It was in these northern regions that
+the Normans acquired their wild enthusiasm, their supernatural daring,
+and their magnificent superstitions. It was from these regions that
+the Saxons brought their love of liberty, their spirit of enterprise,
+and their restless passion for the sea. The ancient Scandinavians were
+heroic, adventurous, and chivalrous robbers, holding their women in
+great respect, and profoundly reverential in their notions of a
+supreme power. They were poor in silver, in gold, in the fruits of the
+earth, in luxuries, and in palaces, but rich in poetic sentiments and
+in religious ideas. Their chief vices were those of gluttony and
+intemperance, and their great pleasures were those of hunting and
+gambling.
+
+Fabulous as are most of their legends as to descent, still Scandinavia
+was probably peopled with hardy races before authentic history
+commences. Under different names, and at different times, they invaded
+the Roman empire. In the fifth century, they had settled in its
+desolated provinces--the Saxons in England, the Goths in Spain and
+Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Burgundians in France, and the
+Lombards in Italy.
+
+Among the most celebrated of these northern Teutonic nations were the
+pirates who invaded England and France, under the name of _Northmen_.
+They came from Denmark, and some of their chieftains won a great name
+in their generation, such as Harold, Canute, Sweyn, and Rollo.
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction of Christianity.]
+
+Christianity was probably planted in Sweden about the middle of the
+ninth century. St. Anscar, a Westphalian monk, was the first
+successful missionary, and he was made Archbishop of Hamburg, and
+primate of the north.
+
+The early history of the Swedes and Danes resembles that of England
+under the Saxon princes, and they were disgraced by the same great
+national vices. During the Middle Ages, no great character appeared
+worthy of especial notice. Some of the more powerful kings, such as
+Valdemar I. and II., and Canute VI., had quarrels with the Emperors of
+Germany, and invaded some provinces of their empire. Some of these
+princes were warriors, some cruel tyrants, none very powerful, and all
+characterized by the vices of their age--treachery, hypocrisy, murder,
+drunkenness, and brutal revenge.
+
+The most powerful of these kings was Christian I., who founded the
+dynasty of Oldenburgh, and who united under his sway the kingdoms of
+Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. He reigned from 1448 to 1481; and in his
+family the crown of Sweden remained until the revolution effected by
+Gustavus Vasa, in 1525, and by which revolution Sweden was made
+independent of Denmark.
+
+[Sidenote: Gustavus Vasa.]
+
+Gustavus Vasa was a nobleman descended from the ancient kings of
+Sweden, and who, from the oppression to which his country was
+subjected by Christian and the Archbishop of Upsal, was forced to seek
+refuge amid the forests of Dalecarlia. When Stockholm was pillaged and
+her noblest citizens massacred by the cruel tyrant of the country,
+Gustavus headed an insurrection, defeated the king's forces, and was
+made king himself by the Diet. He, perceiving that the Catholic clergy
+were opposed to the liberties and the great interests of his country,
+seized their fortresses and lands, became a convert to the doctrine of
+the reformers, and introduced Lutheranism into the kingdom, which has
+ever since been the established religion of Sweden. He was despotic in
+his government, but ruled for the good of his subjects, and was
+distinguished for many noble qualities.
+
+The celebrated Gustavus Adolphus was his descendant, and was more
+absolute and powerful than even Gustavus Vasa. But he is chiefly
+memorable as the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, and as the
+greatest general of his age. Under his sway, Sweden was the most
+powerful of the northern kingdoms.
+
+He was succeeded by his daughter Christina, a woman of most
+extraordinary qualities; a woman of genius, of taste, and of culture;
+a woman who, at twenty-seven, became wearied of the world, and of the
+enjoyment of unlimited power, and who changed her religion, retired
+from her country, and abdicated her throne, that she might,
+unmolested, enjoy the elegant pleasures of Rome, and be solaced by the
+literature, religion, and art of that splendid capital. It was in the
+society of men of genius that she spent most of her time, and was the
+life of the most intellectual circle which then existed in Europe.
+
+She was succeeded by her cousin, who was elected King of Sweden, by
+the title of _Charles Gustavus X._, and he was succeeded by Charles
+XI., the father of Charles XII.
+
+Charles XII. was fifteen years of age when he came to the throne, in
+the year 1697, and found his country strong in resources, and his army
+the best disciplined in Europe. His territories were one third larger
+than those of France when ruled by Louis XIV., though not so thickly
+populated.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Days of Charles XII.]
+
+The young monarch, at first, gave but few indications of the
+remarkable qualities which afterwards distinguished him. He was idle,
+dissipated, haughty, and luxurious. When he came to the council
+chamber, he was absent and indifferent, and generally sat with both
+legs thrown across the table.
+
+But his lethargy and indifference did not last long. Three great
+monarchs had conspired to ruin him, and dismember his kingdom. These
+were the Czar Peter, Frederic IV. of Denmark, and Frederic Augustus,
+King of Poland, and also Elector of Saxony; and their hostile armies
+were on the point of invading his country.
+
+The greatness of the danger brought to light his great qualities. He
+vigorously prepared for war. His whole character changed. Quintus
+Curtius became his text-book, and Alexander his model. He spent no
+time in sports or magnificence. He clothed himself like a common
+soldier, whose hardships he resolved henceforth to share. He forswore
+the society and the influence of woman. He relinquished wine and all
+the pleasures of the table. Love of glory became his passion, and
+continued through life; and this ever afterwards made him insensible
+to reproach, danger, toil, fear, hunger, and pain. Never was a more
+complete change effected in a man's moral character; and never was an
+improved moral character consecrated to a worse end. He was not
+devoted to the true interests of his country, but to a selfish, base,
+and vain passion for military fame.
+
+But his conduct, at first, called forth universal admiration. His
+glorious and successful defence against enemies apparently
+overwhelming gave him a great military reputation, and secured for him
+the sympathies of Christendom. Had he died when he had repelled the
+Russian, the Danish, and the Polish armies, he would have secured as
+honorable an immortality as that of Gustavus Adolphus. But he was not
+permitted to die prematurely, as was his great ancestor. He lived long
+enough to become intoxicated with success, to make great political
+blunders, and to suffer the most fatal and mortifying misfortunes.
+
+The commencement of his military career was beautifully heroic.
+"Gentlemen," said the young monarch of eighteen to his counsellors,
+when he meditated desperate resistance, "I am resolved never to begin
+an unjust war, and never to finish a just one but with the destruction
+of my enemies."
+
+[Sidenote: Charles's Heroism.]
+
+In six weeks he finished, after he had begun, the Danish war having
+completely humbled his enemy, and succored his brother-in-law, the
+Duke of Holstein.
+
+His conflict with Peter has been presented, when with twenty thousand
+men he attacked and defeated sixty thousand Russians in their
+intrenchments, took one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and killed
+eighteen thousand men. The victory of Narva astonished all Europe, and
+was the most brilliant which had then been gained in the annals of
+modern warfare.
+
+Charles was equally successful against Frederic Augustus. He routed
+his Saxon troops, and then resolved to dethrone him, as King of
+Poland. And he succeeded so far as to induce the Polish Diet to
+proclaim the throne vacant. Augustus was obliged to fly, and
+Stanislaus Leczinski was chosen king in his stead, at the nomination
+of the Swedish conqueror. The country was subjugated, and Frederic
+Augustus became a fugitive.
+
+But Charles was not satisfied with expelling him from Poland. He
+resolved to attack him also in Saxony itself. Saxony was then, next to
+Austria, the most powerful of the German states. Nevertheless, Saxony
+could not arrest the victorious career of Charles. The Saxons fled as
+he approached. He penetrated to the heart of the electorate, and the
+unfortunate Frederic Augustus was obliged to sue for peace, which was
+only granted on the most humiliating terms; which were, that the
+elector should acknowledge Stanislaus as king of Poland; that he
+should break all his treaties with Russia, and should deliver to the
+King of Sweden all the men who had deserted from his army. The humbled
+elector sought a personal interview with Charles, after he had signed
+the conditions of peace, with the hope of securing better terms. He
+found Charles in his jack boots, with a piece of black taffeta round
+his neck for a cravat, and clothed in a coarse blue coat with brass
+buttons. His conversation turned wholly on his jack boots; and this
+trifling subject was the only one on which he would deign to converse
+with one of the most accomplished monarchs of his age.
+
+Charles had now humbled and defeated all his enemies. He should now
+have returned to Sweden, and have cultivated the arts of peace. But
+peace and civilization were far from his thoughts. The subjugation of
+all the northern powers became the dream of his life. He invaded
+Russia, resolved on driving Peter from his throne.
+
+[Sidenote: His Misfortunes.]
+
+He was eminently successful in defensive war, and eminently
+unsuccessful in aggressive war. Providence benevolently but singularly
+comes to the aid of all his children in distress and despair. Men are
+gloriously strong in defending their rights; but weak, in all their
+strength, when they assail the rights of others. So signal is this
+fact, that it blazes upon all the pages of history, and is illustrated
+in common life as well as in the affairs of nations.
+
+When Charles turned as an assailant of the rights of his enemies, his
+unfortunate reverses commenced. At the head of forty-three thousand
+veterans, loaded with the spoils of Poland and Saxony, he commenced
+his march towards Russia. He had another army in Poland of twenty
+thousand, and another in Finland of fifteen thousand. With these he
+expected to dethrone the czar.
+
+His mistakes and infatuation have been noticed, and his final defeat
+at Pultowa, a village at the eastern extremity of the Ukraine. This
+battle was more decisive than that of Narva; for in the latter the
+career of Peter was only arrested, but in the former the strength of
+Charles was annihilated. And so would have been his hopes, had he been
+an ordinary man. But he was a madman, and still dreamed of victory,
+with only eighteen hundred men to follow his fortunes into Turkey,
+which country he succeeded in reaching.
+
+His conduct in Turkey was infamous and extraordinary. No reasonings
+can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. At first, he
+employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising schemes to embark
+the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier was flattered and
+assailed. He rejected every overture for his peaceable return. He
+lingered five years in endless intrigues and negotiations, in order to
+realize the great dream of his life--the dethronement of the czar. He
+lived recklessly on the bounty of the sultan, taking no hints that
+even imperial hospitality might be abused and exhausted. At last, his
+inflexible obstinacy and dangerous intrigues so disgusted his generous
+host, that he was urged to return, with the offer of a suitable
+escort, and a large sum of money. He accepted and spent the twelve
+hundred purses, and still refused to return. The displeasure of the
+Sultan Achmet was now fairly excited. It was resolved upon by the
+Porte that he should be removed by force, since he would not be
+persuaded. But Charles resisted the troops of the sultan who were
+ordered to remove him. With sixty servants he desperately defended
+himself against an army of janizaries, and killed twenty of them with
+his own hand; and it was not until completely overwhelmed and
+prostrated that he hurled his sword into the air. He was now a
+prisoner of war, and not a guest; but still he was treated with the
+courtesy and dignity due to a king, and conducted in a chariot covered
+with gold and scarlet to Adrianople. From thence he was removed to
+Demotica, where he renewed his intrigues, and zealously kept his bed,
+under pretence of sickness, for ten months.
+
+While he remained in captivity, Frederic Augustus recovered the crown
+of Poland, King Stanislaus was taken by the Turks, and Peter continued
+his conquest of Ingria, Livonia, and Finland, provinces belonging to
+Sweden. The King of Prussia also invaded Pomerania, and Frederic IV.
+of Denmark claimed Bremen, Holstein, and Scania. The Swedes were
+divested of all their conquests, and one hundred and fifty thousand of
+them became prisoners in foreign lands.
+
+Such were the reverses of a man who had resolved to play the part of
+Alexander, but who, so long as he contented himself with defending his
+country against superior forces, was successful, and won a fame so
+great, that his misfortunes could never reduce him to contempt.
+
+[Sidenote: Charles's Return to Sweden.]
+
+When all was lost, he signified to the Turkish vizier his desire to
+return to Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his master of
+so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his country impoverished,
+but not discouraged. The charm of his name was broken. His soldiers
+were as brave and devoted as ever, but his resources were exhausted.
+He succeeded, however, in raising thirty-five thousand men, in order
+to continue his desperate game of conquest, not of defence. Europe
+beheld the extraordinary spectacle of this infatuated hero passing, in
+the depth of a northern winter, over the frozen hills and ice-bound
+rocks of Norway, with his devoted army, in order to conquer that
+hyperborean region. So inured was he to cold and fatigue, that he
+slept in the open air on a bed of straw, covered only with his cloak,
+while his soldiers dropped down dead at their posts from cold. In the
+month of December, 1718, he commenced the siege of Fredericshall, a
+place of great strength and importance, but, having exposed himself
+unnecessarily, was killed by a ball from the fortress. Many, however,
+suppose that he was assassinated by his own officers who were wearied
+with endless war, from which they saw nothing but disaster to their
+exhausted country.
+
+[Sidenote: His Death.]
+
+His death was considered as a signal for the general cessation of
+arms; but Sweden never recovered from the mad enterprises of
+Charles XII. It has never since been a first class power. The national
+finances were disordered, the population decimated, and the provinces
+dismembered. Peter the Great gained what his rival lost. We cannot but
+compassionate a nation that has the misfortune to be ruled by such an
+absolute and infatuated monarch as was Charles XII. He did nothing for
+the civilization of his subjects, or to ameliorate the evils he
+caused. He was, like Alaric or Attila, a scourge of the Almighty, sent
+on earth for some mysterious purpose, to desolate and to destroy. But
+he died unlamented and unhonored. No great warrior in modern times has
+received so little sympathy from historians, since he was not exalted
+by any great moral qualities of affection or generosity, and
+unscrupulously sacrificed both friends and enemies to gratify a
+selfish and a depraved passion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Voltaire's History of Russia, a very attractive
+     book, on account of its lively style. Voltaire's Life of
+     Charles XII., also, is equally fascinating. There are
+     tolerable histories of both Russia and Sweden in Lardner's
+     Cabinet Cyclopedia; also in the Family Library. See, also, a
+     History of Russia and Sweden in the Universal History.
+     Russell's Modern Europe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of George I.]
+
+Queen Anne died in 1714, soon after the famous treaty of Utrecht was
+made, and by which the war of the Spanish Succession was closed. She
+was succeeded by George I., Elector of Hanover. He was grandson of
+Elizabeth, only daughter of James I., who had married Frederic, the
+King of Bohemia. He was fifty-four years of age when he ascended the
+English throne, and imperfectly understood the language of the nation
+whom he was called upon to govern.
+
+George I. was not a sovereign who materially affected the interests or
+destiny of England; nor was he one of those interesting characters
+that historians love to delineate. It is generally admitted that he
+was respectable, prudent, judicious, and moral; amiable in his temper,
+sincere in his intercourse, and simple in his habits,--qualities which
+command respect, but not those which dazzle the people. It is supposed
+that he tolerably understood the English Constitution, and was willing
+to be fettered by the restraints which the parliaments imposed. He
+supported the Whigs,--the dominant party of the time,--and sympathized
+with liberal principles, so far as a monarch can be supposed to
+advance the interests of the people, and the power of a class ever
+hostile to the prerogatives of royalty. He acquiesced in the rule of
+his ministers--just what was expected of him, and just what was wanted
+of him; and became--what every King of England, when popular, has
+since been--the gilded puppet of a powerful aristocracy. His social
+and constitutional influence was not, indeed, annihilated; he had the
+choice of ministers, and collected around his throne the great and
+proud, who looked to him as the fountain of all honor and dignity.
+But, still, from the accession of the house of Hanover the political
+history of England is a history of the acts of parliaments, and of
+those ministers who represented the dominant parties of the nation.
+Few nobles were as great as some under the Tudor and Stuart princes;
+but the power of the aristocracy, as a class, was increased. From the
+time of George I. to Queen Victoria, the ascendency of the parliaments
+has been most marked composed chiefly of nobles, great landed
+proprietors, and gigantic commercial monopolists. The people have not
+been, indeed, unheard or unrepresented; but, literally speaking, have
+had but a feeble influence, compared with the aristocracy. Parliaments
+and ministers, therefore, may be not unjustly said to be the
+representatives of the aristocracy--of the wise, the mighty, and the
+noble.
+
+When power passes from kings to nobles, then the acts of nobles
+constitute the genius of political history, as fully as the acts of
+kings constitute history when kings are absolute, and the acts of the
+people constitute history where the people are all-powerful.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Robert Walpole.]
+
+A notice, therefore, of that great minister who headed the Whig party
+of aristocrats, and who, as their organ, swayed the councils of
+England for nearly forty years, demands our attention. His political
+career commenced during the reign of Anne, and continued during the
+reign of George I., and part of the reign of George II. George I., as
+a man or as a king, dwindled into insignificance, when compared with
+his prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. And he is great, chiefly, as
+the representative of the Whigs; that is, of the dominant party of
+rich and great men who sat in parliament; a party of politicians who
+professed more liberal principles than the Tories, but who were
+equally aristocratic in the social sympathies, and powerful from
+aristocratic connections. What did the great Dukes of Devonshire or
+Bedford care for the poor people, who, politically, composed no part
+of the nation? But they were Whigs, and King George himself was a
+Whig.
+
+Sir Robert belonged to an ancient, wealthy, and honorable family; was
+born 1676, and received his first degree at King's College, Cambridge,
+in 1700. He entered parliament almost immediately after, became an
+active member, sat on several committees, and soon distinguished
+himself for his industry and ability. He was not eloquent, but
+acquired considerable skill as a debater. In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the
+prime minister of Anne, made him one of the council to Prince George
+of Denmark; in 1706, Marlborough selected him as secretary of war; in
+1709, he was made treasurer of the navy; and in 1710, he was the
+acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He lost office, however,
+when the Whigs lost power, in 1710; was subjected to cruel political
+persecution, and even impeached, and imprisoned in the Tower. This
+period is memorable for the intense bitterness and severe conflicts
+between the Whigs and Tories; not so much on account of difference of
+opinion on great political principles, as the struggle for the
+possession of place and power.
+
+On the accession of George I., Walpole became paymaster of the forces,
+one of the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. Townshend was made
+secretary of state. The other great official dignitaries were the
+Lords Cowper, Marlborough, Wharton, Sunderland, Devonshire, Oxford, and
+Somerset; but Townshend and Walpole were the most influential. They
+impeached their great political enemies, Ormond and Bolingbroke, the
+most distinguished leaders of the Tory party. Bolingbroke, in genius
+and learning, had no equal in parliament, and was a rival of Walpole
+at Eton.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pretender.]
+
+The first event of importance, under the new ministry, was the
+invasion of Great Britain by the Pretender--the Prince James Frederic
+Edward Stuart, only son of James II. His early days were spent at St.
+Germain's, the palace which the dethroned monarch enjoyed by the
+hospitality of Louis XIV. He was educated under influences entirely
+unfavorable to the recovery of his natural inheritance, and was a
+devotee to the pope and the interests of absolutism. But he had his
+adherents, who were called _Jacobites_, and who were chiefly to be
+found in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1705, an unsuccessful effort
+had been made to regain the throne of his father, but the disasters
+attending it prevented him from milking any renewed effort until the
+death of Anne.
+
+When she died, many discontented Tories fanned the spirit of
+rebellion; and Bishop Atterbury, a distinguished divine, advocated the
+claims of the Pretender. Scotland was ripe for revolt. Alarming riots
+took place in England. William III. was burned in effigy at
+Smithfield. The Oxford students pulled down a Presbyterian
+meeting-house, and the sprig of oak was publicly displayed on the 29th
+of May. The Earl of Mar hurried into Scotland to fan the spirit of
+insurrection; while the gifted, brilliant, and banished Bolingbroke
+joined the standard of the chevalier. The venerable and popular Duke
+of Ormond also assisted him with his counsels.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Scotland.]
+
+Advised by these great nobles, assisted by the King of France, and
+flattered by the Jacobite faction, the Pretender made preparations to
+recover his rights. His prospects were apparently better than were
+those of William, when he landed in England. The Earl of Mar was at
+the head of ten thousand men; but the chevalier was no general, and
+was unequal to his circumstances. When he landed in Scotland, he
+surrendered himself to melancholy and inaction. His sadness and
+pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band of followers. He retreated
+before inferior forces, and finally fled from the country which he had
+invaded. The French king was obliged to desert his cause, and the
+Pretender retreated to Italy, and died at the advanced age of
+seventy-nine, after witnessing the defeat of his son, Charles Edward,
+whose romantic career and misfortunes cannot now be mentioned. By the
+flight of the Pretender from Scotland, in 1715, the insurrection was
+easily suppressed, and the country was not molested by the intrigues
+of the Stuart princes for thirty years.
+
+The year which followed the invasion of Scotland was signalized by the
+passage of a great bill in parliament, which is one of the most
+important events in parliamentary history. In 1716, the famous
+Septennial Act, which prolonged parliament from three to seven years,
+was passed. So many evils, practically, resulted from frequent
+elections, that the Whigs resolved to make a change; and the change
+contributed greatly to the tranquillity of the country, and the
+establishment of the House of Brunswick. The duration of the English
+parliament has ever since, constitutionally, been extended to seven
+years, but the average duration of parliaments has been six years--the
+term of office of the senators of the United States.
+
+After the passage of the Septennial Act, the efforts of Walpole were
+directed to a reduction of the national debt. He was then secretary of
+the treasury. But before he could complete his financial reforms, he
+was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the
+influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of
+Sunderland, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was
+at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared to the Whigs by
+his steady attachment to their principles. He had expected, and
+probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the administration.
+When disappointed, he bent all his energies to undermine Townsend and
+Walpole, and succeeded for a while. But Walpole's opposition to the
+new administration was so powerful, that it did not last long.
+Sunderland had persuaded the king to renounce his constitutional
+prerogative of creating peers; and a bill, called the _Peerage Bill_,
+was proposed, which limited the House of Lords to its actual existing
+number, the tendency of which was to increase the power and rank of
+the existing peers, and to raise an eternal bar to the aspirations of
+all commoners to the peerage, and thus widen the gulf between the
+aristocracy and the people. Walpole presented these consequences so
+forcibly, and showed so clearly that the proposed bill would diminish
+the consequence of the landed gentry, and prove a grave to honorable
+merit, that the Commons were alarmed, and rejected the bill by a large
+and triumphant majority of two hundred and sixty-nine to one hundred
+and seventy-seven.
+
+The defeat of this bill, and the great financial embarrassments of the
+country, led to the restoration of Walpole to office. His genius was
+eminently financial, and his talents were precisely those which have
+ever since been required of a minister--those which characterized Sir
+Robert Peel and William Pitt. The great problem of any government is,
+how to raise money for its great necessities; and the more complicated
+the relations of society are, the more difficult becomes the problem.
+
+[Sidenote: The South Sea Bubble.]
+
+At that period, the English nation were intoxicated and led astray by
+one of those great commercial delusions which so often take place in
+all civilized countries. No mania ever was more marked, more
+universal, and more fatal than that of the South Sea Company. The
+bubble had turned the heads of politicians, merchants, and farmers;
+all classes, who had money to invest, took stock in the South Sea
+Company. The delusion, however, passed away; England was left on the
+brink of bankruptcy, and a master financier was demanded by the
+nation, to extricate it from the effects of folly and madness. All
+eyes looked to Sir Robert Walpole, and he did all that financial skill
+could do, to repair the evils which speculation and gambling had
+caused.
+
+The desire for sudden wealth is one of the most common passions of our
+nature, and has given rise to more delusions than religious
+fanaticism, or passion for military glory. The South Sea bubble was
+kindred to that of John Law, who was the author of the Mississippi
+Scheme, which nearly ruined France in the reign of Louis XV., and
+which was encouraged by the Duke of Orleans, as a means of paying off
+the national debt.
+
+[Sidenote: The South Sea Company.]
+
+The wars of England had created a national debt, under the
+administration of Godolphin and Marlborough; but which was not so
+large but that hopes were entertained of redeeming it. Walpole
+proposed to pay it off by a sinking fund; but this idea, not very
+popular, was abandoned. It was then the custom for government to
+borrow of corporations, rather than of bankers, because the science of
+brokerage was not then understood, and because no individuals were
+sufficiently rich to aid materially an embarrassed administration. As
+a remuneration, companies were indulged with certain commercial
+advantages. As these advantages enabled companies to become rich, the
+nation always found it easy to borrow. During the war of the Spanish
+Succession, the prime minister, Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, in
+order to raise money, projected the South Sea Company. This was in
+1710, and the public debt was ten million pounds sterling, thought at
+that time to be insupportable. The interest on that debt was six per
+cent. In order to liquidate the debt, Oxford made the duties on wines,
+tobacco, India goods, silks, and a few other articles, permanent. And,
+to allure the public creditor, great advantages were given to the new
+company, and money was borrowed of it at five per cent. This gain of
+one per cent., by money borrowed from the company, was to constitute a
+sinking fund to pay the debt.
+
+But the necessities of the nation increased so rapidly, that a leading
+politician of the day, Sir John Blount, proposed that the South Sea
+Company should become the sole national creditor, and should loan to
+the government new sums, at an interest of four per cent. New
+monopolies were to be given to the company; and it, on the other hand,
+offered to give a bonus of three million pounds to the government. The
+Bank of England, jealous of the proposal, offered five millions. The
+directors of the company then bid seven millions for a charter, nearly
+enough to pay off the whole redeemable debt of the nation; which,
+however, could not be redeemed, so long as there were, in addition,
+irredeemable annuities to the amount of eight hundred thousand pounds
+yearly. It became, therefore, an object of the government to get rid,
+in the first place, of these irredeemable annuities; and this could be
+effected, if the national creditor could be induced to accept of
+shares in the South Sea Company, instead of his irredeemable
+annuities, or, as they are now variously called, consols, stocks, and
+national funds. The capital was not desired; only the interest on
+capital. So many monopolies and advantages were granted to the
+company, that the stock rose, and the national creditor was willing to
+part with his annuities for stock in the company. The offer was,
+therefore, accepted, and the government got rid of irredeemable
+annuities, and obtained seven millions besides, but became debtor to
+the company. A company which could apparently afford to pay so large a
+bonus to government for its charter, and loan such large sums as the
+nation needed, in addition, at four per cent., was supposed to be
+making most enormous profits. Its stock rose rapidly in value. The
+national creditor hastened to get rid of irredeemable annuities--a
+national stock which paid five per cent.--in order to buy shares which
+might pay ten per cent.
+
+[Sidenote: Opposition of Walpole.]
+
+Walpole, then paymaster of the forces, opposed the scheme of Blount
+with all his might, showed that the acceptance of the company's
+proposal would countenance stockjobbing, would divert industry from
+its customary channels, and would hold out a dangerous lure to the
+unsuspecting to part with real for imaginary property. He showed the
+misery and confusion which existed in France from the adoption of
+similar measures, and proved that the whole success of the scheme must
+depend on the rise of the company's stock; that, if there were no
+rise, the company could not afford the bonus, and would fail, and the
+obligation of the nation remain as before. But his reasonings were of
+no avail. All classes were infatuated. All people speculated in the
+South Sea stock. And, for a while, all people rejoiced; for, as long
+as the stock continued to rise, all people were gainers.
+
+And the stock rose rapidly. It soon reached three hundred per cent.
+above the original par value, and this in consequence of the promise
+of great dividends. All hastened to buy such lucrative property. The
+public creditor willingly gave up three hundred pounds of irredeemable
+stock for one hundred pounds of the company's stock.
+
+[Sidenote: Mania for Speculation.]
+
+And this would have been well, had there been a moral certainty of the
+stockholder receiving a dividend of twenty per cent. But there was not
+this certainty, nor even a chance of it. Still, in consequence of the
+great dividends promised, even as high as fifty per cent., the stock
+gradually rose to one thousand per cent. Such was the general mania.
+And such was the extent of it, that thirty-seven millions of pounds
+sterling were subscribed on the company's books.
+
+And the rage for speculation extended to all other kinds of property;
+and all sorts of companies were formed, some of the shares of which
+were at a premium of two thousand per cent. There were companies
+formed for fisheries, companies for making salt, for making oil, for
+smelting metals, for improving the breed of horses, for the planting
+of madder, for building ships against pirates, for the importation of
+jackasses, for fattening hogs, for wheels of perpetual motion, for
+insuring masters against losses from servants. There was one company
+for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but no one knew for
+what. The subscriber, by paying two guineas as a deposit, was to have
+one hundred pounds per annum for every hundred subscribed. It was
+declared, that, in a month, the particulars were to be laid open, and
+the remainder of the subscription money was then to be paid.
+Notwithstanding this barefaced, swindling scheme, two thousand pounds
+were received one morning as a deposit. The next day, the proprietor
+was not to be found.
+
+Now, in order to stop these absurd speculations, and yet to monopolize
+all the gambling in the kingdom, the directors of the South Sea
+Company obtained an act from parliament, empowering them to prosecute
+all the various bubble companies that were projected. In a few days,
+all these bubbles burst. None were found to be buyers. Stock fell to
+nothing.
+
+[Sidenote: Bursting of the South Sea Bubble.]
+
+But the South Sea Company made a blunder. The moral effect of the
+bursting of so many bubbles was to open the eyes of the nation to the
+greatest bubble of all. The credit of the South Sea Company declined.
+Stocks fell from one thousand per cent to two hundred in a few days.
+All wanted to sell, nobody to buy. Bankers and merchants failed, and
+nobles and country gentlemen became impoverished.
+
+In this general distress, Walpole was summoned to power, in older to
+extricate the nation, on the eve of bankruptcy. He proposed a plan,
+which was adopted, and which saved the credit of the nation. He
+ingrafted nine millions of the South Sea stock into the Bank of
+England, and nine millions more into the East India Company; and
+government gave up the seven millions of bonus which the company had
+promised.
+
+By this assistance, the company was able to fulfil its engagements,
+although all who purchased stock when it had arisen beyond one hundred
+per cent. of its original value, lost money. It is strange that the
+stock, after all, remained at a premium of one hundred per cent.; of
+course, the original proprietors gained one hundred per cent., and
+those who paid one hundred per cent. premium lost nothing. But these
+constituted a small fraction of the people who had speculated, and who
+paid from one hundred to nine hundred per cent. premium. Government,
+too, gained by reducing interest on irredeemable bonds from five to
+four per cent., although it lost the promised bonus of seven millions.
+
+The South Sea bubble did not destroy the rage for speculation,
+although it taught many useful truths--that national prosperity is not
+advanced by stockjobbing; that financiers, however great their genius,
+generally overreach themselves; that great dividends are connected
+with great risk; that circumstances beyond human control will defeat
+the best-laid plan; that it is better to repose upon the operation of
+the ordinary laws of trade; and that nothing but strict integrity and
+industry will succeed in the end. From the time of Sir Robert Walpole,
+money has seldom been worth, in England, over five per cent., and
+larger dividends on vested property have generally been succeeded by
+heavy losses, however plausible the promises and clear the statements
+of stockjobbers and speculators.
+
+[Sidenote: Enlightened Policy of Walpole.]
+
+After the explosion of the South Sea Company, Walpole became possessed
+of almost unlimited power. And one of the first objects to which he
+directed attention, after settling the finances, was the removal of
+petty restrictions on commerce. He abolished the export duties on one
+hundred and six articles of British manufacture, and allowed
+thirty-eight articles of raw material to be imported duty free. This
+regulation was made to facilitate trade with the colonies, and prevent
+them from manufacturing; and this regulation accomplished the end
+desired. Both England and the colonies were enriched. It was doubtless
+the true policy of British statesmen then, as now, to advance the
+commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural interests of Great
+Britain, rather than meddle with foreign wars, or seek glory on the
+field of battle. The principles of Sir Robert Walpole were essentially
+pacific; and under his administration, England made a great advance in
+substantial prosperity. In this policy he surpassed all the statesmen
+who preceded or succeeded him, and this constituted his glory and
+originality.
+
+But liberal and enlightened as was the general course of Walpole, he
+still made blunders, and showed occasional illiberality. He caused a
+fine of one hundred thousand pounds to be inflicted on the Catholics,
+on the plea that they were a disaffected body. He persecuted Bishop
+Atterbury, and permitted Bolingbroke, with his restless spirit of
+intrigue, to return to his country, and to be reinstated in his
+property and titles. He flattered the Duchess of Kendall, the mistress
+of the king, and stooped to all the arts of corruption and bribery.
+There never was a period of greater political corruption than during
+the administration of this minister. Sycophancy, meanness, and
+hypocrisy were resorted to by the statesmen of the age, who generally
+sought their own interests rather than the welfare of the nation.
+There were, however, exceptions. Townsend, the great rival and
+coadjutor of Walpole, retired from office with an unsullied fame for
+integrity and disinterestedness; and Walpole, while he bribed others,
+did not enrich himself.
+
+King George I. died on the 11th of June, 1727, suddenly, by apoplexy,
+and was succeeded by his son George II., a man who resembled his
+father in disposition and character, and was superior to him in
+knowledge of the English constitution, though both were inclined to
+steer the British bark by the Hanoverian rudder. Like his father, he
+was reserved, phlegmatic, cautious, sincere, fond of business,
+economical, and attached to Whig principles. He was fortunate in his
+wife, Queen Caroline, one of the most excellent women of the age,
+learned, religious, charitable, and sensible; the patroness of divines
+and scholars; fond of discussion on metaphysical subjects, and a
+correspondent of the distinguished Leibnitz.
+
+The new king disliked Walpole, but could not do without him, and
+therefore continued him in office. Indeed, the king had the sense to
+perceive that England was to be governed only by the man in whom the
+nation had confidence.
+
+[Sidenote: East India Company.]
+
+In 1730, Walpole rechartered the East India Company, the most gigantic
+monopoly in the history of nations. As early as 1599, an association
+had been formed in England for trade to the East Indies. This
+association was made in consequence of the Dutch and Portuguese
+settlements and enterprises, which aroused the commercial jealousy of
+England. The capital was sixty-eight thousand pounds. In 1600, Queen
+Elizabeth gave the company a royal charter. By this charter, the
+company obtained the right of purchasing land, without limit, in
+India, and the monopoly of the trade for fifteen years. But the
+company contended with many obstacles. The first voyage was made by
+four ships and one pinnace, having on board twenty-eight thousand
+pounds in bullion, and seven thousand pounds in merchandise, such as
+tin, cutlery, and glass.
+
+During the civil wars, the company's affairs were embarrassed, owing
+to the unsettled state of England. On the accession of Charles II.,
+the company obtained a new charter, which not only confirmed the old
+privileges, but gave it the power of making peace and war with the
+native princes of India. The capital stock was increased to one
+million five hundred thousand pounds.
+
+Much opposition was made by Bolingbroke and the Tories to the
+recharter of this institution; but the ministry carried their point,
+and a new charter was granted on the condition of the company paying
+to government two hundred thousand pounds, and reducing the interest
+of the government debts one per cent. per annum. By this time, the
+company, although it had not greatly enlarged its jurisdiction in
+India, had accumulated great wealth. Its powers and possessions will
+be more fully treated when the victories of Clive shall be presented.
+
+About this time, the Duke of Newcastle came into the cabinet whose
+future administration will form the subject of a separate chapter.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Townsend.]
+
+In 1730 also occurred the disagreement between Walpole and Lord
+Townsend, which ended in the resignation of the latter, a man whose
+impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with so cautious and
+non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. He passed the evening
+of his days in rural pursuits and agricultural experiments, keeping
+open house, devoting himself to his family and friends, never
+hankering after the power he had lost, never even revisiting London,
+and finding his richest solace in literature and simple agricultural
+pleasures--the pattern of a lofty and cultivated nobleman.
+
+The resignation of Townsend enabled Walpole to take more part in
+foreign negotiations; and he exerted his talents, like Fleury in
+France, to preserve the peace of Europe. The peace policy of Walpole
+entitles him to the gratitude of his country. More than any other man
+of his age, he apprehended the true glory and interests of nations.
+Had Walpole paid as much attention to the intellectual improvement of
+his countrymen, as he did to the refinements of material life and to
+physical progress, he would have merited still higher praises. But he
+despised learning, and neglected literary men. And they turned against
+him and his administration, and, by their sarcasm and invective, did
+much to undermine his power. Pope, Swift, and Gay might have lent him
+powerful aid by their satirical pen; but he passed them by with
+contemptuous indifference, and they gave to Bolingbroke what they
+withheld from Walpole.
+
+Next to the pacific policy of the minister, the most noticeable
+peculiarity of his administration was his zeal to improve the
+finances. He opposed speculations, and sought a permanent revenue from
+fixed principles. He regarded the national debt as a great burden, and
+strove to abolish it; and, when that was found to be impracticable,
+sought to prevent its further accumulation. He was not, indeed, always
+true to his policy; but he pursued it on the whole, consistently. He
+favored the agricultural interests, and was inclined to raise the
+necessary revenue by a tax on articles used, rather than by direct
+taxation on property or income, or articles imported. Hence he is the
+father of the excise scheme--a scheme still adopted in England, but
+which would be intolerable in this country. In this scheme, his grand
+object was to ease the landed proprietor, and to prevent smuggling, by
+making smuggling no object. But the opposition to the Excise Bill was
+so great that Sir Robert abandoned it; and this relinquishment of his
+favorite scheme is one of the most striking peculiarities of his
+administration. He never pushed matters to extremity. He ever yielded
+to popular clamor. He perceived that an armed force would be necessary
+in order to collect the excise, and preferred to yield his cherished
+measures to run the danger of incurring greater evils than financial
+embarrassments. His spirit of conciliation, often exercised in the
+plenitude of power, prolonged his reign. This policy was the result of
+immense experience and practical knowledge of human nature, of which
+he was a great master.
+
+[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Walpole.]
+
+But Sir Robert was not allowed to pursue to the end his pacific, any
+more than his financial policy. The clamors of interested merchants,
+the violence of party spirit, and the dreams of heroic grandeur on the
+part of politicians, overcame the repugnance of the minister, and
+plunged England in a disastrous Spanish war; and a war soon succeeded
+by that of the Austrian Succession, in which Maria Theresa was the
+injured, and Frederic the Great the offending party. But this war,
+which was carried on chiefly during the subsequent administration,
+will be hereafter alluded to.
+
+Although Walpole was opposed by some of the ablest men in England--by
+Pulteney, Sir William Windham, and the Lords Chesterfield, Carteret,
+and Bolingbroke, his power was almost absolute from 1730 to 1740. His
+most powerful assistance was derived from Mr. Yorke, afterwards the
+Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, one of the greatest lawyers that England
+has produced.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of his Power.]
+
+In 1740, his power began to decline, and rapidly waned. He lost a
+powerful friend and protector by the death of Queen Caroline, whose
+intercessions with the king were ever listened to with respectful
+consideration. But he had almost insurmountable obstacles to contend
+with--the distrust of the king, the bitter hatred of the Prince of
+Wales, the violent opposition of the leading statesmen in parliament,
+and universal envy. Moreover, he had grown careless and secure. He
+fancied that no one could rule England but himself. But hatred,
+opposition, envy, and unsuccessful military operations, forced him
+from his place. No shipwrecked pilot ever clung to the rudder of a
+sinking ship with more desperate tenacity than did this once powerful
+minister to the helm of state. And he did not relinquish it until he
+was driven from it by the desertion of all his friends, and the
+general clamor of the people. The king, however, appreciated the value
+of his services, and created him Earl of Orford, a dignity which had
+been offered him before, but which, with self-controlling policy, he
+had unhesitatingly declined. Like Sir Robert Peel in later times, he
+did not wish to be buried in the House of Lords.
+
+His retirement (1742) amid the beeches and oaks of his country seat
+was irksome and insipid. He had no taste for history, or science, or
+elegant literature, or quiet pleasures. His tumultuous public life had
+engendered other tastes. "I wish," said he to a friend, "I took as
+much delight in reading as you do. It would alleviate my tedious
+hours." But the fallen minister, though uneasy and restless, was not
+bitter or severe. He retained his good humor to the last, and to the
+last discharged all the rites of an elegant hospitality. Said his
+enemy, Pope,--
+
+ "Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
+  Of social pleasure--ill exchanged for power;
+  Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe,
+  Smile without art, and win without a bribe."
+
+He had the habit of "laughing the heart's laugh," which it is only in
+the power of noble natures to exercise. His manners were winning, his
+conversation frank, and his ordinary intercourse divested of vanity
+and pomp. He had many warm personal friends, and did not enrich
+himself, as Marlborough did, while he enriched those who served him.
+He kept a public table at Houghton, to which all gentlemen in the
+country had free access. He was fond of hunting and country sports,
+and had more taste for pictures than for books. He was not what would
+be called a man of genius or erudition, but had a sound judgment,
+great sagacity, wonderful self-command, and undoubted patriotism. As a
+wise and successful ruler, he will long be held in respect, though he
+will never secure veneration.
+
+It was during the latter years of the administration of Walpole that
+England was electrified by the preaching of Whitefield and Wesley, and
+the sect of the Methodists arose, which has exercised a powerful
+influence on the morals, religion, and social life of England.
+
+[Sidenote: John Wesley.]
+
+John Wesley, who may rank with Augustine, Pelagius, Calvin, Arminius,
+or Jansen, as the founder of a sect, was demanded by the age in which
+he lived. Never, since the Reformation, was the state of religion so
+cold in England. The Established Church had triumphed over all her
+enemies. Puritanism had ceased to become offensive, and had even
+become respectable. The age of fox-hunting parsons had commenced, and
+the clergy were the dependants of great families, easy in their
+manners, and fond of the pleasures of the table. They were not
+expected to be very great scholars, or very grave companions. If they
+read the service with propriety, did not scandalize their cause by
+gross indulgences, and did not meddle with the two exciting subjects
+of all ages,--politics and religion,--they were sure of peace and
+plenty. But their churches were comparatively deserted, and infidel
+opinions had been long undermining respect for the institutions and
+ministers of religion. Swearing and drunkenness were fashionable vices
+among the higher classes, while low pleasures and lamentable ignorance
+characterized the people. The dissenting sects were more religious,
+but were formal and cold. Their ministers preached, too often, a mere
+technical divinity, or a lax system of ethics. The Independents were
+inclined to a frigid Arminianism, and the Presbyterians were passing
+through the change from ultra Calvinism to Arianism and Socinianism.
+
+The reformation was not destined to come from Dissenters, but from the
+bosom of the Established Church, a reformation which bore the same
+relation to Protestantism as that effected by St. Francis bore to
+Roman Catholicism in the thirteenth century; a reformation among the
+poorer classes, who did not wish to be separated from the Church
+Establishment.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Life of Wesley.]
+
+John Wesley belonged to a good family, his father being a respectable
+clergyman in a market town. He was born in 1703, was educated at
+Oxford, and for the church. At the age of twenty, he received orders
+from the Bishop of Oxford, and was, shortly after, chosen fellow of
+Lincoln College, and then Greek lecturer.
+
+While at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, who was also a fellow and
+a fine scholar, excited the ridicule of the University for the
+strictness of their lives, and their methodical way of living, which
+caused their companions to give them the name of _Methodists_. Two
+other young men joined them--James Hervey, author of the Meditations,
+and George Whitefield. The fraternity at length numbered fifteen young
+men, the members of which met frequently for religious purposes,
+visited prisons and the sick, fasted zealously on Wednesdays and
+Fridays, and bound themselves by rules, which, in many respects,
+resembled those which Ignatius Loyola imposed on his followers. The
+Imitation of Christ, by A Kempis, and Taylor's Holy Living, were their
+grand text-books, both of which were studied for their devotional
+spirit. But the Holy Living was the favorite book of Wesley, who did
+not fully approve of the rigid asceticism of the venerable mystic of
+the Middle Ages. The writings of William Law, also, had great
+influence on the mind of Wesley; but his religious views were not
+matured until after his return from Georgia, where he had labored as a
+missionary, under the auspices of Oglethorpe. The Moravians, whom he
+met with both in America and Germany, completed the work which Taylor
+had begun; and from their beautiful establishments he also learned
+many principles of that wonderful system of government which he so
+successfully introduced among his followers.
+
+Wesley continued his labors with earnestness; but these were also
+attended with some extravagances, which Dr. Potter, the worthy Bishop
+of London, and other Churchmen, could not understand. And though he
+preached with great popular acceptance, and gained wonderful eclat,
+though he was much noticed in society and even dined with the king at
+Hampton Court, and with the Prince of Wales at St. James's, still the
+churches were gradually shut against him. When Whitefield returned
+from Georgia, having succeeded Wesley as a missionary in that colony,
+and finding so much opposition from the dignitaries of the Church,
+although neither he nor Wesley had seceded from the Church; and, above
+all, excited by the popular favor he received,--for the churches would
+not hold half who flocked to hear him preach,--he resolved to address
+the people in the open air. The excitement he produced was
+unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled as many as twenty
+thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, drawn forth from their
+subterranean working places. But his eloquence had equal fascination
+for the people of London and the vicinity. In Moorfields, on
+Kennington Common, and on Blackheath, he sometimes drew a crowd of
+forty thousand people, all of whom could hear his voice. He could draw
+tears from Hume, and money from Dr. Franklin. He could convulse a
+congregation with terror, and then inspire them with the brightest
+hopes. He was a greater artist than Bossuet or Bourdaloue. He never
+lost his self-possession, or hesitated for appropriate language. But
+his great power was in his thorough earnestness, and almost inspired
+enthusiasm. No one doubted his sincerity, and all were impressed with
+the spirituality and reality of the great truths which he presented.
+And wonderful results followed from his preaching, and from that of
+his brethren. A great religious revival spread over England,
+especially among the middle and lower classes, the effects of which
+last to this day.
+
+[Sidenote: Whitefield.]
+
+Whitefield was not so learned, or intellectual as Wesley. He was not
+so great a genius. But he had more eloquence, and more warmth of
+disposition. Wesley was a system maker, a metaphysician, a logician.
+He was also profoundly versed in the knowledge of human nature, and
+curiously adapted his system to the wants and circumstances of that
+class of people over whom he had the greatest power. Both Wesley and
+Whitefield were demanded by their times, and only such men as they
+were could have succeeded. They were reproached for their
+extravagances, and for a zeal which was confounded with fanaticism;
+but, had they been more proper, more prudent, more yielding to the
+prejudices of the great, they would not have effected so much good for
+their country. So with Luther. Had he possessed a severer taste, had
+he been more of a gentleman, or more of a philosopher, or even more
+humble, he would not so signally have succeeded. Germany, and the
+circumstances of the age, required a rough, practical, bold, impetuous
+reformer to lead a movement against dignitaries and venerable
+corruptions. England, in the eighteenth century, needed a man to
+arouse the common people to a sense of their spiritual condition; a
+man who would not be trammelled by his church; who would not be
+governed by the principles of expediency; who would trust in God, and
+labor under peculiar discouragement and self-denial.
+
+[Sidenote: Institution of Wesley.]
+
+Wesley was like Luther in another respect. He quarrelled with those
+who would not conform to all his views, whether they had been friends
+or foes. He had been attracted by the Moravians. Their simplicity,
+fervor, and sedateness had won his regard. But when the Moravians
+maintained that there was delusion in those ravings which Wesley
+considered as the work of grace, when they asserted that sin would
+remain with even regenerated man until death, and that it was in vain
+to expect the purification of the soul by works of self-denial, Wesley
+opposed them, and slandered them. He also entered the lists against
+his friend and fellow-laborer, Whitefield. The latter did not agree
+with him respecting perfection, nor election, nor predestination; and,
+when this disagreement had become fixed, an alienation took place,
+succeeded by actual bitterness and hostility. Wesley, however, in his
+latter days, manifested greater charity and liberality, and was a
+model of patience and gentleness. He became finally reconciled to
+Whitefield, and the union continued until the death of the latter, at
+Newburyport, in 1770.
+
+The greatness of Wesley consisted in devising that wonderful church
+polity which still governs the powerful and numerous sect which he
+founded. It is from the system of the Methodists, rather than from
+their theological opinions, that their society spread so rapidly over
+Great Britain and America, and which numbered at his death,
+seventy-one thousand persons in England, and forty-eight thousand in
+this country.
+
+And yet his institution was not wholly a matter of calculation, but
+was gradually developed as circumstances arose. When contributions
+were made towards building a meeting-house in Bristol, it was observed
+that most of the brethren were poor, and could afford but little. Then
+said one of the number, "Put eleven of the poorest with me, and if
+they give any thing, it is well. I will call on each of them weekly,
+and if they give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself."
+This suggested the idea of a system of supervision. In the course of
+the weekly calls, the persons who had undertaken for a class
+discovered some irregularities among those for whose contributions
+they were responsible, and reported them to Wesley. He saw, at once,
+the advantage to be derived from such an arrangement. It was what he
+had long desired. He called together the leaders, and desired that
+each should make a particular inquiry into the behavior of all under
+their respective supervision. They did so. The custom was embraced by
+the whole body, and became fundamental. But it was soon found to be
+inconvenient to visit each person separately in his own house weekly,
+and then it was determined that all the members of the class should
+assemble together weekly, when quarrels could be made up, and where
+they might be mutually profited by each other's prayers and
+exhortations. Thus the system of classes and class-leaders arose,
+which bears the same relation to the society at large that town
+meetings do to the state or general government in the American
+democracy--which, as it is known, constitute the genius of our
+political institutions.
+
+[Sidenote: Itinerancy.]
+
+Itinerancy also forms another great feature of Methodism; and this
+resulted from accident. But it is the prerogative and peculiarity of
+genius to take advantage of accidents and circumstances. It cannot
+create them. Wesley had no church; but, being an ordained clergyman of
+the Establishment, and a fellow of a college beside, he had the right
+to preach in any pulpit, and in any diocese. But the pulpits were
+closed against him, in consequence of his peculiarities; so he
+preached wherever he could collect a congregation. Itinerancy and
+popularity gave him notoriety, and flattered ambition, of which he was
+not wholly divested. He and his brethren wandered into every section
+of England, from the Northumbrian moorlands to the innermost depths of
+the Cornish mines, in the most tumultuous cities and in the most
+unfrequented hamlets.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Influence and Power of Wesley.]
+
+As he was the father of the sect, all appointments were made by him,
+and, as he deserved respect and influence, the same became unbounded.
+When power was vested to an unlimited extent in his hands, and when
+the society had become numerous and scattered over a great extent of
+territory, he divided England into circuits, and each circuit had a
+certain number of ministers appointed to it. But he held out no
+worldly rewards as lures. The conditions which he imposed were hard.
+The clergy were to labor with patience and assiduity on a mean
+pittance, with no hope of wealth or ease. Rewards were to be given
+them by no earthly judge. The only recompense for toil and hunger was
+that of the original apostles--the approval of their consciences and
+the favor of Heaven.
+
+To prevent the overbearing intolerance and despotism of the people,
+the chapels were not owned by the congregation nor even vested in
+trustees, but placed at the absolute disposal of Mr. Wesley and the
+conference.
+
+If the rule of Wesley was not in accordance with democratic
+principles, still its perpetuation in the most zealous of democratic
+communities, and its escape, thus far, from the ordinary fate of all
+human institutions,--that of corruption and decay,--shows its
+remarkable wisdom, and also the great virtue of those who have
+administered the affairs of the society. It effected, especially in
+England,--what the Established Church and the various form of
+Dissenters could not do,--the religious renovation of the lower
+classes; it met their wants; it stimulated their enthusiasm. And while
+Methodism promoted union and piety among the people, especially those
+who were ignorant and poor, it did not undermine their loyalty or
+attachment to the political institutions of the country. Other
+Dissenters were often hostile to the government, and have been
+impatient under the evils which have afflicted England; but the
+Methodists, taught subordination to superiors and rulers, and have
+ever been patient, peaceful, and quiet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Lord Mahon's History should be particularly
+     read; also Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole. Consult Smollett's and
+     Tindall's History of England, and Belsham's History of
+     George II. Smyth's Lectures are very valuable on this period
+     of English history. See, also, Bolingbroke's State of
+     Parties; Burke's Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs; Lord
+     Chesterfield's Characters; and Cobbett's Parliamentary
+     Debates. Reminiscences by Horace Walpole. For additional
+     information respecting the South Sea scheme, see Anderson's
+     and Macpherson's Histories of Commerce, and Smyth's
+     Lectures. The lives of the Pretenders have been well written
+     by Ray and Jesse. Tytler's History of Scotland should be
+     consulted; and Waverley may be read with profit. The rise of
+     the Methodists, the great event of the reign of George I.,
+     has been generally neglected. Lord Mahon has, however,
+     written a valuable chapter. See also Wesley's Letters and
+     Diary, and Lives, by Southey and Moore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Commercial Enterprise.]
+
+During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, the English colonies
+in America, and the East India Company's settlements began to attract
+the attention of ministers, and became of considerable political
+importance. It is, therefore, time to consider the history of
+colonization, both in the East and West, and not only by the English,
+but by the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French.
+
+The first settlements in the new world by Europeans, and their
+conquests in the unknown regions of the old, were made chiefly in view
+of commercial advantages. The love of money, that root of all evil,
+was overruled by Providence in the discovery of new worlds, and the
+diffusion of European civilization in countries inhabited by savages,
+or worn-out Oriental races. But the mere ignoble love of gain was not
+the only motive which incited the Europeans to navigate unknown oceans
+and colonize new continents. There was also another, and this was the
+spirit of enterprise, which magically aroused the European mind in the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Marco Polo, when he visited the
+East; the Portuguese, when they doubled the Cape of Good Hope;
+Columbus, when he discovered America; and Magellan, when he entered
+the South Sea, were moved by curiosity and love of science, more than
+by love of gold. But the vast wealth, which the newly-discovered
+countries revealed, stimulated, in the breasts of the excited
+Europeans, the powerful passions of ambition and avarice; and the
+needy and grasping governments of Spain, Portugal, Holland, France,
+and England patronized adventurers to the new El Dorado, and furnished
+them with ships and stores, in the hope of receiving a share of the
+profits of their expedition. And they were not disappointed. Although
+many disasters happened to the early navigators, still country after
+country was added to the possessions of European kings, and vast sums
+of gold and silver were melted into European coin. No conquests were
+ever more sudden, and brilliant than those of Cortez and Pizarro, nor
+did wealth ever before so suddenly enrich the civilized world. But
+sudden and unlawful gains produced their natural fruit. All the worst
+evils which flow from extravagance, extortion, and pride prevailed in
+the old world and the new; and those advantages and possessions, which
+had been gained by enterprise, were turned into a curse, for no wealth
+can balance the vices of avarice, injustice, and cruelty.
+
+[Sidenote: Spanish Conquests and Settlements.]
+
+The most important of all the early settlements of America were made
+by the Spaniards. Their conquests were the most brilliant, and proved
+the most worthless. The spirit which led to their conquests and
+colonization was essentially that of avarice and ambition. It must,
+however, be admitted that religious zeal, in some instances, was the
+animating principle of the adventurers and of those that patronized
+them.
+
+The first colony was established in Hispaniola, or, as it was
+afterwards called, St. Domingo, a short time after the discovery of
+America by Columbus. The mines of the island were, at that period,
+very productive, and the aggressive Spaniards soon compelled the
+unhappy natives to labor in them, under their governor, Juan Ponce de
+Leon. But Hispaniola was not sufficiently large or productive to
+satisfy the cupidity of the governor, and Porto Rico was conquered and
+enslaved. Cuba also, in a few years, was added to the dominions of
+Spain.
+
+At length, the Spaniards, who had explored the coasts of the Main
+land, prepared to invade and conquer the populous territories of
+Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The people whom he governed had attained
+a considerable degree of civilization, having a regular government, a
+system of laws, and an established priesthood. They were not ignorant
+of the means of recording great events, and possessed considerable
+skill in many useful and ornamental arts. They were rich in gold and
+silver, and their cities were ornamented with palaces and gardens. But
+their riches were irresistible objects of desire to the European
+adventurers, and, therefore, proved their misfortune. The story of
+their conquest by Fernando Cortez need not here be told; familiarized
+as are all readers and students with the exquisite and artistic
+narrative of the great American historian, whose work and whose fame
+can only perish with the language itself.
+
+About ten years after the conquest of Mexico, Pizarro landed in Peru,
+which country was soon added to the dominions of Philip II. And the
+government of that country was even more oppressive and unjust than
+that of Mexico. All Indians between the ages of fifteen and fifty were
+compelled to work in the mines; and so dreadful was the forced labor,
+that four out of five of those who worked in them were supposed to
+perish annually. There was no limit to Spanish rapacity and cruelty,
+and it was exercised over all the other countries which were
+subdued--Chili, Florida, and the West India Islands.
+
+Enormous and unparalleled quantities of the precious metals were sent
+to Spain from the countries of the new world. But, from the first
+discovery of Peru and Mexico, the mother country declined in wealth
+and political importance. With the increase of gold, the price of
+labor and of provision, and of all articles of manufacturing industry,
+also increased, and nearly in the same ratio. The Spaniards were
+insensible to this truth, and, instead of cultivating the soil or
+engaging in manufactures, were contented with the gold which came from
+the colonies. This, for a while, enriched them; but it was soon
+scattered over all Christendom, and was exchanged for the necessities
+of life. Industry and art declined, and those countries alone were the
+gainers which produced those articles which Spain was obliged to
+purchase.
+
+[Sidenote: Portuguese Discoveries.]
+
+Portugal soon rivalled Spain in the extent and richness of colonial
+possessions. Brazil was discovered in 1501, and, in about half a
+century after, was colonized. The native Brazilians, inferior in
+civilization to the Mexicans and Peruvians, were still less able than
+they to resist the arms of the Europeans. They were gradually subdued,
+and their beautiful and fertile country came into possession of the
+victors. But the Portuguese also extended their empire in the East, as
+well as in the West. After the discovery of a passage round the Cape
+of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama, the early navigators sought simply to
+be enriched by commerce with the Indies. They found powerful rivals in
+the Arabs, who had heretofore monopolized the trade. In order to
+secure their commerce, and also to protect themselves against their
+rivals and enemies, the Portuguese, under the guidance of Albuquerque,
+procured a grant of land in India, from one of the native princes.
+Soon after, Goa was reduced, and became the seat of government; and
+territorial acquisition commenced, which, having been continued nearly
+three centuries by the various European powers, is still progressive.
+In about sixty years, the Portuguese had established a great empire in
+the East, which included the coasts and islands of the Persian Gulf,
+the whole Malabar and Coromandel coasts, the city of Malacca, and
+numerous islands of the Indian Ocean. They had effected a settlement
+in China, obtained a free trade with the empire of Japan, and received
+tribute from the rich Islands of Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra.
+
+[Sidenote: Portuguese Settlements.]
+
+The same moral effects happened to Portugal, from the possession of
+the Indies, that the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro produced on
+Spain. Goa was the most depraved spot in the world: and the vices
+which wealth engendered, wherever the Europeans formed a settlement,
+can now scarcely be believed. When Portugal fell under the dominion of
+Philip II., the ruin of her settlements commenced. They were
+supplanted by the Dutch, who were more moral, more united and
+enterprising, though they provoked, by their arrogance and injustice,
+the hostility of the Eastern princes.
+
+The conquests and settlements of the Dutch rapidly succeeded those of
+the Portuguese. In 1595, Cornelius Houtman sailed, with a
+well-provided fleet, for the land of gems and spices. A company was
+soon incorporated, in Holland, for managing the Indian trade.
+Settlements were first made in the Moluccas Islands, which soon
+extended to the possession of the Island of Java, and to the complete
+monopoly of the spice trade. The Dutch then gained possession of the
+Island of Ceylon, which they retained until it was wrested from them
+by the English. But their empire was only maintained at a vast expense
+of blood and treasure; nor were they any exception to the other
+European colonists and adventurers, in the indulgence of all those
+vices which degrade our nature.
+
+Neither the French nor the English made any important conquests in the
+East, when compared with those of the Portuguese and Dutch. Nor did
+their acquisitions in America equal those of the Spaniards. But they
+were more important in their ultimate results.
+
+[Sidenote: Early English Enterprise.]
+
+English enterprise was manifested shortly after the first voyage of
+Columbus. Henry VII. was sufficiently enlightened, envious, and
+avaricious, to listen to the proposals of a Venetian, resident in
+Bristol, by the name of Cabot; and, in 1495, he commissioned him to
+sail under the banner of England, to take possession of any new
+countries he might discover. Accordingly, in about two years after,
+Cabot, with his second son, Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, in one of
+the king's ships, attended by four smaller vessels, equipped by the
+merchants of that enterprising city.
+
+Impressed with the idea of Columbus, and other early navigators, that
+the West India Islands were not far from the Indian continent, he
+concluded that, if he steered in a more northerly direction, he should
+reach India by a shorter course than that pursued by the great
+discoverer. Accordingly, sailing in that course, he discovered
+Newfoundland and Prince Edwards', and, soon after, the coast of North
+America, along which he sailed, from Labrador to Virginia. But,
+disappointed in not finding a westerly passage to India, he returned
+to England, without attempting, either by settlement or conquest, to
+gain a footing on the great continent which the English were the
+second to visit, of all the European nations.
+
+England was prevented, by various circumstances, from deriving
+immediate advantage from the discovery. The unsettled state of the
+country; the distractions arising from the civil wars, and afterwards
+from the Reformation; the poverty of the people, and the sordid nature
+of the king,--were unfavorable to settlements which promised no
+immediate advantage; and it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that
+any deliberate plans were made for the colonization of North America.
+The voyages of Frobisher and Drake had aroused a spirit of adventure,
+if they had not gratified the thirst for gold.
+
+Among those who felt an intense interest in the new world, was Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, a man of enlarged views and intrepid boldness. He
+secured from Elizabeth (1578) a liberal patent, and sailed, with a
+considerable body of adventurers, for the new world. But he took a too
+northerly direction, and his largest vessel was shipwrecked on the
+coast of Cape Breton. The enterprise from various causes, completely
+failed, and the intrepid navigator lost his life.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+The spirit of the times raised up, however, a greater genius, and a
+more accomplished adventurer, and no less a personage than Sir Walter
+Raleigh,--the favorite of the queen; one of the greatest scholars and
+the most elegant courtier of the age; a soldier, a philosopher, and a
+statesman. He obtained a patent, substantially the same as that which
+had been bestowed on Gilbert. In 1584, Raleigh despatched two small
+exploring vessels, under the command of Amidas and Barlow, which
+seasonably arrived off the coast of North Carolina. From the favorable
+report of the country and the people, a larger fleet, of seven ships,
+was despatched to America, commanded by Sir Richard Grenville. But he
+was diverted from his course by the prevailing passion for predatory
+enterprise, and hence only landed one hundred and eight men at
+Roanoke, (1585.) The government of this feeble band was intrusted to
+Captain Lane. But the passion for gold led to a misunderstanding with
+the natives. The colony became enfeebled and reduced, and the
+adventurers returned to England, (1586,) bringing with them some
+knowledge of the country, and also that singular weed, which rapidly
+enslaved the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and which soon became one
+of the great staple commodities in the trade of the civilized world.
+Modern science has proved it to be a poison, and modern philanthropy
+has lifted up its warning voice against the use of it. But when have
+men, in their degeneracy, been governed by their reason? What logic
+can break the power of habit, or counteract the seductive influences
+of those excitements which fill the mind with visionary hopes, and
+lull a tumultuous spirit into the repose of pleasant dreams and
+oblivious joys? Sir Walter Raleigh, to his shame or his misfortune,
+was among the first to patronize a custom which has proved more
+injurious to civilized nations than even the use of opium itself,
+because it is more universal and more insidious.
+
+But smoking was simply an amusement with him. He soon turned his
+thoughts to the reestablishment of his colony. Even before the return
+of the company under Lane, Sir Richard Grenville had visited the
+Roanoke, with the necessary stores. But he arrived too late; the
+colony was abandoned.
+
+But nothing could abate the zeal of the most enterprising genius of
+the age. In 1587, he despatched three more ships, under the command of
+Captain White, who founded the city of Raleigh. But no better success
+attended the new band of colonists. White sailed for England, to
+secure new supplies; and, when he returned, he found no traces of the
+colony he had planted; and no subsequent ingenuity or labor has been
+able to discover the slightest vestige.
+
+The patience of Raleigh was not wasted; but new objects occupied his
+mind, and he parted with his patent, which made him the proprietary of
+a great part of the Southern States. Nor were there any new attempts
+at colonization until 1606, in the reign of James.
+
+[Sidenote: London Company Incorporated.]
+
+Through the influence of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a man of great wealth;
+Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England; Richard Hakluyt, the
+historian; Bartholomew Gosnold, the navigator, and John Smith, the
+enthusiastic adventurer,--King James I. granted a royal charter to two
+rival companies, for the colonization of America. The first was
+composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, in and about London,
+who had an exclusive right to occupy regions from thirty-four to
+thirty-eight degrees of north latitude. The other company, composed of
+gentlemen and merchants in the west of England, had assigned to them
+the territory between forty-one and forty-five degrees. But only the
+first company succeeded.
+
+The territory, appropriated to the London or southern colony,
+preserved the name which had been bestowed upon it during the reign of
+Elizabeth,--Virginia. The colonists were authorized to transport, free
+of the custom-house, for the term of seven years, what arms and
+provisions they required; and their children were permitted to enjoy
+the same privileges and liberties, in the American settlements, that
+Englishmen had at home. They had the right to search for mines, to
+coin money, and, for twenty-one years, to impose duties, on vessels
+trading to their harbors, for the benefit of the colony. But, after
+this period, the duty was to be taken for the king, who also preserved
+a control over both the councils established for the government of the
+colony,--the one in England itself, and the other in Virginia; a
+control inconsistent with those liberties which the colonists
+subsequently asserted and secured.
+
+[Sidenote: Hardships of the Virginia Colony.]
+
+The London Company promptly applied themselves to the settlement of
+their territories; and, on the 19th of December, 1606, a squadron of
+three small vessels set sail for the new world; and, on May 13, 1607,
+a company of one hundred and five men, without families, disembarked
+at Jamestown. This was the first permanent settlement in America by
+the English. But great misfortunes afflicted them. Before September,
+one half of the colonists had perished, and the other half were
+suffering from famine, dissension, and fear. The president, Wingfield,
+attempted to embezzle the public stores, and escape to the West
+Indies. He was supplanted in his command by Ratcliffe, a man without
+capacity. But a deliverer was raised up in the person of Captain John
+Smith, who extricated the suffering and discontented band from the
+evils which impended. He had been a traveller and a warrior; had
+visited France, Italy, and Egypt; fought in Holland and Hungary; was
+taken a prisoner of war in Wallachia, and sent as a slave to
+Constantinople. Removed to a fortress in the Crimea, and subjected to
+the hardest tasks, he yet contrived to escape, and, after many perils,
+reached his native country. But greater hardships and dangers awaited
+him in the new world, to which he was impelled by his adventurous
+curiosity. He was surprised and taken by a party of hostile Indians,
+when on a tour of exploration, and would have been murdered, had it
+not been for his remarkable presence of mind and singular sagacity,
+united with the intercession of the famous Pocahontas, daughter of a
+great Indian chief, from whom some of the best families in Virginia
+are descended. It would be pleasant to detail the romantic incidents
+of this brief captivity; but our limits forbid. Smith, when he
+returned to Jamestown, found his company reduced to forty men, and
+they were discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, they were a
+different class of men from those who colonized New England. They were
+gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, were
+greedy for gold, and had neither the fortitude nor the habits
+requisite for success. They were not accustomed to labor, at least
+with the axe and plough. Smith earnestly wrote to the council of the
+company in England, to send carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners,
+fishermen, and blacksmiths, instead of "vagabond gentlemen and
+goldsmiths." But he had to organize a colony with such materials as
+avarice or adventurous curiosity had sent to America. And, in spite of
+dissensions and natural indolence, he succeeded in placing it on a
+firm foundation; surveyed the Chesapeake Bay to the Susquehannah, and
+explored the inlets of the majestic Potomac. But he was not permitted
+to complete the work which he had so beneficently begun. His
+administration was unacceptable to the company in England, who cared
+very little for the welfare of the infant colony, and only sought a
+profitable investment of their capital. They were disappointed that
+mines of gold and silver had not been discovered, and that they
+themselves had not become enriched. Even the substantial welfare of
+the colony displeased them; for this diverted attention from the
+pursuit of mineral wealth.
+
+[Sidenote: New Charter of the London Company.]
+
+The original patentees, therefore, sought to strengthen themselves by
+new associates and a new charter. And a new charter was accordingly
+granted to twenty-one peers, ninety-eight knights, and a great number
+of doctors, esquires, gentlemen, and merchants. The bounds of the
+colony were enlarged, the council and offices in Virginia abolished,
+and the company in England empowered to nominate all officers in the
+colony. Lord Delaware was appointed governor and captain-general of
+the company, and a squadron of nine ships, with five hundred emigrants
+were sent to Virginia. But these emigrants consisted, for the most
+part, of profligate young men, whom their aristocratic friends sent
+away to screen themselves from shame; broken down gentlemen, too lazy
+to work; and infamous dependants on powerful families. They threw the
+whole colony into confusion, and provoked, by their aggression and
+folly, the animosities of the Indians, whom Smith had appeased. The
+settlement at Jamestown was abandoned to famine and confusion, and
+would have been deserted had it not been for the timely arrival of
+Lord Delaware, with ample supplies and new recruits. His
+administration was wise and efficient, and he succeeded in restoring
+order, if he did not secure the wealth which was anticipated.
+
+In 1612, the company obtained a third patent, by which all the islands
+within three hundred leagues of the Virginia shore were granted to the
+patentees, and by which a portion of the power heretofore vested in
+the council was transferred to the whole company. The political rights
+of the colonists remained the same but they acquired gradually peace
+and tranquillity. Tobacco was extensively cultivated, and proved a
+more fruitful source of wealth than mines of silver or gold.
+
+The jealousy of arbitrary power, and impatience of liberty among the
+new settlers, induced the Governor of Virginia, in 1619, to reinstate
+them in the full possession of the rights of Englishmen; and he
+accordingly convoked a Provincial Assembly, the first ever held in
+America, which consisted of the governor, the council, and a number of
+burgesses, elected by the eleven existing boroughs of the colony. The
+deliberation and laws of this infant legislature were transmitted to
+England for approval; and so wise and judicious were these, that the
+company, soon after, approved and ratified the platform of what
+gradually ripened into the American representative system.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid Colonization.]
+
+The guarantee of political rights led to a rapid colonization. "Men
+were now willing to regard Virginia as their home. They fell to
+building houses and planting corn." Women were induced to leave the
+parent country to become the wives of adventurous planters; and,
+during the space of three years, thirty-five hundred persons, of both
+sexes, found their way to Virginia. In the year 1620, a Dutch ship,
+from the coast of Guinea, arrived in James River, and landed twenty
+negroes for sale; and, as they were found more capable of enduring
+fatigue, in a southern climate, than the Europeans, they were
+continually imported, until a large proportion of the inhabitants of
+Virginia was composed of slaves. Thus was introduced, at this early
+period, that lasting system of injustice and cruelty which has proved
+already an immeasurable misfortune to the country, as well as a
+disgrace to the institutions of republican liberty, but which is
+lamented, in many instances, by no class with more sincerity than by
+those who live by the produce of slave labor itself.
+
+The succeeding year, which witnessed the importation of negroes,
+beheld the cultivation of tobacco, which before the introduction of
+cotton, was the great staple of southern produce.
+
+[Sidenote: Indian Warfare.]
+
+In 1622, the long-suppressed enmity of the Indians broke out in a
+savage attempt to murder the whole colony. A plot had been formed by
+which all the English settlements were to be attacked on the same day,
+and at the same hour. The conspiracy was betrayed by a friendly
+Indian, but not in time to prevent a fearful massacre of three hundred
+and forty-seven persons, among whom were some of the wealthiest and
+most respectable inhabitants. Then followed all the evils of an Indian
+war, and the settlements were reduced from eighty to eight
+plantations; and it was not until after a protracted struggle that the
+colonists regained their prosperity.
+
+Scarcely had hostilities with the Indians commenced, before
+dissensions among the company in England led to a quarrel with the
+king, and a final abrogation of their charter. The company was too
+large and too democratic. The members were dissatisfied that so little
+gain had been derived from the colony; and moreover they made their
+courts or convocations, when they assembled to discuss colonial
+matters, the scene of angry political debate. There was a court party
+and a country party, each inflamed with violent political animosities.
+The country party was the stronger, and soon excited the jealousy of
+the arbitrary monarch, who looked upon their meetings "as but a
+seminary to a seditious parliament." A royal board of commissioners
+were appointed to examine the affairs of the company, who reported
+unfavorably; and the king therefore ordered the company to surrender
+its charter. The company refused to obey an arbitrary mandate; but
+upon its refusal, the king ordered a writ of _quo warranto_ to be
+issued, and the Court of the King's Bench decided, of course, in favor
+of the crown. The company was accordingly dissolved. But the
+dissolution, though arbitrary, operated beneficially on the colony. Of
+all cramping institutions, a sovereign company of merchants is the
+most so, since they seek simply commercial gain, without any reference
+to the political, moral, or social improvement of the people whom they
+seek to control.
+
+[Sidenote: Governor Harvey.]
+
+Before King James had completed his scheme for the government of the
+colony, he died; and Charles I. pursued the same arbitrary policy
+which his father contemplated. He instituted a government which
+combined the unlimited prerogative of an absolute prince with the
+narrow and selfish maxims of a mercantile corporation. He monopolized
+the profits of its trade, and empowered the new governor, whom he
+appointed, to exercise his authority with the most undisguised
+usurpation of those rights which the colonists had heretofore enjoyed.
+Harvey's disposition was congenial with the rapacious and cruel system
+which he pursued, and he acted more like the satrap of an Eastern
+prince than the representative of a constitutional monarch. The
+colonists remonstrated and complained; but their appeals to the mercy
+and justice of the king were disregarded, and Harvey continued his
+course of insolence and tyranny until that famous parliament was
+assembled which rebelled against the folly and government of Charles.
+In 1641, a new and upright governor, Sir William Berkeley, was sent to
+Virginia, and the old provincial liberties were restored. In the
+contest between the king and parliament Virginia espoused the royal
+cause. When the parliament had triumphed over the king, Virginia was
+made to feel the force of republican displeasure, and oppressive
+restrictions were placed upon the trade of the colony, which were the
+more provoking in view of the indulgence which the New England
+colonies received from the protector. A revolt ensued, and Sir William
+Berkeley was forced from his retirement, and made to assume the
+government of the rebellious province. Cromwell, fortunately for
+Virginia, but unfortunately for the world, died before the rebellion,
+could be suppressed; and when Charles II. was restored, Virginia
+joyfully returned to her allegiance. The supremacy of the Church of
+England was established by law, stipends were allowed to her
+ministers, and no clergymen were permitted to exercise their functions
+but such as held to the supremacy of the Church of England.
+
+[Sidenote: Arbitrary Policy of Charles II.]
+
+But Charles II. was as incapable as his father of pursuing a generous
+and just policy to the colonies; and parliament itself looked upon the
+colonies as a source of profit to the nation, rather than as a part of
+the nation. No sooner was Charles seated on the throne, than
+parliament imposed a duty of five per cent. on all merchandise
+exported from, or imported into, any of the dominions belonging to the
+crown; and the famous Navigation Act was passed, which ordained that
+no commodities should be imported into any of the British settlements
+but in vessels built in England or in her colonies; and that no sugar,
+tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo and some other articles produced in the
+colonies, should be shipped from them to any other country but
+England. As a compensation, the colonies were permitted the exclusive
+cultivation of tobacco. The parliament, soon after, in 1663, passed
+additional restrictions; and, advancing, step by step, gradually
+subjected the colonies to a most oppressive dependence on the mother
+country, and even went so far as to regulate the trade of the several
+colonies with each other. This system of monopoly and exclusion, of
+course, produced indignation and disgust, and sowed the seeds of
+ultimate rebellion. Indian hostilities were added to provincial
+discontent, and even the horrors of civil war disturbed the prosperity
+of the colony. An ambitious and unprincipled adventurer, by the name
+of Bacon, succeeded in fomenting dissension, and in successfully
+resisting the power of the governor. Providence arrested the career of
+the rebel in the moment of his triumph; and his sickness and death
+fortunately dissipated the tempest which threatened to be fatal to the
+peace and welfare of Virginia. Berkeley, on the suppression of the
+rebellion, punished the offenders with a severity which ill accorded
+with his lenient and pacific character. His course did not please the
+government in England, and he was superseded by Colonel Jeffries. But
+he died before his successor arrived. A succession of governors
+administered the colony as their disposition prompted, some of whom
+were wise and able, and others tyrannical and rapacious.
+
+The English revolution of 1688 produced also a change in the
+administration of the colony. Its dependence on the personal character
+of the sovereign was abolished, and its chartered liberties were
+protected. The king continued to appoint the royal governor, and the
+parliament continued to oppress the trade of the colonists; but they,
+on the whole, enjoyed the rights of freemen, and rapidly advanced in
+wealth and prosperity. On the accession of William and Mary, the
+colony contained fifty thousand inhabitants and forty-eight parishes;
+and, in 1676, the customs on tobacco alone were collected in England
+to the amount of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. The
+people generally belonged to the Episcopal Church, and the clergy each
+received, in every parish, a house and glebe, together with sixteen
+thousand pounds of tobacco. The people were characterized for
+hospitality and urbanity, but were reproached for the indolence which
+a residence in scattered villages, a hot climate, and negro slavery
+must almost inevitably lead to. Literature, that solace of the refined
+and luxurious in the European world, was but imperfectly cultivated;
+nor was religion, in its stern and lofty developments, the animating
+principle of life, as in the New England settlements. But the people
+of Virginia were richer, more cultivated, and more aristocratic than
+the Puritans, more refined in manners, and more pleasing as
+companions.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New England.]
+
+The settlements in New England were made by a very different class of
+men from those who colonized Virginia. They were not adventurers in
+quest of gain; they were not broken-down gentlemen of aristocratic
+connections; they were not the profligate and dissolute members of
+powerful families. They were Puritans, they belonged to the middle
+ranks of society; they were men of stern and lofty virtue, of
+invincible energy, and hard and iron wills; they detested both the
+civil and religious despotism of their times, and desired, above all
+worldly consideration, the liberty of worshipping God according to the
+dictates of their consciences. They were chiefly Independents and
+Calvinists, among whom religion was a life, and not a dogma. They
+sought savage wilds, not for gain, not for ease, not for
+aggrandizement, but for liberty of conscience; and, for the sake of
+that inestimable privilege, they were ready to forego all the comforts
+and elegances of civilized life, and cheerfully meet all the dangers
+and make all the sacrifices which a residence among savage Indians,
+and in a cold and inhospitable climate, necessarily incurred.
+
+The efforts at colonization attempted by the company in the west of
+England, to which allusion has been made, signally failed. God did not
+design that New England should be settled by a band of commercial
+adventurers. A colony was permanently planted at Plymouth, within the
+limits of the corporation, of forty persons, to whom James had granted
+enormous powers, and a belt of country from the fortieth to the
+forty-eighth degree of north latitude in width, and from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific in length.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival of the Mayflower.]
+
+On the 5th of August, 1620, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, freighted
+with the first Puritan colony, set sail from Southampton. It composed
+a band of religious and devoted men, with their wives and children,
+who had previously sought shelter in Holland for the enjoyment of
+their religious opinions. The smaller vessel, after a trial on the
+Atlantic, was found incompetent to the voyage, and was abandoned. The
+more timid were allowed to disembark at old Plymouth. One hundred and
+one resolute souls again set sail in the Mayflower, for the unknown
+wilderness, with all its countless dangers and miseries. No common
+worldly interest could have sustained their souls. The first
+adventurers embarked for Virginia, without women or children; but the
+Puritans made preparation for a permanent residence. Providence,
+against their design, guided their little vessel to the desolate
+shores of the most barren part of Massachusetts. On the 9th of
+November, it was safely moored in the harbor of Cape Cod. On the 11th,
+the colonists solemnly bound themselves into a body politic, and chose
+John Carver for their governor. On the 11th of December, (O. S.,)
+after protracted perils and sufferings, this little company landed on
+Plymouth Rock. Before the opening spring, more than half the colony
+had perished from privation, fatigue, and suffering, among whom was
+the governor himself. In the autumn, their numbers were recruited; but
+all the miseries of famine remained. They lived together as a
+community; but, for three or four months together, they had no corn
+whatever. In the spring of 1623, each family planted for itself, and
+land was assigned to each person in perpetual fee. The needy and
+defenceless colonists were fortunately preserved from the hostility of
+the natives, since a famine had swept away the more dangerous of their
+savage neighbors; nor did hostilities commence for several years. God
+protected the Pilgrims, in their weakness, from the murderous
+tomahawk, and from the perils of the wilderness. They suffered, but
+they existed. Their numbers slowly increased, but they were all
+Puritans,--were just the men to colonize the land, and lay the
+foundation of a great empire. From the beginning, a strict democracy
+existed, and all enjoyed ample exemption from the trammels of
+arbitrary power. No king took cognizance of their existence, or
+imposed upon them a despotic governor. They appointed their own
+rulers, and those rulers governed in the fear of God. Township
+independence existed from the first; and this is the nursery and the
+genius of American institutions. The Plymouth colony was a
+self-constituted democracy; but it was composed of Englishmen, who
+loved their native land, and, while they sought unrestrained freedom,
+did not disdain dependence on the mother country, and a proper
+connection with the English government. They could not obtain a royal
+charter from the king; but the Grand Council of Plymouth--a new
+company, to which James had given the privileges of the old
+one--granted all the privileges which the colonists desired. They were
+too insignificant to attract much attention from the government, or
+excite the jealousy of a great corporation.
+
+Unobtrusive and unfettered, the colony slowly spread. But wherever it
+spread, it took root. It was a tree which Providence planted for all
+generations. It was established upon a rock. It was a branch of the
+true church, which was destined to defy storms and changes, because
+its strength was in the Lord.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New Hampshire.]
+
+But all parts of New England were not, at first, settled by Puritan
+Pilgrims, or from motives of religion merely. The council of Plymouth
+issued grants of domains to various adventurers, who were animated by
+the spirit of gain. John Mason received a patent for what is now the
+state of New Hampshire. Portsmouth and Dover had an existence as early
+as 1623. Gorges obtained a grant of the whole district between the
+Piscataqua and the Kennebec. Saco, in 1636, contained one hundred and
+fifty people. But the settlements in New Hampshire and Maine, having
+disappointed the expectations of the patentees in regard to emolument
+and profit, were not very flourishing.
+
+In the mean time, a new company of Puritans was formed for the
+settlement of the country around Boston. The company obtained a royal
+charter, (1629,) which constituted them a body politic, by the name of
+the _Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay_. It conferred on
+the colonists the rights of English subjects, although it did not
+technically concede freedom of religious worship, or the privilege of
+self-government. The main body of the colonists settled in Salem. They
+were a band of devout and lofty characters; Calvinists in their
+religious creed, and republicans in their political opinions. Strict
+independency was the basis and the genius of their church. It was
+self-constituted, and all its officers were elected by the members.
+
+[Sidenote: Constitution of the Colony.]
+
+The charter of the company had been granted to a corporation
+consisting chiefly of merchants resident in London, and was more
+liberal than could have been expected from so bigoted and zealous a
+king as Charles I. If it did not directly concede the rights of
+conscience, it seemed to be silent respecting them; and the colonists
+were left to the unrestricted enjoyment of their religious and civil
+liberties. The intolerance and rigor of Archbishop Laud caused this
+new colony to be rapidly settled; and, as many distinguished men
+desired to emigrate, they sought and secured, from the company in
+England, a transfer of all the powers of government to the actual
+settlers in America. By this singular transaction, the municipal
+rights and privileges of the colonists were established on a firm
+foundation.
+
+In 1630, not far from fifteen hundred persons, with Winthrop as their
+leader and governor, emigrated to the new world, and settled first in
+Charlestown, and afterwards in Boston. In accordance with the charter
+which gave them such unexpected privileges, a General Court was
+assembled, to settle the government. But the privilege of the elective
+franchise was given only to the members of the church, and each church
+was formed after the model of the one in Salem. It cannot be said that
+a strict democracy was established, since church membership was the
+condition of the full enjoyment of political rights. But if the
+constitution was somewhat aristocratic and exclusive, aristocracy was
+not based on wealth or intellect. The Calvinists of Massachusetts
+recognized a government of the elect,--a sort of theocracy, in which
+only the religious, or those who professed to be so, and were admitted
+to be so, had a right to rule. This was the notion of Cromwell
+himself, the great idol and representative of the Independents, who
+fancied that the government of England should be intrusted only to
+those who were capable of saving England, and were worthy to rule
+England. As his party constituted, in his eyes, this elect body, and
+was, in reality, the best party,--composed of men who feared God, and
+were willing to be ruled by his laws,--therefore his party, as he
+supposed, had a right to overturn thrones, and establish a new
+theocracy on earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Puritans.]
+
+This notion was a delusion in England, and proved fatal to all those
+who were blinded by it. Not so in America. Amid the unbroken forests
+of New England, a colony of men was planted who generally recognized
+the principles of Cromwell; and one of the best governments the world
+has seen controlled the turbulent, rewarded the upright, and protected
+the rights and property of all classes with almost paternal fidelity
+and justice. The colony, however,--such is the weakness of man, such
+the degeneracy of his nature,--was doomed to dissension. Bigotry, from
+which no communities or individuals are fully free, drove some of the
+best men from the limits of the colony. Roger Williams, a minister in
+Salem, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his age,
+sought shelter from the persecution of his brethren amid the wilds on
+Narragansett Bay. In June, 1636, the lawgiver of Rhode Island, with
+five companions, embarked in an Indian canoe, and, sailing down the
+river, landed near a spring, on a sheltered spot, which he called
+_Providence_. He was gradually joined by others, who sympathized with
+his tolerant spirit and enlightened views, and the colony of Rhode
+Island became an asylum for the persecuted for many years. And there
+were many such. The Puritans were too earnest to live in harmony with
+those who differed from them on great religious questions; and a
+difference of views must have been expected among men so intellectual,
+so acute, and so fearless in speculation. How could dissenters from
+prevailing opinions fail to arise?--mystics, fanatics, and heretics?
+The idea of special divine illumination--ever the prevailing source of
+fanaticism, in all ages and countries--led astray some; and the desire
+for greater spiritual liberty animated others. Anne Hutchinson adopted
+substantially the doctrine of George Fox, that the spirit of God
+illuminates believers, independently of his written word; and she
+communicated her views to many others, who became, like her, arrogant
+and conceited, in spite of their many excellent qualities. Harry Vane,
+the governor, was among the number. But there was no reasoning with
+fanatics, who fancied themselves especially inspired; and, as they
+disturbed the peace of the colony, the leaders were expelled. Vane
+himself returned to England, to mingle in scenes more congenial with
+his excellent but excitable temper. In England, this illustrious
+friend of Milton greatly distinguished himself for his efforts in the
+cause of liberty, and ever remained its consistent advocate; opposing
+equally the tyranny of the king, and the encroachments of those who
+overturned his throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Pequod War.]
+
+Connecticut, though assigned to a company in England, was early
+colonized by a detachment of Pilgrims from Massachusetts. In 1635,
+settlements were made at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. The
+following year, the excellent and illustrious Hooker led a company of
+one hundred persons through the forests to the delightful banks of the
+Connecticut, whose rich alluvial soil promised an easier support than
+the hard and stony land in the vicinity of Boston. They were scarcely
+settled before the Pequod war commenced, which involved all the
+colonies in a desperate and bloody contest with the Indians. But the
+Pequods were no match for Europeans, especially without firearms; and,
+in 1637, the tribe was nearly annihilated. The energy and severity
+exercised by the colonists, fighting for their homes, struck awe in
+the minds of the savages; and it was long before they had the courage
+to rally a second time. The Puritans had the spirit of Cromwell, and
+never hesitated to act with intrepid boldness and courage, when the
+necessity was laid upon them. They were no advocates of half measures.
+Their subsequent security and growth are, in no slight degree, to be
+traced to these rigorous measures,--measures which, in these times,
+are sometimes denounced as too severe, but the wisdom of which can
+scarcely be questioned when the results are considered. All the great
+masters of war, and of war with barbarians, have pursued a policy of
+unmitigated severity; and when a temporizing or timid course has been
+adopted with men incapable of being governed by reason, and animated
+by savage passions, that course has failed.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of the New England Colonies.]
+
+After the various colonies were well established in New England, and
+more than twenty thousand had emigrated from the mother country, they
+were no longer regarded with benevolent interest by the king or his
+ministers. The Grand Council of Plymouth surrendered its charter to
+the king, and a writ of _quo warranto_ was issued against the
+Massachusetts colony. But the Puritans refused to surrender their
+charter, and prepared for resistance against the malignant scheme of
+Strafford and Laud. Before they could be carried into execution, the
+struggle between the king and the Long Parliament had commenced. The
+less resistance was forgotten in the greater. The colonies escaped the
+vengeance of a bigoted government. When the parliament triumphed, they
+were especially favored, and gradually acquired wealth and power. The
+different colonies formed a confederation to protect themselves
+against the Dutch and French on the one side, and the Indians on the
+other. And this happily continued for half a century, and was
+productive of very important results. But the several colonies
+continued to make laws for their own people, to repress anarchy, and
+favor the cause of religion and unity. They did not always exhibit a
+liberal and enlightened policy. They destroyed witches; persecuted the
+Baptists and Quakers, and excluded them from their settlements. But,
+with the exception of religious persecution, their legislation was
+wise, and their general conduct was virtuous. They encouraged schools,
+and founded the University of Cambridge. They preserved the various
+peculiarities of Puritanism in regard to amusements, to the observance
+of the Sabbath, and to antipathy to any thing which reminded them of
+Rome, or even of the Church of England. But Puritanism was not an
+odious crust, a form, a dogma. It was a life, a reality; and was not
+unfavorable to the development of the most beautiful virtues of
+charity and benevolence, in a certain sphere. It was not a mere
+traditional Puritanism, which clings with disgusting tenacity to a
+form, when the spirit of love has departed; but it was a harmonious
+development of living virtues, which sympathized with education, with
+freedom, and with progress; which united men together by the bond of
+Christian love, and incited them to deeds of active benevolence and
+intrepid moral heroism. Nor did the Puritan Pilgrims persecute those
+who did not harmonize with them in order to punish them, but simply to
+protect themselves, and to preserve in their midst, and in their
+original purity, those institutions and those rights, for the
+possession of which they left their beloved native land for a savage
+wilderness, with its countless perils and miseries. But their
+hardships and afflictions were not of long continuance. With energy,
+industry, frugality, and love, they soon obtained security, comfort,
+and health. And it is no vain and idle imagination which assigns to
+those years, which succeeded the successful planting of the colony,
+the period of the greatest happiness and virtue which New England has
+ever enjoyed.
+
+Equally fortunate with the Puritans were those interesting people who
+settled Pennsylvania. If the Quakers were persecuted in the mother
+country and in New England, they found a shelter on the banks of the
+Delaware. There they obtained and enjoyed that freedom of religious
+worship which had been denied to the great founder of the sect, and
+which had even been withheld from them by men who had struggled with
+them for the attainment of this exalted privilege.
+
+[Sidenote: William Penn.]
+
+In 1677, the Quakers obtained a charter which recognized the principle
+of democratic equality in the settlements in West Jersey; and in 1680,
+William Penn received from the king, who was indebted to his father, a
+grant of an extensive territory, which was called _Pennsylvania_, of
+which he was constituted absolute proprietary. He also received a
+liberal charter, and gave his people privileges and a code of laws
+which exceeded in liberality any that had as yet been bestowed on any
+community. In 1682 he landed at Newcastle, and, soon after, at his new
+city on the banks of the Delaware, under the shelter of a large,
+spreading elm, made his immortal treaty with the Indians. He
+proclaimed to the Indian, heretofore deemed a foe never to be
+appeased, the principles of love which animated Fox, and which "Mary
+Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk." "We meet," said the lawgiver, "on
+the broad pathway of good faith and good will. No advantage shall be
+taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not
+call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too
+severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship
+between me and you I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains
+might rust, or the felling tree might break. We are the same as if one
+man's body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and
+blood."
+
+Such were the sublime doctrines which the illustrious founder of
+Pennsylvania declared to the Indians, and which he made the basis of
+his government, and the rule of his intercourse with his own people
+and with savage tribes. These doctrines were already instilled into
+the minds of the settlers, and they also found a response in the souls
+of the Indians. The sons of the wilderness long cherished the
+recollection of the covenant, and never forgot its principles. While
+all the other settlements of the Europeans were suffering from the
+hostility of the red man, Pennsylvania alone enjoyed repose. "Not a
+drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian."
+
+William Penn, although the absolute proprietor of a tract of country
+which was nearly equal in extent to England, sought no revenue and no
+arbitrary power. He gave to the settlers the right to choose their own
+magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, and only reserved to
+himself the power to veto the bills of the council--the privilege
+which our democracies still allow to their governors.
+
+Such a colony as he instituted could not but prosper. Its rising
+glories were proclaimed in every country of Europe, and the needy and
+distressed of all countries sought this realized Utopia. In two years
+after Philadelphia was settled, it contained six hundred houses. Peace
+was uninterrupted, and the settlement spread more rapidly than in any
+other part of North America.
+
+New Jersey, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, were all
+colonized by the English, shortly after the settlement of Virginia and
+New England, either by emigration from England, or from the other
+colonies. But there was nothing in their early history sufficiently
+marked to warrant a more extended sketch. In general, the Southern
+States were colonized by men who had not the religious elevation of
+the Puritans, nor the living charity of the Quakers. But their
+characters improved by encountering the evils to which they were
+subjected, and they became gradually imbued with those principles
+which in after times secured independence and union.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of New York.]
+
+The settlement of New York, however, merits a passing notice, since it
+was colonized by emigrants from Holland, which was by far the most
+flourishing commercial state of Europe in the seventeenth century. The
+Hudson River had been discovered (1609) by an Englishman, whose name
+it bears, but who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
+The right of possession of the country around it was therefore claimed
+by the United Provinces, and an association of Dutch merchants fitted
+out a ship to trade with the Indians. In 1614, a rude fort was erected
+on Manhattan Island, and, the next year, the settlement at Albany
+commenced, chiefly with a view of trading with the Indians. In 1623,
+New Amsterdam, now New York, was built for the purpose of
+colonization, and extensive territories were appropriated by the Dutch
+for the rising colony. This appropriation involved them in constant
+contention with the English, as well as with the Indians; nor was
+there the enjoyment of political privileges by the people, as in the
+New England colonies. The settlements resembled lordships in the
+Netherlands, and every one who planted a colony of fifty souls,
+possessed the absolute property of the lands he colonized, and became
+_Patroon_, or Lord of the Manor. Very little attention was given to
+education, and the colonists were not permitted to make cotton,
+woollen, or linen cloth, for fear of injury to the monopolists of the
+Dutch manufactures. The province had no popular freedom, and no public
+spirit. The poor were numerous, and the people were disinclined to
+make proper provision for their own protection.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of New Netherlands.]
+
+But the colony of the New Netherlands was not destined to remain under
+the government of the Dutch West India Company. It was conquered by
+the English in 1664, and the conquerors promised security to the
+customs, the religion, the institutions, and the possessions of the
+Dutch; and this promise was observed. In 1673, the colony was
+reconquered, but finally, in 1674, was ceded to the English, and the
+brother of Charles II. resumed his possession and government of New
+York, and delegated his power to Colonel Nichols, who ruled with
+wisdom and humanity. But the old Dutch Governor Stuyvesant remained in
+the city over which he had so honorably presided, and prolonged the
+empire of Dutch manners, if not of Dutch arms. The banks of the Hudson
+continued also to be peopled by the countrymen of the original
+colonists, who long preserved the language, customs, and religion of
+Holland. New York, nevertheless, was a royal province, and the
+administration was frequently intrusted to rapacious, unprincipled,
+and arbitrary governors.
+
+Thus were the various states which border on the Atlantic Ocean
+colonized, in which English laws, institutions, and language were
+destined to be perpetuated. In 1688, the various colonies, of which
+there were twelve, contained about two hundred thousand inhabitants;
+and all of these were Protestants; all cherished the principles of
+civil and religious liberty, and sought, by industry, frugality and
+patience, to secure independence and prosperity. From that period to
+this, no nation has grown more rapidly; no one has ever developed more
+surprising energies; no one has ever enjoyed greater social,
+political, and religious privileges.
+
+But the shores of North America were not colonized merely by the
+English. On the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi another body
+of colonists arrived, and introduced customs and institutions equally
+foreign to those of the English and Spaniards. The French settlements
+in Canada and Louisiana are now to be considered.
+
+[Sidenote: Discovery of the St. Lawrence.]
+
+Within seven years from the discovery of the continent, the fisheries
+of Newfoundland were known to French adventurers. The St. Lawrence was
+explored in 1506, and plans of colonization were formed in 1518. In
+1534, James Cartier, a native of St. Malo, sailed up the River St.
+Lawrence; but the severity of the climate in winter prevented an
+immediate settlement. It was not until 1603 that any permanent
+colonization was commenced. Quebec was then selected by Samuel
+Champlain, the father of the French settlements in Canada, as the site
+for a fort. In 1604, a charter was given, by Henry IV., to an eminent
+Calvinist, De Monts, which gave him the sovereignty of Acadia, a tract
+embraced between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north
+latitude. The Huguenot emigrants were to enjoy their religion, the
+monopoly of the fur trade, and the exclusive control of the soil. They
+arrived at Nova Scotia the same year, and settled in Port Royal.
+
+In 1608, Quebec was settled by Champlain, who aimed at the glory of
+founding a state; and in 1627 he succeeded in establishing the
+authority of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But
+Champlain was also a zealous Catholic, and esteemed the salvation of a
+soul more than the conquest of a kingdom. He therefore selected
+Franciscan monks to effect the conversion of the Indians. But they
+were soon supplanted by the Jesuits, who, patronized by the government
+in France, soon made the new world the scene of their strange
+activity.
+
+[Sidenote: Jesuit Missionaries.]
+
+At no period and in no country were Jesuit missionaries more untiring
+laborers than amid the forests of North America. With the crucifix in
+their hands, they wandered about with savage tribes, and by
+unparalleled labors of charity and benevolence, sought to convert them
+to the Christianity of Rome. As early as 1635, a college and a
+hospital were founded, by munificent patrons in France, for the
+benefit of all the tribes of red men from the waters of Lake Superior
+to the shores of the Kennebec. In 1641 Montreal, intended as a general
+rendezvous for converted Indians was occupied, and soon became the
+most important station in Canada, next to the fortress of Quebec.
+Before Eliot had preached to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid
+missionaries of the Jesuits had explored the shores of Lake Superior,
+had penetrated to the Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the
+Chippeways, the Hurons, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks. Soon after,
+they approached the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, explored the
+sources of the Mississippi, examined its various tributary streams,
+and floated down its mighty waters to its mouth. The missionaries
+claimed the territories on the Gulf of Mexico for the king of France,
+and in 1684, Louisiana was colonized by Frenchmen. The indefatigable
+La Salle, after having explored the Mississippi, from the Falls of St.
+Anthony to the sea, was assassinated by one of his envious followers,
+but not until he had earned the immortal fame of being the father of
+western colonization.
+
+Thus were the North American settlements effected. In 1688, England
+possessed those colonies which border on the Atlantic Ocean, from
+Maine to Georgia. The French possessed Nova Scotia, Canada, Louisiana,
+and claimed the countries bordering on the Mississippi and its
+branches, from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and also the
+territories around the great lakes.
+
+A mutual jealousy, as was to be expected, sprung up between France and
+England respecting their colonial possessions. Both kingdoms aimed at
+the sovereignty of North America. The French were entitled, perhaps,
+by right of discovery, to the greater extent of territory; but their
+colonies were very unequal to those of the English in respect to
+numbers, and still more so in moral elevation and intellectual
+culture.
+
+But Louis XIV., then in the height of his power, meditated the
+complete subjection of the English settlements. The French allied
+themselves with the Indians, and savage wars were the result. The
+Mohawks and other tribes, encouraged by the French, committed fearful
+massacres at Deerfield and Haverhill, and the English settlers were
+kept in a state of constant alarm and fear. By the treaty of Utrecht,
+in 1713, the colonists obtained peace and considerable accession of
+territory. In 1720, John Law proposed his celebrated financial scheme
+to the prince regent of France, and the Mississippi Company was
+chartered, and Louisiana colonized. Much profit was expected to be
+derived from this company. It will be seen, in another chapter, how
+miserably it failed. It was based on wrong foundations, and the
+project of deriving wealth from the colonies came to nought; nor did
+it result in a rapid colonization.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosperity of the English Colonies.]
+
+Meanwhile the English colonies advanced in wealth, numbers, and
+political importance, and attracted the notice of the English
+government. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1711, was solicited to tax the
+colonies; but he nobly rejected the proposal. He encouraged trade to
+the utmost latitude, and tribute was only levied by means of
+consumption of British manufactures. But restrictions were
+subsequently imposed on colonial enterprise, which led to collisions
+between the colonies and the mother country. The Southern colonies
+were more favored than the Northern, but all of them were regarded
+with the view of promoting the peculiar interests of Great Britain.
+Other subjects of dispute also arose; but, nevertheless, the colonies,
+especially those of New England, made rapid strides. There was a
+general diffusion of knowledge, the laws were well observed, and the
+ministers of religion were an honor to their sacred calling. The earth
+was subdued, and replenished with a hardy and religious set of men.
+Sentiments of patriotism and independence were ardently cherished. The
+people were trained to protect themselves; and, in their town
+meetings, learned to discuss political questions, and to understand
+political rights. Some ecclesiastical controversies disturbed the
+peace of parishes and communities, but did not retard the general
+prosperity. Some great lights also appeared. David Brainerd performed
+labors of disinterestedness and enlightened piety, which have never
+been surpassed, and never equalled, even in zeal and activity, except
+by those of the earlier Jesuits. Jonathan Edwards stamped his genius
+on the whole character of New England theology, and won the highest
+honor as a metaphysician, even from European admirers. His treatise on
+the Freedom of the Will has secured the praises of philosophers and
+divines of all sects and parties from Hume to Chalmers, and can "never
+be attentively perused without a sentiment of admiration at the
+strength and stretch of the human understanding." Benjamin Franklin
+also had arisen: he had not, at this early epoch, distinguished
+himself for philosophical discoveries; but he had attracted attention
+as the editor of a newspaper, in which he fearlessly defended freedom
+of speech and the great rights of the people. But greater than
+Franklin, greater than any hero which modern history has commemorated,
+was that young Virginia planter, who was then watching, with great
+solicitude, the interests and glory of his country, and preparing
+himself for the great conflicts which have given him immortality.
+
+The growth of the colonies, and their great importance in the eyes of
+the Europeans, had now provoked the jealousy of the two leading powers
+of Europe, and the colonial struggle between England and France began.
+
+[Sidenote: French Encroachments.]
+
+The French claimed the right of erecting a chain of fortresses along
+the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada with
+Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with the
+Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the American
+continent. But these designs were displeasing to the English
+colonists, who had already extended their settlements far into the
+interior. The English ministry was also indignant in view of these
+movements, by which the colonies were completely surrounded by
+military posts. England protested; but the French artfully protracted
+negotiations until the fortifications were completed.
+
+It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that George
+Washington, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by the colony of
+Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey through the trackless
+wilderness, attended but by one person, in no slight degree marked him
+out, and prepared him for his subsequently great career.
+
+While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the
+cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their
+encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless hastened
+the rupture between the two countries. Orders were sent to the
+colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in Nova Scotia,
+and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then commenced that
+great war, which resulted in the loss of the French possessions in
+America. But this war was also allied with the contests which grew out
+of the Austrian Succession, and therefore will be presented in a
+separate chapter on the Pelham administration, during which the Seven
+Years' War, in the latter years of the reign of George II., commenced.
+
+[Sidenote: European Settlements in the East.]
+
+But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed not
+merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those in the
+East Indies; and these must be alluded to in order to form a general
+idea of European colonization, and of the causes which led to the
+mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to the great wars
+which desolated the various European nations.
+
+From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to those,
+therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the globe. Even to
+those old countries had European armies penetrated; even there
+European cupidity and enterprise were exercised.
+
+As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely
+extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located the
+East India Company's servants. The first English settlement of
+importance was on the Island of Java; but, in 1658, a grant of land
+was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where was erected
+the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island of Bombay was
+ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles II., and appointed the
+capital of the British settlements in India. In 1698, the English had
+a settlement on the Hooghly, which afterwards became the metropolis of
+British power.
+
+[Sidenote: French Settlements in India.]
+
+But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also colonies in India
+for purposes of trade. Louis XIV. established a company, in imitation
+of the English, which sought a settlement on the Hooghly. The French
+company also had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about
+eighty miles south of Madras, called Pondicherry, and had colonized
+two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of
+France and the Isle of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were
+controlled by two presidencies, one on the Isle of France, and the
+other at Pondicherry.
+
+[Sidenote: La Bourdonnais and Dupleix.]
+
+When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, these two
+French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior genius,--La
+Bourdonnais and Dupleix,--both of them men of great experience in
+Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests of the company, so
+far as their own personal ambition would permit. When Commodore
+Burnet, with an English squadron, was sent into the Indian seas, La
+Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting out an expedition to oppose it, and
+even contemplated the capture of Madras. No decisive action was fought
+at sea; but the French governor succeeded in taking Madras. This
+success displeased the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to
+Dupleix, and complained of the aggression of his countrymen in
+attacking a place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame
+of La Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as
+being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling the
+conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own
+presidency.
+
+The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La Bourdonnais
+from following up the advantage of his victory, and he failed in his
+attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in consequence, returned to
+France, and died from the effects of an unjust imprisonment in the
+Bastile.
+
+Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the principal
+inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to
+escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a
+mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service,
+and soon found occasion to distinguish himself.
+
+But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of founding an
+Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the Carnatic. And
+India was in a state to favor his enterprises. The empire of the Great
+Mogul, whose capital was Delhi, was tottering from decay. It had been,
+in the sixteenth century, the most powerful empire in the world. The
+magnificence of his palaces astonished even Europeans accustomed to
+the splendor of Paris and Versailles. His viceroys ruled over
+provinces larger and richer than either France or England. And even
+the lieutenants of these viceroys frequently aspired to independence.
+
+The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated the
+French, and befriended the English. On the death of the Viceroy of the
+Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix conceived his
+gigantic scheme of conquest. To the throne of this viceroy there were
+several claimants, two of whom applied to the French for assistance.
+This was what the Frenchman desired, and he allied himself with the
+pretenders. With the assistance of the French, Mirzappa Juy obtained
+the viceroyalty. Dupleix was splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted
+with the command of seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a
+present of two hundred thousand pounds.
+
+The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession of the
+rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon invested by the
+French and Indian forces.
+
+To raise this siege, and turn the tide of French conquest, became the
+object of Clive, then twenty-five years of age. He represented to his
+superior the importance of this post, and also of striking a decisive
+blow. He suggested the plan of an attack on Arcot itself, the
+residence of the nabob. His project was approved, and he was placed at
+the head of a force of three hundred sepoys and two hundred
+Englishmen. The city was taken by surprise, and its capture induced
+the nabob to relinquish the siege of Trichinopoly in order to retake
+his capital. But Clive so intrenched his followers, that they
+successfully defended the place after exhibiting prodigies of valor.
+The fortune of war turned to the side of the gallant Englishman, and
+Dupleix, who was no general, retreated before the victors. Clive
+obtained the command of Fort St. David, an important fortress near
+Madras, and soon controlled the Carnatic.
+
+About this time, the settlements on the Hooghly were plundered by
+Suraj-w Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal. Bengal was the most fertile and
+populous province of the empire of the Great Mogul. It was watered by
+the Ganges, the sacred river of India, and its cities were
+surprisingly rich. Its capital was Moorshedabad, a city nearly as
+large as London; and here the young viceroy lived in luxury and
+effeminacy, and indulged in every species of cruelty and folly. He
+hated the English of Calcutta, and longed to plunder them. He
+accordingly seized the infant city, and shut up one hundred and forty
+of the colonists in a dungeon of the fort, a room twenty feet by
+fourteen, with only two small windows; and in a few hours, one hundred
+and seventeen of the English died. The horrors of that night have been
+splendidly painted by Macaulay in his essay on Clive, and the place of
+torment, called the _Black Hole of Calcutta_, is synonymous with
+suffering and misery. Clive resolved to avenge this insult to his
+countrymen. An expedition was fitted out at Madras to punish the
+inhuman nabob, consisting of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen
+hundred sepoys. It was a small force, but proved sufficient. Calcutta
+was recovered and the army of the nabob was routed. Clive intrigued
+with the enemies of the despot in his own city; and, by means of
+unparalleled treachery, dissimulation, art, and violence, Suraj-w
+Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier, one of the conspirators, was
+made nabob in his place. In return for the services of Clive, the new
+viceroy splendidly rewarded him. A hundred boats conveyed the
+treasures of Bengal down the river to Calcutta. Clive himself, who had
+walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with diamonds and
+rubies, condescended to receive a present of three hundred thousand
+pounds. His moderation has been commended by his biographers in not
+asking for a million.
+
+The elevation of Meer Jaffier was, of course, displeasing to the
+imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone him.
+The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the English, and,
+with the powerful assistance of the Europeans, the forces of the
+successor of the great Aurungzebe were signally routed. But the great
+sums he was obliged to bestow on his allies, and the encroaching
+spirit which they manifested, changed his friendship into enmity. He
+plotted with the Dutch and the French to overturn the power of the
+English. Clive divined his object, and Meer Jaffier was deposed in his
+turn. The Viceroy of Bengal was but the tool of his English
+protectors, and British power was firmly planted in the centre of
+India. Calcutta became the capital of a great empire, and the East
+India Company, a mere assemblage of merchants and stockjobbers, by
+their system of perfidy, craft and violence, became the rulers and
+disposers of provinces which Alexander had coveted in vain. The
+servants of this company made their fortunes, and untold wealth was
+transported to England. Clive obtained a fortune of forty thousand
+pounds a year, an Irish peerage, and a seat in the House of Commons.
+He became an object of popular idolatry, courted by ministers, and
+extolled by Pitt. He was several times appointed governor-general of
+the country he had conquered, and to him England is indebted for the
+foundation of her power in India. But his fame and fortune finally
+excited the jealousy of his countrymen, and he was made to bear the
+sins of the company which he had enriched. The malignity with which he
+was pursued, and the disease which he acquired in India, operated
+unfortunately on a temper naturally irritable; his reason became
+overpowered, and he died, in 1774, by his own hand.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of India.]
+
+The subsequent career of Hastings, and final conquest of India, form
+part of the political history of England itself, during those
+administrations which yet remain to be described. The colonization of
+America and the East Indies now became involved with the politics of
+rival statesmen; and its history can only be appreciated by
+considering those acts and principles which marked the career of the
+Newcastles and the Pitts. The administration of the Pelhams,
+therefore, next claims attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The best histories pertaining to the conquests
+     of the Spaniards are undoubtedly those of Mr. Prescott.
+     Irving's Columbus should also be consulted. For the early
+     history of the North American colonies, the attention of
+     students is directed to Grahame's and Bancroft's Histories
+     of the United States. In regard to India, see Elphinstone's,
+     Gleig's, Ormes's, and Mills's Histories of India; Malcolm's
+     Life of Clive; and Macaulay's Essay on Clive. For the
+     contemporaneous history of Great Britain, the best works are
+     those of Tyndal, Smollett, Lord Mahon, and Belsham;
+     Russell's Modern Europe; the Pictorial History of England;
+     and the continuation of Mackintosh, in Lardner's Cabinet
+     Cyclopedia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.
+
+
+The English nation acquiesced in the government of Sir Robert Walpole
+for nearly thirty years--the longest administration in the annals of
+the country. And he was equal to the task, ruling, on the whole,
+beneficently, promoting peace, regulating the finances, and
+encouraging those great branches of industry which lie at the
+foundation of English wealth and power. But the intrigues of rival
+politicians, and the natural desire of change, which all parties feel
+after a long repose, plunged the nation into war, and forced the able
+minister to retire. The opposition, headed by the Prince of Wales,
+supported by such able statesmen as Bolingbroke, Carteret,
+Chesterfield, Pulteney, Windham, and Pitt, and sustained by the
+writings of those great literary geniuses whom Walpole disdained and
+neglected, compelled George II., at last, to part with a man who had
+conquered his narrow prejudices.
+
+But the Tories did not come into power on the retirement of Walpole.
+His old confederates remained at the head of affairs, and Carteret,
+afterwards Lord Granville, the most brilliant man of his age, became
+the leading minister. But even he, so great in debate, and so
+distinguished for varied attainments, did not long retain his place.
+None of the abuses which existed under the former administration were
+removed; and moreover the war which the nation had clamored for, had
+proved disastrous. He also had to bear the consequences of Walpole's
+temporizing policy which could no longer be averted.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pelhams.]
+
+The new ministry was headed by Henry Pelham, as first lord of the
+treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, and by the Duke of
+Newcastle, as principal secretary of state. These two men formed,
+also, a coalition with the leading members of both houses of
+parliament, Tories as well as Whigs; and, for the first time since the
+accession of the Stuarts, there was no opposition. This great
+coalition was called the "Broad Bottom," and comprehended the Duke of
+Bedford, the Earls of Chesterfield and Harrington, Lords Lyttleton and
+Hardwicke, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr Doddington, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and Mr.
+Murray. The three latter statesmen were not then formidable.
+
+The Pelhams were descended from one of the oldest, proudest and
+richest families in England, and had an immense parliamentary
+influence from their aristocratic connections, their wealth, and their
+experience. They were not remarkable for genius so much as for
+sagacity, tact, and intrigue. They were extremely ambitious, and fond
+of place and power. They ruled England as the representatives of the
+aristocracy--the last administration which was able to defy the
+national will. After their fall, the people had a greater voice in the
+appointment of ministers. Pitt and Fox were commoners in a different
+sense from what Walpole was, and represented that class which has ever
+since ruled England,--not nobles, not the democracy, but a class
+between them, composed of the gentry, landed proprietors, lawyers,
+merchants, manufacturers, men of leisure, and their dependants.
+
+The administration of the Pelhams is chiefly memorable for the Scotch
+rebellion of 1745, and for the great European war which grew out of
+colonial and commercial ambition, and the encroachments of Frederic
+the Great.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart.]
+
+The Scotch rebellion was produced by the attempts of the young
+Pretender, Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, to regain the
+throne of his ancestors. His adventures have the interest of romance,
+and have generally excited popular sympathy. He was born at Rome in
+1720; served, at the age of fifteen, under the Duke of Berwick, in
+Spain, and, at the age of twenty, received overtures from some
+discontented people of Scotland to head an insurrection. There was, at
+this time, great public distress, and George II. was exceedingly
+unpopular. The Jacobites were powerful, and thousands wished for a
+change, including many persons of rank and influence.
+
+With only seven followers, in a small vessel, he landed on one of the
+Western Islands, 18th of July, 1745. Even had the promises which had
+been made to him by France, or by people in Scotland, been fulfilled,
+his enterprise would have been most hazardous. But, without money,
+men, or arms, his hopes were desperate. Still he cherished that
+presumptuous self-confidence which so often passes for bravery, and
+succeeded better than could have been anticipated. Several chieftains
+of the Highland clans joined his standard, and he had the faculty of
+gaining the hearts of his followers. At Borrodaile occurred his first
+interview with the chivalrous Donald Cameron of Lochiel, who was
+perfectly persuaded of the desperate character of his enterprise, but
+nevertheless aided it with generous self-devotion.
+
+The standard of Charles Edward was raised at Glenfinnan, on the 19th
+of August, and a little band of seven hundred adventurers and
+enthusiastic Highlanders resolved on the conquest of England! Never
+was devotion to an unfortunate cause more romantic and sincere. Never
+were energies more generously made, or more miserably directed. But
+the first gush of enthusiasm and bravery was attended with success,
+and the Pretender soon found himself at the head of fifteen hundred
+men, and on his way to Edinburgh, marching among people friendly to
+his cause, whom he endeared by every attention and gentlemanly
+artifice. The simple people of the north of Scotland were won by his
+smiles and courtesy, and were astonished at the exertions which the
+young prince made, and the fatigues he was able to endure.
+
+On the 15th of September, Charles had reached Linlithgow, only sixteen
+miles from Edinburgh, where he was magnificently entertained in the
+ancient and favorite palace of the kings of Scotland. Two days after,
+he made his triumphal entry into the capital of his ancestors, the
+place being unprepared for resistance. Colonel Gardiner, with his
+regiment of dragoons, was faithful to his trust, and the magistrates
+of Edinburgh did all in their power to prevent the surrender of the
+city. But the great body of the citizens preferred to trust to the
+clemency of Charles, than run the risk of defence.
+
+[Sidenote: Surrender of Edinburgh.]
+
+Thus, without military stores, or pecuniary resources, or powerful
+friends, simply by the power of persuasion, the Pretender, in the
+short space of two months from his landing in Scotland, quietly took
+possession of the most powerful city of the north. The Jacobites put
+no restraint to their idolatrous homage, and the ladies welcomed the
+young and handsome chevalier with extravagant adulation. Even the
+Whigs pitied him, and permitted him to enjoy his brief hour of
+victory.
+
+At Edinburgh, Charles received considerable reenforcement, and took
+from the city one thousand stand of arms. He gave his followers but
+little time for repose, and soon advanced against the royal army
+commanded by Sir John Cope. The two armies met at Preston Pans, and
+were of nearly equal force. The attack was made by the invader, and
+was impetuous and unlooked for. Nothing could stand before the
+enthusiasm and valor of the Highlanders, and in five minutes the rout
+commenced, and a great slaughter of the regular army occurred. Among
+those who fell was the distinguished Colonel Gardiner, an old veteran,
+who refused to fly.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Pretender.]
+
+Charles followed up his victory with moderation, and soon was master
+of all Scotland. He indulged his taste for festivities, at Holyrood,
+for a while, and neglected no means to conciliate the Scotch. He
+flattered their prejudices, gave balls and banquets, made love to
+their most beautiful women, and denied no one access to his presence.
+Poets sang his praises, and women extolled his heroism and beauty. The
+light, the gay, the romantic, and the adventurous were on his side;
+but the substantial and wealthy classes were against him, for they
+knew he must be conquered in the end.
+
+Still his success had been remarkable, and for it he was indebted to
+the Highlanders, who did not wish to make him king of England, but
+only king of Scotland. But Charles deceived them. He wanted the
+sceptre of George II.; and when he commenced his march into England,
+their spirits flagged, and his cause became hopeless. There was one
+class of men who were inflexibly hostile to him--the Presbyterian
+ministers. They looked upon him, from the first, with coldness and
+harshness, and distrusted both his religion and sincerity. On them all
+his arts, and flattery, and graces were lost; and they represented the
+substantial part of the Scottish nation. It is extremely doubtful
+whether Charles could ever have held Edinburgh, even if English armies
+had not been sent against him.
+
+But Charles had played a desperate game from the beginning, for the
+small chance of winning a splendid prize. He, therefore, after resting
+his troops, and collecting all the force he could, turned his face to
+England at the head of five thousand men, well armed and well clothed,
+but discontented and dispirited. They had never contemplated the
+invasion of England, but only the recovery of the ancient independence
+of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: The Retreat of the Pretender.]
+
+On the 8th of November, the Pretender set foot upon English soil, and
+entered Carlisle in triumph. But his forces, instead of increasing,
+diminished, and no popular enthusiasm supported the courage of his
+troops. But he advanced towards the south, and reached Derby
+unmolested on the 4th of December. There he learned that the royal
+army, headed by the Duke of Cumberland, with twelve thousand veterans,
+was advancing rapidly against him.
+
+His followers clamored to return, and refused to advance another step.
+They now fully perceived that success was not only hopeless, but that
+victory would be of no advantage to them; that they would be
+sacrificed by a man who only aimed at the conquest of England.
+
+Charles was well aware of the desperate nature of the contest, but had
+no desire to retreat. His situation was not worse than what it had
+been when he landed on the Hebrides. Having penetrated to within one
+hundred and twenty miles of London, against the expectations of every
+one, why should he not persevere? Some unlooked-for success, some
+lucky incidents, might restore him to the throne of his grandfather.
+Besides, a French army of ten thousand was about to land in England.
+The Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in the country, was ready to
+declare in his favor. London was in commotion. A chance remained.
+
+But his followers thought only of their homes, and Charles was obliged
+to yield to an irresistible necessity. Like Richard Coeur de Lion
+after the surrender of Acre, he was compelled to return, without
+realizing the fruit of bravery and success. Like the lion-hearted
+king, pensive and sad, sullen and miserable, he gave the order to
+retreat. His spirits, hitherto buoyant and gladsome, now fell, and
+despondency and despair succeeded vivacity and hope. He abandoned
+himself to grief and vexation, lingered behind his retreating army,
+and was reckless of his men and of their welfare. And well he may have
+been depressed. The motto of Hampden, "_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_,"
+had also governed him. But others would not be animated by it, and he
+was ruined.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Culloden.]
+
+But his miserable and dejected army succeeded in reaching their native
+soil, although pursued by the cavalry of two powerful armies, in the
+midst of a hostile population, and amid great sufferings from hunger
+and fatigue. On the 26th of December, he entered Glasgow, levied a
+contribution on the people, and prepared himself for his final battle.
+He retreated to the Highlands, and spent the winter in recruiting his
+troops, and in taking fortresses. On the 15th of April, 1746, he drew
+up his army on the moor of Culloden, near Inverness, with the
+desperate resolution of attacking, with vastly inferior forces, the
+Duke of Cumberland, intrenched nine miles distant. The design was
+foolish and unfortunate. It was early discovered; and the fresh troops
+of the royal duke attacked the dispirited, scattered, and wearied
+followers of Charles Edward before they could form themselves in
+battle array. They defended themselves with valor. But what is valor
+against overwhelming force? The army of Charles was totally routed,
+and his hopes were blasted forever.
+
+The most horrid barbarities and cruelties were inflicted by the
+victors. The wounded were left to die. The castles of rebel chieftains
+were razed to the ground. Herds and flocks were driven away, and the
+people left to perish with hunger. Some of the captives were sent to
+Barbadoes, others were imprisoned, and many were shot. A reward of
+thirty thousand pounds was placed on the head of the Pretender; but he
+nevertheless escaped. After wandering a while as a fugitive,
+disguised, wearied, and miserable, hunted from fortress to fortress,
+and from island to island, he succeeded, by means of the unparalleled
+loyalty and fidelity of his few Highland followers, in securing a
+vessel, and in escaping to France. His adventures among the Western
+Islands, especially those which happened while wandering, in the
+disguise of a female servant, with Flora Macdonald, are highly
+romantic and wonderful. Equally wonderful is the fact that, of the
+many to whom his secret was intrusted, not one was disposed to betray
+him, even in view of so splendid a bribe as thirty thousand pounds.
+But this fact, though surprising, is not inconceivable. Had Washington
+been unfortunate in his contest with the mother country, and had he
+wandered as a fugitive amid the mountains of Vermont, would not many
+Americans have shielded him, even in view of a reward of one hundred
+thousand pounds?
+
+[Sidenote: Latter Days of the Pretender.]
+
+The latter days of the Pretender were spent in Rome and Florence. He
+married a Polish princess, and assumed the title of _Duke of Albany_.
+He never relinquished the hope of securing the English crown, and
+always retained his politeness and grace of manner. But he became an
+object of pity, not merely from his poverty and misfortunes, but also
+from the vice of intemperance, which he acquired in Scotland. He died
+of apoplexy, in 1788, and left no legitimate issue. The last male heir
+of the house of Stuart was the Cardinal of York, who died in 1807, and
+who was buried in St. Peter's Cathedral; over whose mortal remains was
+erected a marble monument, by Canova, through the munificence of
+George IV., to whom the cardinal had left the crown jewels which
+James II. had carried with him to France. This monument bears the
+names of James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., kings of England;
+titles never admitted by the English. With the battle of Culloden
+expired the hopes of the Catholics and Jacobites to restore
+Catholicism and the Stuarts.
+
+The great European war, which was begun by Sir Robert Walpole, not
+long before his retirement, was another great event which happened
+during the administration of the Pelhams, and with which their
+administration was connected. The Spanish war was followed by the war
+of the Austrian Succession.
+
+[Sidenote: Maria Theresa.]
+
+Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, ascended the oldest and proudest
+throne of Europe,--that of Germany,--amid a host of claimants. The
+Elector of Bavaria laid claim to her hereditary dominions in Bohemia;
+the King of Sardinia made pretension to the duchy of Milan; while the
+Kings of Poland, Spain, France, and Prussia disputed with her her
+rights to the whole Austrian succession. Never were acts of gross
+injustice meditated with greater audacity. Just as the young and
+beautiful princess ascended the throne of Charlemagne, amid
+embarrassments and perplexities,--such as an exhausted treasury, a
+small army, a general scarcity, threatened hostilities with the Turks,
+and absolute war with France,--the new king of Prussia, Frederic,
+surnamed the Great, availing himself of her distresses, seized one of
+the finest provinces of her empire. The first notice which the queen
+had of the seizure of Silesia, was an insulting speech from the
+Prussian ambassador. "I come," said he, "with safety for the house of
+Austria on the one hand, and the imperial crown for your royal
+highness on the other. The troops of my master are at the service of
+the queen, and cannot fail of being acceptable, at a time when she is
+in want of both. And as the king, my master, from the situation of his
+dominions, will be exposed to great danger from this alliance with the
+Queen of Hungary, it is hoped that, as an indemnification, the queen
+will not offer him less than the whole duchy of Silesia."
+
+The queen, of course, was indignant in view of this cool piece of
+villany, and prepared to resist. War with all the continental powers
+was the result. France joined the coalition to deprive the queen of
+her empire. Two French armies invaded Germany. The Elector of Bavaria
+marched, with a hostile army, to within eight miles of Vienna. The
+King of Prussia made himself master of Silesia. Abandoned by all her
+allies,--without an army, or ministers, or money,--the queen fled to
+Hungary, her hereditary dominions, and threw herself on the generosity
+of her subjects. She invoked the states of the Diet, and, clad in deep
+mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and a cimeter at
+her side, she traversed the hall in which her nobles were assembled,
+and addressed them, in the immortal language of Rome, respecting her
+wrongs and her distresses. Her faithful subjects responded to her
+call; and youth, beauty, and rank, in distress, obtained their natural
+triumph. "A thousand swords leaped from their scabbards," and the old
+hall rung with the cry, "We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa."
+Tears started from the eyes of the queen, whom misfortunes and insult
+could not bend, and called forth, even more than her words, the
+enthusiasm of her subjects.
+
+It was in defence of this injured and noble queen that the English
+parliament voted supplies and raised armies. This was the war which
+characterized the Pelham administration, and to which Walpole was
+opposed. But it will be further presented, when allusion is made to
+Frederic the Great.
+
+France no sooner formed an alliance with Prussia, against Austria,
+than the "balance of power" seemed to be disturbed. To restore this
+balance, and preserve Austria, was the aim of England. To the desire
+to preserve this power may be traced most of the wars of the
+eighteenth century. The idea of a balance of power was the leading
+principle which animated all the diplomatic transactions of Europe for
+more than a century.
+
+By the treaty of Breslau, (1742,) Maria Theresa yielded up to Frederic
+the province of Silesia, and Europe might have remained at peace. But
+as England and France were both involved in the contest, their old
+spirit of rivalry returned; and, from auxiliaries, they became
+principals in the war, and soon renewed it. The theatre of strife was
+changed from Germany to Holland, and the arms of France were
+triumphant. The Duke of Cumberland was routed by Marshal Saxe at the
+great battle of Fontenoy; and this battle restored peace, for a while,
+to Germany. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, husband of Maria Theresa, was
+elected Emperor of Germany, and assumed the title of Francis I.
+
+But it was easier to restore tranquillity to Germany, than peace
+between England and France; both powers panting for military glory,
+and burning with mutual jealousy. The peace of Aix la Chapelle, in
+1748, was a truce rather than a treaty; and France and England soon
+found occasion to plunge into new hostilities.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Louisburg.]
+
+During the war of the Austrian Succession, hostilities had not been
+confined to the continent of Europe. As colonial jealousy was one of
+the animating principles of two of the leading powers in the contest,
+the warfare extended to the colonies themselves. A body of French,
+from Cape Breton, surprised the little English garrison of Canseau,
+destroyed the fort and fishery, and removed eighty men, as prisoners
+of war, to Louisburg--the strongest fortress, next to Quebec, in
+French America. These men were afterwards sent to Boston, on parole,
+and, while there, communicated to Governor Shirley the state of the
+fortress in which they had been confined. Shirley resolved to capture
+it, and the legislature of Massachusetts voted supplies for the
+expedition. All the New England colonies sent volunteers; and the
+united forces, of about four thousand men were put under the command
+of William Pepperell, a merchant at Kittery Point, near Portsmouth.
+The principal part of the forces was composed of fishermen; but they
+were Yankees. Amid the fogs of April, this little army, rich in
+expedients, set sail to take a fortress which five hundred men could
+defend against five thousand. But they were successful, aided by an
+English fleet; and, after a siege of three months, Louisburg
+surrendered, (1745)--justly deemed the greatest achievement of the
+whole war.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Colonial Contest.]
+
+But the French did not relinquish their hopes of gaining an ascendency
+on the American continent, and prosecuted their labors of erecting on
+the Ohio their chain of fortifications, to connect Canada with
+Louisiana. The erection of these forts was no small cause of the
+breaking out of fresh hostilities. When the contest was renewed
+between Maria Theresa and Frederic the Great, and the famous Seven
+Years' War began, the English resolved to conquer all the French
+possessions in America.
+
+Without waiting, however, for directions from England, Governor
+Dinwiddie, of Virginia, raised a regiment of troops, of which George
+Washington was made lieutenant-colonel, and with which he marched
+across the wilderness to attack Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, at the
+junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers.
+
+That unsuccessful expedition was the commencement of the great
+colonial contest in which Canada was conquered. Early in 1755, General
+Braddock was sent to America to commence offensive operations. The
+colonies cooeperated, and three expeditions were planned; one to attack
+Fort Du Quesne, a second to attack Fort Niagara, and a third to attack
+Crown Point. The first was to be composed of British troops, under
+Braddock, the second of American, under Governor Shirley, and the
+third of militia of the northern colonies.
+
+The expedition against Fort Du Quesne was a memorable failure.
+Braddock was a brave man, but unfitted for his work, Hyde Park having
+hitherto been the only field of his military operations. Moreover,
+with that presumption and audacity which then characterized his
+countrymen, he affected sovereign contempt for his American
+associates, and would listen to no advice. Unacquainted with Indian
+warfare, and ignorant of the country, he yet pressed towards the
+interior, until, within ten miles of Fort Du Quesne, he was surprised
+by a body of French and Indians, and taken in an ambuscade. Instant
+retreat might still have saved him; but he was too proud not to fight
+according to rule; and he fell mortally wounded. Washington was the
+only mounted officer that escaped being killed or wounded. By his
+prudent and skilful management, he saved half of his men, who formed
+after the battle, and effected a retreat.
+
+The other two expeditions also failed, chiefly through want of union
+between the provincial governor and the provincial assemblies, and
+also from the moral effects of the defeat of Braddock. Moreover, the
+colonies perfectly understood that they were fighting, not for
+liberty, but for the glory and ambition of the mother country, and
+therefore did not exhibit the ardor they evinced in the revolutionary
+struggle.
+
+But the failure of these expeditions contributed to make the ministry
+of the Duke of Newcastle unpopular. Other mistakes were also made in
+the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean
+excited popular clamor. The repeated disappointments and miscarriages,
+the delay of armaments, the neglect of opportunities, the absurd
+disposition of fleets, were numbered among the misfortunes which
+resulted from a weak and incapable ministry. Stronger men were
+demanded by the indignant voice of the nation, and the Duke of
+Newcastle, first lord of the treasury, since the death of his brother,
+was obliged to call Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge--the two most popular
+commoners of England--into the cabinet. But the new administration did
+not work harmoniously. It was an emblem of that image which
+Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a vision, with a head of gold, and legs of
+iron, and feet of clay. Pitt and Legge were obliged by their colleague
+to resign. But their removal incensed the whole nation, and so great
+was the clamor, that the king was compelled to reinstate the popular
+idols--the only men capable of managing affairs at that crisis. Pitt
+became secretary of state, and Legge chancellor of the exchequer. The
+Duke of Newcastle, after being at the head of administration ten
+years, was, reluctantly, compelled to resign. The Duke of Devonshire
+became nominally the premier, but Pitt was the ruling spirit in the
+cabinet.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Duke of Newcastle.]
+
+The character of the Duke of Newcastle is thus sketched by Horace
+Walpole; "He had no pride, but infinite self-love. Jealousy was the
+great source of all his faults. There was no expense to which he was
+addicted but generosity. His houses, gardens, table, and equipage,
+swallowed immense sums, and the sums he owed were only exceeded by
+those he wasted. He loved business immoderately, but was always doing
+it; he never did it. His speeches were copious in words, but empty and
+unmeaning, his professions extravagant, and his curiosity insatiable.
+He was a secretary of state without intelligence, a duke without
+money, a man of infinite intrigue without secrecy, and a minister
+hated by all parties, without being turned out by either." "All able
+men," adds Macaulay, "ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child
+who never knew his own mind an hour together; and yet he overreached
+them all."
+
+[Sidenote: Unpopularity of the Pelhams.]
+
+The Pelham administration cannot, on the whole, be called fortunate,
+nor, on the other hand, a disgraceful one. The Pelhams "showed
+themselves," says Smyth, "friendly to the principles of mild
+government." With all their faults, they were tolerant, peaceful,
+prudent; they had the merit of respecting public opinion; and though
+they were not fitted to advance the prosperity of their country by any
+exertions of political genius, they were not blind to such
+opportunities as fairly presented themselves. But they were not fitted
+for the stormy times in which they lived, and quietly yielded to the
+genius of a man whom they did not like, and whom the king absolutely
+hated. George II., against his will, was obliged to intrust the helm
+of state to the only man in the nation capable of holding it.
+
+The administration of William Pitt is emphatically the history of the
+civilized world, during a period of almost universal war. It was for
+his talents as a war minister that he was placed at the head of the
+government, and his policy, like that of his greater son, in a still
+more stormy epoch, was essentially warlike. In the eyes of his
+contemporaries, his administration was brilliant and successful, and
+he undoubtedly raised England to a high pitch of military glory; but
+glory, alas! most dearly purchased, since it led to the imposition of
+taxes beyond a parallel, and the vast increase of the national debt.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of William Pitt.]
+
+He was born in 1708, of good family, his grandfather having been
+governor of Madras, and the purchaser of the celebrated diamond which
+bears his name, and which was sold to the regent of France for one
+hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. William Pitt was sent to
+Oxford at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-seven, became a member
+of parliament. From the first, he was heard with attention, and, when
+years and experience had given him wisdom and power, his eloquence was
+overwhelming. No one ever equalled him in brilliant invective and
+scorching sarcasm. He had not the skill of Fox in debate, nor was he a
+great reasoner, like Murray; he did not talk philosophy, like Burke,
+nor was he master of details, like his son; but he had an air of
+sincerity, a vehemence of feeling, an intense enthusiasm, and a moral
+elevation of sentiment, which bore every thing away before him.
+
+When Walpole was driven from power, Pitt exerted his eloquence in
+behalf of the Pelham government. Being personally obnoxious to the
+king, he obtained no office. But he was not a man to be amused by
+promises long, and, as he would not render his indispensable services
+without a reward, he was made paymaster of the forces--a lucrative
+office, but one which did not give him a seat in the cabinet. This
+office he retained for eight years, which were years of peace. But
+when the horizon was overclouded by the death of Henry Pelham, in
+1754, and difficulties arose between France and England respecting
+North America and the East Indies; when disasters in war tarnished the
+glory of the British arms, and the Duke of Newcastle showed his
+incapacity to meet the national crisis, Pitt commenced a furious
+opposition. Of course he was dismissed from office. But the Duke of
+Newcastle could not do without him, and the king was obliged to call
+him into the cabinet as secretary of state, in 1756. But the
+administration did not work. The king opposed the views of Pitt, and
+he was compelled to resign. Then followed disasters and mistakes. The
+resignation of the Duke of Newcastle became an imperative necessity.
+Despondency and gloom hung over the nation, and he was left without
+efficient aid in the House of Commons. Nothing was left to the king
+but to call in the aid of the man he hated; and Pitt, as well as
+Legge, were again reinstated, the Duke of Devonshire remaining
+nominally at the head of the administration.
+
+But this administration only lasted five months, during which Admiral
+Byng was executed, and the Seven Years' War, of which Frederic of
+Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, Pitt and his
+colleague were again dismissed. But never was popular resentment more
+fierce and terrible. Again was the king obliged to bend to the "great
+commoner." An arrangement was made, and a coalition formed. Pitt
+became secretary of state, and virtual premier, but the Duke of
+Newcastle came in as first lord of the treasury. But Pitt selected the
+cabinet. His brother-in-law, Lord Temple, was made keeper of the privy
+seal, and Lord Grenville was made treasurer of the navy; Fox became
+paymaster of the forces; the Duke of Bedford received the lord
+lieutenancy of Ireland; Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his age
+became lord chancellor; Legge, the ablest financier, was made
+chancellor of the exchequer. Murray, a little while before, had been
+elevated to the bench, as Lord Mansfield. There was scarcely an
+eminent man in the House of Commons who was not made a member of the
+administration. All the talent of the nation was laid at the feet of
+Pitt, and he had the supreme direction of the army and of foreign
+affairs.
+
+Then truly commenced the brilliant career of Pitt. He immediately
+prosecuted hostilities with great boldness, and on a gigantic scale.
+Immense armies were raised and sent to all parts of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Brilliant Military Successes.]
+
+But nothing raised the reputation of Pitt so highly as military
+operations in America. He planned, immediately on his assumption of
+supreme power as virtual dictator of England, three great
+expeditions--one against Louisburg, a second against Ticonderoga, and
+a third against Fort Du Quesne. Two of these were attended with
+triumphant success, (1758.)
+
+Louisburg, which had been surrendered to France by the treaty of Aix
+la Chapelle, was reduced by General Amherst, though only with a force
+of fourteen thousand men.
+
+General Forbes marched, with eight thousand men, against Fort Du
+Quesne; but it was abandoned by the enemy before he reached it.
+
+Ticonderoga was not, however, taken, although the expedition was
+conducted by General Abercrombie, with a force of sixteen thousand
+men.
+
+Thus nearly the largest military force ever known at one time in
+America was employed nearly a century ago, by William Pitt, composed
+of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were regular
+troops.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Successes in America.]
+
+The campaign of 1759 was attended with greater results than even that
+of the preceding year. General Amherst succeeded Abercrombie, and the
+plan for the reduction of Canada was intrusted to him for execution.
+Three great expeditions were projected: one was to be commanded by
+General Wolfe, who had distinguished himself at the siege of
+Louisburg, and who had orders from the war secretary to ascend the St.
+Lawrence, escorted by the fleet, and lay siege to Quebec. The second
+army, of twelve thousand men, under General Amherst, was ordered to
+reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross Lake Champlain, and proceed
+along the River Richelieu to the banks of the St. Lawrence, join
+General Wolfe, and assist in the reduction of Quebec. The third army
+was sent to Fort Niagara, the most important post in French America,
+since it commanded the lakes, and overawed the whole country of the
+Six Nations. After the reduction of this fort, the army was ordered
+down the St. Lawrence to besiege Montreal.
+
+That this project was magnificent, and showed the comprehensive
+military genius of Pitt, cannot be doubted. But that it was easy of
+execution may well be questioned, when it is remembered that the
+navigation of the St. Lawrence was difficult and dangerous; that the
+fortifications and strength of Quebec were unrivalled in the new
+world; that the French troops between Montreal and Quebec numbered
+nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, too, by so great a
+general as Montcalm. Still all of these expeditions were successful.
+Quebec and Niagara were taken, and Crown Point and Ticonderoga were
+abandoned.
+
+The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of Quebec,
+which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever performed,
+and which raised the English general to the very summit of military
+fame. He was disappointed in the expected cooeperation of General
+Amherst, and he had to take one of the strongest fortresses in the
+world, defended by troops superior in number to his own. He succeeded
+in climbing the almost perpendicular rock on which the fortress was
+built, and in overcoming a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack,
+but lived long enough to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing
+could exceed the tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the
+fall of Quebec was received; nothing could surpass the interest with
+which the distant expedition was viewed; and the depression of the
+French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English. Wolfe gained an
+immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey.
+But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial advantages which resulted
+from the conquest of Canada, which soon followed the reduction of
+Quebec. He became the nation's idol, and was left to prosecute the
+various wars in which England was engaged, in his own way.
+
+[Sidenote: Victories of Clive in India.]
+
+While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were wresting
+from the French nearly all their possessions in America, Clive was
+adding a new empire to the vast dominions of Great Britain. India was
+conquered, and the British power firmly planted in the East. Moreover,
+the English allies on the continent--the Prussians--obtained great
+victories, which will be alluded to in the chapter on Frederic the
+Great. On all sides the English were triumphant, and were intoxicated
+with joy. The stocks rose, and the bells rang almost an incessant peal
+for victories.
+
+In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George II. died. He was
+a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, whose
+interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate, "He had
+neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive nor the
+qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been a bad son, and
+he made a worse father. Not one magnanimous action is recorded of him,
+but many meannesses. But his judgment was sound, his habits
+economical, and his spirit bold. These qualities prevented him from
+being despised, if they did not make him honored."
+
+His grandson, George III., entered upon his long reign, October, 1760,
+in the twenty-third year of his age, and was universally admitted to
+be the most powerful monarch in Christendom--or, rather, the monarch
+of the most powerful kingdom. He, or, rather, his ministers, resolved
+to prosecute the war with vigor, and parliament voted liberal
+supplies. The object of Pitt was the humiliation of both France and
+Austria, and also the protection of Prussia, struggling against almost
+overwhelming forces. He secured his object by administering to the
+nation those draughts of flattery and military glory which intoxicated
+the people.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Pitt.]
+
+However sincere the motives and brilliant the genius of the minister,
+it was impossible that a practical nation should not awake from the
+delusion, which he so powerfully contributed to produce. People at
+last inquired "why England was to become a party in a dispute between
+two German powers, and why were the best English regiments fighting on
+the Maine?" What was it to the busy shopkeeper of London that the
+Tower guns were discharged, and the streets illuminated, if he were to
+be additionally taxed? Statesmen began to calculate the enormous sums
+which had been wasted in an expensive war, where nothing had been
+gained but glory. Besides, jealousies and enmities sprung up against
+Pitt. Some were offended by his haughtiness, and others were estranged
+by his withering invective. And his enemies were numerous and
+powerful. Even the cabinet ministers, who were his friends, turned
+against him. He wished to declare war against Spain, while the nation
+was bleeding at every pore. But the cabinet could not be persuaded of
+the necessity of the war, and Pitt, of course, resigned. But it was
+inevitable, and took place under his successor. Pitt left the helm of
+state with honor. He received a pension of three thousand pounds a
+year, and his wife was made a baroness.
+
+The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first Tory
+minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His watchword
+was _prerogative_. The sovereign should no longer be a gilded puppet,
+but a real king--an impossible thing in England. But his schemes
+pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. Johnson; while his
+administration was assailed with a host of libels from Wilkes,
+Churchill, and other kindred firebrands.
+
+His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs railed at
+it then, and rail at it now; and Macaulay falls in with the
+lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should have
+been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England? The peace of
+Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the Island of St. John,
+and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisiana which lies east of the
+Mississippi, except New Orleans, should be ceded to Great Britain, and
+that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Spain
+should relinquish her claim to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland,
+should permit the English to cut mahogany on the shores of Honduras
+Bay, and cede Florida and Minorca to Great Britain. In return for
+these things, the French were permitted to fish on the Banks of
+Newfoundland, and the Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle,
+and St. Lucia were restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace of Paris.]
+
+The peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch; and we hence turn
+to survey the condition of France since the death of Louis XIV., and
+also other continental powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham
+     Administration. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's
+     Essay on Chatham. Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's
+     Lectures on Modern History. Jesse's Memoirs of the
+     Pretenders. Graham's History of the United States, an
+     exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord
+     Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the
+     standard histories of England, at this period; also, the
+     continuation of Mackintosh, and the Pictorial History, are
+     valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Ray's History of
+     the Rebellion, Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George II., Lord
+     Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+LOUIS XV.
+
+
+The reign of Louis XV. was one of the longest on record extending from
+1715 to 1774--the greater part of the eighteenth century. But he was a
+child, only five years of age, on the death of his great grandfather,
+Louis XIV.; and, even after he came to his majority, he was ruled by
+his ministers and his mistresses. He was not, like Louis XIV., the
+life and the centre of all great movements in his country. He was an
+automaton, a pageant; not because the constitution imposed checks on
+his power, but because he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore,
+performing no great part in history, is only to be alluded to, and
+attention should be mainly directed to his ministers.
+
+[Sidenote: Regency of the Duke of Orleans.]
+
+During the minority of the king, the reins of government were held by
+the Duke of Orleans, as regent, and who, in case of the king's death,
+would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis XIV. The
+administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly contemporaneous with
+that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most pressing subject which demanded
+the attention of the regent, was that of the finances. The late king
+had left a debt of one thousand millions of livres--an enormous sum in
+that age. To get rid of this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a
+bankruptcy. "This," said he, "would fall chiefly on the commercial and
+moneyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied; and would,
+moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning to
+the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illustrates
+the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, at that
+time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk of incurring
+the popular odium which such a measure would have produced, and he
+proposed calling together the States General. The regent duke,
+however, would not hear of that measure, and yet did not feel inclined
+to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. He therefore compromised the
+matter, and resolved to rob the national creditor. He established a
+commission to verify the bills of the public creditors, and, if their
+accounts did not prove satisfactory, to cancel them entirely. Three
+hundred and fifty millions of livres--equal, probably, to three
+hundred millions of dollars in this age--were thus swept away. But it
+was resolved not only to refuse to pay just debts, but to make people
+repay the gains which they had made. Those who had loaned money to the
+state, or had farmed the revenues, were flung into prison, and
+threatened with confiscation of their goods, and even death,--treated
+as Jews were treated in the Dark Ages,--unless they redeemed
+themselves by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men suffer such a
+penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To this injustice
+and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to this, the coin
+was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two millions of livres
+were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these gains were not enough
+to satisfy a profligate government. There still continued a constant
+pressure. The national debt had increased even to fifteen hundred
+millions of livres, or almost seventy millions sterling--equivalent to
+what would now be equal to at least one thousand millions of dollars.
+
+[Sidenote: John Law.]
+
+To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the
+celebrated John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had
+established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a wonderful
+political economist.
+
+Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of the
+country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the precious
+metals.
+
+The regent, moreover, having great faith in Law's abilities, and in
+his wealth, converted his private bank into a royal one--made it, in
+short, the Bank of France. This bank was then allied with the two
+great commercial companies of the time--the East India and the
+Mississippi. Great privileges were bestowed on each. The latter had
+the exclusive monopoly of the trade with Louisiana, and all the
+countries on the Mississippi River, and also of the fur trade in
+Canada. Louisiana was then supposed to be rich in gold mines, and
+great delusions arose from the popular notion.
+
+[Sidenote: Mississippi Company.]
+
+The capital of this gigantic corporation was fixed at one hundred
+millions and Law, who was made director-general, aimed to make the
+notes of the company preferable to specie, which, however could
+lawfully be demanded for the notes. So it was settled that the shares
+of the company could only be purchased by the paper of the bank. As
+extravagant hopes of gain were cherished respecting the company, its
+shares were in great demand. And, as only Law's bank bills could
+purchase the shares, the gold and silver of the realm flowed into
+Law's bank. Law and the regent had, therefore, the fabrication of both
+shares and bank bills to an indefinite amount.
+
+The national creditor was also paid in the notes of the bank, and, as
+unbounded confidence existed, both in the genius of Law and in the
+profits of the Mississippi Company,--as the shares were constantly in
+demand, and were rising in value,--the creditor was satisfied. In a
+short time, one half of the national debt was transferred. Government
+owed the bank, and not the individuals and corporations from whom
+loans had been originally obtained. These individuals, instead of
+government scrip, had shares in the Mississippi Company.
+
+And all would have been well, had the company's shares been valuable,
+or had they retained their credit, or even had but a small part of the
+national debt been transferred. But the people did not know the real
+issues of the bank, and so long as new shares could be created and
+sold to pay the interest, the company's credit was good. For a while
+the delusion lasted. Law was regarded as a great national benefactor.
+His house was thronged with dukes and princes. He became
+controller-general of the finances--virtually prime minister. His fame
+extended far and wide. Honors were showered upon him from every
+quarter. He was elected a member of the French Academy. His schemes
+seemed to rain upon Paris a golden shower. He had freed the state from
+embarrassments, and he had, apparently, made every body rich, and no
+one poor. He was a deity, as beneficent as he was powerful. He became
+himself the richest man in Europe. Every body was intoxicated. The
+golden age had come. Paris was crowded with strangers from all parts
+of the world. Five hundred thousand strangers expended their fortunes,
+in hope of making greater ones. Twelve hundred new coaches were set up
+in the city. Lodgings could scarcely be had for money. The highest
+price was paid for provisions. Widow ladies, clergymen, and noblemen
+deserted London to speculate in stocks at Paris. Nothing was seen but
+new equipages, new houses, new apparel, new furniture. Nothing was
+felt but universal exhilaration. Every man seemed to have made his
+fortune. The stocks rose every day. The higher they rose, the more new
+stock was created. At last, the shares of the company rose from one
+hundred to twelve hundred per cent., and three hundred millions were
+created, which were nominally worth, in 1719, three thousand six
+hundred millions of livres--one hundred and eighty times the amount of
+all the gold and silver in Europe at that time.
+
+[Sidenote: Popular Delusion.]
+
+In this public delusion, the directors were wise enough to convert
+_their_ shares into silver and gold. A great part of the current coin
+in the kingdom was locked up in the houses or banks of a few
+stockjobbers and speculators.
+
+But the scarcity of gold and silver was felt, people's eyes were
+opened, and the bubble burst, but not until half of the national debt
+had been paid off by this swindling transaction.
+
+The nation was furious. A panic spread among all classes; the bank had
+no money with which to redeem its notes; the shares fell almost to
+nothing; and universal bankruptcy took place. Those who, a few days
+before, fancied themselves rich, now found themselves poor. Property
+of all kinds fell to less than its original value. Houses, horses,
+carriages, upholstery, every thing, declined in price. All were
+sellers, and few were purchasers.
+
+But popular execration and vengeance pursued the financier who had
+deceived the nation. He was forced to fly from Paris. His whole
+property was confiscated, and he was reduced to indigence and
+contempt. When his scheme was first suggested to the regent, he was
+worth three millions of livres. He had better remained a private
+banker.
+
+The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the nation
+against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was execrated, for his
+agency in the business had all the appearance of a fraud. But he was
+probably deluded with others, and hoped to free the country from its
+burdens. The great blunder was in the over-issue of notes when there
+was no money to redeem them.
+
+Nor could any management have prevented the catastrophe.
+
+[Sidenote: Fatal Effects of the Delusion.]
+
+It was not possible that the shares of the company should advance so
+greatly, and the public not perceive that they had advanced beyond
+their value; it was not possible, that, while paper money so vastly
+increased in quantity, the numerical prices of all other things should
+not increase also, and that foreigners who sold their manufactures to
+the French should not turn their paper into gold, and carry it out of
+the kingdom; it was not possible that the disappearance of the coin
+should not create alarm, notwithstanding the edicts of the regent, and
+the reasonings of Law; it was not possible that annuitants should not
+discover that their old incomes were now insufficient and less
+valuable, as the medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it
+was not possible that the small part of society which may be called
+the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden
+fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt
+of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which,
+after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the
+good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on
+these and other accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last
+preferred to paper notes, of whatever description or promise. These
+were inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of Law,
+and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change in public
+opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, secondly, the
+over-issue of money.
+
+By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, or
+greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight hundred
+millions of debts. The sufferings of the people, with such a
+government, did not, however, create great solicitude; the same old
+course of folly and extravagance was pursued by the court.
+
+Nor was there a change for the better when Louis XV. attained his
+majority. His vices and follies exceeded all that had ever been
+displayed before. The support of his mistresses alone was enough to
+embarrass the nation. Their waste and extravagance almost exceeded
+belief. Who has not heard of the disgraceful and disgusting iniquities
+of Pompadour and Du Barry?
+
+The regency of the Duke of Orleans occupied the first eight years of
+the reign of Louis XV. The prime minister of the regent was Dubois, at
+first his tutor, and afterwards Archbishop of Cambray. He was rewarded
+with a cardinal's hat for the service he rendered to the Jesuits in
+their quarrel with the Jansenists, but was a man of unprincipled
+character; a fit minister to a prince who pretended to be too
+intellectual to worship God, and who copied Henry IV. only in his
+licentiousness.
+
+The first minister of Louis XV., after he assumed himself the reins of
+government, was the Duke of Bourbon, lineal heir of the house of
+Conde, and first prince of the blood. But he was a man of no
+character, and his short administration was signalized by no important
+event.
+
+[Sidenote: Administration of Cardinal Fleury.]
+
+Cardinal Fleury succeeded the Duke of Bourbon as prime minister. He
+had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all the intrigues
+of the court; a man of great timidity, but also a man of great
+probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was intrusted with
+power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and his
+administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He projected,
+however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improvements in laws
+or finance. But he ruled despotically, and with good intentions, from
+1726 to 1743.
+
+The most considerable subject of interest connected with his peaceful
+administration, was the quarrel between the Jesuits and the
+Jansenists. Fleury took the side of the former, although he was never
+an active partisan; and he was induced to support the Jesuits for the
+sake of securing the cardinal's hat--the highest honor, next to that
+of the tiara, which could be conferred on an ecclesiastic. The Jesuits
+upheld the crumbling power of the popes, and the popes rewarded the
+advocates of that body of men, who were their ablest supporters.
+
+The Jansenist controversy is too important to be passed over with a
+mere allusion. It was the great event in the history of Catholic
+Europe during the seventeenth century. It involved principles of great
+theological, and even political interest.
+
+[Sidenote: Cornelius Jansen.]
+
+The Jansenist controversy grew out of the long-disputed questions
+pertaining to grace and free will--questions which were agitated with
+great spirit and acrimony in the seventeenth century as they had
+previously been centuries before by Augustine and Pelagius. The
+Jesuits had never agreed with the great oracle of the Western church
+in his views on certain points, and it was their aim to show the
+absolute freedom of the human will--that it had a self-determining
+power, a perfect liberty to act or not to act. Molina, a Spanish
+Jesuit, had been a great defender of this ancient Pelagianism, and his
+views were opposed by the Dominicans, and the controversy was carried
+into all the universities of Europe. The Council of Trent was too wise
+to meddle with this difficult question; but angry theologians would
+not let it rest, and it was discussed with peculiar fervor in the
+Catholic University of Louvaine. Among the doctors who there
+distinguished themselves in reviving the great contest of the fifth
+and sixth centuries, were Cornelius Jansen of Holland, and Jean de
+Verger of Gascony. Both these doctors hated the Jesuits, and lamented
+the dangerous doctrines which they defended, and advocated the views
+of Augustine and the Calvinists. Jansen became professor of divinity
+in the university, and then Bishop of Ypres. After an uninterrupted
+study of twenty years, he produced his celebrated book called
+_Augustinus_, in which he set forth the servitude of the will, and the
+necessity of divine grace to break the bondage, which, however, he
+maintained, like Calvin, is imparted only to a few, and in pursuance
+of a decree existing in the divine mind before the creation of our
+species. But Jansen died before the book was finished, and two years
+elapsed before it was published, but, when published, it was the
+signal for a contest which distracted Europe for seventy years.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Cyran--Arnauld--Le Maitre.]
+
+While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and friend,
+De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot of the monastery
+of St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the centre of that gay city,
+a learned and ascetic hermitage. This was during the reign of
+Louis XIII. His reputation, as a scholar and a saint, attracted the
+attention of Richelieu, and his services were solicited by that able
+minister. But neither rewards, nor flatteries, nor applause had power
+over the mind of St. Cyran, as he was now called. The cardinal hated
+and feared a man whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means
+to quarrel with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes.
+But there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to
+his studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an
+asceticism which even his church did not require, and devoting all his
+thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin and Augustine,
+he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an inward change,
+that he made grace precede repentance. A man so serene in trial, so
+humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in ordinary life, and yet
+so distinguished for talents and erudition, could not help exciting
+admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld
+D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le
+Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique
+Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most
+distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble
+by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess
+of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that time
+was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of a Capuchin friar
+had turned her thoughts to the future world, and she closed the gates
+of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chevreuse, against all
+strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic duties which her church
+and age accounted most meritorious. She soon after made the
+acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued her mind with the principles
+of the Augustinian theology. When imprisoned at Vincennes, he was
+still the spiritual father of Port Royal. Amid this famous retreat
+were collected the greatest scholars and the greatest saints of the
+seventeenth century--Antoine Le Maitre, De Lericourt, Le Maitre de
+Saci, Antoine Arnauld, and Pascal himself. Le Maitre de Saci gave to
+the world the best translation of the Bible in French; Arnauld wrote
+one hundred volumes of controversy, and, among them, a noted satire on
+the Jesuits, which did them infinite harm; while Pascal, besides his
+wonderful mathematical attainments, and his various meditative works,
+is immortalized for his Provincial Letters, written in the purest
+French, and with matchless power and beauty. This work, directed
+against the Jesuits, is an inimitable model of elegant irony, and the
+most effective sarcasm probably ever elaborated by man. In the vale of
+Port Royal also dwelt Tillemont, the great ecclesiastical historian;
+Fontaine and Racine, who were controlled by the spirit of Arnauld, as
+well as the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Liancourt. There resided,
+under the name of _Le Merrier_, and in the humble occupation of a
+gardener, one of the proudest nobles of the French court; and there,
+too, dwelt the celebrated Duchess of Longueville, sister of the Prince
+of Conde, the life of the Fronde, the idol of the Parisian mob, and the
+once gay patroness of the proudest festivities.
+
+[Sidenote: The Labors of the Port Royalists.]
+
+But it is the labors of these saints, scholars, and nobles to repress
+the dangerous influence of the Jesuits for which they were most
+distinguished. The Jansenists of Port Royal did not deny the authority
+of the pope, nor the great institutions of the papacy. They sought
+chiefly, in their controversy with the Jesuits, to enforce the
+doctrines of Augustine respecting justification. But their efforts
+were not agreeable to the popes, nor to the doctors of the Sorbonne,
+who had no sympathy with their religious life, and detested their bold
+spirit of inquiry. The doctors of the Sorbonne, accordingly, extracted
+from the book of Jansen five propositions which they deemed heretical,
+and urged the pope to condemn them. The Port Royalists admitted that
+these five propositions were indefensible if they were declared
+heretical by the sovereign pontiff, but denied that they were actually
+to be found in the book of Jansen. They did not quarrel with the pope
+on grounds of faith. They recognized his infallibility in matters of
+religion, but not in matters of fact. The pope, not wishing to push
+things to extremity, which never was the policy of Rome, pretended to
+be satisfied. But the Jesuits would not let him rest, and insisted on
+the condemnation of the Jansenist opinions. The case was brought
+before a great council of French bishops and doctors, and Arnauld, the
+great champion of the Jansenists, was voted guilty of heresy for
+denying that the five propositions which the pope condemned were
+actually in the book of Jansen. The pope, moreover, was induced to
+issue a formula of an oath, to which all who wished to enjoy any
+office in the church were obliged to subscribe, and which affirmed
+that the five condemned propositions were actually to be found in
+Jansen's book. This act of the pope was justly regarded by the
+Jansenists as intolerably despotic, and many of the most respectable
+of the French clergy sided with them in opinion. All France now became
+interested in the controversy, and it soon led to great commotions.
+The Jansenists then contended that the pope might err in questions of
+fact, and that, therefore, they were not under an obligation to
+subscribe to the required oath. The Jesuits, on the other hand,
+maintained the pope's infallibility in matters of fact, as well as in
+doctrine; and, as they had the most powerful adherents, the Jansenists
+were bitterly persecuted. But, as twenty-two bishops were found to
+take their side, the matter was hushed up for a while. For ten years
+more, the Port Royalists had peace and protection, chiefly through the
+great influence of the Duchess of Longueville; but, on her death,
+persecution returned. Arnauld was obliged to fly to the Netherlands,
+and the beautiful abbey of Port Royal was despoiled of its lands and
+privileges. Louis XIV. had ever hated its inmates, being ruled by
+Madame de Maintenon, who, in turn, was a tool of the Jesuits.
+
+But the demolition of the abbey, the spoliation of its lands, and the
+dispersion of those who sought its retreat, did not stop the
+controversy. Pascal continued it, and wrote his Provincial Letters,
+which had a wonderful effect in making the Jesuits both ridiculous and
+hateful. That book was the severest blow this body of ambitious and
+artful casuists ever received.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of Jansenism.]
+
+Nor was the Jansenist controversy merely a discussion of grace and
+free will. The principles of Jansenism, when carried out, tended to
+secure independence to the national church, and to free the
+consciences of men from the horrible power of their spiritual
+confessors. Jansenism was a timid protest against spiritual tyranny, a
+mild kind of Puritanism, which found sympathy with many people in
+France. The Parliament of Paris caught the spirit of freedom, and
+protected the Jansenists and those who sympathized with them. It so
+happened that a certain bishop published a charge to his clergy which
+was strongly imbued with the independent doctrines of the Jansenists.
+He was tried and condemned by a provincial council, and banished by
+the government. The Parliament of Paris, as the guardian of the law,
+took up the quarrel, and Cardinal Fleury was obliged to resort to a
+_Bed of Justice_ in order to secure the registry of a decree. A Bed of
+Justice was the personal appearance of the sovereign in the supreme
+judicial tribunal of the nation, and his command to the members of it
+to obey his injunctions was the last resort of absolute power. The
+parliament, of course, obeyed, but protested the next day, and drew up
+resolutions which declared the temporal power to be independent of the
+spiritual. It then proceeded to Meudon, one of the royal palaces, to
+lay its remonstrance before the king; and Louis XV., indignant and
+astonished, refused to see the members. The original controversy was
+forgotten, and the cause of the parliament, which was the cause of
+liberty, became the cause of the nation. The resistance of the
+parliament was technically unsuccessful, yet, nevertheless, sowed the
+seeds of popular discontent, and contributed to that great
+insurrection which finally overturned the throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Functions of the Parliament.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Bull Unigenitus.]
+
+It may be asked how the Parliament of Paris became a judicial
+tribunal, rather than a legislative assembly, as in England. When the
+Justinian code was introduced into French jurisprudence, in the latter
+part of the Middle Ages, the old feudal and clerical judges--the
+barons and bishops--were incapable of expounding it, and a new class
+of men arose--the lawyers, whose exclusive business it was to study
+the laws. Being best acquainted with them, they entered upon the
+functions of judges, and the secular and clerical lords yielded to
+their opinions. The great barons, however, still continued to sit in
+the judicial tribunals, although ignorant of the new jurisprudence;
+and their decisions were directed by the opinions of the lawyers who
+had obtained a seat in their body, as is the case at present in the
+English House of Lords when it sits as a judicial body. The necessity
+of providing some permanent repository for the royal edicts, induced
+the kings of France to enroll them in the journals of the courts of
+parliament, being the highest judicial tribunal; and the members of
+these courts gradually availed themselves of this custom to dispute
+the legality of any edict which had not been thus registered. As the
+influence of the States General declined, the power of the parliament
+increased. The encroachments of the papacy first engaged its
+attention, and then the management of the finances by the ministers of
+Francis I. called forth remonstrances. During the war of the Fronde,
+the parliament absolutely refused to register the royal decrees. But
+Louis XIV. was sufficiently powerful to suppress the spirit of
+independence, and accordingly entered the court, during the first
+years of his reign, with a whip in his hand, and compelled it to
+register his edicts. Nor did any murmur afterwards escape the body,
+until, at the close of his reign the members opposed the bull
+_Unigenitus_--that which condemned the Jansenists--as an infringement
+of the liberties of the Gallican Church. And no sooner had the great
+monarch died, than, contrary to his will, they vested the regency in
+the hands of the Duke of Orleans. Then freedom of expostulation
+respecting the ruinous schemes of Law induced him to banish them, and
+they only obtained their recall by degrading concessions. Their next
+opposition was during the administration of Fleury. The minister of
+finance made an attempt to inquire into the wealth of the clergy,
+which raised the jealousy of the order; and the clergy, in order to
+divert the attention of the court, revived the opposition of the
+parliament to the bull _Unigenitus_. It was resolved by the clergy to
+demand confessional notes from dying persons, and that these notes
+should be signed by priests adhering to the bull, before extreme
+unction should be given. The Archbishop of Paris, at the head of the
+French clergy, was opposed by the parliament, and this high judicial
+court imprisoned such of the clergy as refused to administer the
+sacraments. The king, under the guidance of Fleury, forbade the
+parliament to take cognizance of ecclesiastical proceedings, and to
+suspend its prosecutions. Instead of acquiescing, the parliament
+presented new remonstrances, and the members refused to attend to any
+other functions, and resolved that they could not obey this injunction
+without violating their consciences. They cited the Bishop of Orleans
+before their tribunal, and ordered all his writings, which denied the
+jurisdiction of the court, to be publicly burnt by the executioner. By
+aid of the military, the parliament enforced the administration of the
+sacraments, and became so interested in the controversy as to neglect
+other official duties. The king, indignant, again banished the
+members, with the exception of four, whom he imprisoned. And, in order
+not to impede the administration of justice, the king established
+another tribunal for the prosecution of civil suits. But the lawyers,
+sympathizing with the parliament, refused to plead before the new
+court. This resolute conduct, and other evils happening at the time,
+induced the king to yield, in order to conciliate the people, and the
+parliament was recalled. This was a popular triumph, and the
+archbishop was banished in his turn. Shortly after, Cardinal Fleury
+died, and a new policy was adopted. The quarrel of the parliament and
+the clergy was forgotten in a still greater quarrel between the king
+and the Jesuits.
+
+The policy of Fleury, like that of Walpole, was pacific; and yet, like
+him, he was forced into a war against his own convictions. And success
+attended the arms of France, in the colonial struggle with England,
+until Pitt took the helm of state.
+
+Until the death of Fleury, in 1743, who administered affairs with
+wisdom, moderation, and incorruptible integrity, he was beloved, if he
+was not venerated. But after this event, a great change took place in
+his character and measures, and the reign of mistresses commenced, and
+to an extent unparalleled in the history of Europe. Louis XIV.
+bestowed the revenue of the state on unworthy favorites, yet never
+allowed them to govern the nation; but Louis XV. intrusted the most
+important state matters to their direction, and the profoundest state
+secrets to their keeping.
+
+[Sidenote: Madame de Pompadour.]
+
+Among these mistresses, Madame de Pompadour was the most noted; a
+woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambition was her
+master-passion, and her _boudoir_ was the council chamber of the royal
+ministers. Most of the great men of France paid court to her, and to
+neglect her was social ruin. Even Voltaire praised her beauty, and
+Montesquieu flattered her intellect. And her extravagance was equal to
+her audacity. She insisted on drawing bills on the treasury without
+specifying the service. The comptroller-general was in despair, and
+the state was involved in inextricable embarrassments.
+
+It was through her influence that the Duke de Choiseul was made the
+successor of Fleury. He was not deficient in talent, but his
+administration proved unfortunate. Under his rule, Louis lost the
+Canadas, and France plunged into a contest with Frederic the Great.
+The Seven Years' War, which occurred during his administration, had
+made the age an epoch; but as this is to be considered in the chapter
+on Frederic III., no notice of it will be taken in this connection.
+
+The most memorable event which arose out of the policy and conduct of
+Choiseul was the fall of the Jesuits.
+
+[Sidenote: The Jesuits.]
+
+Their arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull
+_Unigenitus_, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists; and
+the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side.
+
+But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress of
+Louis XV. They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, the
+Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful of
+popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no man, and
+no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity with impunity; and
+destruction often comes from a source the least suspected, and
+apparently the least to be feared. Who could have supposed that the
+ruin of this powerful body, which had reigned so proudly in
+Christendom for a century; which had imposed its Briareus's arms on
+the necks of princes; which had its confessors in the courts of the
+most absolute monarchs; which, with its hundred eyes, had penetrated
+the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe; and which had succeeded in
+suppressing in so many places every insurrection of human
+intelligence, in spite of the fears of kings, the jealousy of the
+other monastic orders, and the inveterate animosity of philosophers
+and statesmen,--would receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman,
+who scandalized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated
+prince? But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because
+they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And she
+incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts to power,
+to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their ruin.
+
+[Sidenote: Exposure of the Jesuits.]
+
+In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible than in
+Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But the prime minister
+of Joseph I., the Marquis of Pombal, a man of great energy, had been
+insulted by a lady of the highest rank, and he swore revenge. An
+opportunity was soon afforded. The king happened to be fired at and
+wounded in his palace by some unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the
+objects of the minister's vengeance--the Marchioness of Tavora, her
+husband, her family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance
+followed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons
+whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were expelled in the most
+summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul and Madame
+Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and watched their
+opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the failure of La
+Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It must be borne in
+mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commercial enterprises, while
+they were officiating as missionaries. La Valette aimed to monopolize,
+for his order, the trade with the West Indies, which commercial
+ambition excited the jealousy of mercantile classes in France, and
+they threw difficulties in his way. And it so happened that some of
+his most valuable ships were taken and plundered by the English
+cruisers, which calamity, happening at a time of embarrassment, caused
+his bills to be protested, and his bankers to stop payment. They,
+indignant, accused the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud,
+and demanded repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they
+would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the brink
+of destruction? _"Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat."_ The
+Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their
+order, which course would have been in accordance with their general
+policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of Paris, and the
+whole nation was interested in its result. It was decided by this
+supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were responsible for the
+debts of La Valette. But the commercial injury was weak in comparison
+with the moral. In the course of legal proceedings, the books and rule
+of the Jesuits were demanded--that mysterious rule which had never
+been exposed to the public eye, and which had been so carefully
+guarded. When this rule was produced, all minor questions vanished;
+mistresses, bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars,--all became
+insignificant, compared with those questions which affected the
+position and welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and
+"Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on
+every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages and
+conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. Nothing
+was talked about but "probability," "surrender of conscience," and
+"mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous of the absorbing
+interest with which every thing pertaining to the _regime_ of the
+Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of the Jansenists, who
+had exposed it. "What," said Voltaire, "will it profit us to be
+delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given up to the wolves?" But
+the philosopher had been among the first to raise the cry of alarm
+against the Jesuits, and it was no easy thing to allay the storm.
+
+[Sidenote: Their Expulsion from France.]
+
+The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently
+powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been their best
+friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He had been
+taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. He stood in
+fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so powerful and
+unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the prosecution would have
+been insurmountable, had it not been for the capriciousness of his
+temper, which more than balanced his superstitious fears. His minister
+and his mistress circumvented him. They represented that, as the
+parliament and the nation were both aroused against the Jesuits, his
+resistance would necessarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded
+so much as civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful
+necessity of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of
+his best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers.
+But he yielded with a moderation which did him honor. He would not
+consent to the expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been made to
+secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be written to
+Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. Choiseul
+himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the Jesuits would not
+hear of any retrenchment of their power or privileges. "Let us remain
+as we are, or let us exist no longer," was their reply. The
+parliament, the people, the minister, and the mistress renewed their
+clamors. The parliament decreed that the constitution of the society
+was an encroachment on the royal authority, and the king was obliged
+to yield. The members of the society were forbidden to wear the habit
+of the society, or to enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their
+colleges were closed, their order was dissolved, and they were
+expelled from the kingdom with rigor and severity, in spite of the
+wishes of the king and many entreaties and tears from the zealous
+advocates of Catholicism, and even of religious education.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression in Spain.]
+
+But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to be
+persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having secured their
+expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and Pombal turned their
+attention to Spain, and so successfully intrigued, so artfully wrought
+on the jealousy and fears of Charles III., that this weak prince
+followed the example of Joseph I. and Louis XV. But the king and his
+minister D'Aranda, however, prosecuted their investigations with the
+utmost secrecy--did not even tell their allies of their movements. Of
+course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when
+his measures were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing
+the suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree
+came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. "On the same day,
+2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in
+America, and in all the islands belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the
+alcaldes of the towns opened their despatches from Madrid, by which
+they were ordered, on pain of the severest penalties, immediately to
+enter the establishments of the Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel
+them from their convents, and transport them, within twenty-four
+hours, to such places as were designated. Nor were the Jesuits
+permitted to carry away their money or their papers. Only a purse, a
+breviary, and some apparel were given them."
+
+The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so
+sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express
+prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any
+allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to
+maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or
+remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is
+religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to
+injustice and cruelty.
+
+The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate craft.
+Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution.
+There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as
+martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of
+the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country
+they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery
+and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six
+months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable
+refuge on the Island of Corsica.
+
+[Sidenote: Pope Clement XIV.]
+
+Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A
+successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent
+on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope
+should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal was
+found,--Ganganelli,--who promised the ambassadors that, if elected
+pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to
+secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put
+forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would _protect
+them_. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the
+Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most
+unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force
+of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his
+father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired
+to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was,
+to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so
+long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was
+made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful
+struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and
+throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal
+infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with
+awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the
+allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the
+Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had
+ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of
+danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a
+cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,--any thing,--rather
+than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was
+obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to
+fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation,
+of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated,
+he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of
+his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest.
+It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was
+compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits
+forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he
+prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened
+assassination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his
+church, if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened
+secession from Rome, deposition--ten thousand calamities. His agony
+became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He decided to
+suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges were
+closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given to
+their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without
+organization, wealth, or power.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Ganganelli.]
+
+Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising
+from table, felt an internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually
+he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his
+moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was
+doomed--that he was poisoned--that he must die. The fear of hell was
+now added to his other torments. "_Compulsus, feci, compulsus,
+feci!_"--"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and
+died--died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander VI.
+knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their
+wealth. Pope Clement XIV. inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound
+upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the
+penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not
+perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on
+earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the
+restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored;
+and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every
+corner of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Louis XV.]
+
+The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and
+protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire.
+A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers
+had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter
+mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men
+who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the
+institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He
+perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with
+absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great,
+unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism.
+The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched
+Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of
+Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any
+thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the
+Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the noble of
+France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming
+torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose
+awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV.
+He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a
+Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time."
+Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken with the
+small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was
+deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains
+were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.
+
+Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary to
+glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the
+various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven
+Years' War--the great war of the eighteenth century, before the
+breaking out of the French Revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For a general view of the reign of Louis XV.,
+     see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The
+     scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and
+     Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the
+     king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in
+     the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist
+     Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's
+     History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and
+     Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port
+     Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably
+     treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the
+     lives of Fleury and Choiseul. For the manners of the court
+     of Louis XV., the numerous memoirs and letters, which were
+     written during the period, must be consulted; the most
+     amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, are
+     too infamous to be named.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+FREDERIC THE GREAT.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Frederic William.]
+
+Frederic II. of Prussia has won a name which will be immortal on
+Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular character extorts
+our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion, admiration for his
+great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and disgust for his
+cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. He had no faith
+in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to mechanical
+agencies--to the power of armies--to the principle of fear. He was not
+indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war
+was alike his absorbing passion and his highest glory. Peter the Great
+was half a barbarian, and Charles XII. half a madman; but Frederic was
+neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV.
+plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William III.
+fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but
+Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, and the restless
+ambition of plundering what was not his own.
+
+He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712--ten years after
+Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of his grandfather,
+Frederic I. The fortunes of his family were made by his
+great-grandfather, called the _Great Elector_, of the house of
+Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he
+turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and
+universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited
+by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled more his whimsical and
+tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a
+cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his
+ambassador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he
+gave a bounty of thirteen hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join
+his famous body-guard, a regiment of men who were each over six feet
+high. He would kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking
+on the soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him Latin.
+But, abating his coarseness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he was a
+Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the institutions
+of religion, denounced all amusements as sinful, and read a sermon
+aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived his
+inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sympathy between
+father and son, and the father even hated the heir of his house and
+throne. The young prince was kept on bread and water; his most
+moderate wishes were disregarded; he was surrounded with spies; he was
+cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and abused as a monster and a heathen.
+The cruel treatment which the prince received induced him to fly; his
+flight was discovered; he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to
+death as a deserter and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by
+the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow
+reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to
+retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with
+books, billiards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with
+Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Frederic the Great.]
+
+In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic II. mounted an absolute
+throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly disciplined
+army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and dreams of glory
+filled his ambitious soul.
+
+Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggrandizement
+became the animating principle of his life.
+
+His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest
+provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen
+of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of Germany, whose
+succession was guaranteed by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction--a law
+which the Emperor Charles passed respecting his daughter's claim, and
+which claim was recognized by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by
+all the leading powers of Europe. Without a declaration of war,
+without complaints, without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from
+the mere lust of dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the
+depth of winter, when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons
+were defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of
+Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to his
+capital.
+
+Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole civilized
+world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and assist the unfortunate
+queen, whose empire was threatened with complete dismemberment.
+Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was made. But, in two years,
+the war again broke out. To recover Silesia and to humble Frederic was
+the aim of Maria Theresa. She succeeded in securing the cooeperation of
+Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony. No one doubted of the ruin of the
+house of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand men were arrayed to crush
+an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled king, who had trampled on all
+the laws of nations and all the principles of justice.
+
+[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War.]
+
+The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces constitutes the
+celebrated _Seven Years' War_--the most gigantic war which Europe had
+seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. This contest
+began during the latter years of George II., and was connected with
+the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, during which Wolfe was
+killed and the Canadas were gained. This war called out all the
+energies of the elder Pitt, and placed Great Britain on the exalted
+height which it has since retained.
+
+Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his
+dangers; and his successful resistance to the armies which his own
+offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his claims to
+the epithet of _Great_. Although he provoked the war, his successful
+defence of his country placed him on the very highest pinnacle of
+military fame. He would gladly have been relieved from the contest,
+but it was inevitable; and when the tempest burst upon his head, he
+showed all the qualities of exalted heroism.
+
+Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But he himself
+had some great advantages. He was absolute master of his army, of his
+treasury, and of his territories. The lives and property of his
+subjects were at his disposal; his subjects were brave and loyal; he
+was popular with the people, and was sustained by the enthusiasm of
+the nation; his army was well disciplined; he had no sea-coast to
+defend, and he could concentrate all his forces upon any point he
+pleased, in a short time.
+
+His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded Saxony,
+at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize the state
+papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the confederation.
+These were found and published, which showed that now, at least, he
+acted on the defensive.
+
+The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle was won by
+the Prussians. By the victory of Lowositz, Frederic was in a better
+condition to contend with Austria. By this he got possession of
+Saxony.
+
+The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. Five
+hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred thousand. Near
+Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost twelve thousand men. He
+then invested Prague. General Daun, with a superior army, advanced to
+its relief. Another bloody battle was fought, and lost by the Prussian
+king. This seemed to be a fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of
+the war, he had received a check. The soldiers' confidence was
+weakened. Malevolent sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague
+was raised, and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same
+time, invaded Germany; and Frederic heard also of the death of his
+mother--the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he became
+haggard and miserable.
+
+The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and secure
+that conquest--no very easy task. His dominions were now assailed by a
+French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His capital was in the hands of
+the Croatians, and he was opposed by superior Austrian forces. No
+wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and saw only the ruin of
+his house. On one thing, however, he was resolved--never to be taken
+alive. So he provided himself with poison, which he ever carried about
+his person.
+
+The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfortune and
+trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences in perplexity,
+difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but success is obtained
+only through struggle. Frederic's career is a splendid example of that
+heroism which rises above danger, and extricates a man from
+difficulties when his cause is desperate.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Rossbach.]
+
+The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two armies
+met at Rossbach. The number of the French was double that of the
+Prussians; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and were
+commanded by an abler general. The French, however felt secure of
+victory; but they were defeated: seven thousand men were taken
+prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, parrots, hair powder,
+and pomatum. The victory of Rossbach won for Frederic a great name,
+and diffused universal joy among the English and Prussians.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Leuthen.]
+
+After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had
+again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this province
+that he provoked the hostilities of Europe; and pride, as well as
+interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince
+Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, which
+numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array against him an
+army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the disparity of forces,
+and his desperate condition, he resolved to attack the enemy. His
+generals remonstrated; but the hero gave full permission to all to
+retire, if they pleased. None were found to shun the danger. Frederic,
+like Napoleon, had the talent of exciting the enthusiasm of his
+troops. He both encouraged and threatened them. He declared that any
+cavalry regiment which did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on
+the foe, should after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a
+garrison regiment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of
+December, the day of the ever-memorable battle of Leuthen, he selected
+an officer with fifty men as his body-guard. "I shall," said he,
+"expose myself much to-day; you are not to leave me for an instant: if
+I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon and tell
+the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and must be won."
+And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian general abandoned a
+strong position, because he deemed it beneath his dignity to contend
+with an inferior force in a fortified camp. His imprudence lost him
+the battle. According to Napoleon, it was a masterpiece on the part of
+the victor, and placed him in the first rank of generals. Twenty
+thousand Austrians were either killed or taken. Breslau opened its
+gates to the Prussians, and Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame
+filled the world. Pictures of him were hung in almost every house. The
+enthusiasm of Germany was not surpassed by that of England. London was
+illuminated; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian
+king to leave their country and join his army; an annual subsidy of
+seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government. The battle of
+Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals; out the battle of
+Rossbach, over the French, was attended by greater moral results. It
+showed, for the first time for several centuries, that the Germans
+were really a great people, and were a match for the French, hitherto
+deemed invincible.
+
+Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new campaign,
+which was soon signalized by a great victory over the Russians, at
+Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the battles of Rossbach
+and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand men defeated an army of
+fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thousand Russians lay dead on the
+field. This victory placed Frederic at the zenith of military fame. In
+less than a year, he had defeated three great armies; in less than a
+year, and when nearly driven to despair,--when his cause seemed
+hopeless, and his enemies were rejoicing in their strength,--he
+successively triumphed over the French, the Austrians, and the
+Russians; the three most powerful nations on the continent of Europe.
+And his moderation after victory was as marked as his self-reliance
+after defeat. At this period, he stood out, to the wondering and
+admiring eyes of the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern
+times. But, after this, his career was more checkered, and he was
+still in danger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall of Dresden.]
+
+The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving the
+Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing Dresden. No capital in Europe
+has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished city. It has
+been often besieged and taken, but the victors have always spared its
+famous picture gallery--the finest collection of the works of the old
+masters, probably, in existence.
+
+But Frederic was now assailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict XIV. He
+sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and a dove of
+pearls,--"the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter,"--to Marshal
+Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the conqueror at Kolin
+and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the papal gifts, and had been
+only bestowed, in the course of six centuries, on Godfrey of Bouillon,
+by Urban II., when he took Jerusalem; on Alva, after his massacres in
+Holland; and on Sobieski, after his deliverance of Vienna, when
+besieged by the Turks. It had never been conferred, except for the
+defence of the "Holy Catholic Church." But this greatest of papal
+gifts made no impression on the age which read Montesquieu and
+Voltaire. A flood of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and
+the world laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been
+thunderbolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent III.
+
+[Sidenote: Reverses of Frederic.]
+
+The fourth year of the war proved disastrous to Frederic. He did not
+lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. The
+forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Austrians invaded
+Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians gained a victory over
+the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed eighteen thousand men. The
+Russians did not improve this great victory over Frederic, which
+nearly drove him to despair. But he rallied, and was again defeated in
+three disastrous battles. In his distress, he fed his troops on
+potatoes and rye bread, took from the peasant his last horse, debased
+his coin, and left his civil functionaries unpaid.
+
+The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prussians.
+Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies had two hundred
+thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged to maintain the
+defensive. But still disasters thickened. General Loudon obtained a
+great victory over his general, Fouque, in Silesia. Instead of being
+discouraged by this new defeat, he formed the extraordinary resolution
+of wresting Dresden from the hands of the Austrians. But he pretended
+to retreat from Saxony, and advance to Silesia. General Daun was
+deceived, and decoyed from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as
+Frederic had retired a considerable distance from Dresden, he
+returned, and bombarded it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and
+was forced to retreat to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to
+gain a victory over the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the
+Russians. At Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand
+of the enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed
+the campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as
+at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now ulcerated
+with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his enemies, who were
+resolved to crush him. He should, however, have remembered that he had
+provoked their implacable resentment, by the commission of a great
+crime.
+
+Although Frederic, by rare heroism, had maintained his ground, still
+his resources were now nearly exhausted, and he began to look around,
+in vain, for a new supply of men, horses, and provisions. The circle
+which his enemies had drawn around him was obviously becoming smaller.
+In a little while, to all appearance, he would be crushed by
+overwhelming forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Continued Disasters.]
+
+Under these circumstances, the campaign in 1761 was opened; but no
+event of importance occurred until nearly the close of the year. On
+the whole, it was disastrous to Prussia. Half of Silesia was taken by
+the Austrians, and the Russian generals were successful in Pomerania.
+And a still greater misfortune happened to Frederic in consequence of
+the resignation of Pitt, who had ever been his firmest ally, and had
+granted him large subsidies, when he was most in need of them. On the
+retirement of the English minister, these subsidies were withdrawn,
+and the party which had thwarted William III., which had persecuted
+Marlborough, and had given up the Catalans, came into power--the
+Tories. "It was indifferent to them whether the house of Hohenstaufen
+or Hohenzollern should be dominant in Germany." But Pitt and the Whigs
+argued that no sacrifice would be too great to preserve the balance of
+power. The defection of England, however, filled the mind of Frederic
+with implacable hatred, and he never could bear to hear even the name
+of England mentioned. The defection of this great ally made his
+affairs desperate; and no one, taking a dispassionate view of the
+contending parties, could doubt but that the ruin of the Prussian king
+was inevitable. Maria Theresa was so confident of success, that she
+disbanded twenty thousand of her troops.
+
+But Providence had ordered otherwise. A great and unexpected change
+came over the fortunes of Frederic. His heroism was now to be
+rewarded--not the vulgar heroism which makes a sudden effort, and
+gains a single battle, but that well-sustained heroism which strives
+in the midst of defeat, and continues to hope when even noble hearts
+are sinking in despair. On the 5th of January, 1762, Elizabeth, the
+empress of Russia, died; and her successor, Peter III., who was an
+admirer of Frederic, and even a personal friend, returned the Prussian
+prisoners, withdrew his troops from the Prussian territories, dressed
+himself in a Prussian uniform, and wore the black eagle of Prussia on
+his breast. He even sent fifteen thousand troops to reenforce the army
+of Frederic.
+
+England and France had long been wearied of this war, and formed a
+separate treaty for themselves. Prussia and Austria were therefore
+left to combat each other. If Austria, assisted by France and Russia,
+could not regain Silesia and ruin Prussia, it certainly was not strong
+enough to conquer Frederic single-handed. The proud Maria Theresa was
+compelled to make peace with that heroic but unprincipled robber, who
+had seized one of the finest provinces of the Austrian empire. In
+February, the treaty of Hubertsburg was signed, by which Frederic
+retained his spoil. He, in comparison with the other belligerent
+parties was the gainer. But no acquisition of territory could
+compensate for those seven years of toil, expense, and death. After
+six years, he entered his capital in triumph; but he beheld every
+where the melancholy marks of devastation and suffering. The fields
+were untilled, houses had been sacked, population had declined, and
+famine and disease had spread a funereal shade over the dwellings of
+the poor. He had escaped death, but one sixth of the whole male
+population of Prussia had been killed, and untold millions of property
+had been destroyed. In some districts, no laborers but women were seen
+in the fields, and fifteen thousand houses had been burnt in his own
+capital.
+
+[Sidenote: Exhaustion of Prussia by the War.]
+
+It is very remarkable that no national debt was incurred by the king
+of Prussia, in spite of all his necessities. He always, in the worst
+of times, had a year's revenue in advance; and, at the close of the
+war, to show the world that he was not then impoverished, he built a
+splendid palace at Potsdam, which nearly equalled the magnificence of
+Versailles.
+
+But he also did all in his power to alleviate the distress which his
+wars had caused. Silesia received three millions of thalers, and
+Pomerania two millions. Fourteen thousand houses were rebuilt;
+treasury notes, which had depreciated, were redeemed; officers who had
+distinguished themselves were rewarded; and the widows and children of
+those who had fallen were pensioned.
+
+The possession of Silesia did not, indeed, compensate for the Seven
+Years' War; but the struggles which the brave Prussians made for their
+national independence, when assailed on all sides by powerful enemies,
+were not made in vain. Had they not been made, worse evils would have
+happened. Prussia would not have held her place in the scale of
+nations, and the people would have fallen in self-respect. It was
+wrong in Frederic to seize the possession of another. In so doing, he
+was in no respect better than a robber: and he paid a penalty for his
+crime. But he also fought in self-defence. This defence was honorable
+and glorious, and this entitles him to the name of _Great_.
+
+After the peace of Hubertsburg, in 1763, Prussia, for a time, enjoyed
+repose, and the king devoted himself to the improvement of his
+country. But the army received his greatest consideration, and a peace
+establishment of one hundred and sixty thousand men was maintained; an
+immense force for so small a kingdom, but deemed necessary in such
+unsettled times. Frederic amused himself in building palaces, in
+writing books, and corresponding with literary friends. But schemes of
+ambition were, after all, paramount in his mind.
+
+The Seven Years' War had scarcely closed before the partition of
+Poland was effected, the greatest political crime of that age, for
+which the king of Prussia was chiefly responsible.
+
+The Bavarian war was the next great political event of importance
+which occurred during the reign of Frederic. The emperor of Germany
+formed a project for the dismemberment of the electorate of Bavaria.
+The liberties of the Germanic body were in danger, and Frederic came
+to the rescue. On this occasion, he was the opposer of lawless
+ambition. In 1778, he took the field with a powerful army; but no
+action ensued. The Austrian court found it expedient to abandon the
+design, and the peace of Teschen prevented another fearful contest.
+The two last public acts of Frederic were the establishment, in 1785,
+of the Germanic Union for preserving the constitution of the empire,
+and a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1786, with the United States of
+America, which was a model of liberal policy respecting the rights of
+independent nations, both in peace and war.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Frederic.]
+
+He died on the 17th of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year of his
+age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the whole, he was one of
+the most remarkable men of his age, and had a great influence on the
+condition of his country.
+
+His distinguishing peculiarity was his admiration of, and devotion to,
+the military profession, which he unduly exalted. An ensign in his
+army ranked higher than a counsellor of legation or a professor of
+philosophy. His ordinary mode of life was simple and unostentatious,
+and his favorite residence was the palace of Sans Souci, at Potsdam.
+He was very fond of music, and of the society of literary men; but he
+mortified them by his patronizing arrogance, and worried them by his
+practical jokes. His favorite literary companions were infidel
+philosophers, and Voltaire received from him marks of the highest
+distinction. But the king of letters could not live with the despot
+who solicited his society, and an implacable hatred succeeded
+familiarity and friendship. The king had considerable literary
+reputation, and was the author of several works. He was much admired
+by his soldiers, and permitted in them uncommon familiarity. He was
+ever free from repulsive formality and bolstered dignity. He was
+industrious, frugal, and vigilant. Nothing escaped his eye, and he
+attended to the details of his administration. He was probably the
+most indefatigable sovereign that ever existed, but displayed more
+personal ability than enlarged wisdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Frederic.]
+
+But able and successful as he was as a ruler, he was one of those men
+for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. He was
+cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the blood of his
+subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those who had sacrificed
+every thing for his sake. He ruled by fear rather than by love. He
+introduced into every department the precision of a rigid military
+discipline, and had no faith in any power but that of mechanical
+agencies. He quarrelled with his best friends, and seemed to enjoy the
+miseries he inflicted. He was contemptuous of woman, and disdainful of
+Christianity. His egotism was not redeemed by politeness or
+affability, and he made no efforts to disguise his unmitigated
+selfishness and heartless injustice. He had no loftiness of character,
+and no appreciation of elevation of sentiment in others. He worshipped
+only himself and rewarded those only who advanced his ambitious
+designs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The Posthumous Works of Frederic II. Gillies's
+     View of the Reign of Frederic II. Thiebault's Memoires de
+     Frederic le Grand. Voltaire's Idee du Roi de Prusse. Life of
+     Baron Trenck. Macaulay's Essay on the Life and Times of
+     Frederic the Great. Coxe's House of Austria. Tower's,
+     Johnson's, and Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II.
+
+
+Contemporaneous with Frederic the Great were Maria Theresa and
+Catharine II.--two sovereigns who claim an especial notice, as
+representing two mighty empires. The part which Maria Theresa took in
+the Seven Years' War has been often alluded to and it is not necessary
+to recapitulate the causes or events of that war. She and
+Catharine II. were also implicated with Frederic in the partition of
+Poland. The misfortunes of that unhappy country will be separately
+considered. In alluding to Maria Theresa, we cannot but review the
+history of that great empire over which she ruled, the most powerful
+of the German states. The power of Austria, at different times since
+the death of the Emperor Charles V., threatened the liberties of
+Europe; and, to prevent her ascendency, the kings of France, England,
+and Prussia have expended the treasure and wasted the blood of their
+subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: The Germanic Constitution.]
+
+By the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, at the close of the Thirty Years'
+War, the constitution of Germany was established upon a firm basis.
+The religious differences between the Catholics and the Protestants
+were settled, and religious toleration secured in all the states of
+the empire. It was settled that no decree of the Diet was to pass
+without a majority of suffrages, and that the Imperial Chamber and the
+Aulic Council should be composed of a due proportion of Catholics and
+Protestants. The former was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I.,
+in 1495, at the Diet of Worms, and was a judicial tribunal, and the
+highest court of appeal. It consisted of seventeen judges nominated by
+the emperor, and took cognizance of Austrian affairs chiefly. The
+Aulic Council was also judicial, and was composed of eighteen persons
+and attended chiefly to business connected with the empire. The
+members of these two great judicial tribunals were Catholics; and
+there were also frequent disputes between them as to their respective
+jurisdictions. It was ordained by the treaty of Westphalia that a
+perfect equality should be observed in the appointment of the members
+of these two important courts; but, in fact, twenty-four Protestants
+and twenty-six Catholics were appointed to the Imperial Chamber. The
+various states had the right of presenting members, according to
+political importance. The Aulic Council was composed of six
+Protestants and twelve Catholics, and was a tribunal to settle
+difficulties between the various states of which Germany was composed.
+
+These states were nearly independent of each other, but united under
+one common head. Each state had its own peculiar government, which was
+generally monarchical, and regulated its own coinage, police, and
+administration of justice. Each kingdom, electorate, principality, and
+imperial city, which were included in the states of Germany, had the
+right to make war, form alliances, conclude peace, and send
+ambassadors to foreign courts.
+
+The Diet of the empire consisted of representatives of each of the
+states, appointed by the princes themselves, and took cognizance of
+matters of common interest, such as regulations respecting commerce,
+the license of books, and the military force which each state was
+required to furnish.
+
+The emperor had power, in some respects, over all these states; but it
+was chiefly confined to his hereditary dominions. He could not
+exercise any despotic control over the various princes of the empire;
+but, as hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Moravia, Bohemia,
+Hungary, and the Tyrol, he was the most powerful prince in Europe
+until the aggrandisement of Louis XIV.
+
+Ferdinand III. was emperor of Germany at the peace of Westphalia; but
+he did not long survive it. He died in 1657, and his son Leopold
+succeeded him as sovereign of all the Austrian dominions. He had not
+completed his eighteenth year, but nevertheless was, five months
+after, elected Emperor of Germany by the Electoral Diet.
+
+Great events occurred during the reign of Leopold I.--the Turkish war,
+the invasion of the Netherlands by Louis XIV., the heroic struggles of
+the Prince of Orange, the French invasion of the Palatinate, the
+accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain, the discontents
+of Hungary, and the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. Most of these
+have been already alluded to, especially in the chapter on Louis XIV.,
+and, therefore, will not be further discussed.
+
+[Sidenote: The Hungarian War.]
+
+The most important event connected with Austrian affairs, as distinct
+from those of France, England, and Holland, was the Hungarian war.
+Hungary was not a province of Austria, but was a distinct state. In
+1526, the crowns of the two kingdoms were united, like those of
+England and Hanover under George I. But the Hungarians were always
+impatient of the rule of the Emperor of Germany, and, in the space of
+a century, arose five times in defence of their liberties.
+
+In 1667, one of these insurrections took place, occasioned by the
+aggressive policy and government of Leopold. The Hungarians conspired
+to secure their liberties, but in vain. So soon as the emperor was
+aware of the conspiracy of his Hungarian subjects, he adopted vigorous
+measures, quartered thirty thousand additional troops in Hungary,
+loaded the people with taxes, occupied the principal fortresses,
+banished the chiefs, and changed the constitution of the country. He
+also attempted to suppress Protestantism, and committed all the
+excesses of a military despotism. These accumulated oppressions drove
+a brave but turbulent people to despair, and both Catholics and
+Protestants united for their common safety. The insurgents were
+assisted by the Prince of Transylvania, and were supplied with money
+and provisions by the French. They also found a noble defender in
+Emeric Tekeli, a young Hungarian noble, who hated Austria as intensely
+as Hannibal hated Rome, and who, at the head of twenty thousand men,
+defended his country against the emperor. Moreover, he successfully
+intrigued with the Turks, who invaded Hungary with two hundred
+thousand men, and advanced to lay siege to Vienna. This immense army
+was defeated by John Sobieski, to whom Leopold appealed in his
+necessities, and the Turks were driven out of Hungary. Tekeli was
+gradually insulated from those who had formed the great support of his
+cause, and, in consequence of jealousies which Leopold had fomented
+between him and the Turks, was arrested and sent in chains to
+Constantinople. New victories followed the imperial army, and Leopold
+succeeded in making the crown of Hungary, hitherto elective,
+hereditary in his family. He instituted in the conquered country a
+horrible inquisitorial tribunal, and perpetrated cruelties which
+scarcely find a parallel in the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla. His
+son Joseph, at the age of ten, was crowned king of Hungary with great
+magnificence, and with the usual solemnities.
+
+When the Hungarian difficulties were settled, Leopold had more leisure
+to prosecute his war with the Turks, in which he gained signal
+successes. The Ottoman Porte was humbled and crippled, and a great
+source of discontent to the Christian powers of Europe was removed. By
+the peace of Carlovitz, (1697,) Leopold secured Hungary and Sclavonia,
+which had been so long occupied by the Turks, and consolidated his
+empire by the acquisition of Transylvania.
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor Joseph.]
+
+Leopold I. lived only to witness the splendid victories of Marlborough
+and Eugene, by which the power of his great rival, Louis, was
+effectually reduced. He died in 1705, having reigned forty-six years;
+the longest reign in the Austrian annals, except that of Frederic III.
+
+He was a man of great private virtues; pure in his morals, faithful to
+his wife, a good father, and a kind master. He was minute in his
+devotions, unbounded in his charities, and cultivated in his taste.
+But he was reserved, cold, and phlegmatic. His jealousy of Sobieski
+was unworthy of his station, and his severities in Hungary made him
+the object of execration. He was narrow, bigoted, and selfish. But he
+lived in an age of great activity, and his reign forms an era in the
+military and civil institutions of his country. The artillery had been
+gradually lightened, and received most of the improvements which at
+present are continued. Bayonets had been added to muskets, and the use
+of pikes abandoned. Armies were increased from twenty or thirty
+thousand men to one hundred thousand, more systematically formed. A
+police was established in the cities, and these were lighted and
+paved. Jurisprudence was improved, and numerous grievances were
+redressed.
+
+Leopold was succeeded by his eldest son, Joseph, who had an energetic
+and aspiring mind. His reign is memorable for the continuation of the
+great War of the Spanish Succession, signalized by the victories of
+Marlborough and Eugene, the humiliation of the French, and the career
+of Charles XII. of Sweden. He also restored Bohemia to its electoral
+rights, rewarded the elector palatine with the honors and territories
+wrested from his family by the Thirty Years' War, and confirmed the
+house of Hanover in the possession of the ninth electorate. He had
+nearly restored tranquillity to his country, when he died (1711) of
+the small-pox--a victim to the ignorance of his physicians. He was a
+lover and patron of the arts, and spoke several languages with
+elegance and fluency. But he had the usual faults of absolute princes;
+was prodigal in his expenditures, irascible in his temper, fond of
+pageants and pleasure, and enslaved by women.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Maria Theresa.]
+
+He was succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, under the title
+of Charles VI. Soon after his accession, the tranquillity of Europe
+was established by the peace of Utrecht, and Austria once more became
+the preponderating power in Europe. But Charles VI. was not capable of
+appreciating the greatness of his position, or the true sources of
+national power. He, however, devoted himself zealously to the affairs
+of his empire, and effected some useful reforms. As he had no male
+issue, he had drawn up a solemn law, called the _Pragmatic Sanction_,
+according to which he transferred to his daughter, Maria Theresa, his
+vast hereditary possessions. He found great difficulty in securing the
+assent of the European powers to this law; but, after a while, he
+effected his object. On his death, (1740,) Maria Theresa succeeded to
+all the dominions of the house of Austria.
+
+No princess ever ascended a throne under circumstances of greater
+peril, or in a situation which demanded greater energy and fortitude.
+Her army had dwindled to thirty thousand; her treasury contained only
+one hundred thousand florins; a general scarcity of provisions
+distressed the people, and the vintage was cut off by the frost.
+
+Under all these embarrassing circumstances, the Elector of Bavaria
+laid claim to her territory, and Frederic II. marched into Silesia. It
+has been already stated that England sympathized with her troubles,
+and lent a generous aid. Her appeal to her Hungarian subjects, and the
+enthusiasm they manifested in her cause, have also been described. The
+boldness of Frederic and the distress of Maria Theresa drew upon them
+the eyes of all Europe. Hostilities were prosecuted four years, which
+resulted in the acquisition of Silesia by the King of Prussia. The
+peace of Dresden (1745) gave a respite to Germany, and Frederic and
+Maria Theresa prepared for new conflicts.
+
+The Seven Years' War has been briefly described, in connection with
+the reign of Frederic, and need not be further discussed. The war was
+only closed by the exhaustion of all the parties engaged in it.
+
+In 1736, Maria Theresa was married to Francis Stephen, Grand Duke of
+Tuscany, and he was elected (1745) Emperor of Germany, under the title
+of _Francis I._ He died soon after the peace of Hubertsburg was
+signed, and his son Joseph succeeded to the throne of the empire, and
+was co-regent, as his father had been, with Maria Theresa. But the
+empress queen continued to be the real, as she was the legitimate,
+sovereign of Austria, and took an active part in all the affairs of
+Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Maria Theresa Institutes Reforms.]
+
+When the tranquillity of her kingdom was restored, she founded various
+colleges, reformed the public schools, promoted agriculture and
+instituted many beneficial regulations for the prosperity of her
+subjects. She reformed the church, diminished the number of
+superfluous clergy, suppressed the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and
+formed a system of military economy which surpassed the boasted
+arrangements of Frederic II. "She combined private economy with public
+liberality, dignity with condescension, elevation of soul with
+humility of spirit, and the virtues of domestic life with the splendid
+qualities which grace a throne." Her death, in 1780, was felt as a
+general loss to the people, who adored her; and her reign is
+considered as one of the most illustrious in Austrian annals.
+
+Her reign was, however, sullied by the partition of Poland, in which
+she was concerned with Frederic the Great and Catharine II. Before
+this is treated, we will consider the reign of the Russian empress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reign of Catharine II., like that of Maria Theresa, is interlinked
+with that of Frederic. But some remarks concerning her predecessors,
+after the death of Peter the Great, are first necessary.
+
+[Sidenote: Successors of Peter the Great.]
+
+Catharine, the wife of Peter, was crowned empress before his death.
+The first years of her reign were agreeable to the people, because she
+diminished the taxes, and introduced a mild policy in the government
+of her subjects. She intrusted to Prince Menzikoff an important share
+in the government of the realm.
+
+But Catharine, who, during the reign of Peter I., had displayed so
+much enterprise and intrepidity, very soon disdained business, and
+abandoned herself to luxury and pleasure. She died in 1727, and
+Peter II. ascended her throne, chiefly in consequence of the intrigues
+of Menzikoff, who, like Richelieu, wished to make the emperor his
+puppet.
+
+Peter II. was only thirteen years of age when he became emperor. He
+was the son of Alexis, and, consequently, grandson of Peter I. His
+youth did not permit him to assume the reins of government, and every
+thing was committed to the care of Menzikoff, who reigned, for a time,
+with absolute power. But he, at last, incurred the displeasure of his
+youthful master, and was exiled to Siberia. But Peter II. did not long
+survive the disgrace of his minister. He died of the small-pox, in
+1730.
+
+He was succeeded by Anne, Duchess of Holstein, and eldest daughter of
+Catharine I. But she lived but a few months after her accession to the
+throne, and the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her.
+
+The Empress Elizabeth resembled her mother, the beautiful Catharine,
+but was voluptuous and weak. She abandoned herself to puerile
+amusements and degrading follies. And she was as superstitious as she
+was debauched. She would continue whole hours on her knees before an
+image, to which she spoke, and which she ever consulted; and then
+would turn from bigotry to infamous sensuality. She hated
+Frederic II., and assisted Maria Theresa in her struggles. Russia
+gained no advantage from the Seven Years' War, except that of
+accustoming the Russians to the tactics of modern warfare. She died in
+1762, and was succeeded by the Grand Duke Peter Fedorowitz, son of the
+Duke of Holstein and Anne, daughter of Peter I. He assumed the title
+of Peter III.
+
+[Sidenote: Murder of Peter III.]
+
+Peter III. was a weak prince, but disposed to be beneficent. One of
+his first acts was to recall the numerous exiles whom the jealousy of
+Elizabeth had consigned to the deserts of Siberia. Among them was
+Biren, the haughty lover and barbarous minister of the Empress Anne
+and Marshal Munich, a veteran of eighty-two years of age. Peter also
+abolished the Inquisition, established by Alexis Michaelowitz, and
+promoted commerce, the arts, and sciences. He attempted to imitate the
+king of Prussia, for whom he had an extravagant admiration. He set at
+liberty the Prussian prisoners, and made peace with Frederic II. He
+had a great respect for Germany, but despised the country over which
+he was called to reign. But his partiality for the Germans, and his
+numerous reforms, alienated the affections of his subjects, and he was
+not sufficiently able to curb the spirit of discontent. He imitated
+his immediate predecessors in the vices of drunkenness and sensuality,
+and was guilty of great imprudences. He reigned but a few months,
+being dethroned and murdered. His wife, the Empress Catharine, was the
+chief of the conspirators; and she was urged to the bloody act by her
+own desperate circumstances. She was obnoxious to her husband, who
+probably would have destroyed her, had his life been prolonged. She,
+in view of his hostility, and prompted by an infernal ambition, sought
+to dethrone her husband. She was assisted by some of the most powerful
+nobles, and gained over most of the regiments of the imperial guard.
+The Archbishop of Novgorod and the clergy were friendly to her,
+because they detested the reforms which Peter had attempted to make.
+Catharine became mistress of St. Petersburg, and caused herself to be
+crowned Empress of Russia, in one of the principal churches. Peter had
+timely notice of the revolt, but not the energy to suppress it. He
+listened to the entreaties of women, rather than to the counsels of
+those veteran generals who still supported his throne. He was timid,
+irresolute, and vacillating. He was doomed. He was a weak and
+infatuated prince, and nothing could save him. He surrendered himself
+into the hands of Catharine, abdicated his empire, and, shortly after,
+died of poison. His wife seated herself, without further opposition,
+on his throne; and the principal nobles of the empire, the army, and
+the clergy, took the oath of allegiance, and the monarchs of Europe
+acknowledged her as the absolute sovereign of Russia. In 1763, she was
+firmly established in the power which had been before wielded by
+Catharine I. She had dethroned an imbecile prince, whom she abhorred;
+but the revolution was accomplished without bloodshed, and resulted in
+the prosperity of Russia.
+
+Catharine was a woman of great moral defects; but she had many
+excellences to counterbalance them; and her rule was, on the whole,
+able and beneficent. She was no sooner established in the power which
+she had usurped, than she directed attention to the affairs of her
+empire, and sought to remedy the great evils which existed. She
+devoted herself to business, advanced commerce and the arts, regulated
+the finances, improved the jurisprudence of the realm, patronized all
+works of internal improvement, rewarded eminent merit, encouraged
+education, and exercised a liberal and enlightened policy in her
+intercourse with foreign powers. After engaging in business with her
+ministers, she would converse with scholars and philosophers. With
+some she studied politics, and with others literature. She tolerated
+all religions, abolished odious courts, and enacted mild laws. She
+held out great inducements for foreigners to settle in Russia, and
+founded colleges and hospitals in all parts of her empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Assassination of Ivan.]
+
+Beneficent as her reforms were, she nevertheless committed some great
+political crimes. One of these was the assassination of the dethroned
+Ivan, the great-grandson of the Czar Ivan Alexejewitsch, who was
+brother of Peter the Great. On the death of the Empress Anne, in 1731,
+he had been proclaimed emperor: but when Elizabeth was placed upon the
+throne, the infant was confined in the fortress of Schlussenburg. Here
+he was so closely guarded and confined, that he was never allowed
+access to the open air or the light of day. On the accession of
+Catharine, he was twenty-three years of age, and was extremely
+ignorant and weak. But a conspiracy was formed to liberate him, and
+place him on the throne. The attempt proved abortive, and the prince
+perished by the sword of his jailers, who were splendidly rewarded for
+their infamous services.
+
+Her scheme of foreign aggrandizement, and especially her interference
+in the affairs of Poland, caused the Ottoman Porte to declare war
+against her, which war proved disastrous to Turkey, and contributed to
+aggrandize the empire of Russia. The Turks lost several battles on the
+Pruth, Dniester, and Danube; the provinces of Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+and Bessarabia submitted to the Russian arms; while a great naval
+victory, in the Mediterranean, was gained by Alexis Orloff, whose
+share in the late revolution had raised him from the rank of a simple
+soldier to that of a general of the empire, and a favorite of the
+empress. The naval defeat of the Turks at Tschesme, by Orloff and
+Elphinstone, was one of the most signal of that age, and greatly
+weakened the power of Turkey. The war was not terminated until 1774,
+when the Turks were compelled to make peace, by the conditions of
+which, Russia obtained a large accession of territory, a great sum of
+money, the free navigation of the Black Sea, and a passage through the
+Dardanelles.
+
+In 1772 occurred the partition of Poland between Austria, Prussia, and
+Russia. Catharine and Frederic II. were the chief authors of this
+great political crime, which will be treated in the notice on Poland.
+
+The reign of Catharine was not signalized by any other great political
+events which affected materially the interests of Europe, except the
+continuation of the war with the Turks, which broke out again in 1778,
+and which was concluded in 1792, by the treaty of Jassy. In this war,
+Prince Potemkin, the favorite and prime minister of Catharine, greatly
+distinguished himself; also General Suwarrow, afterwards noted for his
+Polish campaigns. In this war Russia lost two hundred thousand men,
+and the Turks three hundred and thirty thousand, besides expending two
+hundred and fifty millions of piasters. The most important political
+consequence was the aggrandizement of Russia, whose dominion was
+established on the Black Sea.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Catharine.]
+
+Catharine, having acquired, either by arms or intrigues, almost half
+of Poland, the Crimea, and a part of the frontiers of Turkey, then
+turned her arms against Persia. But she died before she could realize
+her dreams of conquest. At her death, she was the most powerful
+sovereign that ever reigned in Russia. She was succeeded by her son,
+Paul I., (1796,) and her remains were deposited by the side of her
+murdered husband, while his chief murderers, Alexis Orloff and Prince
+Baratinski, were ordered to stand at her funeral, on each side of his
+coffin as chief mourners.
+
+Catharine, though a woman of great energy and talent, was ruled by
+favorites; the most distinguished of whom were Gregory Orloff and
+Prince Potemkin. The former was a man of brutal manners and surprising
+audacity; the latter was more civilized, but was a man disgraced, like
+Orloff, by every vice. His memory, however, is still cherished in
+Russia on account of his military successes. He received more honors
+and rewards from his sovereign than is recorded of any favorite and
+minister of modern times. His power was equal to what Richelieu
+enjoyed, and his fortune was nearly as great as Mazarin's. He was
+knight of the principal orders of Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Russia,
+field-marshal, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, high admiral
+of the fleets, great hetman of the Cossacks, and chamberlain of the
+empress. He received from her a fortune of fifty millions of roubles;
+equal to nearly twenty-five millions of dollars. The Orloffs received
+also about seventeen millions in lands, and palaces, and money, with
+forty-five thousand peasants.
+
+[Sidenote: Her Character.]
+
+Catharine had two passions which never left her but with her last
+breath--the love of the other sex, which degenerated into the most
+unbounded licentiousness, and the love of glory, which sunk into
+vanity. She expended ninety millions of roubles on her favorites, the
+number of which is almost incredible; and she was induced to engage in
+wars, which increased the burdens of her subjects.
+
+With the exception of these two passions, her character is interesting
+and commanding. Her reign was splendid, and her court magnificent. Her
+institutions and monuments were to Russia what the magnificence of
+Louis XIV. was to France. She was active and regular in her habits;
+was never hurried away by anger, and was never a prey to dejection;
+caprice and ill humor were never perceived in her conduct; she was
+humorous, gay, and affable; she appreciated literature, and encouraged
+good institutions; and, with all her faults, obtained the love and
+reverence of her subjects. She had not the virtues of Maria Theresa,
+but had, perhaps, greater energy of character. Her foulest act was her
+part in the dismemberment of Poland, which now claims a notice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--For the reign of Maria Theresa, see Archdeacon
+     Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Austria, which is the most
+     interesting and complete. See also Putter's Constitution of
+     the Germanic Empire; Kolhrausch's History of Germany;
+     Heeren's Modern History; Smyth's Lectures; also a history of
+     Germany, in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopaedia. For a life of
+     Catharine, see Castina's Life, translated by Hunter; Tooke's
+     Life of Catharine II.; Segur's Vie de Catharine II.; Coxe's
+     Travels; Heeren's and Russell's Modern History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+CALAMITIES OF POLAND.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Calamities of Poland.]
+
+No kingdom in Europe has been subjected to so many misfortunes and
+changes, considering its former greatness, as the Polish monarchy.
+Most of the European states have retained their ancient limits, for
+several centuries, without material changes, but Poland has been
+conquered, dismembered, and plundered. Its ancient constitution has
+been completely subverted, and its extensive provinces are now annexed
+to the territories of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The greatness of
+the national calamities has excited the sympathy of Christian nations,
+and its unfortunate fate is generally lamented.
+
+In the sixteenth century, Poland was a greater state than Russia, and
+was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms of Europe. The Poles,
+as a nation, are not, however, of very ancient date. Prior to the
+ninth century, they were split up into numerous tribes, independent of
+each other, and governed by their respective chieftains. Christianity
+was introduced in the tenth century, and the earliest records of the
+people were preserved by the monks. We know but little, with
+certainty, until the time of Piast, who united the various states, and
+whose descendants reigned until 1386, when the dynasty of the
+Jagellons commenced, and continued till 1572. Under the princes of
+this line, the government was arbitrary and oppressive. War was the
+great business and amusement of the princes, and success in it brought
+the highest honors. The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and
+capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their
+reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and
+violence--the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some
+of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great
+majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the
+Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and
+the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy gloom hanging
+over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in reference to kings.
+And yet their reigns, though stained by revolting crimes, generally
+were to be preferred to the anarchy of an interregnum, or the
+overgrown power of nobles.
+
+The brightest period in the history of Poland was during the reigns of
+the Jagellon princes, especially when Casimir I. held the sceptre of
+empire. During his reign, Lithuania, which then comprised Hungary,
+Bohemia, and Silesia, was added to his kingdom. The university of
+Cracow was founded, and Poland was the great resort of the Jews, to
+whom were committed the trade and commerce of the land. But the rigors
+of the feudal system, and the vast preponderance of the aristocracy,
+proved unfortunate for the prosperity of the kingdom. What in England
+was the foundation of constitutional liberty, proved in Poland to be
+subversive of all order and good government. In England, the
+representative of the nation was made an instrument in the hands of
+the king of humbling the great nobility. Absolutism was established
+upon the ruins of feudalism. But, in Poland, the Diet of the nation
+controlled the king, and, as the representatives of the nobility
+alone, perpetuated the worst evils of the feudal system.
+
+[Sidenote: The Crown of Poland Made Elective.]
+
+When Sigismund II., the last male heir of the house of Jagellon, died,
+in 1572, the nobles were sufficiently powerful to make the crown
+elective. From this period we date the decline of Poland. The
+Reformation, so beneficent in its effects, did not spread to this
+Sclavonic country; and the barbarism of the Middle Ages received no
+check. On the death of Sigismund, the nobles would not permit the new
+sovereign to be elected by the Diet, but only by the whole body of the
+nobility. The plain of Praga was the place selected for the election;
+and, at the time appointed, such a vast number of nobles arrived, that
+the plain, of twelve miles in circumference, was scarcely large enough
+to contain them and their retinues. There never was such a sight seen
+since the crusaders were marshalled on the field of Chalcedon, for all
+the nobles were gorgeously apparelled, and decked with ermine, gold,
+and jewels. The Polish horseman frequently invests half his fortune in
+his horse and dress. In the centre of the field was the tent of the
+late king, capable of accommodating eight thousand men. The candidates
+for the crown were Ernest Archduke of Austria; the Czar of Russia; a
+Swedish prince, and Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, and brother of
+Charles IX., king of France.
+
+[Sidenote: Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou.]
+
+The first candidate was rejected because the house of Austria was
+odious to the Polish nobles; the second, on account of his arrogance;
+and the third, because he was not powerful enough to bring advantage
+to the republic. The choice fell on the Duke of Anjou; and he, for the
+title of a king, agreed to the ignominious conditions which the Poles
+proposed, viz., that he should not attempt to influence the election
+of his successors, or assume the title of heir of the monarchy, or
+declare war without the consent of the Diet, or impose taxes of any
+description, or have power to appoint his ambassadors, or any
+foreigner to a benefice in the church; that he should convoke the Diet
+every two years; and that he should not marry without its permission.
+He also was required to furnish four thousand French troops, in case
+of war; to apply annually, for the sole benefit of the Polish state, a
+considerable part of his hereditary revenues; to pay the debts of the
+crown; and to educate, at his own expense, at Paris or Cracow, one
+hundred Polish nobles. He had scarcely been crowned when his brother
+died, and he was called to the throne of France. But he found it
+difficult to escape from his kingdom, the government of which he found
+to be burdensome and vexatious. No criminal ever longed to escape from
+a prison, more than this prince to break the fetters which bound him
+to his imperious subjects. He resolved to run away; concealed his
+intentions with great address; gave a great ball at his palace; and in
+the midst of the festivities, set out with full speed towards Silesia.
+He was pursued, but reached the territories of the emperor of Germany
+before he was overtaken. He reached Paris in safety, and was soon
+after crowned as king of France.
+
+[Sidenote: Sobieski Assists the Emperor Leopold.]
+
+He was succeeded by Stephen, Duke of Transylvania; and he, again, by
+Sigismund, Prince of Sweden. The two sons of Sigismund, successively,
+were elected kings of Poland, the last of whom, John II., was
+embroiled in constant war. It was during his disastrous reign that
+John Sobieski, with ten thousand Poles, defeated eighty thousand
+Cossacks, the hereditary enemies of Poland. On the death of Michael,
+who had succeeded John II., Sobieski was elected king, and he assumed
+the title of _John III._ He was a native noble, and was chosen for his
+military talents and successes. Indeed, Poland needed a strong arm to
+defend her. Her decline had already commenced, and Sobieski himself
+could not avert the ruin which impended. For some time, Poland enjoyed
+cessation from war, and the energies of the monarch were directed to
+repair the evils which had disgraced his country. But before he could
+prosecute successfully any useful reforms, the war between the Turks
+and the eastern powers of Europe broke out, and Vienna was besieged by
+an overwhelming army of two hundred thousand Mohammedans. The city was
+bravely defended, but its capture seemed inevitable. The emperor of
+Germany, Leopold, in his despair, implored the aid of Sobieski. He was
+invested with the command of the allied armies of Austrians,
+Bavarians, Saxons, and Poles, amounting to seventy thousand men. With
+this force he advanced to relieve Vienna. He did not hesitate to
+attack the vast forces encamped beneath the walls of the Austrian
+capital, and obtained one of the most signal victories in the history
+of war. Immense treasures fell into his hands, and Vienna and
+Christendom were saved.
+
+But the mean-spirited emperor treated his deliverer with arrogance and
+chilling coldness. No gratitude was exhibited or felt. But the pope
+sent him the rarest of his gifts--"the dove of pearls." Sobieski, in
+spite of the ingratitude of Leopold, pursued his victories over the
+Turks; and, like Charles Martel, ten centuries before, freed Europe
+from the danger of a Mohammedan yoke. But he saved a serpent, when
+about to be crushed, which turned and stung him for his kindness. The
+dismemberment of his country soon followed the deliverance of Vienna.
+
+He was succeeded, in 1696, by Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony,
+whose reign was a constant succession of disasters. During his reign,
+Poland was invaded and conquered by Charles XII. of Sweden. He was
+succeeded by his son, Frederic Augustus II., the most beautiful,
+extravagant, luxurious, and licentious monarch of his age. But he was
+a man of elegant tastes, and he filled Dresden with pictures and works
+of art, which are still the admiration of travellers. His reign, as
+king of Poland, was exceedingly disastrous. Muscovite and Prussian
+armies traversed the plains of Poland at pleasure, and extorted
+whatever they pleased. Faction was opposed by faction in the field and
+in the Diet. The national assembly was dissolved by the _veto_, the
+laws were disregarded, and brute force prevailed on every side. The
+miserable peasants in vain besought the protection of their brutal yet
+powerless lords. Bands of robbers infested the roads, and hunger
+invaded the cottages. The country rapidly declined in wealth,
+population, and public spirit.
+
+Under the reign of Stanislaus II., who succeeded Frederic
+Augustus II., in 1764, the ambassadors of Prussia, Austria, and
+Russia, informed the miserable king that, in order to prevent further
+bloodshed, and restore peace to Poland, the three powers had
+determined to insist upon their claims to some of the provinces of the
+kingdom. This barefaced and iniquitous scheme for the dismemberment of
+Poland originated with Frederic the Great. So soon as the close of the
+Seven Years' War allowed him repose, he turned his eyes to Poland,
+with a view of seizing one of her richest provinces. Territories
+inhabited by four million eight hundred thousand people, were divided
+between Frederic, Maria Theresa, and Catharine II. There were no
+scruples of conscience in the breast of Frederic, or of Catharine, a
+woman of masculine energy, but disgraceful morals. The conscience of
+Maria Theresa, however, long resisted. "The fear of hell," said she,
+"restrains me from seizing another's possessions;" but sophistry was
+brought to bear upon her mind, and the lust of dominion asserted its
+powerful sway. This crime was regarded with detestation by the other
+powers of Europe; but they were too much occupied with their own
+troubles to interfere, except by expostulation. England was disturbed
+by difficulties in the colonies, and France was distracted by
+revolutionary tumults.
+
+[Sidenote: The Liberum Veto.]
+
+Stanislaus, robbed of one third of his dominions, now directed his
+attention to those reforms which had been so long imperatively needed.
+He intrusted to the celebrated Zamoyski the task of revising the
+constitution. The patriotic chancellor recommended the abolition of
+the "liberum veto," a fatal privilege, by which any one of the armed
+equestrians, who assembled on the plain of Praga to elect a king, or
+deliberate on state affairs, had power to nullify the most important
+acts, and even to dissolve the assembly. A single word, pronounced in
+the vehemence of domestic strife, or by the influence of external
+corruption, could plunge the nation into a lethargic sleep. And
+faction went so far as often to lead to the dissolution of the
+assembly. The treasury, the army, the civil authority then fell into a
+state of anarchy. Zamoyski also recommended the emancipation of serfs,
+the encouragement of commerce, the elevation of the trading classes,
+and the abolition of the fatal custom of electing a king. But the
+Polish nobles, infatuated and doomed, opposed these wholesome reforms.
+They even had the madness to invoke the aid of the Empress Catharine
+to protect them in their ancient privileges. She sent an army into
+Poland, and great disturbances resulted.
+
+[Sidenote: The Fall of Poland.]
+
+Too late, at last, the nobles perceived their folly, and adopted some
+of the proposed reforms. But these reforms gave a new pretence to the
+allied powers for a second dismemberment. An army of one hundred
+thousand men invaded Poland, to effect a new partition. The unhappy
+country, without fortified towns or mountains, abandoned by all the
+world, distracted by divisions, and destitute of fortresses and
+military stores, was crushed by the power of gigantic enemies. There
+were patriotism and bravery left, but no union or organized strength.
+The patriots made a desperate struggle under Kosciusko, a Lithuanian
+noble, but were forced to yield to inevitable necessity. Warsaw for a
+time held out against fifty thousand men; but the Polish hero was
+defeated in a decisive engagement, and unfortunately taken prisoner.
+His countrymen still rallied, and another bloody battle was fought at
+Praga, opposite Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula, and ten
+thousand were slain; Praga was reduced to a heap of ruins; and twelve
+thousand citizens were slaughtered in cold blood. Warsaw soon after
+surrendered, Stanislaus was sent as a captive to Russia, and the final
+partition of the kingdom was made.
+
+"Sarmatia fell," but not "unwept," or "without a crime." "She fell,"
+says Alison, "a victim of her own dissensions, of the chimera of
+equality falsely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy unceasingly
+maintained. The eldest born of the European family was the first to
+perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union;
+because she united the turbulence of democratic to the exclusion of
+aristocratic societies; because she had the vacillation of a republic
+without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without its
+stability. The Poles obstinately refused to march with other nations
+in the only road to civilization; they had valor, but it could not
+enforce obedience to the laws; it could not preserve domestic
+tranquillity; it could not restrain the violence of petty feuds and
+intestine commotions; it could not preserve the proud nobles from
+unbounded dissipation and corruption; it could not prevent foreign
+powers from interfering in the affairs of the kingdom; it could not
+dissolve the union of these powers with discontented parties at home;
+it could not inspire the slowly-moving machine of government with
+vigor, when the humblest partisan, corrupted with foreign money, could
+arrest it with a word; it could not avert the entrance of foreign
+armies to support the factious and rebellious; it could not uphold, in
+a divided country, the national independence against the combined
+effects of foreign and domestic treason; finally, it could not effect
+impossibilities, nor turn aside the destroying sword which had so long
+impended over it."
+
+But this great crime was attended with retribution. Prussia, in her
+efforts to destroy Poland, paralyzed her armies on the Rhine. Suwarrow
+entered Warsaw when its spires were reddened by the fires of Praga;
+but the sack of the fallen capital was forgotten in the conflagration
+of Moscow. The remains of the soldiers of Kosciusko sought a refuge in
+republican France, and served with distinction, in the armies of
+Napoleon, against the powers that had dismembered their country.
+
+The ruin of Poland, as an independent state, was not fully
+accomplished until the year 1832, when it was incorporated into the
+great empire of Russia. But the history of the late revolution, with
+all its melancholy results, cannot be well presented in this
+connection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Fletcher's History of Poland. Rulhiere's
+     Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne. Coyer's Vie de Sobieski.
+     Parthenay's History of Augustus II. Hordynski's History of
+     the late Polish Revolution. Also see Lives of Frederic II.,
+     Maria Theresa, and Catharine II.; contemporaneous histories
+     of Prussia, Russia, and Austria; Alison's History of Europe;
+     Smyth's Lectures; Russell's Modern Europe; Heeren's Modern
+     History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Saracenic Empire.]
+
+While the great monarchies of Western Europe were struggling for
+preeminence, and were developing resources greater than had ever
+before been exhibited since the fall of the Roman empire, that great
+power which had alarmed and astonished Christendom in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, began to show the signs of weakness and
+decay. Nothing, in the history of society, is more marvellous than the
+rise of Mohammedan kingdoms. The victories of the Saracens and Turks
+were rapid and complete; and in the tenth century, they were the most
+successful warriors on the globe, and threatened to subvert the world.
+They had planted the standard of the Prophet on the walls of Eastern
+capitals, and had extended their conquests to India on the east, and
+to Spain on the west. Powerful Mohammedan states had arisen in Asia,
+Africa, and Europe, and the Crusaders alone arrested the progress of
+these triumphant armies. The enthusiasm which the doctrines of
+Mohammed had kindled, cannot easily be explained; but it was fresh,
+impetuous, and self-sacrificing. Successive armies of Mohammedan
+invaders overwhelmed the ancient realms of civilization, and reduced
+the people whom they conquered and converted to a despotic yoke. But
+success enervated the victorious conquerors of the East, the empire of
+the Caliphs was broken up, and great changes took place even in those
+lands where the doctrines of the Koran prevailed. Mohammed perpetuated
+a religion, but not an empire. Different Saracenic chieftains revolted
+from the "Father of the Faithful," and established separate kingdoms,
+or viceroyalties, nearly independent of the acknowledged successors of
+Mohammed. The Saracenic empire was early dismembered, and the sultans
+of Egypt, Spain, and Syria contested for preeminence.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Turks.]
+
+But a new power arose on the ruins of the Saracen empire, and became
+the enthusiastic defenders of the religion of Islam. The Turks were an
+obscure tribe of barbarians when Bagdad was the seat of a powerful
+monarchy. Their origin has been traced to the wilds of Scythia; but
+they early deserted their native forests in search of more fruitful
+regions. When Apulia and Sicily were subdued by the Norman pirates, a
+swarm of these Scythian shepherds settled in Armenia, probably in the
+ninth century, and, by their valor and simplicity, soon became a
+powerful tribe. Not long after they were settled in their new abode,
+the Sultan of Persia invoked their aid to assist him in his wars
+against the Caliph of Bagdad, his great rival. The Turks complied with
+his request, and their arms were successful. The sultan then refused
+to part with such useful auxiliaries, and moreover, fearing their
+strength, designed to employ them in his wars against the Hindoos, and
+to shut them up in the centre of his dominions. The Turkmans rebelled,
+withdrew into a mountainous part of the country, became robbers, and
+devastated the adjacent countries. The band of robbers gradually
+swelled into a powerful army, gained a great victory over the troops
+of the Sultan Mohammed, and placed their chieftain upon the Persian
+throne, (1038.) According to Gibbon, the new monarch was chosen by
+lot, and Seljuk had the fortune to win the prize of conquest, and
+became the founder of the dynasty of the Shepherd kings. During the
+reign of his grandson Togrul, the ancient Persian princes were
+expelled, and the Turks embraced the religion of the conquered. In
+1055, the Turkish sultan delivered the Caliph of Bagdad from the arms
+of the Caliph of Egypt, who disputed with him the title of _Commander
+of the Faithful_. For this service he was magnificently rewarded by
+the grateful successor of the Prophet, who, at that time, banqueted in
+his palace at Bagdad--a venerable phantom of power. The victorious
+sultan was publicly commissioned as lieutenant of the caliph, and he
+was virtually seated on the throne of the Abbassides. Shortly after,
+the Turkish conqueror invaded the falling empire of the Greeks, and
+its Asiatic provinces were irretrievably lost. In the latter part of
+the eleventh century, the Turkish power was established in Asia Minor,
+and Jerusalem itself had fallen into the hands of the sultan. He
+exacted two pieces of gold from the Christian pilgrim, and treated
+him, moreover, with greater cruelty than the Saracens had ever
+exercised. The extortion and oppression of the Turkish masters of the
+Sacred City led to the Crusades and the final possession of Western
+Asia by the followers of the Prophet. The Turkish power constantly
+increased with the decline of the Saracenic and Greek empires, but the
+Seljukian dynasty, like that of Abbassides at Bagdad, at last run out,
+and Othman, a soldier of fortune, became sultan of the Turks. He is
+regarded as the founder of the Ottoman empire, and under his reign,
+from 1299 to 1326, the Moslems made rapid strides in the progress of
+aggrandizement.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Conquerors.]
+
+Orkham, his son, instituted the force of the Janizaries, completed the
+conquest of Bithynia, and laid the foundation of Turkish power in
+Europe. Under his successor, Amurath I., Adrianople became the capital
+of the Ottoman empire, and the rival of Constantinople. Bajazet
+succeeded Amurath, and his conquests extended from the Euphrates to
+the Danube. In 1396, he defeated, at Nicopolis, a confederate army of
+one hundred thousand Christians; and, in the intoxication of victory,
+declared that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the
+altar of St. Peter, at Rome. Had it not been for the victories of
+Tamerlane, Constantinople, which contained within its walls the feeble
+fragments of a great empire, would also have fallen into his hands. He
+was unsuccessful in his war with the great conqueror of Asia, and was
+defeated at the battle of Angora, (1402,) and taken captive, and
+carried to Samarcand, by Tamerlane, in an iron cage.
+
+The great Bajazet died in captivity, and Mohammed I. succeeded to his
+throne. He restored, on a firmer basis, the fabric of the Ottoman
+monarchy, and devoted himself to the arts of peace. His successor,
+Amurath II., continued hostilities with the Greeks, and laid siege to
+Constantinople. But this magnificent city, the last monument of Roman
+greatness, resisted the Turkish arms only for a while. In 1453, it
+fell before an irresistible force of three hundred thousand men,
+supported by a fleet of three hundred sail. The Emperor Constantine
+succeeded in maintaining a siege of fifty-three days; and the religion
+and empire of the Christians were trodden to the dust by the Moslem
+conquerors. The city was sacked, the people were enslaved, and the
+Church of St. Sophia was despoiled of the oblations of ages, and
+converted into a Mohammedan mosque. One hundred and twenty thousand
+manuscripts perished in the sack of Constantinople, and the palaces
+and treasure of the Greeks were transferred to semi-barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress of the Turks.]
+
+From that time, the Byzantine capital became the seat of the Ottoman
+empire; and, for more than two centuries, Turkish armies excited the
+fears and disturbed the peace of the world. They gradually subdued and
+annexed Macedonia, the Peloponnesus, Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia,
+Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, India, Tunis, Algiers, Media,
+Mesopotamia, and a part of Hungary, to the dominions of the sultan. In
+the sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire was the most powerful in the
+world. Nor should we be surprised, in view of the great success of the
+Turks, when we remember their singular bravery, their absorbing
+ambition, their almost incredible obedience to the commands of the
+sultan, and the unity which pervaded the national councils. They also
+fought to extend their religion, to which they were blind devotees.
+After the capture of Constantinople, a succession of great princes sat
+on the most absolute throne known in modern times; men disgraced by
+many crimes, but still singularly adapted to extend their dominion.
+
+The progress of the Turks justly alarmed the Emperor Charles V., and
+he exerted all his energies to unite the German princes against them,
+but unsuccessfully. The Sultan Solyman, called the _Magnificent_,
+maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia,
+ravaged Hungary, wrested Rhodes from the Knights of St. John,
+conquered the whole of Arabia, and attacked the Portuguese dominion in
+India. He raised the Turkish empire to the highest pitch of its
+greatness, and died while besieging Sigeth, as he was completing the
+conquest of Hungary. His empire was one vast camp, and his decrees
+were dated from the imperial stirrup. The iron sceptre which he and
+his successors wielded was imbrued in blood; and discipline alone was
+the politics of his soldiers, and rapine their resources.
+
+Selim II. succeeded Solyman, and set the ruinous example of not going
+himself to the wars, and of carrying them on by his lieutenants. His
+son, Murad III., penetrated into Russia and Poland, and made war on
+the Emperor of Germany. Mohammed III., who died in 1604, murdered all
+his brothers, nineteen in number, and executed his own son. It was
+usual, when an emperor mounted the throne, for him to put to death his
+brothers and nephews. Indeed, the characters of the sultans were
+marked by unusual ferocity and jealousy, and they were unscrupulous in
+the means they took to advance their power. The world has never seen
+more suspicious tyrants; and it ever must excite our wonder that they
+were so unhesitatingly obeyed. But they were, however, sometimes
+dethroned by the Janizaries, who constituted a sort of imperial guard.
+Osman II., fearing their power, and disgusted with their degeneracy,
+resolved to destroy them, as dangerous to the state. But his design
+was discovered, and he himself lost his life, (1622.) Several monsters
+of tyranny and iniquity succeeded him, whose reigns were disgraced by
+every excess of debauchery and cruelty. Their subjects, however, had
+not, as yet, lost vigor, temperance, and ambition, and still continued
+to furnish troops unexampled for discipline and bravery, and bent on
+conquest and dominion.
+
+The Turkish power received no great checks until the reign of
+Mohammed IV., during which Sobieski defeated an immense army, which
+had laid siege to Vienna. By the peace of Carlovitz, in 1699,
+Transylvania was ceded to the Emperor of Germany, and a barrier was
+raised against Mohammedan invasion.
+
+The Russians, from the time of Peter the Great, looked with great
+jealousy on the power of the sultan, and several wars were the result.
+No Russian sovereign desired the humiliation of the Porte more than
+Catharine II. A bloody contest ensued, signalized by the victories of
+Galitzin, Suwarrow, Romanzoff, and Orloff, by which Turkey became a
+second class power, no longer feared by the European states.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of Turkish Power.]
+
+From the peace of Carlovitz, the decline of the Ottoman empire has
+been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to
+all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile
+to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been
+bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental
+dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and
+customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia several
+centuries ago.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Institutions.]
+
+One of the peculiarities of the Turkish government, in the most
+flourishing period of its history, was the institution of the
+Janizaries--a guard of soldiers, to whom was intrusted the
+guardianship of the sultan, and the protection of his capital. When
+warlike and able princes were seated on the throne, this institution
+proved a great support to the government; but when the reins were held
+by effeminate princes, the Janizaries, like the Praetorian Guards of
+Rome, acquired an undue ascendency, and even deposed the monarchs whom
+they were bound to obey. They were insolent, extortionate, and
+extravagant, and became a great burden to the state. At first they
+were brave and resolute; but they gradually lost their skill and their
+courage, were uniformly beaten in the later wars with the Russians,
+and retained nothing of the soldier but the name. Mahmoud II., in our
+own time, succeeded in dissolving this dangerous body, and in
+introducing European tactics into his army.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish Character.]
+
+The Turkish institutions have reference chiefly to the military
+character of the nation. All Mussulmans, in the eye of the law, are
+soldiers, to whom the extension of the empire and the propagation of
+their faith were the avowed objects of warfare. They may be regarded,
+wherever they have conquered, as military colonists, exercising great
+tyranny, and treating all vanquished subjects with contempt. The
+government has ever been a pure despotism, and both the executive and
+legislative authorities have been vested in the sultan. He is the sole
+fountain of honor; for, in Turkey, birth confers no privilege. His
+actions are regarded as prescribed by an inevitable fate, and his
+subjects suffer with resignation. The evils of despotism are
+aggravated by the ignorance and effeminacy of those to whom power is
+intrusted, although the grand vizier, who is the prime minister of the
+empire, is generally a man of great experience and talent. All the
+laws of the country are founded upon the precepts of the Koran, the
+example of Mohammed, the precepts of the four first caliphs, and the
+decision of learned doctors upon disputed cases. Justice is
+administered promptly, but without much regard to equity or mercy; and
+the course of the grand vizier is generally marked with blood. The
+character of the people partakes of the nature of their government,
+religion, and climate. They are arrogant, ignorant, and austere;
+passing from devotion to obscenity; fastidiously abstemious in some
+things, and grossly sensual in others. They have cherished the virtues
+of hospitality, and are fond of conversation but their domestic life
+is spent in voluptuous idleness, and is dull and insipid compared with
+that of Europeans. But the Turks have degenerated. In the fifteenth
+and sixteenth centuries, they were simple, brave, and religious. They
+founded an immense empire on the ruins of Asiatic monarchies, and
+filled the world with the terror of their arms. For two hundred years
+their power has been retrograding, and there is much reason now to
+believe that a total eclipse of their glory is soon to take place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--See Knolle's History of Turkey. Eton's Survey
+     of the Turkish Empire. Upham's History of the Ottoman
+     Empire. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Heeren's Modern History.
+     Madden's Travels in Turkey. Russell's Modern Europe. Life of
+     Catharine II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+REIGN OF GEORGE III. TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+
+
+Great subjects were discussed in England, and great events happened in
+America, during the latter years of the reigns of Frederic II.,
+Catharine II., and Maria Theresa. These now demand attention.
+
+[Sidenote: Military Successes in America.]
+
+George III. ascended the throne of Great Britain at a period of
+unparalleled prosperity, when the English arms were victorious in all
+parts of the world, and when commerce and the arts had greatly
+enriched his country and strengthened its political importance. By the
+peace of Paris, (1763,) the dominions of George III. were enlarged,
+and the country over which he reigned was the most powerful in Europe.
+
+Mr. George Grenville succeeded the Earl of Bute as the prime minister
+of the king, and he was chiefly assisted by the Earls of Egremont and
+Halifax. His administration was signalized by the prosecution of
+Wilkes, and by schemes for the taxation of the American colonies.
+
+Mr. Wilkes was a member of parliament, but a man of ruined fortunes
+and profligate morals. As his circumstances were desperate, he applied
+to the ministry for some post of emolument; but his application was
+rejected. Failure enraged him, and he swore revenge, and resolved to
+libel the ministers, under the pretext of exercising the liberty of
+the press. He was editor of the North Briton, a periodical publication
+of some talent, but more bitterness. In the forty-fifth number, he
+assailed the king, charging him with a direct falsehood. The charge
+should have been dismissed with contempt; for it was against the
+dignity of the government to refute an infamous slander. But, in an
+evil hour, it was thought expedient to vindicate the honor of the
+sovereign; and a warrant was therefore issued against the editor,
+publisher, and printer of the publication. The officers of the law
+entered Wilkes's house late one evening, seized his papers, and
+committed him to the Tower. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus, in
+consequence of which he was brought up to Westminster Hall. Being a
+member of parliament, and a man of considerable abilities and
+influence, his case attracted attention. The judges decided that his
+arrest was illegal, since a member of parliament could not be
+imprisoned except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. He had
+not committed any of these crimes, for a libel had only a _tendency_
+to disturb the peace. Still, had he been a private person, his
+imprisonment would have been legal; but being unconstitutional, he was
+discharged. Lord Chief Justice Pratt gained great popularity by his
+charge in favor of the liberation of Wilkes, and ever nobly defended
+constitutional liberty. He is better known as Lord Camden, the able
+lord chancellor and statesman during a succeeding administration, and
+one of the greatest lawyers England has produced, ranking with Lord
+Hardwicke, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Eldon.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of Wilkes.]
+
+After the discharge of Wilkes, the attorney-general was then ordered
+to commence a state prosecution, and he was arraigned at the bar of
+the House of Commons. It was voted, by a great majority, that the
+forty-fifth number of the North Briton was a scandalous and seditious
+libel, and tending to excite traitorous insurrections. It was further
+voted that the paper should be burned by the common hangman. Wilkes
+then complained to the House of a breach of privilege, which
+complaint, being regular, was considered. But the Commons decided that
+the privilege of parliament does not extend to a libel, which
+resolution was against the decision of the Court of Common Pleas, and
+the precedents upon record in their own journals. However scandalous
+and vulgar the vituperation of Wilkes, and especially disgraceful in a
+member of parliament, still his prosecution was an attack on the
+constitution. Wilkes was arrested on what is called a _general
+warrant_, which, if often resorted to, would be fatal to the liberties
+of the people. Many, who strongly disliked the libeller, still
+defended him in this instance, among whom were Pitt, Beckford, Legge,
+Yorke, and Sir George Saville. But party spirit and detestation of
+Wilkes triumphed over the constitution, and the liberties of members
+of parliament were abridged even by themselves. But Wilkes was not
+discouraged, and immediately brought an action, in Westminster Hall,
+against the Earl of Halifax, the secretary of state, for seizing his
+papers, and, after a hearing of fifteen hours, before Lord Chief
+Justice Pratt and a special jury, obtained a verdict in his favor of
+one thousand pounds damages and costs.
+
+While the Commons were prosecuting Wilkes for a libel, the Lords also
+continued the prosecution. Wilkes, in conjunction with Potter, a
+dissipated son of Archbishop Potter, during some of their bacchanalian
+revels, had written a blasphemous and obscene poem, after the model of
+Pope's Essay on Man, called _An Essay on Woman_. The satire was not
+published, but a few copies of it were printed privately for the
+authors. Lord Sandwich had contrived to secure a copy of it, and read
+it before the House; and the Lords, indignant and disgusted, voted an
+address to the king to institute a prosecution against the author. The
+Lords, by so doing, departed from the dignity of their order, and
+their ordinary functions, and their persecution served to strengthen,
+instead of weaken, the cause of Wilkes.
+
+[Sidenote: Churchill.]
+
+Associated with him, in his writings and his revels, was the poet
+Churchill, a clergyman of the Establishment, but as open a contemner
+of decency as Wilkes himself. For some years, his poetry had proved as
+bad as his sermons, his time being spent in low dissipation. An
+ill-natured criticism on his writings called forth his energies, and
+he started, all at once, a giant in numbers, with all the fire of
+Dryden and all the harmony of Pope. Imagination, wit, strength, and
+sense, were crowded into his compositions; but he was careless of both
+matter and manner, and wrote just what came in his way. "This
+bacchanalian priest," says Horace Walpole, "now mouthing patriotism,
+and now venting libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better
+than the worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the
+weight of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots, and
+set himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the state and
+punish its oppressors. And true it is, the storm that saved us was
+raised in taverns and night-cellars; so much more effectual were the
+orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the dagger of Cato and Brutus.
+Earl Temple joined them in mischief and dissipation, and whispered
+where they might find torches, though he took care never to be seen to
+light one himself. This triumvirate has even made me reflect that
+nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in them. The virtuous
+are too scrupulous to go the lengths which are necessary to rouse the
+people against their tyrants."
+
+[Sidenote: Grafton's Administration.]
+
+The ferment created by the prosecution of Wilkes led to the
+resignation of Mr. Grenville, in 1765, and the Marquis of Rockingham
+succeeded him as head of the administration. He continued, however,
+the prosecution. He retained his place but a few months, and was
+succeeded by the Duke of Grafton, the object of such virulent
+invective in the Letters of Junius, a work without elevation of
+sentiment, without any appeal to generous principle, without
+recognition of the eternal laws of justice, and without truthfulness,
+and yet a work which produced a great sensation, and is to this day
+regarded as a masterpiece of savage and unscrupulous sarcasm. The Duke
+of Grafton had the same views as his predecessor respecting Wilkes,
+who had the audacity, notwithstanding the sentence of outlawry which
+had been passed against him, to return from Paris, to which he had,
+for a time, retired, and to appear publicly at Guildhall, and offer
+himself as a candidate for the city of London. He was contemptuously
+rejected, but succeeded in being elected as member for Middlesex
+county.
+
+Mr. Wilkes, however, recognizing the outlawry that had been passed
+against him, surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the Court of
+the King's Bench, which was then presided over by Lord Mansfield. This
+great lawyer and jurist confirmed the verdicts against him, and
+sentenced him to pay a fine of one thousand pounds, to suffer two
+years' imprisonment, and to find security for good behavior for seven
+years. This sentence was odious and severe, and the more unjustifiable
+in view of the arbitrary and unprecedented alteration of the records
+on the very night preceding the trial.
+
+[Sidenote: Popularity of Wilkes.]
+
+The multitude, enraged, rescued their idol from the officers of the
+law, as they were conducting him to prison, and carried him with
+triumph through the city; but, through his entreaties, they were
+prevailed upon to abstain from further acts of outrage. Mr. Wilkes
+again surrendered himself, and was confined in prison. When the
+Commons met, Wilkes was again expelled, in order to satisfy the
+vengeance of the court. But the electors of Middlesex again returned
+him to parliament, and the Commons voted that, being once expelled, he
+was incapable of sitting, even if elected, in the same parliament. The
+electors of Middlesex, equally determined with the Commons, chose him,
+for a third time, their representative; and the election, for the
+third time, was declared void by the commons. In order to terminate
+the contest, Colonel Lutterell, a member of the House, vacated his
+seat, and offered himself a candidate for Middlesex. He received two
+hundred and ninety-six votes, and Wilkes twelve hundred and
+forty-three, but Lutterell was declared duly elected by the Commons,
+and took his seat for Middlesex.
+
+This decision threw the whole nation into a ferment, and was plainly
+an outrage on the freedom of elections; and it was so considered by
+some of the most eminent men in England, even by those who despised
+the character of Wilkes. Lord Chatham, from his seat, declared "that
+the laws were despised, trampled upon, destroyed; those laws which had
+been made by the stern virtues of our ancestors, those iron barons of
+old, to whose spirit in the hour of contest, and to whose fortitude in
+the triumph of victory, the silken barons of this day owe all their
+honors and security."
+
+Mr. Wilkes subsequently triumphed; the Commons grew weary of a contest
+which brought no advantage and much ignominy, and the prosecution was
+dropped; but not until the subject of it had been made Lord Mayor of
+London. From 1768 to 1772, he was the sole unrivalled political idol
+of the people, who lavished on him all in their power to bestow. They
+subscribed twenty thousand pounds for the payment of his debts,
+besides gifts of plate, wine, and household goods. Every wall bore his
+name and every window his picture. In china, bronze, or marble, he
+stood upon the chimney-pieces of half the houses in London, and he
+swung from the sign-board of every village, and every great road in
+the environs of the metropolis. In 1770 he was discharged from his
+imprisonment, in 1771 was permitted to take his seat, and elected
+mayor. From 1776, his popularity declined, and he became involved in
+pecuniary difficulties. He, however, emerged from them, and enjoyed a
+quiet office until his death (1797.) He was a patriot from accident,
+and not from principle, and corrupt in his morals; but he was a
+gentleman of elegant manners and cultivated taste. He was the most
+popular political character ever known in England; and his name, at
+one time, was sufficient to blow up the flames of sedition, and excite
+the lower orders to acts of violence bordering on madness.
+
+[Sidenote: Taxation of the Colonies.]
+
+During his prosecution, important events occurred, of greater moment
+to the world. The disputes about the taxation of America led to the
+establishment of a new republic, whose extent and grandeur have never
+been equalled, and whose future greatness cannot well be exaggerated.
+
+These disputes commenced during the administration of George
+Grenville. The proposal to tax the American colonies had been before
+proposed to Sir Robert Walpole, but this prudent and sagacious
+minister dared not run the risk. Mr. Grenville was not, however,
+daunted by the difficulties and dangers which the more able Walpole
+regarded. In order to lighten the burden which resulted from the
+ruinous wars of Pitt, the minister proposed to raise a revenue from
+the colonies. The project pleased the house, and the Stamp Duties were
+imposed. It is true that the tax was a light one, and was so regarded
+by Mr. Grenville; but he intended it as a precedent; he was resolved
+to raise a revenue from the colonies sufficiently great to lighten the
+public burden. He regarded the colonists as subjects of the King of
+Great Britain, in every sense of the word; and, since they received
+protection from the government, they were bound to contribute to its
+support.
+
+[Sidenote: Indignation of the Colonies.]
+
+But the colonists, now scattered along the coast from Maine to
+Georgia, took other views. They maintained that, though subject in
+some degree to English legislation, they could not be taxed, any more
+than other subjects of Great Britain, without their consent. They were
+willing to be ruled in accordance with those royal charters which had,
+at different times, been given them. They were even willing to assist
+the mother country, which they loved and revered, and with which were
+connected their brightest and most cherished associations, in
+expelling its enemies from adjoining territories, and to fight battles
+in its defence. They were willing to receive the literature, the
+religion, the fashions, and the opinions of their brethren in England.
+But they looked upon the soil which they cultivated in the wilderness
+with so many difficulties, hardships, and dangers, as their own, and
+believed that they were bound to raise taxes only to defend the soil,
+and promote good government, religion, and morality in their midst.
+But they could not understand why they were bound to pay taxes to
+support English wars on the continent of Europe. It was for their
+children, and for the sacred privilege of religious liberty, that they
+had originally left the mother country. It was only for themselves and
+their children that they felt bound to labor. They sought no political
+influence in England. They did not wish to control elections, or
+regulate the finances, or interfere with the projects of military
+aggrandizement. They were not represented in the English parliament,
+and they composed, politically speaking, no part of the English
+nation. Great, therefore, was their indignation, when they learned
+that the English government was interfering with their chartered
+rights, and designed to raise a revenue from them to lighten taxes at
+home, merely to support the government in foolish wars. If they could
+be taxed, without their consent, in any thing, they could be taxed
+without limit; and they would be in danger of becoming mere slaves of
+the mother country, and be bound to labor for English aggrandizement.
+On one point they insisted with peculiar earnestness--that taxation,
+in a free country, without a representation of interests in
+parliament, was an outrage. It was on account of this arbitrary
+taxation that Charles I. lost his crown, and the second revolution was
+effected, which placed the house of Hanover on the throne. The
+colonies felt that, if the subjects of the king at home were justified
+in resisting unlawful taxes, they surely, on another continent, and
+without a representation, had a right to do so also; that, if they
+were to be taxed without their consent, they would be in a worse
+condition than even the people of Ireland; would be in the condition
+of a conquered people, without the protection which even a conquered
+country enjoyed. Hence they remonstrated, and prepared themselves for
+resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: The Stamp Act.]
+
+The English government was so blinded as not to perceive or feel the
+force of the reasoning of the colonists, and obstinately resolved to
+resort to measures which, with a free and spirited people, must
+necessarily lead to violence and strife. The House of Commons would
+not even hear the reports of the colonial agents, but proceeded, with
+strange infatuation and obstinate bigotry, to impose the Stamp Act,
+(1765.) There were some, however, who perceived its folly and
+injustice. General Conway protested against the assumed right of the
+government, and Colonel Barre, a speaker of great eminence, exclaimed,
+in reply to the speech of Charles Townshend, who styled the colonies
+"children planted by our care, and nourished by our indulgence,"--"They
+planted by your care!--No! your oppressions planted them in America;
+they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated wilderness, exposed
+to all the hardships to which human nature is liable! They nourished
+by your indulgence!--No! they grew by your neglect; your _care_ of
+them was displayed in sending persons to govern them who were the
+deputies of deputies of ministers--men whose behavior, on many
+occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil
+within them; men who have been promoted to the highest seats of
+justice in a foreign country, in order to escape being brought to the
+bar of a court of justice in their own." Mr. Pitt opposed the fatal
+policy of Grenville with singular eloquence; by arguments which went
+beyond acts of parliament; by an appeal to the natural reason; and by
+recognition of the great, inalienable principles of liberty. He
+maintained that the House had _no right_ to lay an internal tax upon
+America, _that country not being represented_. Burke, too, then a new
+speaker, raised his voice against the folly and injustice of taxing
+the colonies; but it was in vain. The commons were bent on imposing
+the Stamp Act.
+
+But the passage of this act created great disturbances in America, and
+was every where regarded as the beginning of great calamities.
+Throughout the colonies there was a general combination to resist the
+stamp duty; and it was resolved to purchase no English manufactures,
+and to prevent the adoption of stamped paper.
+
+Such violent and unexpected opposition embarrassed the English
+ministry; which, in addition to the difficulties attending the
+prosecution of Wilkes, led to the retirement of Grenville, who was
+succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham. During his short
+administration, the Stamp Act was repealed, although the Commons still
+insisted on their right to tax America. The joy which this repeal
+created in the colonies was unbounded; and the speech of Pitt, who
+proposed the repeal, and defended it with unprecedented eloquence, was
+every where read with enthusiasm, and served to strengthen the
+conviction, among the leading men in the colonies, that their cause
+was right. Lord Rockingham did not long remain at the head of the
+government, and was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton; although Mr.
+Pitt, recently created Earl of Chatham, was virtually the prime
+minister. Lord Rockingham retired from office with a high character
+for pure and disinterested patriotism, and without securing place,
+pension, or reversion, to himself or to any of his adherents.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Chatham.]
+
+The elevation of Lord Chatham to the peerage destroyed his popularity
+and weakened his power. No man ever made a greater mistake than he did
+in consenting to an apparent elevation. He had long been known and
+designated as the _Great Commoner_. The people were proud of him and,
+as a commoner, he could have ruled the nation, in spite of all
+opposition. No other man could have averted the national calamities.
+But, as a peer, he no longer belonged to the people, and the people
+lost confidence in him, and abandoned him. What he gained in dignity
+he lost in power and popularity. The people now compared him with Lord
+Bath, and he became the object of universal calumny.
+
+And Chatham felt the change which had taken place in the nation. He
+had ever loved and courted popularity, and that was the source of his
+power. He now lost his spirits, and interested himself but little in
+public affairs. He relapsed into a state of indolence and apathy. He
+remained only the shadow of a mighty name; and, sequestered in the
+groves of his family residence, ceased to be mentioned by the public.
+He became melancholy, nervous, and unfit for business. Nor could he be
+induced to attend a cabinet council, even on the most pressing
+occasions. He pretended to be ill, and would not hold conference with
+his colleagues. Nor did he have the influence with the king which he
+had a right to expect. Being no longer beloved by the people, he was
+no longer feared by the king. He was like Samson when deprived of his
+locks--without strength; for his strength lay in the confidence and
+affections of the nation. He opposed his colleagues in their
+resolution to impose new taxes on America, but his counsels were
+disregarded.
+
+These taxes were in the shape of duties on glass, paper, lead, and
+painters' colors, from which no considerable revenue could be gained,
+and much discontent would inevitably result. When the news of this new
+taxation reached the colonies, it destroyed all the cheerfulness which
+the repeal of the Stamp Act had caused. Sullenness and gloom returned.
+Trust in parliament was diminished. New combinations of opposition
+were organized, and the newspapers teemed with invective.
+
+In the midst of these disturbances, Lord Chatham resigned the Privy
+Seal, the office he had selected, and retired from the administration,
+(1768.)
+
+[Sidenote: Administration of Lord North.]
+
+In 1770, the Duke of Grafton also resigned his office as first lord of
+the treasury, chiefly in consequence of the increasing difficulties
+with America; and Lord North, who had been two years chancellor of the
+exchequer, took his place. He was an amiable and accomplished
+nobleman, and had many personal friends, and few personal enemies; but
+he was unfit to manage the helm of state in the approaching storm.
+
+It was his misfortune to be minister in the most unsettled and
+revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of the
+age, but the character and circumstances of the American colonies.
+George III., with singular obstinacy and blindness, sustained the
+minister against all opposition; and under his administration the
+American war was carried on, which ended so disastrously to the mother
+country.
+
+As this great and eventful war will be the subject of the next
+chapter, the remaining events of interest, connected with the domestic
+history of England, will be first presented.
+
+The most important of these were the discontents of the Irish.
+
+As early as 1762, associations of the peasantry were formed with a
+view to political reforms and changes, and these popular
+demonstrations of the discontented have ever since marked the history
+of the Irish nation--ever poor, ever oppressed, ever on the eve of
+rebellion.
+
+[Sidenote: Functions of the Parliament.]
+
+The first circumstance, however, after the accession of George III.,
+which claims particular notice, was the passing of the Octennial Bill,
+in 1788. The Irish parliament, unlike the English, continued in
+existence during the life of the sovereign. In 1761, an attempt had
+been made by the patriotic party to limit its duration, and to place
+it upon the same footing as the parliament of England; but this did
+not succeed. Lord Townshend, at this period, was lord lieutenant, and
+it was the great object of his government to break the power of the
+Irish aristocracy, and to take out of their hands the distribution of
+pensions and places, which hitherto had, from motives of policy, been
+allowed them. He succeeded in his object, though by unjustifiable
+means, and the British government became the source of all honor and
+emolument. During his administration, some disturbances broke out in
+Ulster, in consequence of the system which then prevailed of letting
+land on fines. As a great majority of the peasantry and small farmers
+were unable to pay these fines, and were consequently deprived of
+their farms, they became desperate, and committed violent outrages on
+those who had taken their lands. Government was obliged to resort to
+military force, and many distressed people were driven to America for
+subsistence. To Ireland there appeared no chance of breaking the
+thraldom which England in other respects also exercised, when the
+American war broke out. This immediately changed the language and
+current of the British government in reference to Ireland; proposals
+were made favorable to Irish commerce; and some penal statutes against
+Catholics were annulled. Still the patriots of Ireland aimed at much
+greater privileges than had as yet been granted, and the means to
+secure these were apparent. England had drawn from Ireland nearly all
+the regular forces, in order to send them to America, and the
+sea-coast of Ireland was exposed to invasion. In consequence of the
+defenceless state of the country, the inhabitants of the town of
+Belfast, in 1779, entered into armed associations to defend themselves
+in case of necessity. This gave rise to a system of volunteers, which
+soon was extended over the island. The Irish now began to feel their
+strength; and even Lord North admitted, in the House of Commons, the
+necessity of granting to them still greater privileges, and carried a
+bill through parliament, which removed some grievous commercial
+restrictions. But the Irish looked to greater objects, and especially
+since Lord North, in order to carry his bill, represented it as a boon
+resumable at pleasure, rather than as a right to which the Irish were
+properly entitled. This bill, therefore, instead of quieting the
+patriots, led to a desire for an independent parliament of their own.
+A union was formed of volunteers to secure this end, not composed of
+the ignorant peasantry, but of all classes, at the head of which was
+the Duke of Leinster himself. In 1781, this association of volunteers
+had a force of fifty thousand disciplined men; and it moreover formed
+committees of correspondence, which naturally alarmed the British
+government.
+
+These and other disturbances, added to the disasters in America,
+induced the House of Commons to pass censure on Lord North and his
+colleague, as incapable of managing the helm of state. The king,
+therefore, was compelled to dismiss his ministers, whose
+administration had proved the most disastrous in British annals. Lord
+North, however, had uncommon difficulties to contend with, and might
+have governed the nation with honor in ordinary times. He resigned in
+1782, four years after the death of Chatham, and the Marquis of
+Buckingham, a second time, was placed at the head of the government.
+Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke also obtained places, and the Whigs were once
+more triumphant.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish Discontents.]
+
+The attention of the new ministry was imperatively demanded by the
+discontents in Ireland, and important concessions were made. Mr.
+Grattan moved an address to the king, which was unanimously carried in
+both Houses, in which it was declared that "the crown of Ireland was
+inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain; but that the
+kingdom of Ireland was a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her
+own, the sole legislature thereof; that in this right they conceived
+the very essence of their liberty to exist; that in behalf of all the
+people of Ireland, they claimed this as their birthright, and could
+not relinquish it but with their lives; that they had a high
+veneration for the British character; and that, in sharing the freedom
+of England, it was their determination to share also her fate, and to
+stand and fall with the British nation." The new lord lieutenant, the
+Duke of Portland, assured the Irish parliament that the British
+legislature had resolved to remove the cause of discontent, and a law
+was actually passed which placed the Irish parliament on the same
+footing as that of England. Acts were also passed for the right of
+habeas corpus, and for the independence of the judges.
+
+The volunteers, having accomplished the objects which they originally
+contemplated, did not, however, disband, but now directed their
+efforts to a reform in parliament. But the House of Commons rejected
+the proposition offered by Mr. Flood, and the convention, appointed by
+the volunteers, indefinitely adjourned without persevering, as it
+should have done. The volunteer system soon after declined.
+
+The cause of parliamentary reform, though no longer supported by the
+volunteers in their associate character, was not deserted by the
+people, or by their advocates in parliament. Among these advocates was
+William Pitt himself. But in 1783, he became prime minister, and
+changed his opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Protestant Association.]
+
+But before the administration of Pitt can be presented, an event in
+the domestic history of England must be alluded to, which took place
+during the administration of Lord North. This was the Protestant
+Association, headed by Lord George Gordon, and the riots to which it
+led.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord George Gordon's Riots.]
+
+In 1780, parliament had passed an act relieving Roman Catholics from
+some of the heavy penalties inflicted on them in the preceding
+century. It relieved bishops, priests, and schoolmasters from
+prosecution and imprisonment, gave security to the rights of
+inheritance, and permission to purchase lands on fee simple. This act
+of toleration was generally opposed in England; but the fanatical
+spirit of Presbyterianism in Scotland was excited in view of this
+reasonable indulgence, to a large body of men, of the rights of
+conscience and civil liberty. On the bare rumor of the intended
+indulgence, great tumults took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow; the
+Roman Catholic chapel was destroyed, and the houses of the principal
+Catholics were attacked and plundered. Nor did the magistracy check or
+punish these disorders with any spirit, but secretly favored the
+rioters. Encouraged by the indifference of the magistrates, the
+fanatics formed themselves into a society called the _Protestant
+Association_, to oppose any remission of the present unjust laws; and
+of this association Lord George Gordon was chosen president. He was
+the son of the Duke of Gordon, belonging to one of the most ancient of
+the Scottish nobility, but a man in the highest degree wild and
+fanatical. He was also a member of parliament, and opposed the views
+of the most enlightened statesmen of his time, and with an
+extravagance which led to the belief that he was insane. He
+calumniated the king, defied the parliament, and boasted of the number
+of his adherents. He pretended that he had, in Scotland, one hundred
+and sixty thousand men at his command, who would cut off the king's
+head, if he did not keep his coronation oath. The enthusiasm of the
+Scotch soon spread to the English; and, throughout the country,
+associations were affiliated with the parent societies in London and
+Edinburgh, of both of which Lord Gordon was president. At Coachmakers'
+Hall he assembled his adherents; and, in an incendiary harangue,
+inflamed the minds of an immense audience in regard to the Church of
+Rome, with the usual invectives respecting its idolatry and
+corruption. He urged them to violent courses, as the only way to stop
+the torrent of Catholicism which was desolating the land. Soon after,
+this association assembled at St. George's Fields, to the astonishing
+number of fifty thousand people, marshalled in separate bands, with
+blue cockades; and this immense rabble proceeded through the city of
+London to the House of Parliament, preceded by a man carrying a
+petition signed by twelve hundred thousand names. The rabble took
+possession of the lobby of the house, making the old palace ring with
+their passionate cries of "No popery! no popery!" This mob was
+harangued by Lord Gordon himself, in the lobby of the house, while the
+matter was discussed among the members. The military were drawn out,
+and the mob was dispersed for a time, but soon assembled again, and
+became still more alarming. Houses were plundered, churches were
+entered, and the city set on fire in thirty-six different places. The
+people were obliged to chalk on their houses "No popery," and pay
+contributions to prevent their being sacked. The prisons were emptied
+of both felons and debtors. Lord Mansfield's splendid residence was
+destroyed, together with his pictures, furniture, and invaluable law
+library. Martial law was finally proclaimed--the last resort in cases
+of rebellion, and never resorted to but in extreme cases; and the
+military did what magistrates could not do--restored order and law.
+Had not the city been decreed to be in a state of rebellion, the
+rioters would have taken the bank, which they had already attacked.
+Five hundred persons were killed in the riot, and Lord George Gordon
+was committed to the Tower. He, however, escaped conviction, through
+the extraordinary talents of his counsel, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Kenyon;
+but one hundred others were capitally convicted. This disgraceful riot
+opened the eyes of the people to the horrors of popular insurrection,
+and perhaps prevented a revolution in England, when other questions,
+of more practical importance, agitated the nation.
+
+But no reform of importance took place until the administration of
+William Pitt. Mr. Burke attempted to secure some economical
+retrenchments, which were strongly opposed. But what was a
+retrenchment of two hundred thousand pounds a year, when compared with
+the vast expenditures of the British armies in America and in India?
+But though the reforms which Burke projected were not radical or
+important, they contributed to raise his popularity with the people,
+who were more annoyed by the useless offices connected with the king's
+household, than by the expenditure of millions in war. At first, his
+scheme received considerable attention, and the members listened to
+his propositions so long as they were abstract and general. But when
+he proceeded to specific reforms, they no longer regarded his voice,
+and he was obliged to abandon his task as hopeless. William Pitt made
+his first speech in the debate which Burke had excited, and argued in
+favor of retrenchment with the eloquence of his father, but with more
+method and clearness. The bill was lost, but Burke finally succeeded
+in carrying his measures; and the offices of the master of the
+harriers, the master of the staghounds, the clerk of the green cloth,
+and some other unimportant sinecures, were abolished.
+
+[Sidenote: Parliamentary Reforms.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reform Questions.]
+
+The first attempt at that great representative reform which afterwards
+convulsed the nation, was made by William Pitt. He brought forward two
+resolutions, to prevent bribery at elections, and secure a more
+equitable representation. But he did not succeed; and Pitt himself,
+when his cause was advocated by men of a different spirit,--men
+inflamed by revolutionary principles,--changed his course, and opposed
+parliamentary reform with more ardor than he had at first advocated
+it. But parliamentary reform did not become an object of absorbing
+interest until the times of Henry Brougham and Lord John Russell.
+
+No other great events were sufficiently prominent to be here alluded
+to, until the ministry of William Pitt. The American Revolution first
+demands attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Belsham's History of the Reign of George III.
+     Walpole's Memoir of the same reign. Holt's Private and
+     Domestic Life of George III. Lord Brougham's Statesmen of
+     the Reign of George III. Smyth's Lectures. Thackeray's Life
+     of the Earl of Chatham. Correspondence of the Earl of
+     Chatham. Annual Register, from 1765 to 1775. Debret's
+     Parliamentary Debates. Stephens' Life of Horne Tooke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Macaulay's Essay
+     on Chatham. Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The American Revolution.]
+
+The American Revolution, if contemplated in view of its ultimate as
+well as immediate consequences, is doubtless the greatest event of
+modern times. Its importance was not fully appreciated when it took
+place, but still excited a great interest throughout the civilized
+world. It was the main subject which engrossed the attention and
+called out the energies of British statesmen, during the
+administration of Lord North. In America, of course, all other
+subjects were trivial in comparison with it. The contest is memorable
+for the struggles of heroes, for the development of unknown energies,
+for the establishment of a new western empire, for the triumph of the
+cause of liberty, and for the moral effects which resulted, even in
+other countries, from the examples of patriots who preferred the glory
+and honor of their country to their own aggrandizement.
+
+The causes of the struggle have been already alluded to in the
+selfishness and folly of British statesmen, who sought to relieve the
+burdens of the English people by taxing the colonies. The colonies
+were doubtless regarded by the British parliament without proper
+affection or consideration; somewhat in the light of a conquered
+nation, from which England might derive mercantile advantage. The
+colonies were not ruled in a spirit of conciliation, nor were the
+American people fully appreciated. Some, perhaps, like Chatham and
+Burke, may have known the virtues and the power of the colonial
+population, and may have had some glimpse of the glory and greatness
+to which America was destined. But they composed but a small minority
+of the nation, and their advice and remonstrances were generally
+disregarded.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the Revolution.]
+
+Serious disturbances did not take place until Lord North commenced his
+unfortunate administration, (1770.) Although the colonies were then
+resolved not to submit to unlawful taxation, and to an oppressive
+government, independence was not contemplated. Conciliatory measures,
+if they had been at that time adopted, probably would have deferred
+the Revolution. But the contest must have occurred, at a later date;
+for nothing, in the ordinary course of events, could have prevented
+the ultimate independence of the colonies. Their rapid growth, the
+extent of the country in which settlements were made, its distance
+from England, the spirit of liberty which animated the people, their
+general impatience under foreign restraint, and the splendid prospects
+of future greatness which were open to their eyes, must have led to a
+rupture with the mother country at no distant time.
+
+The colonies, at the commencement of their difficulties, may have
+exaggerated their means of resistance, but not their future greatness.
+All of them, from New Hampshire to Georgia, were animated by a spirit
+of liberty which no misfortunes could crush. A large majority of the
+people were willing to incur the dangers incident to revolution, not
+for themselves merely, but for the sake of their posterity, and for
+the sacred cause of liberty. They felt that their cause was just, and
+that Providence would protect and aid them in their defence.
+
+A minute detail of the events of the American Revolution, of course,
+cannot be expected in a history like this. Only the more prominent
+events can be alluded to. The student is supposed to be familiar with
+the details of the conflict, which are to be read in the works of
+numerous American authors.
+
+Lord North, at the commencement of his administration, repealed the
+obnoxious duties which had been imposed in 1767, but still retained
+the duty on tea, with a view chiefly to assert the supremacy of Great
+Britain, and her right to tax the colonies. This course of the
+minister cannot be regarded in any other light than that of the
+blindest infatuation.
+
+The imposition of the port duties, by Grenville, had fomented
+innumerable disturbances, and had led to universal discussion as to
+the nature and extent of parliamentary power. A distinction, at first,
+had been admitted between internal and external taxes; but it was soon
+asserted that Great Britain had no right to tax the colonies, either
+internally or externally. It was stated that the colonies had received
+charters, under the great seal, which had given them all the rights
+and privileges of Englishmen at home and therefore that they could not
+be taxed, except by their own consent; that this consent had never
+been asked or granted; that they were unrepresented in the imperial
+parliament; and that the taxes which had been imposed by their own
+respective legislatures were, in many instances, greater than what
+were paid by the people of England--taxes too, incurred, to a great
+degree, to preserve the jurisdiction of Great Britain on the American
+continent. The colonies were every where exceedingly indignant with
+the course the mother country had pursued with reference to them.
+Patrick Henry, a Virginian, supported the cause of liberty with
+unrivalled eloquence and power, as did John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
+James Otis, and other patriots in Massachusetts. Riots took place in
+Boston, Newport, and New York, and assemblies of citizens in various
+parts expressed an indignant and revolutionary spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: Riots and Disturbances.]
+
+The residence of the military at Boston was, moreover, the occasion of
+perpetual tumult. The people abused the soldiers, vilified them in
+newspapers, and insulted them in the street. Mutual animosity was the
+result. Rancor and insults produced riot, and the troops fired upon
+the people. So great was the disturbances, that the governor was
+reluctantly obliged to remove the military from the town. The General
+Court was then removed to Cambridge, but refused to enter upon
+business unless it were convened in Boston. Fresh disturbances
+followed. The governor quarrelled with the legislature, and a complete
+anarchy began to prevail. The public mind was inflamed by effigies,
+paintings, and incendiary articles in the newspapers. The parliament
+was represented as corrupt, the ministry as venal, the king as a
+tyrant, and England itself as a rotten, old, aristocratic structure,
+crumbling to pieces. The tide was so overwhelming in favor of
+resistance, that even moderate men were borne along in the current;
+and those who kept aloof from the excitement were stigmatized as timid
+and selfish, and the enemies of their country. The courts of justice
+were virtually silenced, since juries disregarded the charges of the
+judges. Libels were unnoticed, and the rioters were unpunished.
+Smuggling was carried on to a great extent, and revenue officers were
+insulted in the discharge of their duties. Obnoxious persons were
+tarred and feathered, and exposed to public derision and scorn. In
+Providence, they burnt the revenue cutter, and committees were formed
+in the principal towns who fanned the flame of sedition. The committee
+in Boston, in 1773, framed a celebrated document, called the _Bill of
+Rights_, in which the authority of parliament to legislate for the
+colonies, in any respect, was denied, and in which the salaries
+decreed by the crown to the governor and judges were considered as a
+systematic attempt to enslave the land.
+
+The public discontents were further inflamed by the information which
+Dr. Franklin, then in London, afforded the colonies, and the advice he
+gave them to persevere, assuring them that, if they were firm, they
+had nothing to apprehend. Moreover, he got into his possession a copy
+of the letters of Governor Hutchinson to the ministry, which he
+transmitted to the colonies, and which by them were made public. These
+letters were considered by the legislature of Massachusetts as unjust
+and libellous, and his recall was demanded. Resolutions, of an
+offensive character to the English, were every where passed, and all
+things indicated an approaching storm. The crisis was at hand. The
+outrage, in Boston harbor, of throwing overboard three hundred and
+forty-two chests of tea, which the East India Company had sent to
+America, consummated the difficulties, and induced the government to
+resort to more coercive measures.
+
+[Sidenote: Duty on Tea.]
+
+It was in the power of Lord North to terminate the difficulties with
+the colonies when the East India Company urged him to repeal the duty
+of threepence per pound on tea, and offered to pay sixpence per pound
+in lieu of it, as export duty, if permitted to import it into the
+colonies duty free. The company was induced to make this proposition
+in view of the great accumulation of tea in England; but the
+government, more solicitous about the right than the revenue, would
+not consent. The colonists were equally determined to resist taxation,
+not on account of immediate burdens, but upon principle, and therefore
+resolved to prevent the landing of the tea. A multitude rushed to the
+wharf, and twenty persons, disguised as Indians, went on board the
+ships laden with it, staved the chests, and threw their contents into
+the sea. In New York and Philadelphia, as no persons could be found
+who would venture to receive the tea sent to those ports, the ships
+laden with it returned to England.
+
+[Sidenote: Port of Boston Closed.]
+
+The ministers of the crown were especially indignant with the province
+of Massachusetts, which had always been foremost in resistance, and
+the scene of the greatest disorders, and therefore resolved to block
+up the port of Boston. Accordingly, in 1774 they introduced a bill to
+discontinue the lading and shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise
+at Boston, and to remove the custom-house to Salem. The bill received
+the general approbation of the House, and passed by a great majority.
+
+No measure could possibly have been more impolitic. A large force
+should have been immediately sent to the colonies, to coerce them,
+before they had time to organize sufficient force to resist the mother
+country, or conciliatory measures should have been adopted. But the
+House was angry and infatuated, and the voice of wisdom was
+disregarded.
+
+Soon after, Lord North introduced another bill for the better
+government of the provinces, which went to subvert the charter of the
+colony, and to violate all the principles of liberty and justice. By
+this bill, the nomination of counsellors, judges, sheriffs, and
+magistrates of all kinds, was vested in the crown; and these were also
+removable at pleasure. The ministers, in advocating the bill, urged
+the ground of necessity, the universal spirit of disaffection, which
+bordered on actual rebellion. The bill was carried, by a majority of
+two hundred and thirty-nine against sixty-four voices, May 2, 1774.
+
+The next step of the minister was to bring in a bill which provided
+that, in case any person was indicted in Massachusetts for a capital
+offence, and that, if it should appear that a fair trial could not be
+had in the province, the prisoner might be sent to any other colony,
+or even to Great Britain itself, to be tried. This was insult added to
+injury, and met with vigorous resistance even in parliament itself.
+But it nevertheless passed through both Houses.
+
+When intelligence arrived concerning it, and of the other bills, a
+fire was kindled in the colonies not easily to be extinguished. There
+was scarcely a place which did not convene its assembly. Popular
+orators, in the public halls and in the churches, every where inflamed
+the people by incendiary discourses; organizations were made to
+abstain from all commerce with the mother country; and measures were
+adopted to assemble a General Congress, to take into consideration the
+state of the country. People began to talk of defending their rights
+by the sword. Every where was heard the sound of the drum and the
+fife. All were fired by the spirit of liberty. Associations were
+formed for the purchase of arms and ammunition. Addresses were printed
+and circulated calling on the people to arm themselves, and resist
+unlawful encroachment. All proceedings in the courts of justice were
+suspended. Jurors refused to take their oaths; the reign of law
+ceased, and that of violence commenced. Governor Gage, who had
+succeeded Hutchinson, fortified Boston Neck, and cut off the
+communication of the town with the country.
+
+[Sidenote: Meeting of Congress.]
+
+In the mean time, the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, in
+which all the colonies were represented but Georgia. Congress passed
+resolutions approving the course of Massachusetts, and also a bill
+called a _Declaration of Rights_. It sent an address to the king,
+framed with great ability, in which it discussed the rights of the
+colonies, complained of the mismanagement of ministers, and besought a
+redress of the public evils.
+
+[Sidenote: Speech of Burke.]
+
+But this congress was considered by the government of Great Britain as
+an illegal body, and its petition was disregarded. But the ministers
+no longer regarded the difficulties as trifling, and sought to remedy
+them, though not in the right way. The more profound of the English
+statesmen fully perceived the danger and importance of the crisis, and
+many of them took the side of liberty. Dean Tucker, who foresaw a long
+war, with all its expenses, urged, in a masterly treatise, the
+necessity of giving the Americans, at once, the liberty they sought.
+Others, who overrated the importance of the colonies in a mercantile
+view, wished to retain them, but to adopt conciliatory measures. Lord
+Chatham put forth all the eloquence of which he was such a master, to
+arouse the ministers. He besought them to withdraw the troops from
+Boston. He showed the folly of metaphysical refinements about the
+right of taxation when a continent was in arms. He spoke of the means
+of enforcing thraldom as inefficient and ridiculous. Lord Camden
+sustained Chatham in the House of Lords, and declared, not as a
+philosopher, but as a constitutional lawyer, that England had no right
+to tax America. Mr. Burke moved a conciliatory measure in the House of
+Commons, fraught with wisdom and knowledge. "My hold of the colonies,"
+said this great oracle of moral wisdom, "is the close affection which
+grows from the common names, from the kindred blood, from similar
+privileges, and from equal protection. These are the ties which,
+though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies
+always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your
+government; they will cling and grapple with you, and no power under
+heaven will be able to tear them from their allegiance. But let it
+once be understood that your government may be one thing, and their
+privileges another, then the cement is gone, and every thing hastens
+to dissolution. It is the love of the people, it is their attachment
+to your government from the sense in the deep stake they have in such
+glorious institutions, which gives you your army and navy, and infuses
+into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be but
+a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber." But this
+elevated and sublime wisdom was regarded as a philosophical
+abstraction, as a vain and impractical view of political affairs, well
+enough for a writer on the "sublime and beautiful," but absurd in a
+British statesman. Colonel Barre and Fox supported Burke; but their
+eloquence had not much effect on the Commons, and the ministry was
+supported in their measures. The colonies were declared to be in a
+state of rebellion, and measures were adopted to crush them.
+
+To declare the colonies in a state of rebellion was, in fact, to
+declare war. And this was perfectly understood by the popular leaders
+who fanned the spirit of resistance. All ideas of reconciliation now
+became chimerical. Necessity stimulated the timid, and vengeance
+excited the bold. It was felt that the people were now to choose
+between liberty and slavery, and slavery was, of course, regarded as
+worse than death. "We must look back," said the popular orators, "no
+more! We must conquer or die! We are placed between altars smoking
+with the most grateful incense of glory and gratitude on the one part,
+and blocks and dungeons on the other. Let each, then, rise and gird
+himself for the conflict. The dearest interests of the world command
+it; our most holy religion requires it. Let us banish fear, and
+remember that fortune smiles only on the brave."
+
+Such was the general state of feeling; and there only needed a spark
+to kindle a conflagration. That spark was kindled at Lexington.
+General Gage, the governor, having learned that military stores and
+arms were deposited at Concord, resolved to seize them. His design was
+suspected, and the people prepared to resist his orders. The alarm
+bells were rung, and the cannons were fired. The provincial militia
+assembled, and the English retreated to Lexington. That village
+witnessed the commencement of a long and sanguinary war. The tide of
+revolution could no longer be repressed. The colonies were now
+resolved to achieve their independence.
+
+The Continental Congress met on the 10th of May, 1775, shortly after
+the first blood had been shed at Lexington, and immediately proceeded
+to raise an army, establish a paper currency, and to dissolve the
+compact between Great Britain and the Massachusetts colony. John
+Hancock was chosen president of the assembly, and George Washington
+commander-in-chief of the continental army. He accepted the
+appointment with a modesty only equalled by his merit, and soon after
+departed for the seat of war. For his associates, Congress appointed
+Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam as
+major-generals, and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster,
+William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and
+Nathanael Greene as brigadiers. Horatio Gates received the appointment
+of adjutant-general, with the rank of brigadier.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Bunker Hill.]
+
+On the 17th of June was fought the battle of Bunker Hill, which proved
+the bravery of the Americans, and which was followed by great moral
+results. But the Americans unfortunately lost, in this battle, Dr.
+Warren, who had espoused the cause of revolution with the same spirit
+that Hampden did in England, and whom he resembled in genius,
+patriotism, and character. He had been chosen major-general four days
+before his death, but fought at Bunker Hill as a simple volunteer. On
+the 2d of July, Washington took command of the army, and established
+his head-quarters at Cambridge. The American army amounted to
+seventeen thousand men, of whom twenty-five hundred were unfit for
+duty. They were assembled on the spur of the occasion, and had but few
+tents and stores, no clothing, no military chest and no general
+organization. They were collected from the various provinces and were
+governed by their own militia laws. Of this material he constructed
+the first continental army, and under innumerable vexations and
+difficulties. No man was ever placed in a more embarrassing situation.
+His troops were raw and undisciplined; and the members of the
+Continental Congress, from whom he received his commission, were not
+united among themselves. He had all the responsibility of the war, and
+yet had not sufficient means to prosecute it with the vigor which the
+colonies probably anticipated. His success, in the end, _was_ glorious
+and unequivocal; but none other than he could have secured it, and not
+he, even, unless he had been sustained by a loftiness of character
+almost preternatural.
+
+The English forces, at this time, were centred in Boston under the
+command of General Gage, and were greatly inferior in point of numbers
+to the American troops who surrounded them. But the troops of Gage
+were regulars and veterans, and were among the best in the English
+army. He was recalled in order to give information to the government
+in reference to the battle of Bunker Hill, and was succeeded in
+October by General Howe.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Montgomery.]
+
+The first campaign of the war was signalized by the invasion of Canada
+by the American troops, with the hope of wresting that province from
+the English, which was not only disaffected, but which was defended by
+an inconsiderable force. General Montgomery, with an army of three
+thousand, advanced to Montreal, which surrendered. The fortresses of
+Crown Point and Ticonderoga had already been taken by Colonel Ethan
+Allen. But the person who most distinguished himself in this
+unfortunate expedition was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who, with a
+detachment of one thousand men, penetrated through the forests,
+swamps, and mountains of Maine, beyond the sources of the Kennebec
+and, in six weeks from his departure at Boston, arrived on the plains
+of Canada, opposite Quebec. He there effected a junction with the
+troops of Montgomery, and made an assault on the strongest fortress in
+America, defended by sixteen hundred men. The attack was unsuccessful,
+and Montgomery was killed. Arnold did not retire from the province,
+but remained encamped upon the Heights of Abraham. This enterprise,
+though a failure, was not without great moral results, since it showed
+to the English government the singular bravery and intrepidity of the
+nation it had undertaken to coerce.
+
+The ministry then resolved upon vigorous measures, and, finding a
+difficulty in raising men, applied to the Landgrave of Hesse for
+seventeen thousand mercenaries. These, added to twenty-five thousand
+men enlisted in England, and the troops already sent to America,
+constituted a force of fifty-five thousand men--deemed amply
+sufficient to reduce the rebellious colonies. But these were not sent
+to America until the next year.
+
+In the mean time, General Howe was encamped in Boston with a force,
+including seamen, of eleven thousand men, and General Washington, with
+an army of twenty-eight thousand, including militia, was determined to
+attack him. In February, 1776, he took possession of Dorchester
+Heights, which command the harbor. General Howe found it expedient to
+evacuate Boston, and sailed for Halifax with his army, and Washington
+repaired to Philadelphia to deliberate with Congress.
+
+But Howe retired from Boston only to occupy New York; and when his
+arrangements were completed, he landed at Staten Island, waiting for
+the arrival of his brother, Lord Howe, with the expected
+reinforcements. By the middle of August they had all arrived, and his
+united forces amounted to twenty-four thousand men. Washington's army,
+though it nominally numbered twenty thousand five hundred, still was
+composed of only about eleven thousand effective men, and these
+imperfectly provided with arms and ammunition. Nevertheless,
+Washington gave battle to the English; but the result was disastrous
+to the Americans, owing to the disproportion of the forces engaged.
+General Howe took possession of Long Island, the Americans evacuated
+New York, and, shortly after, the city fell into the hands of the
+English. Washington, with his diminished army, posted himself at
+Haerlem Heights.
+
+[Sidenote: Declaration of American Independence.]
+
+But before the victory of Howe on Long Island was obtained, Congress
+had declared the Independence of the American States, (4th July,
+1776.) This Declaration of Independence took the English nation by
+surprise, and firmly united it against the colonies. It was received
+by the Americans, in every section of the country, with unbounded
+enthusiasm. Reconciliation was now impossible, and both countries were
+arrayed against each other in fierce antagonism.
+
+The remainder of the campaign of 1776 was occupied by the belligerents
+in skirmishing, engagements, marchings and countermarchings, in the
+states of New York and New Jersey. The latter state was overrun by the
+English army, and success, on either side, was indecisive. Forts
+Washington and Lee were captured. General Lee was taken prisoner. The
+capture of Lee, however, was not so great a calamity as it, at first,
+seemed; for, though a man of genius and military experience, his
+ambition, vanity, and love of glory would probably have led to an
+opposition to his superior officer, and to Congress itself. To
+compensate for the disasters in New Jersey, Washington, invested with
+new and extraordinary power by Congress, gained the battles of
+Princeton and Trenton, which were not only brilliant victories, but
+were attended by great moral effects, and showed the difficulty of
+subduing a people determined to be free. "Every one applauded the
+firmness, the prudence, and the bravery of Washington. All declared
+him to be the savior of his country; all proclaimed him equal to the
+most renowned commanders of antiquity, and especially distinguished
+him by the name of the _American Fabius_."
+
+The greatness of Washington was seen, not so much by his victories at
+Princeton and Trenton, or by his masterly retreat before superior
+forces, as by his admirable prudence and patience during the
+succeeding winter. He had, for several months, a force which scarcely
+exceeded fifteen hundred men, and these suffered all manner of
+hardships and privations. After the first gush of enthusiasm had
+passed, it was found exceedingly difficult to enlist men, and still
+more difficult to pay those who had enlisted. Congress, composed of
+great men, and of undoubted patriotism, on the whole, harmonized with
+the commander-in-chief, whom, for six months, it invested with almost
+dictatorial power; still there were some of its members who did not
+fully appreciate the character or condition of Washington, and threw
+great difficulties in his way.
+
+[Sidenote: Commissioners Sent to France.]
+
+Congress about this time sent commissioners to France to solicit money
+and arms. These commissioners were Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and
+Arthur Lee. They were not immediately successful; for the French king,
+doubtful of the result of the struggle, did not wish to incur
+prematurely the hostility of Great Britain; but they induced many to
+join the American cause, and among others, the young Marquis de La
+Fayette, who arrived in America in the spring of 1777, and proved a
+most efficient general, and secured the confidence and love of the
+nation he assisted.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Burgoyne.]
+
+The campaign of 1777 was marked by the evacuation of the Jerseys by
+the English, by the battles of Bennington and Brandywine, by the
+capture of Philadelphia, and the surrender of Burgoyne. Success, on
+the whole, was in favor of the Americans. They suffered a check at
+Brandywine, and lost the most considerable city in the Union at that
+time. But these disasters were more than compensated by the victory at
+Bennington and the capture of Burgoyne.
+
+[Sidenote: Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture.]
+
+This indeed was the great event of the campaign. Burgoyne was a member
+of parliament, and superseded General Carleton in the command of the
+northern army--an injudicious appointment, but made by the minister in
+order to carry his measures more easily through the House of Commons.
+The troops under his command amounted to over seven thousand veterans,
+besides a corps of artillery. He set out from St. John's, the 16th of
+June, and advanced to Ticonderoga, which he invested. The American
+forces, under General Schuyler, destined to oppose this royal army,
+and to defend Ticonderoga, were altogether insufficient, being not
+over five thousand men. The fortress was therefore abandoned, and the
+British general advanced to the Hudson, hoping to open a communication
+between it and Lake Champlain, and thus completely surround New
+England, and isolate it from the rest of the country. But the delays
+attending the march of the English army through the forests enabled
+the Americans to rally. The defeat of Colonel Baum at Bennington, by
+Colonel Stark, added to the embarrassments of Burgoyne, who now was
+straitened for provisions; nevertheless, he continued his march,
+hoping to reach Albany unmolested. But the Americans, commanded by
+General Gates, who had superseded Schuyler, were strongly intrenched
+at the principal passes on his route, and had fortified the high
+grounds. The army of Burgoyne was moreover attacked by the Americans
+at Stillwater, and he was forced to retreat to Saratoga. His army was
+now reduced to five thousand men; he had only three days' provisions;
+all the passes were filled by the enemy, and he was completely
+surrounded by fifteen thousand men. Under these circumstances, he was
+forced to surrender. His troops laid down their arms, but were allowed
+to embark at Boston for Europe. The Americans, by this victory,
+acquired forty-two pieces of brass artillery, four thousand six
+hundred muskets, and an immense quantity of military stores. This
+surrender of Burgoyne was the greatest disaster which the British
+troops had thus far experienced, and raised the spirits of the
+Americans to the highest pitch. Indeed, this surrender decided the
+fate of the war, for it proved the impossibility of conquering the
+Americans. It showed that they fought under infinitely greater
+advantages, since it was in their power always to decline a battle,
+and to choose their ground. It showed that the country presented
+difficulties which were insurmountable. It mattered but little that
+cities were taken, when the great body of the people resided in the
+country, and were willing to make sacrifices, and were commanded by
+such generals as Washington, Gates, Greene, Putnam, and Lee. The
+English ministry ought to have seen the nature of the contest; but a
+strange infatuation blinded the nation. There were some, however, whom
+no national pride could blind. Lord Chatham was one of these men. "No
+man," said this veteran statesman, "thinks more highly of the virtues
+and valor of British troops than I do. I know that they can achieve
+any thing except impossibilities. But the conquest of America is an
+impossibility."
+
+There was one nation in Europe who viewed the contest with different
+eyes. This nation was France, then on the eve of revolution itself,
+and burning with enthusiastic love of the principles on which American
+independence was declared. The French government may not have admired
+the American cause, but it hated England so intensely, that it was
+resolved to acknowledge the independence of America, and aid the
+country with its forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival of La Fayette.]
+
+In the early part of the war, the American Congress had sent
+commissioners to France, in order to obtain assistance. In consequence
+of their representations, La Fayette, then a young man of nineteen
+years of age, freighted a ship at his own expense, and joined the
+American standard. Congress, in consideration of his illustrious rank
+and singular enthusiasm, gave him a commission of major-general. And
+gloriously did he fulfil the great expectations which were formed of
+him; richly did he deserve the gratitude and praise of all the friends
+of liberty.
+
+La Fayette embarked in the American cause as a volunteer. The court of
+France, in the early period of the contest, did not think it expedient
+openly to countenance the revolution. But, after the surrender of
+Burgoyne, and it was evident that the United States would succeed in
+securing their independence, then it was acknowledged, and substantial
+aid was rendered.
+
+The winter which succeeded the surrender of Burgoyne is memorable for
+the sufferings of the American army encamped at Valley Forge, about
+twenty miles from Philadelphia. The army was miserably supplied with
+provisions and clothing, and strong discontent appeared in various
+quarters. Out of eleven thousand eight hundred men, nearly three
+thousand were barefooted and otherwise naked. But the sufferings
+of the army were not the only causes of solicitude to the
+commander-in-chief, on whom chiefly rested the responsibility of the
+war. The officers were discontented, and were not prepared, any more
+than the privates, to make permanent sacrifices. They were obliged to
+break in upon their private property, and were without any prospect of
+future relief. Washington was willing to make any sacrifices himself,
+and refused any payment for his own expenses; but, while he exhibited
+the rarest magnanimity, he did not expect it from others, and urged
+Congress to provide for the future pay of the officers, when the war
+should close. He looked upon human nature as it was, not as he wished
+it to be, and recognized the principles of self-interest as well as
+those of patriotism. It was his firm conviction that a long and
+lasting war could not, even in those times, be sustained by the
+principle of patriotism alone, but required, in addition, the prospect
+of interest, or some reward. The members of Congress did not all agree
+with him in his views, and expected that officers would make greater
+sacrifices than private citizens, but, after a while, the plan of
+half-pay for life, as Washington proposed, was adopted by a small
+majority, though afterwards changed to half-pay for seven years. There
+was also a prejudice in many minds against a standing army, besides
+the jealousies and antipathies which existed between different
+sections of the Union. But Washington, with his rare practical good
+sense, combated these, as well as the fears of the timid and the
+schemes of the selfish. The history of the Revolution impresses us
+with the greatness and bravery of the American nation; and every
+American should feel proud of his ancestors for the efforts they made,
+under so many discouragements, to secure their liberties; but it would
+be a mistake to suppose that nothing but exalted heroism was
+exhibited. Human nature showed its degeneracy in the camp and on the
+field of battle, among heroes and among patriots. The perfection of
+character, so far as man is ever perfect, was exhibited indeed, by
+Washington, but by Washington alone.
+
+The army remained at Valley Forge till June, 1778. In the mean time,
+Lord North made another ineffectual effort to procure reconciliation.
+But he was too late. His offers might have been accepted at the
+commencement of the contest; but nothing short of complete
+independence would now satisfy the Americans, and this North was not
+willing to concede. Accordingly, new measures of coercion were
+resorted to by the minister, although the British forces in America
+were upwards of thirty-three thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: Evacuation of Philadelphia.]
+
+On the 18th of June, Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Sir William
+Howe in command of the British forces, evacuated Philadelphia, the
+possession of which had proved of no service to the English, except as
+winter quarters for the troops. It was his object to proceed to New
+York, for which place he marched with his army, having sent his heavy
+baggage by water. The Americans, with superior forces, hung upon his
+rear, and sought an engagement. An indecisive one occurred at
+Monmouth, during which General Lee disregarded the orders of his
+superior in command, and was suspended for twelve months. There never
+was perfect harmony between Washington and Lee; and the aid of the
+latter, though a brave and experienced officer, was easily dispensed
+with.
+
+No action of importance occurred during this campaign, and it was
+chiefly signalized by the arrival of the Count d'Estaing, with twelve
+ships of the line and four frigates, to assist the Americans. But, in
+consequence of disagreements and mistakes, this large armament failed
+to engage the English naval forces.
+
+The campaign of 1779 was not more decisive than that of the preceding
+year. Military operations were chiefly confined to the southern
+sections of the country, in which the English generally gained the
+advantage, having superior forces. They overran the country, inflamed
+the hostility of the Indians, and destroyed considerable property. But
+they gained no important victory, and it was obvious to all parties
+that conquest was impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: The Treason of Arnold.]
+
+The campaign of 1780 is memorable for the desertion of General Arnold.
+Though not attended by important political results, it produced an
+intense excitement. He was intrusted with the care of the fortress of
+West Point, which commanded the Hudson River; but, dissatisfied,
+extravagant, and unprincipled, he thought to mend his broken fortunes
+by surrendering it to the British, who occupied New York. His treason
+was discovered when his schemes were on the point of being
+accomplished; but he contrived to escape, and was made a
+brigadier-general in the service of the enemy. Public execration
+loaded his name with ignominy, and posterity has not reversed the
+verdict of his indignant countrymen. His disgrace and ruin were
+primarily caused by his extravagance and his mortified pride.
+Washington fully understood his want of moral principle, but continued
+to intrust him with power, in view of the great services he had
+rendered his country, and his unquestioned bravery and military
+talents. After his defection, the American commander-in-chief was
+never known to intrust an important office to a man in whose virtue he
+had not implicit faith. The fate of Major Andre, who negotiated the
+treason with Arnold, and who was taken as a spy, was much lamented by
+the English Neither his family, nor rank, nor accomplishments, nor
+virtues nor the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, could save him from
+military execution, according to the established laws of war.
+Washington has been blamed for not exercising more forbearance in the
+case of so illustrious a prisoner; but the American general never
+departed from the rigid justice which he deemed it his duty to pursue.
+
+During this year, the American currency had singularly depreciated, so
+that forty dollars were worth only one in specie--a fact which shows
+the embarrassments of the country, and the difficulty of supporting
+the army. But the prospects of ultimate success enabled Congress, at
+length, to negotiate loans, and the army was kept together.
+
+[Sidenote: Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.]
+
+The great event in the campaign of 1781 was the surrender of Lord
+Cornwallis, at Yorktown, which decided the fate of the war. Lord
+Cornwallis, who was an able commander, had been successful at the
+south, although vigorously and skilfully opposed by General La
+Fayette. But he had at last to contend with the main body of the
+American army, and French forces in addition, so that the combined
+armies amounted to over twelve thousand men. He was compelled to
+surrender to superior forces; and seven thousand prisoners, with all
+their baggage and stores, fell into the hands of the victors, 19th of
+October, 1781. This great event diffused universal joy throughout
+America, and a corresponding depression among the English people.
+
+After this capitulation, the conviction was general that the war would
+soon be terminated. General La Fayette obtained leave to return to
+France, and the recruiting service languished. The war nevertheless,
+was continued until 1783; without, however, being signalized by any
+great events. On the 30th of November, 1782, preliminary articles of
+peace were signed at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the
+independence of the United States, and by which the whole country
+south of the lakes and east of the Mississippi was ceded to them, and
+the right of fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland.
+
+On the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated New York;
+and, shortly after, the American army was disbanded. The 4th of
+December, Washington made his farewell address to his officers; and,
+on the 23d of December, he resigned his commission into the hands of
+the body from which he received it, and retired to private life;
+having discharged the great trust reposed in him in a manner which
+secured the gratitude of his country and which will probably win the
+plaudits of all future generations.
+
+The results of the Revolutionary War can only be described by
+enumerating the progressive steps of American aggrandizement from that
+time to this, and by speculating on the future destinies of the
+Anglo-Saxon race on the American continent. The success which attended
+this long war is in part to be traced to the talents and matchless
+wisdom and integrity of the commander-in-chief; to the intrepid
+courage and virtues of the armies he directed; to the self-confidence
+and inexperience of the English generals; to the difficulties
+necessarily attending the conquest of forests, and swamps, and
+scattered towns; to the assistance of the French nation; and, above
+all, to the superintending providence of God, who designed to rescue
+the sons of the Pilgrims from foreign oppression, and, in spite of
+their many faults, to make them a great and glorious nation, in which
+religious and civil liberty should be perpetuated, and all men left
+free to pursue their own means of happiness, and develop the
+inexhaustible resources of a great and boundless empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Resignation of Lord North.]
+
+The English nation acquiesced in an event which all felt to be
+inevitable; but Lord North was compelled to resign, and a change of
+measures was pursued. It is now time to contemplate English affairs,
+until the French Revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The books written on the American Revolution
+     are very numerous, an index to which may be seen in Botta's
+     History, as well as in the writings of those who have
+     treated of this great event. Sparks's Life and
+     Correspondence of Washington is doubtless the most valuable
+     work which has yet appeared since Marshall wrote the Life of
+     Washington. Guizot's Essay on Washington is exceedingly
+     able; nor do I know any author who has so profoundly
+     analyzed the character and greatness of the American hero.
+     Botta's History of the Revolution is a popular but
+     superficial and overlauded book. Mr. Hale's History of the
+     United States is admirably adapted to the purpose for which
+     it is designed, and is the best compendium of American
+     history. Stedman is the standard authority in England.
+     Belsham, in his History of George III., has written candidly
+     and with spirit. Smyth, in his lectures on Modern History,
+     has discussed the Revolution with great ability. See also
+     the works of Ramsay, Winterbotham, Allen, and Gordon. The
+     lives of the prominent American generals, statesmen, and
+     orators, should also be read in connection; especially of
+     Lee, Greene, Franklin, Adams, and Henry, which are best
+     described in Sparks's American Biography.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
+
+
+[Sidenote: William Pitt.]
+
+We come now to consider the most eventful administration, in many
+important respects, in British annals. The greatness of military
+operations, the magnitude of reforms, and the great number of
+illustrious statesmen and men of genius, make the period, when Pitt
+managed the helm of state, full of interest and grandeur.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Life of Pitt.]
+
+William Pitt, second son of the first Earl of Chatham, entered public
+life at a very early age, and was prime minister of George III. at a
+period of life when most men are just completing a professional
+education. He was a person of extraordinary precocity. He entered
+Cambridge University at the age of fourteen, and at that period was a
+finished Greek and Latin scholar. He spent no idle hours, and evinced
+but little pleasure in the sports common to boys of his age. He was as
+successful in mastering mathematics as the languages, and was an
+admirer of the profoundest treatises of intellectual philosophy. He
+excelled in every branch of knowledge to which he directed his
+attention. In 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he became a resident in
+Lincoln's Inn, entered parliament the succeeding spring, and
+immediately assumed an active part. His first speech astonished all
+who heard him, notwithstanding that great expectations were formed
+concerning his power. He was made chancellor of the exchequer at the
+age of twenty-three, and at a time when it required a finance minister
+of the greatest experience. Nor would the Commons have acquiesced in
+his appointment to so important a post, in so critical a state of the
+nation, had not great confidence existed as to his abilities. From his
+first appearance, Pitt took a commanding position as a parliamentary
+orator; nor, as such, has he ever, on the whole, been surpassed. His
+peculiar talents fitted him for the highest post in the gift of his
+sovereign, and the circumstances of the times, in addition, were such
+as were calculated to develop all the energies and talents he
+possessed. He was not the most commanding intellect of his age, but he
+was, unquestionably, the greatest orator that England has produced,
+and exercised, to the close of his career, in spite of the opposition
+of such men as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, an overwhelming parliamentary
+influence. He was a prodigy; as great in debate, and in executive
+power, as Napoleon was in the field, Bacon in philosophy, or
+Shakspeare in poetry. It is difficult for us to conceive how a young
+man, just emerging from college halls, should be able to answer the
+difficult questions of veteran statesmen who had been all their lives
+opposing the principles he advanced, and to assume at once the powers
+with which his father was intrusted only at a mature period of life.
+Pitt was almost beyond envy, and the proud nobles and princely
+capitalists of the richest, proudest, and most conservative country in
+the world, surrendered to him the guardianship of their liberties with
+no more fear or distrust than the hereditary bondmen of Turkey or
+Russia would have shown in hailing the accession of a new emperor. He
+was born to command, one of nature's despots, and he assumed the reins
+of government with a perfect consciousness of his abilities to rule.
+
+He was only twenty-four years of age when he began to reign; for, as
+prime minister of George III., he was, during his continuance in
+office, the absolute ruler of the British empire. He had, virtually,
+the nomination of his colleagues, and, through them, the direction of
+all executive affairs. He was controlled by the legislature only, and
+parliament was subservient to his will. What a proud position for a
+young man to occupy! A commoner, with a limited fortune, to give laws
+to a vast empire, and to have a proud nobility obedient to his will;
+and all this by the force of talents alone--talents which extorted
+admiration and respect. He selected Lord Thurlow as chancellor, Lord
+Gower as president of the council, the Duke of Richmond as lord privy
+seal, Lords Carmarthen and Sydney as secretaries of state, and Lord
+Howe as first lord of the admiralty. These were his chief associates
+in resisting a powerful opposition, and in regulating the affairs of a
+vast empire--the concerns of India, the national debt, the necessary
+taxation, domestic tranquillity, and intercourse with foreign powers.
+But he deserved the confidence of his sovereign and of the nation, and
+they sustained him in his extraordinary embarrassments and
+difficulties.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Pitt.]
+
+The policy of the administration is not here to be discussed; but it
+was the one pursued, in the main, by his father, and one which
+gratified the national pride. The time has not yet come for us to
+decide, with certainty, on the wisdom of his course. He was the
+advocate of measures which had for their object national
+aggrandizement. He was the strenuous defender of war, and he would
+oppose Napoleon and all the world to secure preeminence to Great
+Britain. He believed that glory was better than money; he thought that
+an overwhelming debt was a less evil than national disgrace; he
+exaggerated the resources and strength of his country, and believed
+that it was destined to give laws to the world; he underrated the
+abilities of other nations to make great advances in mechanical skill
+and manufacturing enterprise; he supposed that English manufactures
+would be purchased forever by the rest of the world, and therefore
+that England, in spite of the debt, would make all nations contribute
+to her glory and wealth. It was to him a matter of indifference how
+heavily the people were taxed to pay the interest on a fictitious
+debt, provided that, by their commerce and manufactures, they could
+find abundant means to pay this interest. And so long as England could
+find a market for her wares, the nation would not suffer from
+taxation. His error was in supposing that England, forever, would
+manufacture for the world; that English skill was superior to the
+skill of all other nations; that there was a superiority in the very
+nature of an Englishman which would enable him, in any country, or
+under any circumstances, to overcome all competitors and rivals. Such
+views were grateful to his nation; and he, by continually flattering
+the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and patriotism,
+induced it to follow courses which may one day result in overwhelming
+calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a nation as it is to an
+individual, and constitutes that pride which precedes destruction. But
+the mere debt of England, being owed to herself, and not to another
+nation, is not so alarming as it is sometimes supposed. The worst
+consequence, in a commercial point of view, is national bankruptcy;
+but if England becomes bankrupt, her factories, her palaces, her
+warehouses, and her ships remain. These are not destroyed. Substantial
+wealth does not fly from the island, but merely passes from the hands
+of capitalists to the people. The policy of Pitt has merely enriched
+the few at the expense of the many--has confirmed the power of the
+aristocracy. When manufacturers can no longer compete with those of
+other countries, upon such unequal terms as are rendered necessary in
+consequence of unparalleled taxation to support the public creditors,
+then the public creditors must suffer rather than the manufacturer
+himself. The manufacturer must live. This class composes a great part
+of the nation. The people must be fed, and they will be fed; and they
+can be fed as cheaply as in any country, were it not for taxes. The
+policy of Pitt, during the period of commercial prosperity, tended,
+indeed, to strengthen the power of the aristocracy--that class to
+which he belonged, and to which the House of Commons, who sustained
+him, belonged. But it was suicidal, as is the policy of all selfish
+men; and ultimately must tend to revolutionary measures, even though
+those measures may not be carried by massacres and blazing thrones.
+
+But we must hasten to consider the leading events which characterized
+the administration of William Pitt. These were the troubles in
+Ireland, parliamentary reforms, the aggrandizement of the East India
+Company, the trial of Hastings, debates on the slave trade, and the
+war with France in consequence of the French Revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties with Ireland.]
+
+[Sidenote: The United Irishmen.]
+
+The difficulties with Ireland did not become alarming until the French
+Revolution had created a spirit of discontent and agitation in all
+parts of Great Britain. Soon after his accession to power, Mr. Flood,
+a distinguished member of the Irish House of Commons, brought in a
+bill of parliamentary reform, which, after a long debate, was
+negatived. Though his measure was defeated in the House, its advocates
+out of doors were not cast down, but took measures to form a national
+congress, for the amelioration of the evils which existed. A large
+delegation of the people actually met at Dublin, and petitioned
+parliament for the redress of grievances. Mr. Pitt considered the
+matter with proper attention, and labored to free the commerce of
+Ireland from the restraints under which it labored. But, in so doing,
+he excited the jealousy of British merchants and manufacturers, and
+they induced him to remodel his propositions for the relief of
+Ireland, which were then adopted. Tranquillity was restored until the
+year 1791, when there appeared at Belfast the plan of an association,
+under the name of the _United Irishmen_, whose object was a radical
+reform of all the evils which had existed in Ireland since its
+connection with England. This association soon extended throughout the
+island, and numbered an immense body of both Protestants and Catholics
+who were disaffected with the government. In consequence of the
+disaffections, especially among the Catholics, the English ministry
+made many concessions, and the legislature allowed Catholics to
+practice law, to intermarry with Protestants, and to obtain an
+unrestrained education. But parliament also took measures to prevent
+the assembling of any convention of the people, and augmented the
+militia in case of disturbance. But disturbances took place, and the
+United Irishmen began to contemplate an entire separation from
+England, and other treasonable designs. In consequence of these
+commotions, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and a military
+government was enforced with all its rigor. The United Irish pretended
+to submit, but laid still deeper schemes, and extended their
+affiliations. In May, 1797, the number of men enrolled by the union in
+Ulster alone was one hundred thousand, and their organization was
+perfect. The French government was aware of the union, which gradually
+numbered five hundred thousand men, and promised it assistance. The
+Irish, however, relied chiefly upon themselves, and prepared to resist
+the English government, which was resolved on pursuing the most
+vigorous measures. A large military force was sent to Ireland, and
+several ringleaders of the contemplated insurrection were arrested.
+
+But the timely discovery of the conspiracy prevented one of the most
+bloody contests which ever happened in Ireland. Nevertheless, the
+insurrection broke out in some places, and in the county of Wexford
+was really formidable. The rebels numbered twenty thousand men. They
+got possession of Wexford, and committed great barbarities; but they
+were finally subdued by Lord Cornwallis. Had the French cooeperated, as
+they had promised, with a force of fifteen thousand, it is not
+improbable that Ireland would have been wrested from England. But the
+French had as much as they could do, at this time, to take care of
+themselves; and Ireland was again subjected to greater oppressions
+than before.
+
+The Irish parliament had hitherto been a mere body of perpetual
+dictators. By the Octennial Bill, this oligarchy was disbanded, and
+the House of Commons wore something of the appearance of a
+constitutional assembly, and there were found in it some men of
+integrity and sagacity. Ireland also had her advocates in the British
+senate; but whenever the people or the parliament gained a victory
+over the viceroy, some accident or blunder deprived the nation of
+reaping the fruits. The Commons became again corrupted, and the
+independence which Ireland obtained ceased to have a value. The
+corrupted Commons basely surrendered all that had been obtained. In
+vain the eloquence of Curran and Grattan. The Irish nation, without
+public virtue, a prey to faction, and a scene of corruption, became at
+last powerless and politically helpless. The rebellion of 1798 was a
+mere peasants' war, without intelligence to guide, or experience to
+counsel. It therefore miserably failed, but did not fail until fifty
+thousand rebels and twenty thousand royalists had perished.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of England and Ireland.]
+
+In June, 1800, the union of Ireland and England was effected, on the
+same basis as that between England and Scotland in the time of Anne.
+It was warmly opposed by some of the more patriotic of the Irish
+statesmen, and only carried by corruption and bribery. By this union,
+foreign legislation took the place of the guidance of those best
+qualified to know the national grievances; the Irish members became,
+in the British senate, merely the tools of the administration.
+Absenteeism was nearly doubled, and the national importance nearly
+annihilated in a political point of view. But, on the other hand, an
+oligarchal tyranny was broken, and the bond of union which bound the
+countries was strengthened, and the nation subsided into a greater
+state of tranquillity. Twenty-eight peers and one hundred commoners
+were admitted into the English parliament.
+
+Notwithstanding the suppression of the rebellion of 1798, only five
+years elapsed before another one was contemplated--the result of
+republican principles, and of national grievances. The leaders were
+Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell. But their treasonable designs were
+miserably supported by their countrymen, and they were able to make
+but a feeble effort, which immediately failed. These men were
+arrested, tried, and executed. The speech of Emmet, before his
+execution, has been much admired for its spirit of patriotism and
+pensive eloquence. His grand mistake consisted in overrating the
+strength of democratic influences, and in supposing that, by violent
+measures, he could overturn a strong military government. The Irish
+were not prepared for freedom, still less republican freedom. There
+was not sufficient concert, or patriotism, or intelligence, to secure
+popular liberty, and the antipathy between the Catholic and Protestant
+population was too deeply seated and too malignant to hope,
+reasonably, for a lasting union.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Ireland.]
+
+All the measures which have been adopted for the independence and
+elevation of Ireland have failed, and the country is still in as
+lamentable a state as ever. It presents a grand enigma and mystery to
+the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in devising
+means for the tranquillity and improvement of that unhappy and
+unfortunate country. The more privileges the people gain, and the
+greater assistance they receive, the more unreasonable appear to be
+their demands, and the more extravagant their expectations. Still,
+there are great and shameful evils, which ought to be remedied. There
+are nearly five millions of acres of waste land in the country,
+capable of the highest cultivation. The soil is inexhaustibly rich,
+the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for
+agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain
+oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the
+earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real
+union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different
+classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and
+Catholic population. The northern and Protestant part of the island is
+the most flourishing; but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is
+the most miserable country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst
+governed, and the most afflicted, in Christendom; and no human
+sagacity or wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the
+innumerable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the
+degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have been
+variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the tyranny
+of the government, to the system by which the lands are leased and
+cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish character. These,
+united, may have produced the effects which all philanthropists
+deplore; but no one cause, in particular, can account for so fine a
+nation sinking into such poverty and wretchedness, especially when it
+is considered that the same idle and miserable peasantry, when
+transplanted to America, exhibit very different dispositions and
+tastes, and develop traits of character which command respect and
+secure prosperity.
+
+[Sidenote: Parliamentary Reform.]
+
+The first plan for parliamentary reform was brought forward by Pitt in
+1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of a large number
+of the House representing no important interests, and dependent on the
+minister. But his motion was successfully opposed. In May, 1783, he
+brought in another bill to add one hundred members to the House of
+Commons, and to abolish a proportionate number of the small and
+obnoxious boroughs. This plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived
+by a great majority. In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a
+reform of parliament, and again failed; and with this last attempt
+ended all his efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the
+impracticability of the measure, that he even uniformly opposed the
+object when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions
+when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject with
+other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it could be
+obtained without mischief; but when it became a democratic measure, he
+opposed it with all his might. Indeed, he avowed that he preferred to
+have parliament remain as it was, forever, rather than risk any
+prospects of reform when the country was so deeply agitated by
+revolutionary discussions. Mr. Pitt perfectly understood that those
+persons who were most eager for parliamentary reform, desired the
+overthrow of the existing institutions of the land, or, at least, such
+as were inconsistent with the hereditary succession to the throne,
+hereditary titles, and the whole system of entailed estates. Mr. Pitt,
+as he grew older, more powerful, and more experienced, became more
+aristocratic and conservative; feared to touch any of the old supports
+of the constitution for fear of producing a revolution--an evil which,
+of all evils, he most abhorred. Mr. Burke, though opposed to the
+minister, here defended him, and made an eloquent speech against
+revolutionary measures. Nor can we wonder at the change of opinion,
+which Mr. Pitt and others admitted, when it is considered that the
+advocates of parliamentary reform also were associated with men of
+infidel and dangerous principles. Thomas Paine was one of the apostles
+of liberty in that age, and his writings had a very great and very
+pernicious influence on the people at large. It is very singular, but
+nevertheless true, that some of the most useful reforms have been
+projected by men of infidel principles, and infidelity and
+revolutionary excess have generally been closely connected.
+
+But the reform question did not deeply agitate the people of England
+until a much later period. One of the most exciting events, in the
+domestic history of England during the administration of Pitt, was the
+trial of Hastings and the difficulties which grew out of the
+aggrandizement of the East India Company.
+
+[Sidenote: Warren Hastings.]
+
+In the chapter on colonization, allusion was made to Indian affairs
+until the close of the administration of Lord Clive. Warren Hastings
+continued the encroachments and conquests which Clive had so
+successfully begun. He went to India in 1750, at the age of seventeen,
+as a clerk in the service of the company. It was then merely a
+commercial corporation. His talents and sagacity insured his
+prosperity. He gradually was promoted, and, in 1772, was appointed
+head of the government in Bengal. But the governor was not then, as he
+now is, nearly absolute, and he had only one vote in the council which
+represented the company at Calcutta. He was therefore frequently
+overruled, and his power was crippled. But he contrived to make
+important changes, and abolished the office of the minister to whom
+was delegated the collection of the revenue and the general regulation
+of internal affairs--an office which had been always held by a native.
+Hastings transferred the internal administration to the servants of
+the company, and in various other ways improved the finances of the
+company, the members of which were indifferent, comparatively, to the
+condition of the people of India, provided that they themselves were
+enriched. To enrich the company and extend its possessions, even at
+the expense of justice and humanity, became the object of the
+governor-general. He succeeded; but success brought upon him the
+imprecations of the natives and the indignant rebukes of his own
+countrymen. In less than two years after he had assumed the
+government, he added four hundred thousand pounds to the annual income
+of the company, besides nearly a million in ready money. But the
+administration of Hastings cannot be detailed. We can only notice that
+part of it which led to his trial in England.
+
+[Sidenote: War with Hyder Ali.]
+
+The great event which marked his government was the war with Hyder
+Ali, the Mohammedan sovereign of Mysore. The province of Bengal and
+the Carnatic had been, for some time, under the protection of the
+English. Adjoining the Carnatic, in the centre of the peninsula, were
+the dominions of Hyder Ali. Had Hastings been governor of Madras, he
+would have conciliated him, or vigorously encountered him as an enemy.
+But the authorities at Madras had done neither. They provoked him to
+hostilities, and, with an army of ninety thousand men, he invaded the
+Carnatic. British India was on the verge of ruin. Hyder Ali was every
+where triumphant, and only a few fortified places remained to the
+English.
+
+Hastings, when he heard of the calamity, instantly adopted the most
+vigorous measures. He settled his difficulties with the Mahrattas; he
+suspended the incapable governor of Fort George, and sent Sir Eyre
+Coote to oppose the great Mohammedan prince who threatened to subvert
+the English power in India.
+
+But Hastings had not the money which was necessary to carry on an
+expensive war with the most formidable enemy the English ever
+encountered in the East. He therefore resolved to plunder the richest
+and most sacred city of India--Benares. It was the seat of Indian
+learning and devotion, and contained five hundred thousand people. Its
+temple, as seen from the Ganges, was the most imposing in the Eastern
+world, while its bazaars were filled with the most valuable and rare
+of Indian commodities; with the muslins of Bengal, the shawls of
+Cashmere, the sabres of Oude, and the silks of its own looms.
+
+This rich capital was governed by a prince nominally subject to the
+Great Mogul, but who was dependent on the Nabob of Oude, a large
+province north of the Ganges, near the Himmaleh Mountains. Benares and
+its territories, being oppressed by the Nabob of Oude, sought the
+protection of the British. Their protection was, of course, readily
+extended; but it was fatal to the independence of Benares. The
+alliance with the English was like the protection Rome extended to
+Greece when threatened by Asia, and which ended in the subjection of
+both Greece and Asia. The Rajah of Benares became the vassal of the
+company, and therefore was obliged to furnish money for the protection
+he enjoyed.
+
+But the tribute which the Rajah of Benares paid did not satisfy
+Hastings. He exacted still greater sums, which led to an insurrection
+and ultimate conquest. The fair domains of Cheyte Sing, the lord of
+Benares, were added to the dominions of the company together with an
+increased revenue of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The treasure
+of the rajah amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and
+this was divided as prize money among the English.
+
+[Sidenote: Robbery of the Princesses of Oude.]
+
+The rapacious governor-general did not obtain the treasure which he
+expected to find at Benares, and then resolved to rob the Princesses
+of Oude, who had been left with immense treasures on the death of
+Suraj-w Dowlah, the nabob vizier of the Grand Mogul. The only pretext
+which Hastings could find was, that the insurrection at Benares had
+produced disturbances at Oude, and which disturbances were imputed to
+the princesses. Great barbarities were inflicted in order to secure
+these treasures; but the robbers were successful, and immense sums
+flowed into the treasury of the company. By these iniquities, the
+governor found means to conduct the war in the Carnatic successfully,
+and a treaty was concluded with Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, by which
+the company reigned without a rival on the great Indian peninsula.
+
+When peace was restored to India, and the company's servants had
+accumulated immense fortunes, Hastings returned to England. But the
+iniquities he had practised excited great indignation among those
+statesmen who regarded justice and humanity as better supports to a
+government than violence and rapine.
+
+Foremost among these patriots was Edmund Burke. He had long been a
+member of the select committee to investigate Indian affairs, and he
+had bestowed great attention to them, and fully understood the course
+which Hastings had pursued.
+
+Through his influence, an inquiry into the conduct of the late
+governor-general was instituted, and he was accordingly impeached at
+the bar of the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt permitted matters to take
+their natural course; but the king, the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, the
+ministers generally, and the directors of the East India Company
+espoused his cause. They regarded him as a very great man, whose rule
+had been glorious to the nation, in spite of the mistakes and
+cruelties which marked his government. He had added an empire to the
+British crown, educed order out of anarchy, and organized a system of
+administration which, in its essential features, has remained to this
+time. He enriched the company, while he did not enrich himself; for he
+easily might have accumulated a fortune of three millions of pounds.
+And he moreover contrived, in spite of his extortions and conquests,
+to secure the respect of the native population, whose national and
+religious prejudices he endeavored not to shock. "These things
+inspired good will. At the same time, his constant success, and the
+manner in which he extricated himself from every difficulty, made him
+an object of superstitious admiration; and the more than regal
+splendor which he sometimes displayed, dazzled a people who have much
+in common with children. Even now, after the lapse of more than fifty
+years, the natives of India still talk of him as the greatest of the
+English, and nurses sing children to sleep with a gingling ballad
+about the fleet horses and richly-caparisoned elephants of Sahib
+Warren Hostein."
+
+[Sidenote: Prosecution of Hastings.]
+
+But neither the admiration of the people of the East for the splendid
+abilities of Hastings, nor the gratitude of a company of merchants,
+nor the powerful friends he had in the English parliament, could
+screen him from the malignant hatred of Francis, or the purer
+indignation of Burke. The zeal which the latter evinced in his
+prosecution has never been equalled, and all his energies, for years,
+were devoted to the exposure of a person whom he regarded as "a
+delinquent of the first magnitude." "He had just as lively an idea of
+the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of
+the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd." Burke was
+assisted in his vehement prosecution by Charles James Fox, the
+greatest debater ever known in the House of Commons, but a man vastly
+inferior to himself in moral elevation, in general knowledge, in power
+of fancy, and in profound wisdom.
+
+The trial was at Westminster Hall, the hall which had witnessed the
+inauguration of thirty kings, and the trials of accused nobles since
+the time of William Rufus. And he was a culprit not unworthy of that
+great tribunal before which he was summoned--"a tribunal which had
+pronounced sentence on Strafford, and pardon on Somers"--the tribunal
+before which royalty itself had been called to account. Hastings had
+ruled, with absolute sway, a country which was more populous and more
+extensive than any of the kingdoms of Europe, and had gained a fame
+which was bounded only by the unknown countries of the globe. He was
+defended by three men who subsequently became the three highest judges
+of the land, and he was encouraged by the appearance and sympathetic
+smiles of the highest nobles of the realm.
+
+[Sidenote: Edmund Burke.]
+
+But greater than all were the mighty statesmen who conducted the
+prosecution. First among them in character and genius was Edmund
+Burke, who, from the time that he first spoke in the House of Commons,
+in 1766, had been a prominent member, and had, at length, secured
+greater fame than any of his contemporaries, Pitt alone excepted, not
+merely as an orator, but as an enlightened statesman, a philosopher,
+and a philanthropist. He excelled all the great men with whom he was
+associated, in the variety of his powers; he was a poet even while a
+boy; a penetrating philosopher, critic, and historian before the age
+of thirty; a statesman of unrivalled moral wisdom; an orator whose
+speeches have been read with increasing admiration in every succeeding
+age; a judge of the fine arts to whose opinions Reynolds submitted;
+and a writer on various subjects, in which he displayed not only vast
+knowledge, but which he treated in a style of matchless beauty and
+force. All the great men of his age--Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith,
+Garrick, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, North, Thurlow, Parr--scholars,
+critics, divines, and statesmen--bore testimony to his commanding
+genius and his singular moral worth, to his hatred of vice, and his
+passionate love of virtue. But these great and varied excellences,
+which secured him the veneration of the finest minds in Europe, were
+not fully appreciated by his own nation, which was astonished rather
+than governed by his prophetic wisdom. But Burke was remarkable, not
+merely for his knowledge, eloquence, and genius but also for an
+unblemished private life, for the habitual exercise of all those
+virtues, and the free expression of all those noble sentiments which
+only have marked exalted Christian characters. In his political
+principles, he was a conservative, and preferred to base his views on
+history and experience, rather than to try experiments, especially
+when these were advocated by men whose moral character or infidel
+sentiments excited his distrust or aversion. He did not shut his eyes
+to abuse, but aimed to mend deliberately and cautiously. His
+admonition to his country respecting America corresponded with his
+general sentiments. "Talk not of your abstract rights of government; I
+hate the very sound of them; follow experience and common sense." He
+believed that love was better than force, and that the strength of any
+government consisted in the affections of the people. And these he
+ever strove to retain, and for these he was willing to relinquish
+momentary gain and selfish aggrandizement. He advocated concession to
+the Irish legislature; justice and security to the people of India;
+liberty of conscience to Dissenters; relief to small debtors; the
+suppression of general warrants; the extension of the power of juries;
+freedom of the press; retrenchment in the public expenditures; the
+removal of commercial restrictions; and the abolition of the slave
+trade. He had a great contempt for "mechanical politicians," and
+"pedler principles." And he lived long enough to see the fulfilment of
+his political prophecies, and the horrors of that dreadful revolution
+which he had predicted and disliked, not because the principles which
+the French apostles of liberty advocated, were not abstractedly true,
+but because they were connected with excesses, and an infidel
+recklessness in the violation of established social rights, which
+alarmed and disgusted him. He died in 1797, in the sixty-eighth year
+of his age, beloved and honored by the good and great in all Christian
+countries.
+
+[Sidenote: Charles James Fox.]
+
+Next to Burke, among the prosecutors of Hastings, for greatness and
+popularity, was Charles James Fox; inferior to Burke in knowledge,
+imagination, and moral power, but superior in all the arts of debate,
+the most logical and accomplished forensic orator which that age of
+orators produced. His father, Lord Holland, had been the rival of the
+great Chatham, and he himself was opposed, nearly the whole of his
+public life, to the younger Pitt. His political principles were like
+those of Burke until the French Revolution, whose principles he at
+first admired. He was emphatically the man of the people, easy of
+access, social in his habits, free in his intercourse, without reserve
+or haughtiness, generous, magnanimous, and conciliatory. He was
+unsurpassed for logical acuteness, and for bursts of overpowering
+passion. He reached high political station, although his habits were
+such as destroyed, in many respects, the respect of those great men
+with whom he was associated.
+
+[Sidenote: Richard Brinsley Sheridan.]
+
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan, another of the public accusers of Hastings,
+was a different man from either Burke or Fox. He was born in Ireland,
+but was educated at Harrow, and first distinguished himself by writing
+plays. In 1776, on the retirement of Garrick, he became manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre; and shortly after appeared the School for Scandal,
+which placed him on the summit of dramatic fame. In 1780, he entered
+parliament, and, when Hastings was impeached, was in the height of his
+reputation, both as a writer and orator. His power consisted in
+brilliant declamation and sparkling wit, and his speech in relation to
+the Princesses of Oude produced an impression almost without a
+parallel in ancient or modern times. Mr. Burke's admiration was
+sincere and unbounded, but Fox thought it too florid and rhetorical.
+His fame now rests on his dramas. But his life was the shipwreck of
+genius, in consequence of his extravagance, his recklessness in
+incurring debts, and his dissipated habits, which disorganized his
+moral character and undermined the friendships which his brilliant
+talents at first secured to him.
+
+But in spite of the indignation which these illustrious orators
+excited against Hastings, he was nevertheless acquitted, after a trial
+which lasted eight years, in consequence of the change of public
+opinion; and, above all, in view of the great services which he had
+really rendered to his country. The expenses of the trial nearly
+ruined him; but the East India Company granted him an annual income of
+four thousand pounds, which he spent in ornamenting and enriching
+Daylesford, the seat which had once belonged to his family, and which
+he purchased after his return from India.
+
+[Sidenote: Bill for the Regulation of India.]
+
+Although Warren Hastings was eventually acquitted by the House of
+Lords, still his long and protracted trial brought to light many evils
+connected with the government of India; and, in 1784, acts were passed
+which gave the nation a more direct control over the East India
+Company--the most gigantic monopoly the world has ever seen. That a
+company of merchants in Leadenhall Street should exercise an unlimited
+power over an empire larger than the whole of Europe with the
+exception of Russia, and sacrifice the interests of humanity to base
+pecuniary considerations, at length aroused the English nation.
+Accordingly, Mr. Pitt brought in a bill, which passed both Houses,
+which provided that the affairs of the company should be partly
+managed by a Board of Control, partly by the Court of Directors, and
+partly by a general meeting of the stockholders of the company. The
+Board of Control was intrusted to five privy counsellors, one of whom
+was secretary of state. It was afterwards composed of a president,
+such members of the privy council as the king should select, and a
+secretary. This board superintends and regulates all civil, military,
+and revenue officers, and political negotiations, and all general
+despatches. The Board of Directors, composed of twenty-four men, six
+of whom are annually elected, has the nomination of the
+governor-general, and the appointment of all civil and military
+officers. These two boards operate as a check against each other.
+
+The first governor-general, by the new constitution, was Lord
+Cornwallis, a nobleman of great military experience and elevated moral
+worth; a man who was intrusted with great power, even after his
+misfortunes in America, and a man who richly deserved the confidence
+reposed in him. Still, he was seldom fortunate. He made blunders in
+India as well as in America. He did not fully understand the
+institutions of India, or the genius of the people. He was soon called
+to embark in the contests which divided the different native princes,
+and with the usual result. The simple principle of English territorial
+acquisition is, in defending the cause of the feebler party. The
+stronger party was then conquered, and became a province of the East
+India Company, while the weaker remained under English protection,
+until, by oppression, injustice, and rapacity on the part of the
+protectors, it was driven to rebellion, and then subdued.
+
+When Lord Cornwallis was sent to India, in 1786, the East India
+Company had obtained possession of Bengal, a part of Bahar, the
+Benares district of Allahabad, part of Orissa, the Circars, Bombay,
+and the Jaghire of the Carnatic--a district of one hundred miles along
+the coast. The other great Indian powers, unconquered by the English,
+were the Mahrattas, who occupied the centre of India, from Delhi to
+the Krishna, and from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea; also,
+Golconda, the western parts of the Carnatic, Mysore, Oude, and the
+country of the Sikhs. Of the potentates who ruled over these extensive
+provinces, the Sultan of Mysore, Tippoo Saib, was the most powerful,
+although the Mahrattas country was the largest.
+
+[Sidenote: War with Tippoo Saib.]
+
+The hostility of Tippoo, who inherited his father's prejudices against
+the English, excited the suspicions of Lord Cornwallis, and a
+desperate war was the result, in which the sultan showed the most
+daring courage. In 1792, the English general invested the formidable
+fortress of Seringapatam, with sixteen thousand Europeans and thirty
+thousand sepoys, and with the usual success. Tippoo, after the loss of
+this strong fort, and of twenty-three thousand of his troops, made
+peace with Lord Cornwallis, by the payment of four millions of pounds,
+and the surrender of half his dominions. Lord Cornwallis, after the
+close of this war, returned home, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore;
+and he by Marquis Wellesley, (1798,) under whose administration the
+war with Tippoo was renewed, in consequence of the intrigues of the
+sultan with the French at Pondicherry, to regain his dominions. The
+Sultan of Mysore, was again defeated, and slain; the dynasty of Hyder
+Ali ceased to reign, and the East India Company took possession of the
+whole southern peninsula. A subsequent war with the Mahratta powers
+completely established the British supremacy in India. Delhi, the
+capital of the Great Mogul, fell into the hands of the English, and
+the emperor himself became a stipendiary of a company of merchants.
+The conquest of the country of the Mahrattas was indeed successful,
+but was attended by vast expenses, which entailed a debt on the
+company of about nineteen millions of pounds. The brilliant successes
+of Wellesley, however, were not appreciated by the Board of Directors,
+who wanted dividends rather than glory, and he was recalled.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of India.]
+
+There were no new conquests until 1817, under the government of the
+Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He made war on the
+Pindarries, who were bands of freebooters in Central India. They were
+assisted by several native powers, which induced the governor-general
+to demand considerable cessions of territory. In 1819, the British
+effected a settlement at Singapore by which a lucrative commerce was
+secured to Great Britain.
+
+Lord Hastings was succeeded by the Earl of Amherst, under whose
+administration the Burmese war commenced, and by which large
+territories, between Bengal and China, were added to the British
+empire, (1826.)
+
+On the overthrow of the Mogul empire, the kingdom of the Sikhs, in the
+northern part of India, and that of the Affghans, lying west of the
+Indus, arose in importance--kingdoms formerly subject to Persia. The
+former, with all its dependent provinces, has recently been conquered,
+and annexed to the overgrown dominions of the Company.
+
+In 1833, the charter of the East India Company expired, and a total
+change of system was the result. The company was deprived of its
+exclusive right of trade, the commerce with India and China was freely
+opened to all the world, and the possessions and rights of the company
+were ceded to the nation for an annual annuity of six hundred and
+thirty thousand pounds. The political government of India, however,
+was continued to the company until 1853.
+
+[Sidenote: Consequences of the Conquest.]
+
+Thus has England come in possession of one of the oldest and most
+powerful of the Oriental empires, containing a population of one
+hundred and thirty millions of people, speaking various languages, and
+wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious institutions.
+The conquest of India is complete, and there is not a valuable office
+in the whole country which is not held by an Englishman. The native
+and hereditary princes of provinces, separately larger and more
+populous than Great Britain itself, are divested of all but the shadow
+of power, and receive stipends from the East India Company. The
+Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of
+Tanjore and Benares, and the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other
+princes, receive, indeed, an annual support of over a million
+sterling; but their power has passed away. An empire two thousand
+miles from east to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and
+containing more square miles than a territory larger than all the
+States between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, has fallen into
+the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a considerable part
+of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies, under the
+protection of the British government; but the moment that these
+dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be
+withdrawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is
+beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better
+observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty; but no
+compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for
+interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has been
+robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only held in
+bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must be felt as
+burdensome and expensive when the plundered country shall no longer
+satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. But that day may be
+remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital
+of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than
+Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of
+Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army
+amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are
+taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen
+millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies
+of India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever
+full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice and
+oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation among
+the governed. It is too much to suppose that one hundred and eighty
+millions of the human race can be permanently governed by a power on
+the opposite side of the globe, and where there never can exist any
+union or sympathy between the nation that rules and the nations that
+are ruled, in any religious, social, or political institution; and
+when all that is dear to the heart of man, and all that is consecrated
+by the traditions of ages, are made to subserve the interests of a
+mercantile state.
+
+But it is time to hasten to the consideration of the remaining
+subjects connected with the administration of William Pitt.
+
+The agitations of moral reformers are among the most prominent and
+interesting. The efforts of benevolent statesmen and philanthropists
+to abolish the slave trade produced a great excitement throughout
+Christendom, and were followed by great results.
+
+In 1787, William Wilberforce, who represented the great county of
+York, brought forward, in the House of Commons, a motion for the
+abolition of the slave trade. The first public movements to put a stop
+to this infamous traffic were made by the Quakers in the Southern
+States of America, who presented petitions for that purpose to their
+respective legislatures. Their brethren in England followed their
+example, and presented similar petitions to the House of Commons. A
+society was formed, and a considerable sum was raised to collect
+information relative to the traffic, and to support the expense of
+application to parliament. A great resistance was expected and made,
+chiefly by merchants and planters. Mr. Wilberforce interested himself
+greatly in this investigation, and in May brought the matter before
+parliament, and supported his motion with overwhelming arguments and
+eloquence. Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Whitbread
+supported Mr. Wilberforce. Mr. Pitt defended the cause of abolition
+with great eloquence and power; but the House was not then in favor of
+immediate abolition, nor was it carried until Mr. Fox and his friends
+came into power.
+
+[Sidenote: War with France.]
+
+The war with France, in consequence of the progress of the revolution,
+is too great a subject to be treated except in a chapter by itself.
+Mr. Pitt abstained from all warlike demonstrations until the internal
+tranquillity of England itself was affected by the propagation of
+revolutionary principles. But when, added to these, it was feared that
+the French were resolved to extend their empire, and overturn the
+balance of power, and encroach on the liberties of England, then Pitt,
+sustained by an overwhelming majority in parliament, declared war upon
+France, (1793.) The advocates of the French Revolution, however, take
+different views, and attribute the rise and career of Napoleon to the
+jealousy and encroachments of England herself, as well as of Austria
+and Prussia. Whether the general European war might not have been
+averted, is a point which merits inquiry, and on which British
+statesmen are not yet agreed. But the connection of England with this
+great war will be presented in the following chapter.
+
+Mr. Pitt continued to manage the helm of state until 1806; but all his
+energies were directed to the prosecution of the war, and no other
+events of importance took place during his administration.
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Pitt.]
+
+His genius most signally was displayed in his financial skill in
+extricating his nation from the great embarrassments which resulted
+from the American war, and in providing the means to prosecute still
+more expensive campaigns against Napoleon and his generals. He also
+had unrivalled talent in managing the House of Commons against one of
+the most powerful oppositions ever known, and in a period of great
+public excitements. He was always ready in debate, and always retained
+the confidence of the nation. He is probably the greatest of the
+English statesmen, so far as talents are concerned, and so far as he
+represented the ideas and sentiments of his age. But it is a question
+which will long perplex philosophers whether he was the wisest of that
+great constellation of geniuses who enlightened his brilliant age. To
+him may be ascribed the great increase of the national debt. If taxes
+are the greatest calamity which can afflict a nation, then Pitt has
+entailed a burden of misery which will call forth eternal curses on
+his name, in spite of all the brilliancy of his splendid
+administration. But if the glory and welfare of nations consist in
+other things--in independence, patriotism, and rational liberty; if it
+was desirable, above all material considerations, to check the current
+of revolutionary excess, and oppose the career of a man who aimed to
+bring all the kings and nations of Europe under the yoke of an
+absolute military despotism, and rear a universal empire on the ruins
+of ancient monarchies and states,--then Pitt and his government should
+be contemplated in a different light.
+
+That mighty contest which developed the energies of this great
+statesman, as well as the genius of a still more remarkable man,
+therefore claims our attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Tomline's Life of Pitt. Belsham's History of
+     George III. Prior's and Bissett's Lives of Burke. Moore's
+     Life of Sheridan. Walpole's Life of Fox. Life of
+     Wilberforce, by his sons. Annual Register, from 1783 to
+     1806. Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. Elphinstone's and
+     Martin's Histories of India. Mill's British India. Russell's
+     Modern Europe. Correspondence of Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke.
+     Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Boswell's Life of
+     Johnson. Burke's Works. Schlosser's Modern History.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
+
+
+If the American war was the greatest event in modern times, in view of
+ultimate results, the French Revolution may be considered the most
+exciting and interesting to the eye of contemporaries. The wars which
+grew out of the Revolution in France were conducted on a scale of much
+greater magnitude, and embroiled all the nations of Europe. A greater
+expenditure of energies took place than from any contest in the annals
+of civilized nations. Nor has any contest ever before developed so
+great military genius. Napoleon stands at the head of his profession,
+by general consent; and it is probable that his fame will increase,
+rather than diminish, with advancing generations.
+
+It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the great and varied
+events connected with the French Revolution, or even allude to all the
+prominent ones. The causes of this great movement are even more
+interesting than the developments.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the French Revolution.]
+
+The question is often asked, could Louis XVI. have prevented the
+catastrophe which overturned his throne? He might, perhaps, have
+delayed it; but it was an inevitable event, and would have happened,
+sooner or later. There were evils in the government of France, and in
+the condition of the people, so overwhelming and melancholy, that they
+would have produced an outbreak. Had Richelieu never been minister;
+had the Fronde never taken place; had Louis XIV. and XV. never
+reigned; had there been no such women as disgraced the court of France
+in the eighteenth century; had there been no tyrannical kings, no
+oppressive nobles, no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no
+luxurious courts, no infidel writings, and no discontented
+people,--then Louis XVI. might have reigned at Versailles, as
+Louis XV. had done before him. But the accumulated grievances of two
+centuries called imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a
+revolution could have removed them.
+
+Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of
+necessity, produced the most violent revolutionary storm in the annals
+of the world? The causes of the French revolution may be generalized
+under five heads: First, the influence of the writings of infidel
+philosophers; second, the diffusion of the ideas of popular rights;
+third, the burdens of the people, which made these abstract ideas of
+right a mockery; fourth, the absurd infatuation of the court and
+nobles; fifth, the derangement of the finances, which clogged the
+wheels of government, and led to the assembling of the States General.
+There were also other causes: but the above mentioned are the most
+prominent.
+
+[Sidenote: Helvetius--Voltaire.]
+
+Of those philosophers whose writings contributed to produce this
+revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable influence. These
+were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot.
+
+Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, and published, in 1758, a
+book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac and of other
+philosophers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes called, the
+sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of undisguised
+selfishness. He maintained that man owed his superiority over the
+lower animals to the superior organization of the body. Proceeding
+from this point, he asserted, further, that every faculty and emotion
+are derived from sensation; that all minds are originally equal; that
+pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the only ground of
+morality. The materialism of Helvetius was the mere revival of pagan
+Epicurianism; but it was popular, and his work, called _De l'Esprit_,
+made a great sensation. It was congenial with the taste of a court and
+a generation that tolerated Madame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of
+Paris condemned it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature,
+inasmuch as it confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and
+destroyed the distinctions between virtue and vice.
+
+His fame was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who
+exercised a greater influence on his age than any other man. He is the
+great apostle of French infidelity, and the great oracle of the
+superficial thinkers of his nation and age. He was born in 1694, and
+early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Versailles, and a
+companion of Frederic the Great--as great an egotist as he, though his
+egotism was displayed in a different way. He was an aristocrat, made
+for courts, and not for the people, with whom he had no sympathy,
+although the tendency of his writings was democratic. In all his
+satirical sallies, he professed to respect authority. But he was never
+in earnest, was sceptical, insincere, and superficial. It would not be
+rendering him justice to deny that he had great genius. But his genius
+was to please, to amuse a vain-glorious people, to turn every thing
+into ridicule, to pull down, and substitute nothing instead. He was a
+modern Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed reverence for God
+and truth. He despised and defied the future, and the future has
+rendered a verdict which can never be reversed--that he was vain,
+selfish, shallow, and cold, without faith in any spiritual influence
+to change the world. But he had a keen perception of what was false,
+with all his superficial criticism, a perception of what is now called
+_humbug_; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense, he had a
+love of truth, but not of truth in its highest development, not of the
+positive, the affirmative, the real. Negation and denial suited him
+better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence he was a
+"representative man," was an exponent of his age, and led the age. He
+hated the Jesuits, but chiefly because they advocated a blind
+authority; and he strove to crush Christianity, because its professors
+so often were a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs
+and victims. Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system
+of philosophy, but strove to make all systems absurd. He set the ball
+of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track: pushed
+out, not his principles, for he had none, but his spirit, into the
+extreme of mockery and negation. And such a course unsettled the
+popular faith, both in religion and laws, and made men indifferent to
+the future, and to their moral obligations.
+
+[Sidenote: Rousseau.]
+
+Quite a different man was Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or a
+leveller, or a satirist, or an atheist. He resembled Voltaire only in
+one respect--in egotism. He was not so learned as Voltaire, did not
+write so much, was not so highly honored or esteemed. But he had more
+genius, and exercised a greater influence on posterity. His influence
+was more subtle and more dangerous, for he led astray people of
+generous impulses and enthusiastic dispositions, with but little
+intelligence or experience. He abounded in extravagant admiration of
+unsophisticated nature, professed to love the simple and earnest,
+affected extraordinary friendship and sympathy, and was most
+enthusiastic in his rhapsodies of sentimental love. Voltaire had no
+cant, but Rousseau was full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton,
+but Rousseau of Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who as a judge,
+was too conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently
+unscrupulous to destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be
+detected in the ravings of the ultra Transcendentalists, in the
+extravagance of Fourierism, in the mock philanthropy of such apostles
+of light as Eugene Sue and Louis Blanc. The whole mental and physical
+constitution of Rousseau was diseased, and his actions were strangely
+inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of friendship, and
+it proved the token of treachery; he expatiated on simplicity and
+earnestness in most bewitching language, but was a hypocrite, seducer,
+and liar. He was always breathing the raptures of affection, yet never
+succeeded in keeping a friend; he was always denouncing the
+selfishness and vanity of the world, and yet was miserable without its
+rewards and praises; no man was more dependent on society, yet no man
+ever professed to hold it in deeper contempt; no man ever had a
+prouder spirit, yet no man ever affected a more abject humility. He
+dilated, with apparent rapture, on disinterested love, and yet left
+his own children to cold neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and
+the susceptible by pouring out streams of passion in eloquent and
+exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own soul and
+revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about philanthropy
+and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a charity. No man was ever
+more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in absurdity. He spent his life
+in gilding what is corrupt, and glossing over what is impure. The
+great moral effect of his writings was to make men commit crimes under
+the name of patriotism, and permit them to indulge in selfish passion
+under the name of love.
+
+[Sidenote: Diderot.]
+
+But more powerful than either of these false prophets and guides, in
+immediate influence, was Diderot; and with him the whole school of
+bold and avowed infidels, who united open atheism with a fierce
+democracy. The Encyclopedists professed to know every thing, to
+explain every thing, and to teach every thing, they discovered that
+there was no God, and taught that truth was a delusion, and virtue but
+a name. They were learned in mathematical, statistical, and physical
+science, but threw contempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons
+of experience, and the eternal truths of divine revelation. They
+advocated changes, experiments, fomentations, and impracticable
+reforms. They preached a gospel of social rights, inflamed the people
+with disgust of their condition, and with the belief that wisdom and
+virtue resided, in the greatest perfection, with congregated masses.
+
+[Sidenote: General Influence of the Philosophers.]
+
+They incessantly boasted of the greatness of philosophy, and the
+obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that successive
+developments of human nature, without the aid of influences foreign to
+itself, would gradually raise society to a state of perfection. What
+they could not explain by their logical formularies, they utterly
+discarded. They denied the reality of a God in heaven, and talked
+about the divinity of man on earth, especially when associated masses
+of the ignorant and brutal asserted what they conceived to be their
+rights. They made truth to reside, in its greatest lustre, with
+passionate majorities; and virtue, in its purest radiance, with felons
+and vagabonds, if affiliated into a great association. They flattered
+the people that they were wiser and better than any classes above
+them, that rulers were tyrants, the clergy were hypocrites, the
+oracles of former days mere fools and liars. To sum up, in few words,
+the French Encyclopedists, "they made Nature, in her outward
+manifestations, to be the foundation of all great researches, man to
+be but a mass of organization, mind the development of our sensations,
+morality to consist in self-interest, and God to be but the diseased
+fiction of an unenlightened age. The whole intellect, being
+concentrated on the outward and material, gave rise, perhaps, to some
+improvements in physical science; but religion was disowned, morality
+degraded, and man made to be but the feeble link in the great chain of
+events by which Nature is inevitably accomplishing her blind designs."
+From such influences, what could we expect but infidelity, madness,
+anarchy, and crimes?
+
+The second cause of the French revolution was the diffusion of the
+ideas of democratic liberty. Rousseau was a republican in his
+politics, as he was a sentimentalist in religion. Thomas Paine's Age
+of Reason had a great influence on the French mind, as it also had on
+the English and American. Moreover, the apostles of liberty in France
+were much excited in view of the success of the American Revolution,
+and fancied that the words "popular liberty," "sovereignty of the
+people," the "rights of man," "liberty and equality," meant the same
+in America as they did when pronounced by a Parisian mob. The French
+people were unduly flattered, and made to believe, by the demagogues,
+that they were philosophers, and that they were as fit for liberty as
+the American nation itself. Moreover, it must be confessed that the
+people had really made considerable advances, and discovered that
+there was no right or justice in the oppressions under which they
+groaned. The exhortations of popular leaders and the example of
+American patriots prepared the people to make a desperate effort to
+shake off their fetters. What were rights, in the abstract, if they
+were to be ground down to the dust? What a mockery was the watchword
+of liberty and equality, if they were obliged to submit to a despotism
+which they knew to be, in the highest degree, oppressive and
+tyrannical?
+
+[Sidenote: Sufferings of the People.]
+
+Hence the real and physical evils which the people of France endured,
+had no small effect in producing the revolution. Abstract ideas
+prepared the way, and sustained the souls of the oppressed; but the
+absolute burdens which they bore aroused them to resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: Degradation of the People.]
+
+These evils were so great, that general discontent prevailed among the
+middle and lower classes through the kingdom. The agricultural
+population was fettered by game laws and odious privileges to the
+aristocracy. "Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars
+and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through spacious
+districts, in order that the nobles might hunt as in a savage
+wilderness." Numerous edicts prohibited weeding, lest young partridges
+should be disturbed, and mowing of hay even, lest their eggs should be
+destroyed. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were carried
+before courts where every species of oppression and fraud prevailed.
+Fines were imposed at every change of property and at every sale. The
+people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to
+press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven. In
+consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were very
+poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress ragged and
+miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the enormous
+taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or even the pockets
+of the great proprietors. Officers were indefinitely multiplied. The
+governing classes looked upon the people only to be robbed. Their cry
+was unheard in the courts of justice, while the tear of sorrow was
+unnoticed amid the pageantry of the great, whose extravagance,
+insolence, and pride were only surpassed by the misery and degradation
+of those unfortunate beings on whose toils they lived. Justice was
+bought and sold like any other commodity, and the decisions of judges
+were influenced by the magnitude of the bribes which were offered
+them. Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed additional burdens, and
+swarmed wherever there was plunder to be obtained. The people were so
+extravagantly taxed that it was no object to be frugal or industrious.
+Every thing beyond the merest necessaries of life was seized by
+various tax-gatherers. In England, severe as is taxation, three
+fourths of the produce of the land go to the farmer, while in France
+only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. Two thirds of his earnings
+went to the king. Nor was there any appeal from this excessive
+taxation, which ground down the middle and lower classes, while the
+clergy and the nobles were entirely exempted themselves. Nor did the
+rich proprietor live upon his estates. He was a non-resident, and
+squandered in the cities the money which was extorted from his
+dependents. He took no interest in the condition of the peasantry,
+with whom he was not united by any common ties. Added to this
+oppression, the landlord was cruel, haughty, and selfish; and he
+irritated by his insolence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All
+situations in the army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench,
+and in diplomacy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom
+there were one hundred and fifty thousand people--a class insolent,
+haughty, effeminate, untaxed; who disdained useful employments, who
+sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those by whose
+toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and pleasure, as
+ignoble minions, who were unworthy of a better destiny, and unfit to
+enjoy those rights which God designed should be possessed by the whole
+human race.
+
+The privileges and pursuits of the aristocratic class, from the king
+to a lieutenant in his army, were another cause of revolution.
+Louis XV. squandered twenty million pounds sterling in pleasures too
+ignominious to be even named in the public accounts, and enjoyed
+almost absolute power. He could send any one in his dominions to rot
+in an ignominious prison, without a hearing or a trial. The odious
+_lettre de cachet_ could consign the most powerful noble to a dungeon,
+and all were sent to prison who were offensive to government. The
+king's mistresses sometimes had the power of sending their enemies to
+prison without consulting the king. The lives and property of the
+people were at his absolute disposal, and he did not scruple to
+exercise his power with thoughtless, and sometimes inhuman cruelty.
+
+[Sidenote: Derangement of Finances.]
+
+But these evils would have ended only in disaffection, and hatred, and
+unsuccessful resistance, had not the royal finances been deranged. So
+long as the king and his ministers could obtain money, there was no
+immediate danger of revolution. So long as he could pay the army, it
+would, if decently treated, support an absolute throne.
+
+But the king at last found it difficult to raise a sufficient revenue
+for his pleasures and his wars. The annual deficit was one hundred and
+ninety million of francs a year. The greater the deficit, the greater
+was the taxation, which, of course, increased the popular discontent.
+
+Such was the state of things when Louis XVI. ascended the throne of
+Hugh Capet, (1774,) in his twentieth year, having married, four years
+before, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of
+Austria. He was grandson of Louis XV., who bequeathed to him a debt of
+four thousand millions of livres.
+
+The new king was amiable and moral, and would have ruled France in
+peaceful times, but was unequal to a revolutionary crisis. "Of all the
+monarchs," says Alison, "of the Capetian line, he was the least able
+to stem, and yet the least likely to provoke, a revolution. The people
+were tired of the arbitrary powers of their monarch, and he was
+disposed to abandon them; they were provoked at the expensive
+corruptions of the court, and he was both innocent in his manners, and
+unexpensive in his habits; they demanded reformation in the
+administration of affairs, and he placed his chief glory in yielding
+to the public voice. His reign, from his accession to the throne to
+the meeting of the States General, was nothing but a series of
+ameliorations, without calming the public effervescence. He had the
+misfortune to wish sincerely for the public good, without possessing
+the firmness necessary to secure it; and with truth it may be said
+that reforms were more fatal to him than the continuance of abuses
+would have been to another sovereign."
+
+[Sidenote: Maurepas--Turgot--Malesherbes.]
+
+He made choice of Maurepas as his prime minister, an old courtier
+without talent, and who was far from comprehending the spirit of the
+nation or the genius of the times. He accustomed the king to half
+measures, and pursued a temporizing policy, ill adapted to
+revolutionary times. The discontents of the people induced the king to
+dismiss him, and Turgot, for whom the people clamored, became prime
+minister. He was an honest man, and contemplated important reforms,
+even to the abolition of feudal privileges and the odious _lettres de
+cachet_, which were of course opposed by the old nobility, and were
+not particularly agreeable to the sovereign himself.
+
+Malesherbes, a lawyer who adopted the views of Turgot, succeeded him,
+and, had he been permitted, would have restored the rights of the
+people, and suppressed the _lettres de cachet_, reenacted the Edict of
+Nantes, and secured the liberty of the press. But he was not equal to
+the crisis, with all his integrity and just views, and Necker became
+financial minister.
+
+[Sidenote: Necker--Calonne.]
+
+He was a native of Geneva, a successful banker, and a man who had won
+the confidence of the nation. He found means to restore the finances,
+and to defray the expenses of the American war. But he was equally
+opposed by the nobles, who wanted no radical reform, and he was not a
+man of sufficient talent to stem the current of revolution. Financial
+skill was certainly desirable, but no financiering could save the
+French nation on the eve of bankruptcy with such vast expenditures as
+then were deemed necessary. The nobles indeed admitted the extent of
+the evils which existed, and descanted, on their hunting parties, in a
+strain of mock philanthropy, but would submit to no sacrifices
+themselves, and Necker was compelled to resign.
+
+M. de Calonne took his place; a man of ready invention, unscrupulous,
+witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of promises, he
+succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a plan
+directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged the
+extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off pressing
+debts by contracting new ones. He pleased all classes by his
+captivating manners, brilliant conversation, and elegant dress. The
+king, furnished with what money he wanted, forgot the burdens of the
+people, and the minister went on recklessly contracting new loans, and
+studiously concealing from the public the extent of the annual
+deficit.
+
+But such a policy could not long be adopted successfully, and the
+people were overwhelmed with amazement when it finally appeared that,
+since the retirement of Necker in 1781, Calonne had added sixteen
+hundred and forty-six millions of francs to the public debt. National
+bankruptcy stared every body in the face. It was necessary that an
+extraordinary movement should be made; and Calonne recommended the
+assembling of the Notables, a body composed chiefly of the nobility,
+clergy, and magistracy, with the hope that these aristocrats would
+consent to their own taxation.
+
+He was miserably mistaken. The Notables met, (1787,) the first time
+since the reign of Henry IV., and demanded the dismissal of the
+minister, who was succeeded by Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse.
+
+He was a weak man, and owed his elevation to his influence with women.
+He won the queen by his pleasing conversation, but had no solid
+acquirements. Occupying one of the highest positions in his church, he
+yet threw himself into the arms of atheistical philosophers. A man so
+inconsistent and so light was not fit for his place.
+
+However, the Notables agreed to what they had refused to Calonne. They
+consented to a land tax, to the stamp duty, to provincial assemblies,
+and to the suppression of the gratuitous service of vassals. These
+were popular measures, but were insufficient. Brienne was under the
+necessity of proposing the imposition of new taxes. But the Parliament
+of Paris refused to register the edict. A struggle between the king
+and the parliament resulted; and the king, in order to secure the
+registration of new taxes, resorted to the _bed of justice_--the last
+stretch of his royal power.
+
+[Sidenote: States General.]
+
+During one of the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses and
+prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the
+word _etats_, (statements,) exclaimed, "It is not statements but
+States General that we want."
+
+From that moment, nothing was thought of or talked about but the
+assembling of the States General; to which the minister, from his
+increasing embarrassments, consented. Moreover, the court hoped, in
+view of the continued opposition of the parliament, that the Tiers
+Etat would defend the throne against the legal aristocracy.
+
+All classes formed great and extravagant expectations from the
+assembling of the States General, and all were doomed to
+disappointment, but none more than those who had most vehemently and
+enthusiastically called for its convocation.
+
+The Archbishop of Toulouse soon after retired, unable to stem the
+revolutionary current. But he contrived to make his own fortune, by
+securing benefices to the amount of eight hundred thousand francs, the
+archbishopric of Sens, and a cardinal's hat. At his recommendation
+Necker was recalled.
+
+On Necker's return, he found only two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs in the royal treasury; but the funds immediately rose, thirty
+per cent., and he was able to secure the loans necessary to carry on
+the government, rich capitalists fearing that absolute ruin would
+result unless they came to his assistance.
+
+Then followed discussions in reference to the Tiers Etat, as to what
+the third estate really represented, and as to the number of deputies
+who should be called to the assembly of the States General. "The Tiers
+Etat," said the Abbe Sieyes, in an able pamphlet, "is the French
+nation, _minus_ the noblesse and the clergy."
+
+It was at last decided that the assembly should be at least one
+thousand, and that the number of deputies should equal the
+representatives of the nobles and clergy. The elections, were
+carelessly conducted, and all persons, decently dressed, were allowed
+to vote. Upwards of three millions of electors determined the choice
+of deputies. Necker conceded too much, and opened the flood-gates of
+revolution. He had no conception of the storm, which was to overwhelm
+the throne.
+
+On the 4th of May, 1789, that famous Assembly, which it was hoped
+would restore prosperity to France, met with great pomp in the
+cathedral church of Notre Dame, and the Bishop of Nancy delivered the
+sermon, and, the next day, the assembly was opened in the hall
+prepared for the occasion. The king was seated on a magnificent
+throne, the nobles and the clergy on both sides of the hall, and the
+third estate at the farther end. Louis XVI. pronounced a speech full
+of disinterested sentiments, and Necker read a report in reference to
+the state of the finances.
+
+[Sidenote: The Tiers Etat.]
+
+The next day, the deputies of the Tiers Etat were directed to the
+place allotted to them, which was the common hall. The nobles and
+clergy repaired to a separate hall. It was their intention, especially
+in view of the great number of the deputies, to deliberate in distinct
+halls. But the deputies insisted upon the three orders deliberating
+together in the same room. Angry discussions and conferences took
+place. But there was not sufficient union between the nobles and the
+clergy, or sufficient energy on the part of the court. There happened
+also to be some bold and revolutionary spirits among the deputies, and
+they finally resolved, by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one to
+ninety, to assume the title of _National Assembly_, and invited the
+members of the other chamber to join them. They erected themselves
+into a sovereign power, like the Long Parliament of Charles I.,
+disregarding both the throne and the nobility.
+
+Some of the most resolute of the nobles urged the king to adopt
+vigorous measures against the usurpation of the third estate; but he
+was timid and irresolute.
+
+The man who had, at that time, the greatest influence in the National
+Assembly was Mirabeau, a man of noble birth, but who had warmly
+espoused the popular side. He was disagreeable in his features,
+licentious in his habits, and a bankrupt in reputation, but a man of
+commanding air, of great abilities, and unrivalled eloquence. His
+picture has been best painted by Carlyle, both in his essays and his
+history of the revolution.
+
+The National Assembly contained many great men, who would never have
+been heard of in quiet times; some of great virtues and abilities, and
+others of the most violent revolutionary principles. There were also
+some of the nobility, who joined them, not anticipating the evils
+which were to come. Among them were the Dukes of Orleans,
+Rochefoucault, and Liancourt, Count Lally Tollendal, the two brothers
+Lameth, Clermont Tonnerre, and the Marquis de La Fayette, all of whom
+were guillotined or exiled during the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Commotions.]
+
+The discussions in the Assembly did not equal the tumults of the
+people. All classes were intoxicated with excitement, and believed
+that a new era was to take place on earth; that all the evils which
+afflicted society were to be removed, and a state of unbounded
+liberty, plenty, and prosperity, was about to take place.
+
+In the midst of the popular ferments, the regiment of guards,
+comprising three thousand six hundred men, revolted: immense bodies of
+workmen assembled together, and gave vent to the most inflammatory
+language; the Hotel of the Invalids was captured; fifty thousand pikes
+were forged and distributed among the people; the Bastile was stormed;
+and military massacres commenced. Soon after, the tricolored cockade
+was adopted, the French guards were suppressed by the Assembly, the
+king and his family were brought to Paris by a mob, and the Club of
+the Jacobins was established. Before the year 1789 was ended, the
+National Assembly was the supreme power in France, and the king had
+become a shadow and a mockery; or, rather, it should be said that
+there was no authority in France but what emanated from the people,
+and no power remained to suppress popular excesses and insurrections.
+The Assembly published proclamations against acts of violence; but it
+was committed in a contest with the crown and aristocracy, and
+espoused the popular side. A famine, added to other horrors, set in at
+Paris; and the farmers, fearing that their grain would be seized, no
+longer brought it to market. Manufactures of all kinds were suspended,
+and the public property was confiscated to supply the immediate wants
+of a starving and infuriated people. A state was rapidly hastening to
+universal violence, crime, misery, and despair.
+
+[Sidenote: Rule of the People.]
+
+The year 1790 opened gloomily, and no one could tell when the
+agitating spirit would cease, or how far it would be carried, for the
+mob of Paris was rapidly engrossing the power of the state. One of the
+first measures of the Assembly was to divest the provinces of France
+of their ancient privileges, since they were jealous of the
+sovereignty exercised by the Assembly, and to divide the kingdom into
+eighty-four new departments, nearly equal in extent and population. A
+criminal tribunal was established for each department and a civil
+court for each of the districts into which the department was divided.
+The various officers and magistrates were elected by the people, and
+the qualification for voting was a contribution to the amount of three
+days' labor. By this great stop, the whole civil force in the kingdom
+was placed at the disposal of the lower classes. They had the
+nomination of the municipality, and the control of the military, and
+the appointment of judges, deputies, and officers of the National
+Guard. Forty-eight thousand communes, or municipalities, exercised all
+the rights of sovereignty, and hardly any appointment was left to the
+crown. A complete democratic constitution was made, which subverted
+the ancient divisions of the kingdom, and all those prejudices and
+interests which had been nursed for centuries. The great extension of
+the electoral franchise introduced into the Assembly a class of men
+who were prepared to make the most impracticable changes, and commit
+the most violent excesses.
+
+The next great object of the Assembly was the regulation of the
+finances. Further taxation was impossible, and the public necessities
+were great. The revenue had almost failed, and the national debt had
+alarmingly increased,--twelve hundred millions in less than three
+years. The capitalists would advance nothing, and voluntary
+contributions had produced but a momentary relief. Under these
+circumstances, the spoliation of the church was resolved, and
+Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was the first to propose the confiscation
+of the property of his order. The temptation was irresistible to an
+infidel and revolutionary assembly; for the church owned nearly one
+half of the whole landed property of the kingdom. Several thousand
+millions of francs were confiscated, and the revenues of the clergy
+reduced to one fifth of their former amount.
+
+This violent measure led to another. There was no money to pay for the
+great estates which the Assembly wished to sell. The municipalities of
+the large cities became the purchasers, and gave promissory notes to
+the public creditors until payment should be made; supposing that
+individuals would buy in small portions. Sales not being effected by
+the municipalities, as was expected and payment becoming due, recourse
+was had to government bills. Thus arose the system of _Assignats_,
+which were issued to a great amount on the security of the church
+lands, and which resulted in a paper circulation, and the
+establishment of a vast body of small landholders, whose property
+sprung out of the revolution, and whose interests were identified with
+it. The relief, however great, was momentary. New issues were made at
+every crisis, until the over issue alarmed the reflecting portion of
+the community, and assignats depreciated to a mere nominal value. At
+the close of the year, the credit of the nation was destroyed, and the
+precious metals were withdrawn, in a great measure, from circulation.
+
+Soon after, the assembly abolished all titles of nobility, changed the
+whole judicial system, declared its right to make peace and war, and
+established the National Guard, by which three hundred thousand men
+were enrolled in support of revolutionary measures.
+
+[Sidenote: National Federation.]
+
+On the 14th of July, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastile,
+was the celebrated National Federation, when four hundred thousand
+persons repaired to the Champ de Mars, to witness the king, his
+ministers, the assembly, and the public functionaries, take the oath
+to the new constitution; the greatest mockery of the whole revolution,
+although a scene of unparalleled splendor.
+
+Towards the close of the year, an extensive emigration of the nobles
+took place; a great blunder on their part, since their estates were
+immediately confiscated, and since the forces left to support the
+throne were much diminished. The departure of so many distinguished
+persons, however, displeased the Assembly, and proposals were made to
+prevent it. But Mirabeau, who, until this time, had supported the
+popular side, now joined the throne, and endeavored to save it. His
+popularity was on the decline, when a natural death relieved him from
+a probable execution. He had contributed to raise the storm, but he
+had not the power to allay it. He exerted his splendid abilities to
+arrest the revolution, whose consequences, at last, he plainly
+perceived. But in vain. His death, however, was felt as a public
+calamity, and all Paris assembled to see his remains deposited, with
+extraordinary pomp, in the Pantheon, by the side of Des Cartes. Had he
+lived, he might possibly have saved the lives of the king and queen,
+but he could not have prevented the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
+
+Soon after, the royal family, perceiving, too late, that they were
+mere prisoners in the Tuileries, undertook to escape, and fly to
+Coblentz, where the great body of emigrants resided. The unfortunate
+king contrived to reach Varennes, was recognized, and brought back to
+Paris. But the National Assembly made a blunder in not permitting him
+to escape; for it had only to declare the throne vacant by his
+desertion, and proceed to institute a republican government. The crime
+of regicide might have been avoided, and further revolutionary
+excesses prevented. But his return increased the popular ferments, and
+the clubs demanded his head. He was suspended from his functions, and
+a guard placed over his person.
+
+On the 29th of September, 1791, the Constituent Assembly dissolved
+itself; having, during the three years of its existence enacted
+thirteen hundred and nine laws and decrees relative to the general
+administration of the state. It is impossible, even now, to settle the
+question whether it did good or ill, on the whole; but it certainly
+removed many great and glaring evils, and enacted many wise laws. It
+abolished torture, the _lettres de cachet_, the most oppressive
+duties, the privileges of the nobility, and feudal burdens. It
+established a uniform system of jurisprudence, the National Guards,
+and an equal system of finance. "It opened the army to men of merit,
+and divided the landed property of the aristocracy among the laboring
+classes; which, though a violation of the rights of property, enabled
+the nation to bear the burdens which were subsequently imposed, and to
+prosper under the evils connected with national bankruptcy,
+depreciated assignats, the Reign of Terror, the conscription of
+Napoleon, and the subjugation of Europe."
+
+The Legislative Assembly, composed of inexperienced men,--country
+attorneys and clerks for the most part, among whom there were not
+fifty persons possessed of one hundred pounds a year,--took the place
+of the Constituent Assembly, and opened its sittings on the 1st of
+October.
+
+In the first assembly there was a large party attached to royal and
+aristocratical interests, and many men of great experience and
+talents. But in the second nearly all were in favor of revolutionary
+principles. They only differed in regard to the extent to which
+revolution should be carried.
+
+The members of the right were called the _Feuillants_, from the club
+which formed the centre of their power, and were friends of the
+constitution, or the limited monarchy which the Constituent Assembly
+had established. The national guard, the magistrates, and all the
+constituted authorities, were the supporters of this party.
+
+[Sidenote: The Girondists and the Jacobins.]
+
+The _Girondists_, comprehending the more respectable of the
+republicans, and wishing to found the state on the model of antiquity,
+formed a second party, among whom were numbered the ablest men in the
+assembly. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Guadet, and Isnard, were
+among the leading members.
+
+There was also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and Merlin,
+which was supported by the clubs of the _Jacobins_ and the
+_Cordeliers_. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre,
+Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois; while the leaders of the Cordeliers
+were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, as were others
+of the last assembly, from the new one, by a sort of self-denying
+ordinance which he himself had proposed. His influence, at that time,
+was immense, from the extravagance of his opinions, the vehemence of
+his language, and the reputation he had acquired for integrity.
+
+Between these three parties there were violent contentions, and the
+struggle for ascendency soon commenced, to end in the complete triumph
+of the Jacobinical revolutionists.
+
+In the mean time, the restrictions imposed on the king, who still
+enjoyed the shadow of authority, the extent of popular excesses, and
+the diffusion of revolutionary principles, induced the leading
+monarchs of Europe to confederate together, in order to suppress
+disturbances in France. In July, the Emperor Leopold appealed to the
+sovereigns of Europe to unite for the deliverance of Louis XVI.
+Austria collected her troops, the emigrants at Coblentz made warlike
+demonstrations, and preparations were made for a contest, which,
+before it was finished, proved the most bloody and extensive which has
+desolated the world since the fall of the Roman empire.
+
+The Constituent Assembly rejected with disdain the dictation of the
+various European powers; and the new ministry, of which Dumourier and
+Roland were the most prominent members, prepared for war. All classes
+in France were anxious for it, and war was soon declared. On the 25th
+of July, the Duke of Brunswick, with an army of one hundred and
+forty-eight thousand Prussians, Austrians, and Hessians, entered the
+French territory. The spirit of resistance animated all classes, and
+the ardor of the multitude was without a parallel. The manifesto of
+the allied powers indicated the dispositions of the court and
+emigrants. Revolt against the throne now seemed necessary, in order to
+secure the liberty of the people, who now had no choice between
+victory and death. On the 25th of July, the Marseillais arrived in
+Paris, and augmented the strength and confidence of the insurgents.
+Popular commotions increased, and the clubs became unmanageable. On
+the 10th of August, the tocsin sounded, the _generale_ beat in every
+quarter of Paris, and that famous insurrection took place which
+overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the
+insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were
+massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was lost,
+and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob.
+
+The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of the
+foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation of
+their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, the
+fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legislative
+Assembly, rapidly succeeded.
+
+[Sidenote: The National Convention.]
+
+On the 21st of September, the National Convention was opened, and was
+composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. It was ruled by
+those popular orators who had the greatest influence in the clubs. The
+most influential of these leaders were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.
+Danton was the hero of the late insurrection; was a lawyer, a man of
+brutal courage, the slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the
+Parisian mob. He was made minister of justice, and was the author of
+the subsequent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity,
+he was lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the
+period of danger had passed.
+
+[Sidenote: Marat--Danton--Robespierre.]
+
+Marat was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member of the
+convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary excesses. His
+bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand of a heroine,
+Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid the country of
+the greatest monster which the annals of crime have consigned to an
+infamous immortality.
+
+Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the mask of
+patriotism and philanthropy, an insatiable ambition, inordinate
+vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the passion of money,
+and, when he had at his disposal the lives and fortunes of his
+countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is the fashion to deny
+to him any extraordinary talent; but that he was a man of domineering
+will, of invincible courage, and austere enthusiasm appears from
+nearly all the actions of his hateful career.
+
+It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where more
+than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated vengeance of the
+Parisian mob, that the National Convention commenced its sittings.
+
+Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim a
+republic; the next, to issue new assignats. The two preceding
+assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred
+millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on the
+security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, the trial of
+the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, his examination
+commenced. On his appearance at the bar of the Convention, the
+president, Barrere, said, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you
+are about to hear the charges that are to be preferred. Louis, be
+seated."
+
+The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to which
+he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. He was defended,
+in the mock trial, by Deseze, Tronchet, and Malesherbes; but his blood
+was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pronounced the condemnation
+of their king. That seven hundred men, with all the natural
+differences of opinion, could be found to do this, shows the excess of
+revolutionary madness. On the 20th of January, Santerre appeared in
+the royal prison, and read the sentence of death; and only three days
+were allowed the king to prepare for the last hour of anguish. On the
+24th of January, he mounted the scaffold erected between the garden of
+the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees, and the fatal axe separated his
+head from his body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of
+the Madeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of
+Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until the
+restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the beautiful
+church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The spot where
+Louis XVI. offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes of his
+ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red granite, which
+the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a monument which
+has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may survive the glory of the
+French nation itself.
+
+[Sidenote: General War.]
+
+The martyrdom of Louis XVI. was the signal for a general war. All the
+powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the principles of
+the French revolutionists. The Convention, after declaring war against
+England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies,
+the Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont,--all of which had combined
+together,--ordered a levy of three hundred thousand men, instituted a
+military tribunal, and imposed a forced loan on the rich of one
+thousand millions, and prepared to defend the principles of liberty
+and the soil of France. The enthusiasm of the French was unparalleled,
+and the energies put forth were most remarkable. Patriotism and
+military ardor were combined, and measures such as only extraordinary
+necessities require were unhesitatingly adopted.
+
+A Committee of Public Safety was appointed, and the dictatorship of
+Danton, Marat, and Robespierre commenced, marked by great horrors and
+barbarities, but signalized by wonderful successes in war, and by
+exertions which, under common circumstances, would be scarcely
+credited.
+
+This committee was composed of twenty-five persons at first, and
+twelve afterwards; but Robespierre and Marat were the leading members.
+The committee assigned to ruling Jacobins the different departments of
+the government. St. Just was intrusted with the duty of denouncing its
+enemies; Couthon for bringing forward its general measures; Billaud
+Varennes and Collot d'Herbois with the management of departments;
+Carnot was made minister of war; and Robespierre general dictator.
+This committee, though required to report to the Convention, as the
+supreme authority, had really all the power of government. "It named
+and dismissed generals, judges, and juries; brought forward all
+public measures in the Convention; ruled provinces and armies;
+controlled the Revolutionary Tribunal; and made requisitions of men
+and money; and appointed revolutionary committees, which sprung up in
+every part of the kingdom to the frightful number of fifty thousand.
+It was the object of the Committee of Public Safety to destroy all who
+opposed the spirit of the most violent revolutionary measures. Marat
+declared that two hundred and sixty thousand heads must fall before
+freedom was secure; the revolutionary committees discovered that seven
+hundred thousand persons must be sacrificed."
+
+[Sidenote: Reign of Terror.]
+
+Then commenced the Reign of Terror, when all the prisons of France
+were filled with victims, who were generally the most worthy people in
+the community, and whose only crime was in being obnoxious to the
+reigning powers. Those who were suspected fled, if possible, but were
+generally unable to carry away their property. Millions of property
+was confiscated; the prisons were crowded with the rich, the elegant,
+and the cultivated classes; thousands were guillotined; and universal
+anarchy and fear reigned without a parallel. Deputies, even those who
+had been most instrumental in bringing on the Revolution, were
+sacrificed by the triumphant Jacobins. Women and retired citizens were
+not permitted to escape their fear and vengeance. Marie Antoinette,
+and the Princess Elizabeth, and Madame Roland, were among the first
+victims. Then followed the executions of Bailly, Mayor of Paris;
+Barnave, one of the most eloquent and upright members of the
+Constituent Assembly; Dupont Dutertre, one of the ministers of
+Louis XVI.; Lavoisier, the chemist; Condorcet, the philosopher;
+General Custine; and General Houchard; all of whom had been the allies
+of the present dominant party. The Duke of Orleans, called _Egalite_,
+who had supported the revolt of the 10th of August, and had voted for
+the execution of the king, shared the fate of Louis XVI. He was the
+father of Louis Philippe, and, of all the victims of the revolution,
+died the least lamented.
+
+The "Decemvirs" had now destroyed the most illustrious advocates of
+constitutional monarchy and of republican liberty. The slaughter of
+their old friends now followed. The first victim was Danton himself,
+who had used his influence to put a stop to the bloody executions
+which then disgraced the country, and had recognized the existence of
+a God and the rights of humanity. For such sentiments he was denounced
+and executed, together with Camille Desmoulins, and Lacroix, who
+perished because they were less wicked than their associates. Finally,
+the anarchists themselves fell before the storm which they had raised,
+and Hebert, Gobet, Clootz, and Vincent died amid the shouts of general
+execration. The Committee of Public Safety had now all things in their
+own way, and, in their iron hands, order resumed its sway from the
+influence of terror. "The history of the world has no parallel to the
+horrors of that long night of suffering, because it has no parallel to
+the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed so hideous a form,
+because licentiousness never required so severe a punishment."
+
+The Committee of Public Safety, now confident of its strength, decreed
+the disbanding of the revolutionary army, raised to overawe the
+capital, and the dissolution of all the popular societies which did
+not depend on the Jacobin Club, and devoted all their energies to
+establish their power. But death was the means which they took to
+secure it, and two hundred thousand victims filled the prisons of
+France.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Robespierre.]
+
+At last, fear united the members of the Convention, and they resolved
+to free the country of the great tyrant who aimed at the suppression
+of all power but his own. "Do not flatter yourselves," said Tallien to
+the Girondists, "that he will spare you, for you have committed an
+unpardonable offence in being freemen." "Do you still live?" said he
+to the Jacobins; "in a few days, he will have your heads if you do not
+take his." All parties in the assembly resolved to overthrow their
+common enemy. Robespierre, the chief actor of the bloody tragedy,
+Dumas, the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Henriot, the
+commander of the National Guard, Couthon and St. Just, the tools of
+the tyrant, were denounced, condemned, and executed. The last hours of
+Robespierre were horrible beyond description. When he was led to
+execution, the blood flowed from his broken jaw, his face was deadly
+pale, and he uttered yells of agony, which filled all hearts with
+terror. But one woman, nevertheless, penetrated the crowd which
+surrounded him, exclaiming, "Murderer of my kindred! your agony fills
+me with joy; descend to hell, covered with the curses of every mother
+in France."
+
+Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, during which, nearly nineteen
+thousand persons were guillotined; and among these were over two
+thousand nobles and one thousand priests, besides immense numbers of
+other persons, by war or the axe, in other parts of France.
+
+But vigorous measures had been adopted to carry on the war against
+united Christendom. No less than two hundred and eighty thousand men
+were in the field, on the part of the allies, from Basle to Dunkirk.
+Toulon and Lyons had raised the standard of revolt, Mayence gave the
+invaders a passage into the heart of the kingdom, while sixty thousand
+insurgents in La Vendee threatened to encamp under the walls of Paris.
+But under the exertions of the Committee, and especially of Carnot,
+the minister of war, still greater numbers were placed under arms,
+France was turned into an immense workshop of military preparations,
+and the whole property of the state, by means of confiscations and
+assignats, put at the disposal of the government. The immense debts of
+the government were paid in paper money, while conscription filled the
+ranks with all the youth of the state. Added to all this force which
+the government had at its disposal, it must be remembered that the
+army was burning with enthusiastic dreams of liberty, and of
+patriotism, and of glory. No wonder that such a nation of soldiers and
+enthusiasts should have been able to resist the armies of united
+Christendom.
+
+[Sidenote: New Constitution.]
+
+On the death of Robespierre, (July, 1794,) a great reaction succeeded
+the Reign of Terror. His old associates and tools were executed or
+transported, the club of the Jacobins was closed, the Revolutionary
+Tribunals were suppressed, the rebellious faubourgs were subdued, the
+National Guard was reorganized, and a new constitution was formed.
+
+[Sidenote: The Directory.]
+
+The constitution of 1798, framed under different influences,
+established the legislative power among two councils,--that of the
+_Five Hundred_, and that of the _Ancients_. The former was intrusted
+with the power of originating laws; the latter had the power to reject
+or pass them. The executive power was intrusted to five persons,
+called _Directors_, who were nominated by the Council of Five Hundred,
+and approved by that of the Ancients. Each individual was to be
+president by rotation during three months, and a new director was to
+be chosen every year. The Directory had the entire disposal of the
+army, the finances, the appointment of public functionaries, and the
+management of public negotiations.
+
+But there were found powerful enemies to the new constitution. Paris
+was again agitated. The National Guard took part with the disaffected,
+and the Convention, threatened and perplexed, summoned to its aid a
+body of five thousand regular troops. The National Guard mustered in
+great strength, to the number of thirty thousand men, and resolved to
+overawe the Convention, which was likened to the Long Parliament in
+the times of Cromwell. The Convention intrusted Barras with its
+defence, and he demanded, as his second in command, a young officer of
+artillery who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon. By his
+advice, a powerful train of artillery was brought to Paris by a
+lieutenant called _Murat_. On the 4th of October, 1795, the whole
+neighborhood of the Tuileries resembled an intrenched camp. The
+commander of the Convention then waited the attack of the insurgents,
+and the action soon commenced. Thirty thousand men surrounded the
+little army of six thousand, who defended the Convention and the cause
+of order and law. Victory inclined to the regular troops, who had the
+assistance of artillery, and, above all, who were animated by the
+spirit of their intrepid leader--_Napoleon Bonaparte_. The insurgents
+were not a rabble, but the flower of French citizens; but they were
+forced to yield to superior military skill, and the reign of the
+military commenced.
+
+Thus closed what is technically called the French Revolution; the most
+awful political hurricane in the annals of modern civilized nations.
+It closed, nominally, with the accession of the Directory to power,
+but really with the accession of Napoleon; for, shortly after, his
+victories filled the eyes of the French nation, and astonished the
+whole world.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections.]
+
+It is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revolution,
+since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form healthy
+judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some of the actors
+every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. But
+unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men who excite
+our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might have been
+respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an honorable name to
+his death, as an upright judge. But the French mind was deranged. New
+ideas had turned the brains of enthusiasts. The triumph of the
+abstract principles of justice seemed more desirable than the
+preservation of human life. The sense of injury and wrong was too
+vivid to allow heated partisans to make allowances for the common
+infirmities of man. The enthusiasts in liberty could not see in
+Louis XVI. any thing but the emblem of tyranny in the worst form. They
+fancied that they could regenerate society by their gospel of social
+rights, and they overvalued the virtues of the people. But, above all,
+they over-estimated themselves, and placed too light a value on the
+imperishable principles of revealed religion; a religion which enjoins
+patience and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and
+progress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, and
+however marked the providence of God in overruling them for the
+ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men behold in the
+Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in humiliating a
+proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and oppressive nobility
+for the evils they had inflicted on society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--Alison's History of the French Revolution,
+     marked by his English prejudices, heavy in style, and
+     inaccurate in many of his facts, yet lofty, temperate, and
+     profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and takes
+     different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the
+     most difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of
+     his affected and abominable style. Lamartine's History of
+     the Girondists is sentimental, but pleasing and instructive.
+     Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacretelle's Histoire
+     de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and
+     Robespierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and
+     Danton are extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be
+     read by all who wish to have the most vivid conception of
+     the horrors of the awful event which he deprecated. The
+     Annual Register should be consulted. For a general list of
+     authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index
+     of writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too
+     numerous to be mentioned here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon Bonaparte.]
+
+Mr. Alison has found it necessary to devote ten large octavo volumes
+to the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte; nor can the varied events
+connected with his brilliant career be satisfactorily described in
+fewer volumes. The limits of this work will not, however, permit a
+notice extending beyond a few pages. Who, then, even among those for
+whom this History is especially designed, will be satisfied with our
+brief review? But only a brief allusion to very great events can be
+made; for it is preposterous to attempt to condense the life of the
+greatest actor on the stage of real tragedy in a single chapter. And
+yet there is a uniformity in nearly all of the scenes in which he
+appears. The history of war is ever the same--the exhibition of
+excited passions, of restless ambition, of dazzling spectacles of
+strife, pomp, and glory. Pillage, oppression, misery, crime, despair,
+ruin, and death--such are the evils necessarily attendant on all war,
+even glorious war, when men fight for their homes, for their altars,
+or for great ideas. The details of war are exciting, but painful. We
+are most powerfully reminded of our degeneracy, of our misfortunes, of
+the Great Destroyer. The "Angel Death" appears before us, in grim
+terrors, punishing men for crimes. But while war is so awful, and
+attended with all the evils of which we can conceive, or which it is
+the doom of man to suffer, yet warriors are not necessarily the
+enemies of mankind. They are the instruments of the Almighty to
+scourge a wicked world, or to bring, out of disaster and suffering,
+great and permanent blessings to the human race.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon is contemplated by historians in both those lights. The
+English look upon him, generally, as an ambitious usurper, who aimed
+to erect a universal empire upon universal ruin; as an Alexander, a
+Caesar, an Attila, a Charles XII. The French nation regard him almost
+as a deity, as a messenger of good, as a great conqueror, who fought
+for light and freedom. But he was not the worst or the best of
+warriors. His extraordinary and astonishing energies were called into
+exercise by the circumstances of the times; and he, taking advantage
+of both ideas and circumstances, attempted to rear a majestic throne,
+and advance the glory of the country, of which he made himself the
+absolute ruler. His nature was not sanguinary, or cruel, or
+revengeful; but few conquerors have ever committed crimes on a greater
+scale, or were more unscrupulous in using any means, lawful or
+unlawful, to accomplish a great end. Napoleon had enlightened views,
+and wished to advance the real interests of the French nation, but not
+until he had climbed to the summit of power, and realized all those
+dreams which a most inordinate ambition had excited. He doubtless
+rescued his country from the dangers which menaced it from foreign
+invasion; but his conquests and his designs led to still greater
+combinations, and these, demanding for their support the united
+energies of Christendom, deluged the world with blood. Napoleon, to an
+extraordinary degree, realized the objects to which he had aspired;
+but these were not long enjoyed, and he was hurled from his throne of
+grandeur and of victory, to impress the world, which he mocked and
+despised, of the vanity of military glory and the dear-earned trophies
+of the battle field. No man was ever permitted by Providence to
+accomplish so much mischief, and yet never mortal had more admirers
+than he, and never were the opinions of the wise more divided in
+regard to the effects of his wars. A painful and sad recital may be
+made of the desolations he caused, so that Alaric, in comparison,
+would seem but a common robber, while, at the same time, a glorious
+eulogium might be justly made of the many benefits he conferred upon
+mankind. The good and the evil are ever combined in all great
+characters; but the evil and the good are combined in him in such vast
+proportions, that he seems either a monster of iniquity, or an object
+of endless admiration. There are some characters which the eye of the
+mind can survey at once, as the natural eye can take in the
+proportions of a small but singular edifice; but Napoleon was a genius
+and an actor of such wonderful greatness and majesty, both from his
+natural talents and the great events which he controlled, that he
+rises before us, when we contemplate him, like some vast pyramid or
+some majestic cathedral, which the eye can survey only in details. Our
+age is not sufficiently removed from the times in which he lived, we
+are too near the object of vision, to pronounce upon the general
+effect of his character, and only prejudiced or vain persons would
+attempt to do so. He must remain for generations simply an object of
+awe, of wonder, of dread, of admiration, of hatred, or of love.
+
+Nor can we condense the events of his life any more than we can
+analyze his character and motives. We do not yet know their relative
+importance. In the progress of ages, some of them will stand out more
+beautiful and more remarkable, and some will be entirely lost sight
+of. Thousands of books will waste away as completely as if they were
+burned, like the Alexandrian library; and a future age may know no
+more of the details of Napoleon's battles than we now know of
+Alexander's marches. But the main facts can never be lost; something
+will remain, enough to "point a moral or adorn a tale." The object of
+all historical knowledge is moral wisdom, and this we may learn from
+narratives as brief as the stories of Joseph and Daniel, or the
+accounts which Tacitus has left us of the lives of the Roman tyrants.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Days of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, the 15th of August, 1769, of
+respectable parents, and was early sent to a royal military school at
+Brienne. He was not distinguished for any attainments, except in
+mathematics; he was studious, reserved, and cold; he also exhibited an
+inflexible will, the great distinguishing quality of his mind. At the
+age of fourteen, in view of superior attainments, he was removed to
+the military school at Paris, and, at the age of seventeen, received
+his commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Services to the Republic.]
+
+When the Revolution broke out, Toulon, one of the arsenals of France,
+took a more decided part in favor of the king and the constitution
+than either Marseilles or Lyons, and invited the support of the
+English and Spanish squadrons. The Committee of Public Safety
+resolved to subdue the city; and Bonaparte, even at that time a
+brigadier-general, with the command of the artillery at the siege,
+recommended a course which led to the capture of that important place.
+
+For his distinguished services and talents, he was appointed second in
+command, by the National Convention, when that body was threatened and
+overawed by the rebellious National Guard. He saved the state and
+defended the constitutional authorities, for which service he was
+appointed second in command of the great army of the interior, and
+then general-in-chief in the place of Barras, who found his new office
+as director incompatible with the duties of a general.
+
+The other directors who now enjoyed the supreme command were Reubel,
+Lareveillere-Lepeaux, Le Tourneur, and Carnot. Sieyes, a man of great
+genius, had been elected, but had declined. Among these five men,
+Carnot was the only man of genius, and it was through his exertions
+that France, under the Committee of Public Safety, had been saved from
+the torrent of invasion. But Barras, though inferior to Carnot in
+genius, had even greater influence, and it was through his favor that
+Bonaparte received his appointments. That a young man of twenty-five
+should have the command of the army of the interior, is as remarkable
+as the victories which subsequently showed that his elevation was not
+the work of chance, but of a providential hand.
+
+The acknowledged favorite of Barras was a young widow, by birth a
+Creole of the West Indies, whose husband, a general in the army of the
+Rhine, had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Her name was
+Josephine Beauharnois; and, as a woman of sense, of warm affections,
+and of rare accomplishments, she won the heart of Bonaparte, and was
+married to him, March 9, 1796. Her dowry was the command of the army
+of Italy, which, through her influence, the young general received.
+
+Then commenced his brilliant military career. United with Josephine,
+whom he loved, he rose in rank and power.
+
+The army which Bonaparte commanded was composed of forty-two thousand
+men, while the forces of the Italian states numbered one hundred and
+sixty thousand, and could with ease be increased to three hundred
+thousand. But Italian soldiers had never been able to contend with
+either Austrian or French, and Bonaparte felt sure of victory. His
+soldiers were young men, inured to danger and toil; and among his
+officers were Berthier, Massena, Marmont, Augereau, Serrurier,
+Joubert, Lannes, and Murat. They were not then all generals, but they
+became afterwards marshals of France.
+
+[Sidenote: The Italian Campaign.]
+
+The campaign of 1796, in Italy, was successful beyond precedent in the
+history of war; and the battles of Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego,
+the passage of the bridge of Lodi, the siege of Mantua, and the
+victories at Castiglione, Caldiero, Arcola, Rivoli, and Mantua,
+extended the fame of Bonaparte throughout the world. The Austrian
+armies were every where defeated, and Italy was subjected to the rule
+of the French. "With the French invasion commenced tyranny under the
+name of liberty, rapine under the name of generosity, the stripping of
+churches, the robbing of hospitals, the levelling of the palaces of
+the great, and the destruction of the cottages of the poor; all that
+military license has of most terrible, all that despotic authority has
+of most oppressive."
+
+While Bonaparte was subduing Italy, the French under Moreau were
+contending, on the Rhine, with the Austrians under the Archduke
+Charles. Several great battles were fought, and masterly retreats were
+made, but without decisive results.
+
+It is surprising that England, France, and the other contending
+powers, were able at this time to commence the contest, much more so
+to continue it for more than twenty years. The French Directory, on
+its accession to power, found the finances in a state of inextricable
+confusion. Assignats had fallen to almost nothing, and taxes were
+collected with such difficulty, that there were arrears to the amount
+of fifteen hundred millions of francs. The armies were destitute and
+ill paid, the artillery without horses, and the infantry depressed by
+suffering and defeat. In England, the government of Pitt was violently
+assailed for carrying on a war against a country which sought simply
+to revolutionize her own institutions, and which all the armies of
+Europe had thus far failed to subdue. Mr. Fox, and others in the
+opposition, urged the folly of continuing a contest which had already
+added one hundred millions of pounds to the national debt, and at a
+time when French armies were preparing to invade Italy; but Pitt
+argued that the French must be nearly exhausted by their great
+exertions, and would soon be unable to continue the warfare. The
+nation, generally, took this latter view of the case, and parliament
+voted immense supplies.
+
+The year 1797 opened gloomily for England. The French had gained
+immense successes. Bonaparte had subdued Italy, Hoche had suppressed
+the rebellion in La Vendee, Austria was preparing to defend her last
+barriers in the passes of the Alps, Holland was virtually incorporated
+with Republican France, Spain had also joined its forces, and the
+whole continent was arrayed against Great Britain. England had
+interfered in a contest in which she was not concerned, and was forced
+to reap the penalty. The funds fell from ninety-eight to fifty-one,
+and petitions for a change of ministers were sent to the king from
+almost every city of note in the kingdom. The Bank of England stopped
+payment in specie, and the country was overburdened by taxation.
+Nevertheless, parliament voted new supplies, and made immense
+preparations, especially for the increase of the navy. One hundred and
+twenty-four ships of the line, one hundred and eighty frigates, and
+one hundred and eighty-four sloops, were put in commission, and sent
+to the various quarters of the globe.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of St. Vincent.]
+
+Soon after occurred the memorable mutiny in the English fleet, which
+produced the utmost alarm; but it was finally suppressed by the
+vigorous measures which the government adopted, and the happy union of
+firmness and humanity, justice and concession which Mr. Pitt
+exercised. The mutiny was entirely disconnected with France, and
+resulted from the real grievances which existed in the navy;
+grievances which, to the glory of Pitt, were candidly considered and
+promptly redressed. The temporary disgrace which resulted to the navy
+by this mutiny was soon, however, wiped away by the battle of Cape St.
+Vincent, in which Admiral Jervis, seconded by Nelson and Collingwood,
+with fifteen ships of the line and six frigates, defeated a Spanish
+fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line and twelve frigates. This
+important naval victory delivered England from all fears of invasion,
+and inspired courage into the hearts of the nation, groaning under the
+heavy taxes which the war increased. Before the season closed, the
+Dutch fleet, of fifteen ships of the line and eleven frigates, was
+defeated by an English one, under Admiral Duncan, consisting of
+sixteen ships of the line and three frigates. The battles of
+Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent, in which the genius of Duncan and
+Nelson were signally exhibited, were among the most important fought
+at sea during the war, and diffused unexampled joy throughout Great
+Britain. The victors were all rewarded. Jervis became Earl St.
+Vincent, Admiral Duncan became a viscount, and Commodore Nelson became
+a baronet. Soon after the bonfires and illuminations for these
+victories were ended, Mr. Burke died urging, as his end approached,
+the ministry to persevere in the great struggle to which the nation
+was committed.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of Venice by Napoleon.]
+
+While the English were victorious on the water, the French obtained
+new triumphs on the land. In twenty days after the opening of the
+campaign of 1797, Bonaparte had driven the Archduke Charles, with an
+army equal to his own, over the Julian Alps, and occupied Carniola,
+Carinthia, Trieste, Fiume, and the Italian Tyrol, while a force of
+forty-five thousand men, flushed with victory, was on the northern
+declivity of the Alps, within fifty leagues of Vienna. In the midst of
+these successes, an insurrection broke out in the Venetian
+territories; and, as Bonaparte was not supported, as he expected, by
+the Armies of the Rhine, and partly in consequence of the jealousy of
+the Directory, he resolved to forego all thoughts of dictating peace
+under the walls of Vienna, and contented himself with making as
+advantageous terms as possible with the Austrian government. Bonaparte
+accomplished his object, and directed his attention to the subjugation
+of Venice, no longer the "Queen of the Adriatic, throned on her
+hundred isles," but degenerate, weakened, and divided. Bonaparte
+acted, in his treaty with Austria, with great injustice to Venice, and
+also encouraged the insurrection of the people in her territories. And
+when the Venetian government attempted to suppress rebellion in its
+own provinces, Bonaparte affected great indignation, and soon found
+means to break off all negotiations. The Venetian senate made every
+effort to avert the storm, but in vain. Bonaparte declared war against
+Venice, and her fall soon after resulted. The French seized all the
+treasure they could find, and obliged the ruined capital to furnish
+heavy contributions, and surrender its choicest works of art. Soon
+after, the youthful conqueror established himself in the beautiful
+chateau of Montebello near Milan, and there dictated peace to the
+assembled ambassadors of Germany, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples,
+Piedmont, and the Swiss republic. The treaty of Campo Formio exhibited
+both the strength and the perfidy of Bonaparte, especially in
+reference to Venice, which was disgracefully despoiled to pay the
+expenses of the Italian wars. Among other things, the splendid bronze
+horses, which, for six hundred years, had stood over the portico of
+the church of St. Mark, to commemorate the capture of Constantinople
+by the Venetian crusaders, and which had originally been brought from
+Corinth to Rome by ancient conquerors, were removed to Paris to
+decorate the Tuileries.
+
+Bonaparte's journey from Italy to Paris, after Venice, with its
+beautiful provinces, was surrendered to Austria, was a triumphal
+procession. The enthusiasm of the Parisians was boundless; the public
+curiosity to see him indescribable. But he lived in a quiet manner,
+and assumed the dress of a member of the Institute, being lately
+elected. Great _fetes_ were given to his honor, and his victories were
+magnified.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Egypt.]
+
+But he was not content with repose or adulation. His ambitious soul
+panted for new conquests, and he conceived the scheme of his Egyptian
+invasion, veiled indeed from the eyes of the world by a pretended
+attack on England herself. He was invested, with great pomp, by the
+Directory, with the command of the army of England, but easily induced
+the government to sanction the invasion of Egypt. It is not probable
+that Bonaparte seriously contemplated the conquest of England, knowing
+the difficulty of supporting and recruiting his army, even if he
+succeeded in landing his forces. He probably designed to divert the
+attention of the English from his projected enterprise.
+
+When all was ready, Bonaparte (9th May) embarked at Toulon in a fleet
+of thirteen ships of the line, fourteen frigates, seventy-two brigs,
+and four hundred transports, containing thirty-six thousand soldiers
+and ten thousand sailors. He was joined by reinforcements at Genoa,
+Ajaccio, Civita Castellana, and on the 10th of June arrived at Malta,
+which capitulated without firing a shot; proceeded on his voyage,
+succeeded in escaping the squadron of Nelson, and on the 1st of July
+reached Alexandria. He was vigorously opposed by the Mamelukes, who
+were the actual rulers of the country, but advanced in spite of them
+to Cairo, and marched along the banks of the Nile. Near the Pyramids,
+a great battle took place, and the Mamelukes were signally defeated,
+and the fate of Egypt was sealed.
+
+[Sidenote: Siege of Acre.]
+
+But Nelson got intelligence of Bonaparte's movements, and resolved to
+"gain a peerage, or a grave in Westminster Abbey." Then succeeded the
+battle of the Nile, and the victory of Nelson, one of the most
+brilliant but bloody actions in the history of naval warfare. Nelson
+was wounded, but gained a peerage and magnificent presents. The battle
+was a mortal stroke to the French army, and made the conquest of Egypt
+useless. Bonaparte found his army exiled, and himself destined to
+hopeless struggles with Oriental powers. But he made gigantic efforts,
+in order to secure the means of support, to prosecute scientific
+researches, and to complete the conquest of the country. He crossed
+the desert which separates Africa from Asia, with his army, which did
+not exceed sixteen thousand men, invaded Syria, stormed Jaffa,
+massacred its garrison, since he could not afford to support the
+prisoners,--a most barbarous measure, and not to be excused even in
+view of the policy of the act,--and then advanced to Acre. Its
+memorable siege in the time of the Crusades should have deterred
+Bonaparte from the attempt to subdue it with his little army in the
+midst of a hostile population. But he made the attack. The fortress,
+succored by Sir Sidney Smith, successfully resisted the impetuosity of
+his troops, and they were compelled to retire with the loss of three
+thousand men. His discomfited army retreated to Egypt, and suffered
+all the accumulated miseries which fatigue, heat, thirst, plague, and
+famine could inflict. He, however, amidst all these calamities, added
+to discontents among the troops, won the great battle of Aboukir, and
+immediately after, leaving the army under the command of Kleber,
+returned to Alexandria, and secretly set sail for France, accompanied
+by Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Marmont, and other generals. He succeeded
+in escaping the English cruisers, and, on the 8th of October, 1799,
+landed in France.
+
+Bonaparte, had he not been arrested at Acre by Sir Sidney Smith,
+probably would have conquered Asia Minor, and established an Oriental
+empire; but such a conquest would not have been permanent. More
+brilliant victories were in reserve for him than conquering troops of
+half-civilized Turks and Arabs.
+
+During the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt, the French Directory became
+unpopular, and the national finances more embarrassed than ever. But
+Switzerland was invaded and conquered--an outrage which showed the
+ambitious designs of the government more than any previous attack
+which it had made on the liberties of Europe. The Papal States were
+next seized, the venerable pontiff was subjected to cruel indignities,
+and the treasures and monuments of Rome were again despoiled. "The
+Vatican was stripped to its naked walls, and the immortal frescoes of
+Raphael and Michael Angelo alone remained in solitary beauty amidst
+the general desolation." The King of Sardinia was driven from his
+dominions, and Naples yielded to the tricolored flag. Immense military
+contributions were levied in all these unfortunate states, and all
+that was beautiful in art was transported to Paris.
+
+[Sidenote: Reverses of the French.]
+
+In the mean time, the spirits of the English were revived by the
+victories of Nelson, and greater preparations than ever were made to
+resist the general, who now plainly aimed at the conquest of Europe.
+England, Austria, and Russia combined against France and her armies
+met with reverses in Italy and on the Rhine. Suwarrow, with a large
+army of Russians united with Austrians gained considerable success,
+and General Moreau was obliged to retreat before him. Serrurier
+surrendered with seven thousand men, and Suwarrow entered Milan in
+triumph, with sixty thousand troops. Turin shared the fate of Milan,
+and Piedmont and Lombardy were overrun by the allies. The republicans
+were expelled from Naples. Mantua fell, and Suwarrow marched with his
+conquering legions into Switzerland.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon First Consul.]
+
+These disasters happened while Bonaparte was in Egypt; and his return
+to France was hailed with universal joy. His victories in Egypt had
+prepared the way for a most enthusiastic reception, and for his
+assumption of the sovereign power. All the generals then in Paris paid
+their court to him, and his saloon, in his humble dwelling in the Rue
+Chantereine, resembled the court of a monarch. Lannes, Murat,
+Berthier, Jourdan, Augereau, Macdonald, Bournonville, Leclerc,
+Lefebvre, and Marmont, afterwards so illustrious as the marshals of
+the emperor, offered him the military dictatorship, while Sieyes,
+Talleyrand, and Regnier, the great civil leaders, concurred to place
+him at the head of affairs. He himself withdrew from the gaze of the
+people, affected great simplicity, and associated chiefly with men
+distinguished for literary and scientific attainments. But he secretly
+intrigued with Sieyes and with his generals. Three of the Directory
+sent in their resignations, and Napoleon assumed the reins of
+government under the title of _First Consul_, and was associated with
+Sieyes and Roger Ducos. The legislative branches of the government
+resisted, but the Council of Five Hundred was powerless before the
+bayonets of the military. A new revolution was effected, and despotic
+power in the hands of a military chieftain commenced. He, however,
+signalized himself by the clemency he showed in the moment of victory,
+and the principles of humanity, even in the government of a military
+despot, triumphed over the principles of cruelty. Bonaparte chose able
+men to assist him in the government. Talleyrand was made minister of
+foreign affairs. Fouche retained his portfolio of police, and the
+celebrated La Place was made minister of the interior. On the 24th of
+December, 1799, the new constitution was proclaimed; and, shortly
+after, Sieyes and Roger Ducos withdrew from the consulate, and gave
+place to Cambaceres and Lebrun, who were in the interests of Napoleon.
+
+The first step of the first consul was to offer peace to Great
+Britain; and he wrote a letter to the king, couched in his peculiar
+style of mock philanthropy and benevolence, in which he spoke of peace
+as the first necessity and truest glory of nations! Lord Grenville,
+minister of foreign affairs, replied in a long letter, in which he
+laid upon France the blame of the war, in consequence of her
+revolutionary principles and aggressive spirit, and refused to make
+peace while the causes of difficulty remained; in other words, until
+the Bourbon dynasty was restored. The Commons supported the government
+by a large majority, and all parties prepared for a still more
+desperate conflict. Napoleon was obliged to fight, and probably
+desired to fight, feeling that his power and the greatness of his
+country would depend upon the victories he might gain; that so long as
+the _eclat_ of his government continued, his government would be
+strong. Mr. Pitt was probably right in his opinion that no peace could
+be lasting with a revolutionary power, and that every successive peace
+would only pave the way for fresh aggressions. Bonaparte could only
+fulfil what he called his destiny, by continual agitation; and this
+was well understood by himself and by his enemies. The contest had
+become one of life and death; and both parties resolved that no peace
+should be made until one or the other was effectually conquered The
+land forces of Great Britain, at the commencement of the year 1800,
+amounted to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand men, exclusive of
+eighty thousand militia, while one hundred and twenty thousand seamen
+and marines were voted. The ships in commission were no less than five
+hundred, including one hundred and twenty-four of the line. The
+charter of the Bank of England was renewed, and the union with Ireland
+effected. The various German states made still greater exertions, and
+agreed to raise a contingent force of three hundred thousand men. They
+were greatly assisted in this measure by subsidies from Great Britain.
+Austria, alone, had in the field at this time a force of two hundred
+thousand men, half of whom belonged to the army of Italy under Melas.
+
+[Sidenote: Immense Military Preparations.]
+
+To make head against the united forces of England and Austria, with a
+defeated army, an exhausted treasury, and a disunited people, was the
+difficult task of Bonaparte. His first object was to improve the
+finances; his second, to tranquillize La Vendee; his third, to detach
+Russia from the allies; his fourth, to raise armies equal to the
+crisis; and all these measures he rapidly accomplished. One hundred
+and twenty thousand men were raised by conscription, without any
+exemption from either rank or fortune, and two hundred and fifty
+thousand men were ready to commence hostilities. The first consul
+suppressed the liberty of the press, fixed his residence in the
+Tuileries, and established the usages and ceremonial of a court. He
+revoked the sentence of banishment on illustrious individuals,
+established a secret police, and constructed the gallery of the
+Louvre.
+
+Hostilities commenced in Germany, and General Moreau was successful
+over General Kray at the battles of Engen, Moeskirch, and Biberach.
+General Massena fought with great courage in the Maritime Alps, but
+was obliged to retreat before superior forces, and shut himself up in
+Genoa, which endured a dreadful siege, but was finally compelled to
+surrender. The victor, Melas, then set out to meet Bonaparte himself,
+who was invading Italy, and had just effected his wonderful passage
+over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, one of the most wonderful
+feats in the annals of war; for his artillery and baggage had to be
+transported over one of the highest and most difficult passes of the
+Alps. The passes of the St. Gothard and Mount Cenis were also effected
+by the wings of the army. The first action was at Montebello, which
+ended in favor of the French; and this was soon followed by a decisive
+and brilliant victory at Marengo, (June 14,) one of the most
+obstinately contested during the war, and which was attended with
+greater results than perhaps any battle that had yet occurred in
+modern warfare. Moreau also gained a great victory over the Austrians
+at Hohenlinden, and Macdonald performed great exploits amid the
+mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The treaty of Luneville, (February 9,
+1801,) in consequence of the victorious career of Bonaparte, ceded to
+France the possession of Belgium, and the whole left bank of the
+Rhine. Lombardy was erected into an independent state, Venice was
+restored to Austria, and the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic,
+Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics was guaranteed. This peace excited
+unbounded joy at Paris, and was the first considerable pause in the
+continental strife.
+
+[Sidenote: The Reforms of Napoleon.]
+
+Napoleon returned to his capital to reconstruct society, which was
+entirely disorganized. It was his object to restore the institutions
+of religion, law, commerce, and education. He did not attempt to give
+constitutional freedom. This was impracticable; but he did desire to
+bring order out of confusion. One night, going to the theatre, he
+narrowly escaped death by the explosion of an "infernal machine." He
+attributed the design of assassination to the Jacobins, and forthwith
+transported one hundred and thirty of them, more as a statesman than
+as a judge. He was determined to break up that obnoxious party, and
+the design against his life furnished the pretence. Shortly after, he
+instituted the Legion of Honor, an order of merit which was designed
+to restore gradually the gradation in the ranks of society. He was
+violently opposed, but he carried his measures through the Council of
+State; and this institution, which at length numbered two thousand
+persons, civil and military, became both popular and useful. He then
+restored the external institution of religion, and ten archbishops and
+fifty bishops administered the affairs of the Gallican Church. The
+restoration of the Sunday, with its customary observances, was hailed
+by the peasantry with undisguised delight, and was a pleasing sight to
+the nations of Europe. He then contemplated the complete restoration
+of all the unalienated national property to the original proprietors,
+but was forced to abandon the design. A general amnesty, was also
+proclaimed to emigrants, by which one hundred thousand people
+returned, not to enjoy their possessions, but to recover a part of
+them, and breathe the air of their native land. At last, he resolved
+to make himself first consul for life, and seat his family on a
+monarchical throne. He was opposed by the Council of State; but he
+appealed to the people, and three million three hundred and
+sixty-eight thousand two hundred and nine, out of three million five
+hundred and fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-five
+electors, voted for his elevation.
+
+[Sidenote: The Code Napoleon.]
+
+The "_Code Napoleon_" then occupied his attention, indisputably the
+greatest monument of his reign, and the most beneficial event of his
+age. All classes and parties have praised the wisdom of this great
+compilation, which produced more salutary changes than had been
+effected by all the early revolutionists. Amid these great
+undertakings of the consul, the internal prosperity of France was
+constantly increasing, and education, art, and science received an
+immense impulse. Every thing seemed to smile upon Bonaparte, and all
+appeared reconciled to the great power which he exercised.
+
+But there were some of his generals who were attached to republican
+principles, and viewed with ill-suppressed jealousy the rapid strides
+he was making to imperial power. Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden,
+was at the head of these, and, in conjunction with Fouche, who had
+been turned out of his office on account of the immense power which it
+gave him, formed a conspiracy of republicans and royalists to overturn
+the consular throne. But Fouche revealed the plot to Bonaparte, who
+restored him to power, and Generals Moreau and Pichegru, the Duke
+d'Enghien, and other illustrious persons were arrested. The duke
+himself was innocent of the conspiracy, but was sacrificed to the
+jealousy of Bonaparte, who wished to remove from the eyes of the
+people this illustrious scion of the Bourbon family, the only member
+of it he feared. This act was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable,
+and therefore, impolitic, which Bonaparte ever committed. "It was
+worse than a crime," said Talleyrand; "it was a blunder." His murder
+again lighted the flames of continental war, and from it may be dated
+the commencement of that train of events which ultimately hurled
+Napoleon from the imperial throne.
+
+That possession was what his heart now coveted, and he therefore
+seized what he desired, and what he had power to retain. On the 18th
+of May, 1804, Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French, and an
+overwhelming majority of the electoral votes of France confirmed him
+in his usurpation of the throne of Hugh Capet.
+
+His first step, as emperor, was the creation of eighteen marshals, all
+memorable in the annals of military glory--Berthier, Murat, Moncey,
+Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier,
+Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Perignon, and
+Serrurier. The individual lives of these military heroes cannot here
+be alluded to.
+
+Early in the year 1805, the great powers of England, Austria, and
+Russia entered into a coalition to reduce France to its ancient
+limits, and humble the despot who had usurped the throne. Enormous
+preparations were made by all the belligerent states, and four hundred
+thousand men were furnished by the allies for active service; a force
+not, however, much larger than Napoleon raised to prosecute his scheme
+of universal dominion.
+
+[Sidenote: Meditated Invasion of England.]
+
+Among other designs, he meditated the invasion of England itself, and
+assembled for that purpose one of the most splendid armies which had
+been collected since the days of the Roman legions. It amounted to one
+hundred and fourteen thousand men, four hundred and thirty-two pieces
+of cannon, and fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty-four horses.
+Ample transports were provided to convey this immense army to the
+shores of England. But the English government took corresponding means
+of defence, having fathomed the designs of the enemy, who had
+succeeded in securing the cooeperation of Spain. This great design of
+Napoleon was defeated by the vigilance of the English, and the number
+of British ships which defended the coasts--the "wooden walls" which
+preserved England from a most imminent and dreaded danger.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Austerlitz.]
+
+Frustrated in the attempt to invade Great Britain, Napoleon instantly
+conceived the plan of the campaign of Austerlitz, and without delay
+gave orders for the march of his different armies to the banks of the
+Danube. The army of England on the shores of the Channel, the forces
+in Holland, and the troops in Hanover were formed into seven corps,
+under the command of as many marshals, comprising altogether one
+hundred and ninety thousand men, while the troops of his allies in
+Italy and Germany amounted to nearly seventy thousand more. Eighty
+thousand new conscripts were also raised, and all of these were
+designed for the approaching conflict with the Austrians.
+
+But before the different armies could meet together in Germany, Nelson
+had gained the great and ever-memorable victory of Trafalgar, (October
+23,) on the coast of Spain, by which the naval power of France and
+Spain was so crippled and weakened, that England remained, during the
+continuance of the war, sovereign mistress of the ocean. Nothing could
+exceed the transports of exultation which pervaded the British empire
+on the news of this great naval victory--perhaps the greatest in the
+annals of war. And all that national gratitude could prompt was done
+in honor of Nelson. The remains of the fallen victor were buried in
+St. Paul's Cathedral, over which a magnificent monument was erected.
+His brother, who inherited his title, was made an earl, with a grant
+of six thousand pounds a year, and an estate worth one hundred
+thousand pounds. Admiral Collingwood, the second in command, was
+raised to the peerage, with a grant of two thousand pounds yearly. But
+the thoughts of the nation were directed to the departed hero, and
+countless and weeping multitudes followed him to the grave; and his
+memory has ever since been consecrated in the hearts of his
+countrymen, who regard him, and with justice, as the greatest naval
+commander whom any nation or age has produced.
+
+Early in October, the forces of Napoleon were marshalled on the plains
+of Germany, and the Austrians, under the Archduke Charles, acted on
+the defensive. Napoleon advanced rapidly on Vienna, seized the bridge
+which led from it to the northern provinces of the empire, passed
+through the city, and established his head-quarters at Schoenbrunn. On
+the 1st of December was fought the celebrated battle of Austerlitz,
+the most glorious of all Napoleon's battles, and in which his military
+genius shone with the greatest lustre, and which decided the campaign.
+Negotiations with Austria, dictated by the irresistible power of the
+French emperor, were soon concluded at Presburg, (27th December,) by
+which that ancient state was completely humbled. The dethronement of
+the King of Naples followed, and the power of Napoleon was
+consolidated on the continent of Europe.
+
+The defeat of Austerlitz was a great blow to the allied powers, and
+the health and spirits of Pitt sunk under the disastrous intelligence.
+A devouring fever seized his brain, and delirium quenched the fire of
+his genius. He died on the 23d of January, 1806, at the age of
+forty-seven, with the exclamation, "Alas, my country!" after having
+nobly guided the British bark in the most stormy times his nation had
+witnessed since the age of Cromwell. He was buried with great pomp in
+Westminster Abbey, and died in debt, after having the control, for so
+many years, of the treasury of England. Mr. Fox did not long survive
+his more illustrious rival, but departed from the scene of conflict
+and of glory the 13th of September.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Jena.]
+
+The humiliation of Prussia succeeded that of Austria. The battle of
+Jena, the 14th of October, prostrated, in a single day, the strength
+of the Prussian monarchy, and did what the united armies of Austria,
+Russia, and France could not accomplish by the Seven Years' War.
+Napoleon followed up his victories by bold and decisive measures,
+invested Magdeburg, which was soon abandoned, entered Berlin in
+triumph, and levied enormous contributions on the kingdom, to the
+amount of one hundred and fifty-nine millions of francs. In less than
+seven weeks, three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces
+of cannon, and eighty thousand prisoners were taken; while only
+fifteen thousand, out of one hundred and twenty thousand men, were
+able to follow the standards of the conquered king to the banks of the
+Vistula. Alarm, as well as despondency, now seized all the nations of
+Europe. All the coalitions which had been made to suppress a
+revolutionary state had failed, and the proudest monarchs of
+Christendom were suppliant at the feet of Napoleon.
+
+The unfortunate Frederic William sued for peace; but such hard
+conditions were imposed by the haughty conqueror at Berlin, that the
+King of Prussia prepared for further resistance, especially in view of
+the fact that the Russians were coming to his assistance At Berlin,
+Napoleon issued his celebrated decrees against British commerce,
+which, however, flourished in spite of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon Aggrandizes France.]
+
+Napoleon then advanced into Poland to meet the Russian armies, and at
+Eylau, on the 8th of February, 1807, was fought a bloody battle, in
+which fifty thousand men perished. It was indecisive, but had the
+effect of checking the progress of the French armies. But Napoleon
+ordered new conscriptions, and made unusual exertions, so that he soon
+had two hundred and eighty thousand men between the Vistula and Memel.
+New successes attended the French armies, which resulted in a peace
+with Russia, at Tilsit, on the river Niemen, at which place Napoleon
+had a personal interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of
+Prussia. By this treaty, (7th July,) Poland was erected into a
+separate principality, and the general changes which Napoleon had made
+in Europe were ratified by the two monarchs. Soon after, Napoleon,
+having subdued resistance on the continent of Europe, returned to his
+capital. He was now at the height of his fame and power, but on an
+elevation so high that his head became giddy. Moreover, his elevation,
+at the expense of Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Prussia,
+Saxony, and Russia, to say nothing of inferior powers, excited the
+envy and the hatred of all over whom he had triumphed, and prepared
+the way for new intrigues and coalitions.
+
+Napoleon after the peace of Tilsit, devoted all his energies to the
+preservation of his power and to the improvement of his country, and
+expected of his numerous subjects the most implicit obedience to his
+will. He looked upon himself as having received a commission from
+Heaven to rule and to reign as absolute monarch of a vast empire, as a
+being upon whom the fate of France depended. The watchwords "liberty,"
+"equality," "fraternity," "the public welfare," were heard no more,
+and gave place to others which equally flattered the feelings of the
+French people--"the interests of the empire," "the splendor of the
+imperial throne." From him emanated all glory and power, and the whole
+structure of the state, executive, judicial, and legislative, depended
+upon his will. Freedom, in the eyes of the people, was succeeded by
+glory, and the _eclat_ of victory was more highly prized than any
+fictitious liberty. The _Code Napoleon_ rapidly progressed; schools of
+science were improved; arts, manufactures, and agriculture revived.
+Great monuments were reared to gratify the national pride and
+perpetuate the glory of conquests. The dignity of the imperial throne
+was splendidly maintained, and the utmost duties of etiquette were
+observed. He encouraged amusements, festivities, and _fetes_; and
+Talma, the actor, as well as artists and scholars, received his
+personal regard. But his reforms and his policy had reference chiefly
+to the conversion of France into a nation of soldiers; and his system
+of conscription secured him vast and disciplined armies, not animated,
+as were the soldiers of the revolution, by the spirit of liberty, but
+transformed into mechanical forces. The time was to come, in spite of
+the military enthusiasm of his veteran soldiers, when it was to be
+proved that the throne of absolutism is better sustained by love than
+by mechanism.
+
+[Sidenote: Aggrandizement of Napoleon's Family.]
+
+Napoleon had already elevated his two brothers, Louis and Joseph, to
+the thrones of Holland and Naples. He now sought to make his brother
+Joseph the King of Spain. He availed himself of a quarrel between King
+Charles and his son; acted as mediator, in the same sense that
+Hastings and Clive acted as mediators in the quarrels of Indian
+princes; and prepared to seize, not to humble, one of the oldest and
+proudest monarchies of Europe.
+
+The details of that long war on the Spanish peninsula, which resulted
+from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain, have
+been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best military history
+that has been written in modern times. The great hero of that war was
+Wellington; and, though he fought under the greatest disadvantages and
+against superior forces,--though unparalleled sufferings and miseries
+ensued among all the belligerent forces,--still he succeeded in
+turning the tide of French conquest.
+
+Spain did not fall without a struggle. The Spanish Juntas adopted all
+the means of defence in their power; and the immortal defence of
+Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, should have taught the imperial
+robber that the Spanish spirit, though degenerate, was not yet
+extinguished.
+
+It became almost the universal wish of the English to afford the
+Spaniards every possible assistance in their honorable struggle, and
+Sir Arthur Wellesley, the conqueror of the Mahrattas, landed in
+Portugal in August, 1808. He was immediately opposed by Marshal Junot.
+Napoleon could not be spared to defend in person the throne of his
+brother, but his most illustrious marshals were sent into the field;
+and, shortly after, the battle of Corunna was fought, at which Sir
+John Moore, one of the bravest of generals, was killed in the moment
+of victory.
+
+[Sidenote: The Peninsular War.]
+
+Long and disastrous was that Peninsular war. Before it could be
+closed, Napoleon was called to make new exertions. Austria had again
+declared war, and the forces which she raised were gigantic. Five
+hundred and fifty thousand men, in different armies, were put under
+the command of the Archduke Charles. Napoleon advanced against him,
+and was again successful, at Abensberg and at Eckmuhl. Again he
+occupied Vienna; but its fall did not discourage the Austrians, who,
+soon after, were marshalled against the French at Wagram, which
+dreadful battle made Napoleon once more the conqueror of Austria. On
+the 14th of November, 1809, he returned to Paris, and soon after made
+the grand mistake of his life.
+
+He resolved to divorce Josephine, whom he loved and respected; a woman
+fully worthy of his love, and of the exalted position to which she was
+raised. But she had no children, and Napoleon wanted an heir to the
+universal empire which he sought to erect on the ruins of the ancient
+monarchies of Europe. The dream of Charlemagne and of Charles V. was
+his, also--the revival of the great Western Empire. Moreover, Napoleon
+sought a domestic alliance with the proud family of the German
+emperor. He sought, by this, to gratify his pride and strengthen his
+throne. He perhaps also contemplated, with the Emperor of Austria for
+his father and ally, the easy conquest of Russia. Alexander so
+supposed. "His next task," said he, "will be to drive me back to my
+forests."
+
+The Empress Josephine heard of the intentions of Napoleon with
+indescribable anguish, but submitted to his will; thus sacrificing her
+happiness to what she was made to believe would advance the welfare of
+her country and the interests of that heartless conqueror whom she
+nevertheless loved with unparalleled devotion. On the 11th of March,
+1810, the espousals of Napoleon and Maria Louisa were celebrated at
+Vienna, the person of the former being represented by his favorite
+Berthier. A few days afterwards she set out for France; and her
+marriage, in a domestic point of view, was happy. Josephine had the
+advantage over her in art and grace, but she was superior in the
+charms of simplicity and modesty. "It is singular," says Sir Walter
+Scott, "that the artificial character should have belonged to the
+daughter of a West India planter; that, marked by nature and
+simplicity, to a princess of the proudest court in Europe."
+
+[Sidenote: War in Spain.]
+
+Meanwhile, the war in Spain was prosecuted, and Napoleon was master of
+its richest and most powerful provinces. Seventy-five thousand men in
+Andalusia, under Soult; fifty thousand under Marmont, in Leon; sixty
+thousand under Bessieres, at Valladolid and Biscay; forty-five
+thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to guard Catalonia; thirty
+thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand under Joseph and Jourdan,
+fifteen thousand under Regnier, besides many more thousand troops in
+the various garrisons,--in all over three hundred thousand men,--held
+Spain in military subjection. Against these immense forces, marshalled
+under the greatest generals of France, Spain and her allies could
+oppose only about ninety thousand men, for the most part ill
+disciplined and equipped.
+
+The vital point of resistance was to be found shut up within the walls
+of Cadiz, which made a successful defence. But Tortosa, Tarragona,
+Saguntum, and Valentia, after making most desperate resistance, fell.
+But Wellington gained, on the other hand, the great battle of Albuera,
+one of the bloodiest ever fought, and which had a great effect in
+raising the spirits of his army and of the Spaniards. The tide of
+French conquest was arrested, and the English learned from their
+enemies those arts of war which had hitherto made Napoleon triumphant.
+
+In the next campaign of 1812, new successes were obtained by
+Wellington, and against almost overwhelming difficulties. He renewed
+the siege of Badajoz, and carried this frontier fortress, which
+enabled him now to act on the offensive, and to enter the Spanish
+territories. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo was attended with the same
+important consequences. Wellington now aimed to reduce the French
+force on the Peninsula, although vastly superior to his own. He had
+only sixty thousand men; but, with this force, he invaded Spain,
+defended by three hundred thousand. Salamanca was the first place of
+consequence which fell: Marmont was totally defeated. Wellington
+advanced to Madrid, which he entered the 12th of August, amid the
+enthusiastic shouts of the Spanish population. Soult was obliged to
+raise the siege of Cadiz, abandon Andalusia, and hasten to meet the
+great English general, who had turned the tide of French aggression.
+Wellington was compelled, of course, to retire before the immense
+forces which were marching against him, and fell back to Salamanca,
+and afterwards to Ciudad Rodrigo. The campaign, on the part of the
+English, is memorable in the annals of successful war, and the French
+power was effectually weakened, if it was not destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Russia.]
+
+In the midst of these successes, Napoleon prepared for his disastrous
+invasion of Russia; the most gigantic and most unfortunate expedition
+in the whole history of war.
+
+Napoleon was probably induced to invade Russia in order to keep up the
+succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance;
+that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter;
+that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new
+triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however,
+dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly
+aggressive and unnecessary, but because it was impolitic. Three
+hundred thousand men were fighting in Spain to establish his family on
+the throne of the Bourbons, and the rest of Europe was watching his
+course, with the intention of assailing him so soon as he should meet
+with misfortunes.
+
+But neither danger nor difficulty deterred Napoleon from the
+commission of a gigantic crime, for which no reasonable apology could
+be given, and which admits of no palliation. He made, however, a
+fearful mistake, and his rapid downfall was the result. Providence
+permitted him to humble the powers of Europe, but did not design that
+he should be permanently aggrandized by their misfortunes.
+
+The forces of all the countries he had subdued were marshalled with
+the French in this dreadful expedition, and nothing but enthusiasm was
+excited in all the dominions of the empire. The army of invasion
+amounted to above five hundred thousand men, only two hundred thousand
+of whom were native French. To oppose this enormous force, the
+Russians collected about three hundred thousand men; but Napoleon felt
+secure of victory.
+
+On the banks of the Niemen he reviewed the principal corps of his
+army, collected from so many countries, and for the support of which
+they were obliged to contribute. On the 24th of June, he and his hosts
+crossed the river; and never, probably, in the history of man, was
+exhibited a more splendid and imposing scene.
+
+The Russians retreated as the allied armies advanced; and, on the 28th
+of June, Napoleon was at Wilna, where he foolishly remained seventeen
+days--the greatest military blunder of his life. The Emperor Alexander
+hastened to Moscow, collected his armaments, and issued proclamations
+to his subjects, which excited them to the highest degree of
+enthusiasm to defend their altars and their firesides.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Smolensko.]
+
+Both armies approached Smolensko about the 16th of July, and there was
+fought the first great battle of the campaign. The town was taken, and
+the Russians retreated towards Moscow. But before this first conflict
+began, a considerable part of the army had perished from sickness and
+fatigue. At Borodino, another bloody battle was fought, in which more
+men were killed and wounded than in any battle which history records.
+Napoleon, in this battle, did not exhibit his usual sagacity or
+energy, being, perhaps, overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. His
+dispirited and broken army continued the march to Moscow, which was
+reached the 14th of September. The Sacred City of the Russians was
+abandoned by the army, and three hundred thousand of the inhabitants
+took to flight. Napoleon had scarcely entered the deserted capital,
+and taken quarters in the ancient palace of the czars, before the city
+was discovered to be on fire in several places; and even the Kremlin
+itself was soon enveloped in flames. Who could have believed that the
+Russians would have burnt their capital? Such an event surely never
+entered into a Frenchman's head. The consternation and horrors of that
+awful conflagration can never be described, or even conceived. Pillage
+and murder could scarcely add to the universal wretchedness.
+Execration, indignation, and vengeance filled the breasts of both the
+conquerors and the conquered. But who were the conquerors? Alas! those
+only, who witnessed the complicated miseries and awful destruction of
+the retreating army, have answered.
+
+[Sidenote: Retreat of the French.]
+
+The retreat was the saddest tragedy ever acted by man, but rendered
+inevitable after the burning of Moscow, for Napoleon could not have
+advanced to St. Petersburg. For some time, he lingered in the vicinity
+of Moscow, hoping for the submission of Russia. Alexander was too wise
+to treat for peace, and Napoleon and his diminished army, loaded,
+however, with the spoil of Moscow, commenced his retreat, in a hostile
+and desolate country, harassed by the increasing troops of the enemy.
+Soon, however, heavy frosts commenced, unusual even in Russia, and the
+roads were strewed by thousands who perished from fatigue and cold.
+The retreat became a rout; for order, amid general destruction and
+despair, could no longer be preserved. The Cossacks, too, hung upon
+the rear of the retreating army, and cut off thousands whom the
+elements had spared. In less than a week, thirty thousand horses died,
+and the famished troops preyed upon their remains. The efforts of
+Napoleon proved in vain to procure provisions for the men, or forage
+for the horses. Disasters thickened, and all abandoned themselves to
+despair. Of all the awful scenes which appalled the heart, the passage
+of the Beresina was the most dreadful. When the ice was dissolved in
+the following spring, twelve thousand dead bodies were found upon the
+shore. The shattered remnants of the Grand Army, after unparalleled
+suffering, at length reached the bank of the Niemen. Not more than
+twenty thousand of the vast host with which Napoleon passed Smolensko
+left the Russian territory. Their course might be traced by the bones
+which afterwards whitened the soil. But before the Polish territories
+were reached, Napoleon had deserted his army, and bore to Paris
+himself the first intelligence of his great disaster. One hundred and
+twenty-five thousand of his troops had died in battle, one hundred and
+ninety thousand had been taken prisoners, and one hundred and
+thirty-two thousand had died of cold, fatigue and famine. Only eighty
+thousand had escaped, of whom twenty-five thousand were Austrians and
+eighteen thousand were Prussians. The annals of the world furnish no
+example of so complete an overthrow of so vast an armament, or so
+terrible a retribution to a vain-glorious nation.
+
+This calamity proved the chief cause of Napoleon's overthrow. Had he
+retained his forces to fight on the defensive, he would have been too
+strong for his enemies; but, by his Russian campaign, he lost a great
+part of his veteran troops, and the veneration of his countrymen.
+
+His failure was immediately followed by the resurrection of Germany.
+Both Austria and Prussia threw off the ignominious yoke he had
+imposed, and united with Russia to secure their ancient liberties. The
+enthusiasm of the Prussians was unbounded, and immense preparations
+were made by all the allied powers for a new campaign. Napoleon
+exerted all the energies, which had ever distinguished him, to rally
+his exhausted countrymen, and a large numerical force was again
+raised. But the troops were chiefly conscripts, young men, unable to
+endure the fatigue which his former soldiers sustained, and no longer
+inspired with their sentiments and ideas.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen.]
+
+The campaign of 1813 was opened in Germany, signalized by the battles
+of Lutzen and Bautzen, in which the French had the advantage. Saxony
+still remained true to Napoleon, and he established his head-quarters
+in Dresden. The allies retreated, but only to prepare for more
+vigorous operations. England nobly assisted, and immense supplies were
+sent to the mouth of the Elbe, and distributed immediately through
+Germany. While these preparations were going on, the battle of
+Vittoria, in Spain, was fought, which gave a death blow to French
+power in the Peninsula, and placed Wellington in the front rank of
+generals. Napoleon was now more than ever compelled to act on the
+defensive, which does not suit the genius of the French character, and
+he resolved to make the Elbe the base of his defensive operations. His
+armies, along this line, amounted to the prodigious number of four
+hundred thousand men; and Dresden, the head-quarters of Napoleon,
+presented a scene of unparalleled gayety and splendor, of
+licentiousness, extravagance, and folly. But Napoleon was opposed by
+equally powerful forces, under Marshal Blucher, the Prussian general,
+a veteran seventy years of age, and Prince Schwartzenberg, who
+commanded the Austrians. But these immense armies composed not one
+half of the forces arrayed in desperate antagonism. Nine hundred
+thousand men in arms encircled the French empire, which was defended
+by seven hundred thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Leipsic.]
+
+The allied forces marched upon Dresden, and a dreadful battle was
+fought, on the 27th of August, beneath its walls, which resulted in
+the retreat of the allies, and in the death of General Moreau, who
+fought against his old commander. But Napoleon was unable to remain
+long in that elegant capital, having exhausted his provisions and
+forage, and was obliged to retreat. On the 15th of October was fought
+the celebrated battle of Leipsic, in which a greater number of men
+were engaged than in any previous battle during the war, or probably
+in the history of Europe--two hundred and thirty thousand against one
+hundred and sixty thousand. The triumph of the allies was complete.
+Napoleon was overpowered by the overwhelming coalition of his enemies.
+He had nothing to do, after his great discomfiture, but to retreat to
+France, and place the kingdom in the best defence in his power.
+Misfortunes thickened in every quarter; and, at the close of the
+campaign, France retained but a few fortresses beyond the Rhine. The
+contest in Germany was over, and French domination in that country was
+at an end. Out of four hundred thousand men, only eighty thousand
+recrossed the Rhine. So great were the consequences of the battle of
+Leipsic, in which the genius of Napoleon was exhibited as in former
+times, but which availed nothing against vastly superior forces. A
+grand alliance of all the powers of Europe was now arrayed against
+Napoleon--from the rock of Gibraltar to the shores of Archangel; from
+the banks of the Scheldt to the margin of the Bosphorus; the mightiest
+confederation ever known, but indispensably necessary. The greatness
+of Napoleon is seen in his indomitable will in resisting this
+confederation, when his allies had deserted him, and when his own
+subjects were no longer inclined to rally around his standard. He
+still held out, even when over a million of men, from the different
+states that he had humbled, were rapidly hemming him round and
+advancing to his capital. Only three hundred and fifty thousand men
+nominally remained to defend his frontiers, while his real effective
+army amounted to little over one hundred thousand men. A million of
+his soldiers in eighteen months had perished, and where was he to look
+for recruits?
+
+[Sidenote: The Allied Powers Invade France.]
+
+On the 31st of December, 1814, fourteen hundred and seven years after
+the Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine and entered
+without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul, the united
+Prussians, Austrians, and Russians crossed the same river, and invaded
+the territories of the modern Caesar. They rapidly advanced towards
+Paris, and Napoleon went forth from his capital to meet them. His
+cause, however, was now desperate: but he made great exertions, and
+displayed consummate abilities, so that the forces of his enemies were
+for a time kept at bay. Battles were fought and won by both sides,
+without decisive results. Slowly, but surely, the allied armies
+advanced, and gradually surrounded him. By the 30th of March, they
+were encamped on the heights of Montmartre; and Paris, defenceless and
+miserable, surrendered to the conquerors. They now refused to treat
+with Napoleon, who, a month before, at the conference of Chatillon,
+might have retained his throne, if he had consented to reign over the
+territories of France as they were before the Revolution. Napoleon
+retired to Fontainebleau; and, on the 4th of April, he consented to
+abdicate the throne he no longer could defend. His wife returned to
+her father's protection, and nearly every person of note or
+consideration abandoned him. On the 11th, he formally abdicated, and
+the house of Bourbon was restored. He himself retired to the Island of
+Elba, but was allowed two million five hundred thousand francs a year,
+the title of emperor, and four hundred soldiers as his body guard. His
+farewell address to the soldiers of his old guard, at Fontainebleau,
+was pathetic and eloquent. They retained their attachment amid general
+desertion and baseness.
+
+Josephine did not long survive the fall of the hero she had loved, and
+with whose fortunes her own were mysteriously united. She died on the
+28th, and her last hours were soothed by the presence of the Emperor
+Alexander, who promised to take her children under his protection. Of
+all the great monarchs of his age, he was the most extensively beloved
+and the most profoundly respected.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace of Paris.]
+
+The allies showed great magnanimity and moderation after their
+victory. The monarchy of France was established nearly as it was
+before the Revolution, and the capital was not rifled of any of its
+monuments, curiosities, or treasures--not even of those which Napoleon
+had brought from Italy. Nor was there a military contribution imposed
+upon the people. The allies did not make war to destroy the kingdom
+of France, but to dethrone a monarch who had proved himself to be
+the enemy of mankind. The peace of Paris was signed by the
+plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and
+Austria, on the 30th of April; and Christendom, at last, indulged the
+hope that the awful conflict had ended. The Revolution and its
+offspring Napoleon were apparently suppressed, after more than three
+millions of men had perished in the struggle on the part of France and
+of her allies alone.
+
+Great changes had taken place in the sentiments of all classes, since
+the commencement of the contest, twenty years before, and its close
+excited universal joy. In England, the enthusiasm was unparalleled,
+and not easy to be conceived. The nation, in its gratitude to
+Wellington, voted him four hundred thousand pounds, and the highest
+military triumphs. It also conferred rewards and honors on his
+principal generals; for his successful operations in Spain were no
+slight cause of the overthrow of Napoleon.
+
+But scarcely were these rejoicings terminated, before Napoleon escaped
+from Elba, and again overturned the throne of the Bourbons. The
+impolitic generosity and almost inconceivable rashness of the allies
+had enabled Napoleon to carry on extensive intrigues in Paris, and to
+collect a respectable force on the island of which he was constituted
+the sovereign; while the unpopularity and impolitic measures of the
+restored dynasty singularly favored any scheme which Napoleon might
+have formed. The disbanding of an immense military force, the
+humiliation of those veterans who still associated with the eagles of
+Napoleon the glory of France, the derangement of the finances, and the
+discontents of so many people thrown out of employment, naturally
+prepared the way for the return of the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz.
+
+[Sidenote: Napoleon's Return to France.]
+
+On the 26th of February, he gave a brilliant ball to the principal
+people of the island, and embarked the same evening, with eleven
+hundred troops, to regain the sceptre which had been wrested from him
+only by the united powers of Europe. On the 1st of March, his vessels
+cast anchor in the Gulf of St. Juan, on the coast of Provence; and
+Napoleon immediately commenced his march, having unfurled the
+tricolored flag. As he anticipated he was welcomed by the people, and
+the old cry of "_Vive l'Empereur_" saluted his ears.
+
+The court of the Bourbons made vigorous preparations of resistance,
+and the armies of France were intrusted to those marshals who owed
+their elevation to Napoleon. Soult, Ney, Augereau, Massena, Oudinot,
+all protested devotion to Louis XVIII.; and Ney promised the king
+speedily to return to Paris with Napoleon in an iron cage. But Ney was
+among the first to desert the cause of law and legitimacy, and threw
+himself into the arms of the emperor. He could not withstand the arts
+and the eloquence of that great hero for whose cause he had so long
+fought. The defection of the whole army rapidly followed. The king was
+obliged to fly, and Napoleon took possession of his throne, amid the
+universal transports of the imperial party in France.
+
+The intelligence of his restoration filled Europe with consternation,
+rage, and disappointment, and greater preparations were made than ever
+to subdue a man who respected neither treaties nor the interests of
+his country. The unparalleled sum of one hundred and ten millions of
+pounds sterling was decreed by the British senate for various
+purposes, and all the continental powers made proportionate exertions.
+The genius of Napoleon never blazed so brightly as in preparing for
+his last desperate conflict with united Christendom; and, considering
+the exhaustion of his country, the forces which he collected were
+astonishing. Before the beginning of June, two hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran soldiers were completely armed and equipped; a great
+proof of the enthusiastic ardor which the people felt for Napoleon to
+the last.
+
+The Duke of Wellington had eighty thousand effective men under his
+command, and Marshal Blucher one hundred and ten thousand. These
+forces were to unite, and march to Paris through Flanders. It was
+arranged that the Austrians and Russians should invade France first,
+by Befort and Huningen, in order to attract the enemy's principal
+forces to that quarter.
+
+Napoleon's plan was to collect all his forces into one mass, and
+boldly to place them between the English and Prussians, and attack
+them separately. He had under his command one hundred and twenty
+thousand veteran troops, and therefore, not unreasonably, expected to
+combat successfully the one hundred and ninety thousand of the enemy.
+He forgot, however, that he had to oppose Wellington and Blucher.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Waterloo.]
+
+On the 18th of June was performed the last sad act of the great
+tragedy which had for twenty years convulsed Europe with blood and
+tears. All the combatants on that eventful day understood the nature
+of the contest, and the importance of the battle. At Waterloo,
+Napoleon staked his last throw in the desperate game he had hazarded,
+and lost it; and was ruined, irrevocably and forever.
+
+Little signified his rapid flight, his attempt to defend Paris, or his
+readiness to abdicate in favor of his son. The allied powers again, on
+the 7th of July, entered Paris, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored.
+
+Napoleon retired to Rochefort, hoping to escape his enemies and reach
+America. It was impossible. He then resolved to throw himself upon the
+generosity of the English. He was removed to St. Helena, where he no
+longer stood a chance to become the scourge of the nations. And there,
+on that lonely island, in the middle of the ocean, guarded most
+effectually by his enemies, his schemes of conquest ended. He
+supported his hopeless captivity with tolerable equanimity, showing no
+signs of remorse for the injuries he had inflicted, but meditating
+profoundly on the mistakes he had committed, and conjecturing vainly
+on the course he might have adopted for the preservation of his power.
+
+How idle were all his conjectures and meditations! His fall was
+decreed in the councils of Heaven, and no mortal strength could have
+prevented his overthrow. His mission of blood was ended; and his
+nation, after its bitter humiliation, was again to enjoy repose. But
+he did not live in vain. He lived as a messenger of divine vengeance
+to chastise the objects of divine indignation. He lived to show to the
+world what a splendid prize human energy could win; and yet to show
+how vain, after all, was military glory, and how worthless is the
+enjoyment of any victory purchased by the sufferings of mankind. He
+lived to point the melancholy moral, that war, for its own sake, is a
+delusion, a mockery, and a snare, and that the greater the elevation
+to which unlawful ambition can raise a man, the greater will be his
+subsequent humiliation; that "pride goeth before destruction, and a
+haughty spirit before a fall."
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections on Napoleon's Fall.]
+
+The allied sovereigns of Europe insisted on the restoration of the
+works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. "The bronzed horses, brought
+from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old station in the front of
+the Church of St. Mark; the Transfiguration was restored to the
+Vatican; the Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned St. Peter's; the
+Venus was enshrined with new beauty at Florence; and the Descent from
+the Cross was replaced in the Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty
+which restored peace to Europe for a generation, the old dominions of
+Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Holland, and Italy were restored, and
+the Bourbons again reigned over the ancient provinces of France.
+Popular liberty on the continent of Europe was entombed, and the
+dreams of revolutionists were unrealized; but suffering proved a
+beneficial ordeal, and prepared the nations of Europe to appreciate,
+more than ever, the benefits and blessings of peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     REFERENCES.--The most complete work, on the whole, though
+     full of faults, and very heavy and prosaic, is Alison's
+     History of the French Revolution. Scott's Life of Napoleon
+     was too hastily written, and has many mistakes. No English
+     author has done full justice to Napoleon. Thiers's Histories
+     are invaluable. Napier's History of the Peninsula War is
+     masterly. Wellington's Despatches are indispensable only to
+     a student. Botta's History of Italy under Napoleon.
+     Dodsley's Annual Register. Labaume's Russian Campaign.
+     Southey's Peninsular War. Liborne's Waterloo Campaign.
+     Southey's Life of Nelson. Sherer's Life of the Duke of
+     Wellington. Gifford's Life of Pitt. Moore's Life of Sir John
+     Moore. James's Naval History. Memoirs of the Duchess
+     d'Abrantes. Berthier's Histoire de l'Expedition d'Egypte.
+     Schlosser's Modern History. The above works are the most
+     accessible, but form but a small part of those which have
+     appeared concerning the French Revolution and the career of
+     Napoleon. For a complete list of original authorities, see
+     the preface of Alison, and the references of Thiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Complexity of Modern History.]
+
+It would be interesting to trace the history of the civilized world
+since the fall of Napoleon; but any attempt to bring within the limits
+of a history like this a notice of the great events which have
+happened for thirty-five years, would be impossible. And even a notice
+as extended as that which has been presented of the events of three
+hundred years would be unsatisfactory to all minds. The common reader
+is familiar with the transactions of the present generation, and
+reflections on them would be sure to excite the prejudices of various
+parties and sects. A chronological table of the events which have
+transpired since the downfall of Napoleon is all that can be
+attempted. The author contemplates a continuation of this History,
+which will present more details, collected from original authorities.
+The history of the different American States, since the Revolution;
+the administration of the various presidents; the late war with Great
+Britain; the Seminole and Mexican wars; the important questions
+discussed by Congress; the contemporary history of Great Britain under
+George IV., William IV., and Victoria; the conquests in India and
+China; the agitations of Ireland; the great questions of Reform,
+Catholic Emancipation, Education, and Free Trade; the French wars in
+Africa; the Turkish war; the independence of the Viceroy of Egypt; the
+progress of Russian territorial aggrandizement; the fall of Poland;
+the Spanish rebellion; the independence of the South American states;
+the Dutch and Belgic war; the two last French revolutions; the great
+progress made in arts and sciences, and the various attempts in
+different nations to secure liberty;--these, and other great subjects,
+can only be properly discussed in a separate work, and even then
+cannot be handled by any one, however extraordinary his talents or
+attainments, without incurring the imputation of great audacity, which
+only the wants of the public can excuse.
+
+In concluding the present History, a very brief notice of the state of
+the civilized world at the fall of Napoleon may be, perhaps, required.
+
+[Sidenote: Remarkable Men of Genius.]
+
+England suffered less than any other of the great powers from the
+French Revolution. A great burden was, indeed, entailed on future
+generations; but the increase of the national debt was not felt so
+long as English manufactures were purchased, to a great extent, by the
+Continental States. Six hundred million pounds were added to the
+national debt; but England, internally, was never more flourishing
+than during this long war of a quarter of a century. And not only was
+glory shed around the British throne by the victories of Nelson and
+Wellington, and the effectual assistance which England rendered to the
+continental powers, and without which the liberties of Europe would
+have been subverted, but, during the reign of George III., a splendid
+constellation of men of genius, in literature and science, illuminated
+the world. Dr. Johnson made moral reflections on human life which will
+ever instruct mankind; Burke uttered prophetic oracles which even his
+age was not prepared to appreciate; and his rivals thundered in the
+senate with an eloquence and power not surpassed by the orators of
+antiquity; Gibbon wrote a history which such men as Guizot and Milman
+pronounced wonderful both for art and learning; Hume, Reid, and
+Stewart, carried metaphysical inquiry to its utmost depth; Gray,
+Burns, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, were not
+unworthy successors of Dryden and Pope; Adam Smith called into
+existence the science of political economy, and nearly brought it to
+perfection in a single lifetime; Reynolds and West adorned the
+galleries with pictures which would not have disgraced the land of
+artists; while scholars, too numerous to mention, astonished the world
+by the extent of their erudition; and divines, in language which
+rivalled the eloquence of Chrysostom or Bossuet, declared to an
+awakened generation the duties and destinies of man.
+
+France, the rival of England, was not probably permanently injured by
+the Revolution; for, if millions of lives were sacrificed, and
+millions of property were swept away, still important civil and social
+privileges were given to the great mass of the people, and odious
+feudal laws and customs were broken forever. All the glory which war
+can give, was obtained; and France, for twenty years, was feared and
+respected. Popular liberty was not secured; but advances were made
+towards it, and great moral truths were impressed upon the nation,--to
+be again disregarded, but not to be forgotten. The territorial limits
+of France were not permanently enlarged, and the conquests of Napoleon
+were restored to the original rulers. The restoration of the former
+political system was insisted upon by the Holy Alliance, and the
+Bourbon kings, in regaining their throne, again possessed all that
+their ancestors had enjoyed but the possession of the hearts of the
+people. The allied powers may have restored despotism and legitimacy
+for a while; they could not eradicate the great ideas of the
+Revolution, and these were destined once more to overturn their
+thrones. The reigns of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe
+were but different acts of the long tragedy which was opened by the
+convocation of the States General, and which is not probably closed by
+the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to the presidency of the French
+republic. The _ideas_ which animated La Fayette and Moreau, and which
+Robespierre and Napoleon at one time professed, still live, in spite
+of all the horrors of the Reign of Terror, and all the streams of
+blood which flowed at Leipsic and Waterloo. Notwithstanding the
+suicidal doctrines of Socialists and of the various schools of infidel
+philosophers, and in view of all the evils which papal despotism, and
+democratic license, and military passions have inflicted, and will
+continue to inflict, still the immortal principles of liberty are safe
+under the protection of that Providence which has hitherto advanced
+the nations of Europe from the barbarism and paganism of ancient
+Teutonic tribes.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Germany.]
+
+Germany suffered the most, and apparently reaped the least, from the
+storms which revolutionary discussion had raised. Austria and Prussia
+were invaded, pillaged, and humiliated. Their cities were sacked,
+their fields were devastated, and the blood of their sons was poured
+out like water. But sacrifice and suffering developed extraordinary
+virtues and energies, united the various states, and gave nationality
+to a great confederation. The struggles of the Germans were honorable
+and gigantic, and proved to the world the impossibility of the
+conquest of states, however afflicted, when they are resolved to
+defend their rights. The career of Napoleon demonstrated the
+impossibility of a universal empire in Europe, and least of all, an
+empire erected over the prostrated thrones and discomfited armies of
+Germany. The Germans learned the necessity and the duty of union, and
+proved the strength of their sincere love for their native soil and
+their venerable institutions. The Germans, though poor in gold and
+silver, showed that they were rich in patriotic ardor, and in all
+those glorious sentiments which ennoble a great and progressive
+nation. After twenty years' contention, and infinite sacrifices and
+humiliations, the different princes of Germany recovered their ancient
+territorial possessions, and were seated, more firmly than before on
+the thrones which legitimacy had consecrated.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of Other Powers.]
+
+Absolute monarchy was restored also to Spain; but the imbecile
+Bourbons, the tools of priests and courtiers, revived the ancient
+principles of absolutism and bigotry, without any of those virtues
+which make absolutism respectable or bigotry endurable. But in the
+breasts of Spanish peasants the fires of liberty burned, which all the
+terrors of priestly rule, and all the evils of priestly corruption,
+could not quench. They, thus far, have been unfortunate, but no person
+who has studied the elements of the Spanish character, or has faith in
+the providence of God, can doubt that the day of deliverance will,
+sooner or later, come, unless he has the misfortune to despair of any
+permanent triumph of liberty in our degenerate world.
+
+In the northern kingdoms of Europe, no radical change took place; and
+Italy, the land of artists, so rich in splendid recollections, so poor
+in all those blessings which we are taught to value, returned to the
+dominion of Austria, and to the rule of despotic priests. Italy,
+disunited, abandoned, and enslaved, has made generous efforts to
+secure what is enjoyed in more favored nations, but hitherto in vain.
+So slow is the progress of society! so hard are the struggles to which
+man is doomed! so long continued are the efforts of any people to
+secure important privileges!
+
+Greece made, however, a more successful effort, and the fetters of the
+Turkish sultan were shaken off. The Ottoman Porte looked, with its
+accustomed indifference, on the struggles of the Christians, and took
+no active part in the war until absolutely forced. But it looked with
+the indifference of decrepit age, rather than with the philosophical
+calmness of mature strength, and exerted all the remaining energies it
+possessed to prevent the absorption of the state in the vast and
+increasing empire of the czars. Russia, of all the great powers which
+embarked in the contest to which we have alluded, arose the strongest
+from defeat and disaster. The rapid aggrandizement of Russia
+immediately succeeded the fall of Napoleon.
+
+The spiritual empire of the Popes was again restored, and the Jesuits,
+with new powers and privileges, were sent into all the nations of the
+earth to uphold the absolutism of their great head. Again they have
+triumphed when their cause seemed hopeless; nor is it easy to predict
+the fall of their empire. So long as the principle of Evil shall
+contend with the principle of Good, the popes will probably rejoice
+and weep at alternate victories and defeats.
+
+[Sidenote: The United States of America.]
+
+The United States of America were too far removed from the scene of
+conflict to be much affected by the fall of thrones. Moreover, it was
+against the wise policy of the government to interfere with foreign
+quarrels. But the American nation beheld the conflict with any
+feelings but those of indifference, and, while its enlightened people
+speculated on the chances of war, they still devoted themselves with
+ardor to the improvement of their institutions, to agriculture, and
+manufacturing interests. Merchants, for a while, made their fortunes
+by being the masters of the carrying trade of the world, and the
+nation was quietly enriched. The wise administrations of Washington,
+Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, much as they conflicted, in some
+respects, with each other, resulted in the growth of commerce,
+manufactures, agriculture, and the arts; while institutions of
+literature and religion took a deep hold of the affections of the
+people. The country increased and spread with unparalleled rapidity on
+all sides, and the prosperity of America was the envy and the
+admiration of the European world. The encroachments of Great Britain,
+and difficulties which had never been settled, led to a war between
+the two countries, which, though lamented at the time, is now viewed,
+by all parties, as resulting in the ultimate advancement of the United
+States in power and wealth, as well as in the respect of foreign
+nations. Great questions connected with the rapid growth of the
+country, unfortunately at different times, have produced acrimonious
+feelings between different partisans; but the agitation of these has
+not checked the growth of American institutions, or weakened those
+sentiments of patriotism and mutual love, which, in all countries and
+ages, have constituted the glory and defence of nations. The greatness
+of American destinies is now a favorite theme with popular orators.
+Nor is it a vain subject of speculation. Our banner of Liberty will
+doubtless, at no distant day, wave over all the fortresses which may
+be erected on the central mountains of North America, or on the shores
+of its far distant oceans; but all national aggrandizement will be in
+vain without regard to those sacred principles of law, religion, and
+morality, for which, in disaster and sorrow, both Puritan Settler and
+Revolutionary Hero contended. The believer in Progress, as affected by
+influences independent of man, as coming from the benevolent
+Providence which thus far has shielded us, cannot otherwise than hope
+for a still loftier national elevation than has been yet attained,
+with all the aid of circumstances, and all the energies of heroes.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+
+FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.
+
+
+     1815.--Battle of Waterloo, (June 18.) Napoleon embarks for
+     St. Helena, (August 7.) Final Treaty at Paris between the
+     Allied Powers, (November 20.) Inauguration of the King of
+     Holland. First Steam Vessels on the Thames.
+
+     1816.--Great Agricultural distress in Great Britain. Brazil
+     declared a Kingdom. Consolidation of the Exchequers of
+     England and Ireland. Marriage of the Princess Charlotte with
+     Prince Leopold.
+
+     1817.--Disorders in Spain. Renewal of the Bill for the
+     suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Inauguration of
+     President Monroe. Death of the Princess Charlotte. Death of
+     Curran.
+
+     1818.--Entire Withdrawal of Foreign Forces from France.
+     Seminole War. Great Discussions in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Warren Hastings, of Lord Ellenborough, and
+     of Sir Philip Francis.
+
+     1819.--Great depression of Trade and Manufactures in Great
+     Britain. Great Reform meetings in Manchester, Leeds, and
+     other large Towns, Lord John Russell's Motion for a Reform
+     in Parliament. Organized bands of robbers in Spain.
+     Settlement of the Pindarrie War in India. Assassination of
+     Kotzebue.
+
+     1820.--Death of George III., (January 23.) Lord Brougham's
+     Plan of Popular Education. Proceedings against Queen
+     Caroline. Rebellion in Spain. Trial of Sir Francis Burdett.
+     Election of Sir Humphrey Davy as President of the Royal
+     Society. Ministry in France of the Duc de Richelieu. Death
+     of Grattan; of the Duke of Kent.
+
+     1821.--Second Inauguration of President Monroe. Revolution
+     in Naples and Piedmont. Insurrections in Spain. Independence
+     of Colombia, and fall of Spanish Power in Mexico and Peru.
+     Disturbances in Ireland. War in the Morea. Formal occupation
+     of the Floridas by the United States. Extinction of the
+     Mamelukes. Revolt in Wallachia and Moldavia. Death of Queen
+     Caroline; of Napoleon.
+
+     1822.--Mr. Canning's Bill for the admission of Catholic
+     Peers to the House of Lords. Disturbances in Ireland. Sir
+     James Mackintosh's Motion for a reform of Criminal Law. Mr.
+     Canning succeeds the Marquis of Londonderry (Lord
+     Castlereagh) as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Lord
+     Amherst appointed Governor-General of India. Fall of the
+     administration of the Duc de Richelieu. Congress of Vienna.
+     War in Greece. Insurrection of the Janizaries. The Persian
+     War. Settlement of the Canadian Boundary. Suicide of the
+     Marquis of Londonderry.
+
+     1823.--Great Agricultural Distress in Great Britain. Debates
+     on Catholic Emancipation, and on the Slave Trade. French
+     Invasion of Spain. Captain Franklin's Voyage to the Polar
+     Seas. Death of Pius VII.
+
+     1824.--General Prosperity in England. Capture of Ipsara by
+     the Turks. Visit of La Fayette to the United States. Leaders
+     of the Carbonari suppressed in Italy by the Austrian
+     Government. Repeal of duties between Great Britain and
+     Ireland. Burmese War, and Capture of Rangoon. Censorship of
+     the Press in France. Death of Louis XVIII., (September 16.)
+
+     1825.--Inauguration of President Adams. Independence of
+     Brazil acknowledged by Portugal. Coronation of Charles X.
+     Siege of Missolonghi. Inundations in the Netherlands. Death
+     of the Emperor Alexander, (December 1.)
+
+     1826.--Bolivar chosen President of Peru for Life.
+     Independence of Hayti acknowledged by France. Riots in
+     Lancashire. Surrender of the fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa to
+     the Mexicans. Great Debates in Parliament on the Slave
+     Trade. Death of Ex-President Adams; of Jefferson. Coronation
+     of the Emperor Nicholas.
+
+     1827.--Death of the Earl of Liverpool, and dissolution of
+     the Ministry. Mr. Canning appointed First Lord of the
+     Treasury; dies four months after; succeeded by Lord
+     Goderich. National Guard disbanded in France. Defeat of the
+     Greek army before Athens. Battle of Navarino. Foundation of
+     the University of London. Death of the Duke of York; of La
+     Place; of Mitford, the Historian; of Eichhorn; of
+     Pestalozzi; of Beethoven; of King Frederic Augustus of
+     Saxony.
+
+     1828.--Dissolution of Lord Goderich's Ministry, and new one
+     formed under the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel and the Earl
+     of Aberdeen. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. New
+     Corn Law. Riots in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell represents the
+     County of Clare. New and Liberal ministry in France. Final
+     departure of the French Armies from Spain. War between
+     Naples and Tripoli. War between Russia and Turkey.
+     Independence of Greece. Death of Ypsilanti.
+
+     1829.--Inauguration of President Jackson. Passage of the
+     Catholic Emancipation Bill. New and Ultra-Royalist ministry
+     in France, under Polignac. Victories of Count Diebitsch
+     against the Turks. Surrender of Adrianople. Civil War in
+     Mexico. Don Miguel acknowledged as King of Portugal by
+     Spain. Burning of York Cathedral. Treaty between the United
+     States and Brazil. Civil War in Chili. Death of Judge
+     Washington.
+
+     1830.--Great discussions in Congress on the Tariff. Reform
+     Agitations in England. Death of George IV., (June 26.) New
+     Whig Ministry under Earl Grey and Lord John Russell. Opening
+     of the Liverpool Railroad. Revolution in France, and the
+     Duke of Orleans declared King. Capture of Algiers by the
+     French. Belgium erected into an independent Kingdom. Riots
+     and Insurrections in Germany. Plots of the Carlists in
+     Spain. Murder of Joseph White. Death of Pope Leo XII.; of
+     the King of Naples; of Sir Thomas Lawrence; of the Grand
+     Duke of Baden.
+
+     1831.--Dissolution of the Cabinet at Washington. Great
+     discussions on the Reform Bill. Agitations in Ireland.
+     Leopold made King of Belgium. Insurrection in Switzerland.
+     Revolution in Poland. Treaty between the United States and
+     Turkey. Coronation of William IV. Appearance of the Cholera
+     in England. Its great ravages on the Continent. Death of
+     Bolivar; of Robert Hall; of Mrs. Siddons; of William Roscoe;
+     of James Monroe.
+
+     1832.--Veto of President Jackson of the Bill to recharter
+     the United States Bank. Discontents in South Carolina, in
+     consequence of the Tariff. War with the Indians. Bristol and
+     Birmingham Riots. Final passage of the Reform Bill.
+     Abolition of the Slave Trade in Brazil. Death of Casimir
+     Perier, Prime Minister of France, who is succeeded by
+     Marshal Soult. Death of Sir Walter Scott; of Sir James
+     Mackintosh; of Spurzheim; of Cuvier; of Goethe; of
+     Champollion; of Adam Clarke; of Andrew Bell; of Anna Maria
+     Porter; of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
+
+     1833.--Second Inauguration of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Clay's
+     Tariff Bill. President Jackson's war with the United States
+     Bank. Recharter of the Bank of England and of the East India
+     Company. Fortifications of Paris commenced. Santa Anna
+     inaugurated President of Mexico. Bill passed to abolish
+     slavery in the British Colonies. Trial of Avery. Death of
+     the King of Spain; of Mr. Wilberforce; of Hannah More; of
+     Caspar Hauser; of Lord Grenville; of Dr. Schleiermacher.
+
+     1834.--Discussions on the Corn Laws. Destruction of the two
+     Houses of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress
+     of Vienna. Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal.
+     Opening of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of
+     Earl Grey, succeeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly
+     succeeded by Sir Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death of
+     La Fayette; of William Wirt; of Dr. Porter; of General
+     Huntingdon; of Coleridge; of Rev. Edward Irving.
+
+     1835.--New Ministry of Viscount Melbourne. French expedition
+     to Algiers. Otho made King of Greece. Suppression of the
+     Jesuits in Spain. Remarkable eruption of Vesuvius. Revolt in
+     Spain. Great fire in New York. Death of the Emperor of
+     Austria; of Chief Justice Marshall; of Nathan Dane; of
+     McCrie; of William Cobbett.
+
+     1836.--Settlement of the disputes between France and the
+     United States. Resignation of M. Thiers, who is succeeded,
+     as Prime Minister of France, by Count Mole. Military
+     operations against Abd-el-Kader. Massacre of the Carlist
+     Prisoners at Barcelona. Isturitz made Prime Minister of
+     Spain. Prince Louis Napoleon attempts an insurrection at
+     Strasburg. Commutation of Tithes in England. Bill for the
+     Registration of Births and Marriages. Passage of the Irish
+     Municipal Corporation Bill. Agitations in Canada. War
+     between Texas and Mexico. Burning of the Patent Office at
+     Washington. Death of Aaron Burr; of the Abbe Sieyes; of Lord
+     Stowell; of Godwin.
+
+     1837.--Inauguration of President Van Buren. Death of
+     William IV., (June 20.) Insurrection in Canada. Suspension
+     of cash payments by the Bank of the United States in
+     Philadelphia, and by the banks in New York. Acknowledgment
+     of the Independence of Texas. Treaty with the Indians. Great
+     failures in New York. Great Protestant Meeting in Dublin.
+     Change of Ministry in Spain. Death of Gustavus Adolphus IV.
+     of Sweden; of M. de Pradt; of Abiel Holmes; of Dr. Griffin;
+     of Charles Botta; of Lovejoy.
+
+     1838.--War with the Seminoles. General Scott takes command
+     of the New York Militia on the Frontiers. Affair of the
+     Caroline. Lord Durham Governor-General of Canada. Coronation
+     of Queen Victoria; of the Emperor Ferdinand. Violence of
+     Civil War in Spain. Circassian War. Revolution in Peru and
+     Bolivia. Peace between Russia and Turkey. Great Chartist
+     meetings in England. Emancipation of the West India Negro
+     Apprentices. Death of Lord Eldon; of Talleyrand; of Noah
+     Worcester; of Dr. Bowditch; of Zachary Macaulay.
+
+     1839.--Disputes between Maine and New Brunswick. Resignation
+     of the Melbourne Ministry, and the failure of Sir Robert
+     Peel to construct a new one. Birmingham Riots. Chartist
+     Convention. Resignation of Count Mole, who is succeeded, as
+     Prime Minister, by Marshal Soult, and Guizot. Capture of the
+     fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa by the French. Treaty of Peace
+     between France and Mexico. Affghan War. War between Turkey
+     and Mohammed Ali. Invasion of Syria. Death of Lady Hester
+     Stanhope; of Governor Hayne; of Dr. Bancroft; of Stephen Van
+     Rensselaer; of Zerah Colburn; of Samuel Ward.
+
+     1840.--Marriage of Queen Victoria. Penny Postage in England.
+     Affghan War. Difficulties in China respecting the Opium
+     Trade. Blockade of Canton. Ministry of M. Thiers. Arrival of
+     Napoleon's Remains from St. Helena. Abdication of the King
+     of Holland. Continued Civil War in Spain. Burning of the
+     Lexington. Ministry of Espartero. Death of Frederic
+     William III. of Prussia; of Lord Camden; of Dr. Olinthus
+     Gregory; of Blumenbach; of Dr. Follen; of Dr. Kirkland; of
+     John Lowell; of Judge Mellen; of Dr. Emmons; of Prof. Davis.
+
+     1841.--Inauguration of President Harrison; his Death;
+     succeeded by John Tyler. Trial of McLeod. Repeal of the
+     Sub-Treasury. Veto, by the President, of the Bill to
+     establish a Bank. Resignation of the Melbourne Ministry,
+     succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel. War in Scinde.
+     Espartero sole Regent of Spain. Revolution in Mexico. Treaty
+     between Turkey and Egypt. Treaty between the United States
+     and Portugal. Death of Chantrey; of Dr. Marsh; of Dr.
+     Oliver; of Dr. Ripley; of Blanco White; of William Ladd.
+
+     1842.--Great Debates in Parliament on the Corn Laws. New
+     Tariff of Sir Robert Peel. Affghan War. Treaty of Peace
+     between England and China. Treaty between England and the
+     United States respecting the North-eastern Boundary
+     Question. Chartist Petitions. Income Tax. Accident on the
+     Paris and Versailles Railroad. Death of the Duke of Orleans;
+     of Lord Hill; of Dr. Charming; of Dr. Arnold; of Jeremiah
+     Smith.
+
+     1843.--Activity of the Anti Corn Law League. Repeal
+     Agitation in Ireland. Monster Meetings. Establishment of the
+     Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland. War in Scinde. Sir
+     James Graham's Factory Bill. Repudiation of State Debts.
+     Death of Southey; of Dr. Ware; of Allston; of Legare; of Dr.
+     Richards; of Noah Webster.
+
+     1844.--Corn Law Agitations in Great Britain. Passage of the
+     Sugar Duties Bill; of the Dissenters' Chapel Bill. State
+     Trials in Ireland. Opening of the Royal Exchange. Sir
+     Charles Napier's victories in India. Louis Philippe's visit
+     to England. War between France and Morocco. Disturbances on
+     the Livingston and Rensselaer Manors. Insurrection in
+     Mexico. Death of Secretary Upshur.
+
+     1845.--Installation of President Polk. Treaty between the
+     United States and China. Great Fire in New York. Municipal
+     disabilities removed from the Jews by Parliament. War in
+     Algeria. Abdication of Don Carlos. Termination of the War in
+     Scinde. Revolution in Mexico. War in the Punjaub.
+
+     1846--War between the United States and Mexico. Battle of
+     Monterey. New Tariff Bill. Passage of the Corn Bill in
+     England, and Repeal of Duties. Free Trade policy of Sir
+     Robert Peel. Settlement of the Oregon Question. Distress in
+     Ireland by the failure of the Potato Crop. Resignation of
+     Sir Robert Peel; succeeded by Lord John Russell. Marriage of
+     the Queen of Spain; and of her sister, the Infanta, to the
+     Due de Montpensier. Escape of Prince Louis Napoleon from
+     Ham. Death of Pope Gregory XVI., and elevation of Pius IX.
+     Death of Louis Napoleon, Ex-King of Holland.
+
+     1847.--Splendid military successes of Generals Scott and
+     Taylor in Mexico. Fall of Mexico. Ravages of the Potato
+     Disease. Awful Distress in Ireland. Guizot succeeds Soult as
+     President of the Council. Frequent changes of Ministry in
+     Spain. Civil War in Switzerland. Grant of a Constitution to
+     Prussia. Liberal Measures of Pius IX. Death of the King of
+     Denmark; of Dr. Chalmers; of Silas Wright.
+
+     1848.--French Revolution, and Fall of Louis Philippe.
+     Abdication of the King of Bavaria. Tumults in Vienna and
+     Berlin. Riots in Rome. Chartist demonstrations in London.
+     Election of the National Assembly in France. General
+     fermentation throughout Europe. Distress of Ireland. Oregon
+     Territorial Bill. Free Soil Convention in Buffalo. Death of
+     John Quincy Adams. Election of General Taylor for President
+     of the United States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PRIME MINISTERS OF ENGLAND SINCE THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII.
+
+
+KING HENRY VIII.
+
+    1509. Bishop Fisher, and Earl of Surrey.
+
+    1513. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
+
+    1529. Sir Thomas More, and Cranmer.
+
+    1532. Lord Audley, (Chancellor,) Archbishop Cranmer.
+
+    1538. Lord Cromwell, (Earl of Essex.)
+
+    1540. Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, and Bishop Gardiner.
+
+    1544. Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Hertford.
+
+
+KING EDWARD VI.
+
+    The Earl of Hertford, continued.
+
+    1552. John, Duke of Northumberland.
+
+
+QUEEN MARY.
+
+    1553. Bishop Gardiner.
+
+
+QUEEN ELIZABETH.
+
+    1558. Sir Nicholas Bacon, and Sir William Cecil, (afterwards
+          Lord Burleigh.)
+
+    1564. Earl of Leicester, (a favorite)
+
+    1588. Earl of Essex.
+
+    1601. Lord Buckhurst.
+
+
+JAMES I.
+
+    Lord Buckhurst, (Earl of Dorset.)
+
+    1608. Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, and Northampton.
+
+    1612. Sir Robert Carr (Earl of Somerset.)
+
+    1615. Sir George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham.)
+
+
+CHARLES I.
+
+    Duke of Buckingham.
+
+    1628. Earl of Portland, Archbishop Laud.
+
+    1640. Archbishop Laud, Earl of Strafford, Lord Cottington.
+
+    1640. Earl of Essex.
+
+    1641. Lord Falkland, Lord Digby.
+
+          Civil War, and Oliver Cromwell.
+
+
+CHARLES II.
+
+    1660. Earl of Clarendon.
+
+    1667. Dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale.
+
+    1667. Lord Ashley, Lord Arlington, Lord Clifford.
+
+    1673. Lord Arlington, Lord Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury,) and
+          Sir Thomas Osborne.
+
+    1674. Sir Thomas Osborne.
+
+    1677. Earl of Essex, Duke of Ormond, Marquis of Halifax,
+          Sir William Temple.
+
+    1682. Duke of York and his friends.
+
+
+JAMES II.
+
+    1685. Earls of Sunderland and Tyrconnell, Lord Jeffreys.
+
+    1687. Lord Jeffreys, Lord Arundel, Earl of Middleton.
+
+
+WILLIAM III.
+
+    1688. Lord Somers, Lord Godolphin, Earl of Danby (Duke of Leeds.)
+
+    1695. Earl of Sunderland.
+
+    1697. Charles Montague (Earl of Halifax,) Earl of Pembroke,
+          Viscount Lonsdale, Earl of Oxford.
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE.
+
+    1705. Lord Godolphin, R. Harley, Lord Pembroke, Duke of
+          Buckingham, Duke of Marlborough.
+
+    1707. Earl Godolphin, Lord Cowper, Dukes of Marlborough and
+          Newcastle.
+
+    1710. R. Harley (Earl of Oxford.)
+
+    1710. Earl of Rochester, Lord Dartmouth, Henry St. John
+          (Lord Bolingbroke,) Lord Harcourt.
+
+    1714. Duke of Shrewsbury.
+
+
+GEORGE I.
+
+    1714. Lord Cowper, Duke of Shrewsbury, Marquis of Wharton,
+          Earl of Oxford, Duke of Marlborough, Viscount Townshend.
+
+    1715. Robert Walpole, Esq.
+
+    1717. Earl Stanhope.
+
+    1718. Earl of Sunderland.
+
+    1721. Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford.)
+
+
+GEORGE II.
+
+    1742. Lord Carteret, Lord Wilmington, Lord Bath, Mr. Sandys, &c.
+
+    1743. Hon. Henry Pelham, Lord Carteret, Earl of Harrington,
+          Duke of Newcastle, &c.
+
+    1746. Mr. Pelham, Earl of Chesterfield, Duke of Bedford, &c.
+
+    1754. Duke of Newcastle, Sir Thos. Robinson, Henry Fox, &c.
+
+    1756. Duke of Devonshire, Mr. William Pitt, Earl Temple,
+          Hon. H. B. Legge, &c. (Dismissed in April, 1757; restored
+          in June the same year.)
+
+    1757. William Pitt, Mr. Legge, Earl Temple, Duke of Newcastle, &c.
+
+
+GEORGE III.
+
+    1761. Earl of Bute, Earl of Egremont, Duke of Bedford, &c.
+
+    1762. Earl of Bute, Hon. George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, &c.
+
+    1763. Hon. George Grenville, Earl of Halifax, Earl of Sandwich, &c.
+
+    1765. Marquis of Rockingham, Duke of Grafton, Earl of Shelburne, &c.
+
+    1766. Duke of Grafton, Hon. Chas. Townshend, Earl of Chatham, &c.
+
+    1767. Duke of Grafton, Lord North, &c.
+
+    1770. Lord North, Lord Halifax, &c.
+
+    1779. Lord North, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Stormont, &c.
+
+    1782. Marquis of Rockingham, Chas. James Fox, &c.
+
+    1782. Earl of Shelburne, William Pitt, &c.
+
+    1783. Duke of Portland, Lord North, Mr. Fox, &c.
+
+    1783. Mr. Pitt, Lord Gower, Lord Thurlow, &c.
+
+    1786. Mr. Pitt, Lord Camden, Marquis of Stafford, &c.
+
+    1790. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Duke of Leeds.
+
+    1795. Mr. Pitt, Duke of Portland, Mr. Dundas, &c.
+
+    1801. Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, Duke of Portland, &c.
+
+    1804. Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville, Geo. Canning, &c.
+
+    1806. Lord Grenville, Earl Spencer, Mr. Fox, &c.
+
+    1807. Duke of Portland, Mr. Canning, Earl Camden, &c.
+
+    1809. Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, Marquis Wellesley, &c.
+
+
+REGENCY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
+
+    Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, &c.
+
+    1812. Earl of Liverpool, Viscount Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, &c.
+
+
+GEORGE IV.
+
+    Earl of Liverpool, &c.
+
+    1827. Rt. Hon. George Canning, Lord Goderich, Lord Lyndhurst, &c.
+
+    1827. Viscount Goderich, Duke of Portland, Mr. Huskisson, &c.
+
+    1828. Duke of Wellington, Rt. Hon. Robert Peel, Viscount Melville, &c.
+
+    1828. Duke of Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen, Sir G. Murray, &c.
+
+
+WILLIAM IV.
+
+    Duke of Wellington, &c.
+
+    1830. Earl Grey, Viscount Althorpe, Melbourne, Goderich, and
+          Palmerston, &c. (Earl Grey resigns May 9, but resumes office
+          May 18.)
+
+    1834. Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Althorpe, Lord John Russell,
+          Lord Palmerston, &c.
+
+    1834. Viscount Melbourne's Administration dissolved. The Duke of
+          Wellington takes the helm of state provisionally, waiting
+          the return of Sir Robert Peel from Italy.
+
+    1834. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, &c.
+
+    1835. Viscount Melbourne and his colleagues return to office.
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    Viscount Melbourne, and the same Cabinet.
+
+    1839. Viscount Melbourne resigns, May 7.
+
+    Sir Robert Peel fails to form an administration. Lord Melbourne
+        and friends reinstated.
+
+    1841. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of Wellington, Earl of Aberdeen.
+
+    1846. Lord John Russell, &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TABLE OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE
+
+DURING THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+
+ENGLAND.
+
+  1509. Henry VIII.
+  1547. Edward VI.
+  1553. Mary.
+  1558. Elizabeth.
+  1603. James I.
+  1625. Charles I.
+  1653. Cromwell.
+  1660. Charles II.
+  1685. James II.
+  1688. William & Mary.
+  1702. Anne.
+  1714. George I.
+  1727. George II.
+  1760. George III.
+  1811. Prince of Wales, (Regent.)
+  1820. George IV.
+  1830. William IV.
+  1837. Victoria.
+
+
+FRANCE.
+
+  1515. Francis I.
+  1547. Henry II.
+  1559. Francis II.
+  1560. Charles IX.
+  1574. Henry III.
+  1589. Henry IV.
+  1610. Louis XIII.
+  1643. Louis XIV.
+  1715. Louis XV.
+  1774. Louis XVI.
+  1789. Revolution.
+  1792. Republic.
+  1795. Directory.
+  1799. Consuls.
+  1802. Napoleon First Consul.
+  1804. Napoleon Emp'r.
+  1815. Louis XVIII.
+  1825. Charles X.
+  1830. Louis Philippe.
+
+
+GERMANY.
+
+  1493. Maximilian.
+  1519. Charles V.
+  1558. Ferdinand I.
+  1564. Maximilian II.
+  1576. Rodolph II.
+  1612. Matthias.
+  1619. Ferdinand II.
+  1637. Ferdinand III.
+  1658. Leopold I.
+  1705. Joseph I.
+  1711. Charles VI.
+  1742. Charles VII.
+  1745. Francis & Maria Theresa.
+  1765. Joseph II.
+  1790. Leopold II.
+  1792. Francis II.
+
+
+EMPERORS OF AUSTRIA.
+
+  1804. Francis.
+  1835. Ferdinand I.
+
+
+SPAIN.
+
+  1516. Charles I.
+  1556. Philip II.
+  1598. Philip III.
+  1621. Philip IV.
+  1665. Charles II.
+  1700. Philip V.
+  1724. Louis.
+  1725. Philip V.
+  1746. Ferdinand VI.
+  1759. Charles III.
+  1788. Charles IV.
+  1808. Ferdinand VII.
+  1808. Jos. Bonaparte.
+  1814. Ferdinand VII.
+  1820. Revolution.
+  1833. Isabella II.
+
+
+SWEDEN.
+
+  1523. Gustavus II.
+  1560. Erick XVI.
+  1568. John III.
+  1592. Sigismund.
+  1599. Charles IX.
+  1611. Gust. Adolphus.
+  1632. Christina.
+  1654. Charles X.
+  1660. Charles XI.
+  1697. Charles XII.
+  1718. Ulrica Leonora.
+  1751. Adolphus Frederic.
+  1771. Gustavus III.
+  1792. Gustavus IV.
+  1809. Charles XIII.
+  1810. Bernadotte.
+
+
+DENMARK.
+
+  1513. Christian II.
+  1523. Frederic I.
+  1534. Christian III.
+  1559. Frederic II.
+  1588. Christian IV.
+  1648. Frederic III.
+  1670. Christian V.
+  1699. Frederic IV.
+  1730. Christian VI.
+  1746. Frederic V.
+  1766. Christian VII.
+  1784. Regency.
+  1808. Frederic VI.
+  1839. Christian VIII.
+
+
+RUSSIA.
+
+  1696. Peter the Great.
+  1725. Catharine I.
+  1727. Peter II.
+  1730. Ivan.
+  1741. Elizabeth.
+  1761. Peter III.
+  1762. Catharine II.
+  1796. Paul I.
+  1801. Alexander.
+  1825. Nicholas.
+
+
+PRUSSIA.
+
+  1700. Frederic.
+  1713. Frederic Wm.
+  1740. Frederic II.
+  1786. Frederic Wm. II.
+  1796. Fred. Wm. III.
+  1840. Fred. Wm. IV.
+
+
+TURKEY.
+
+  1512. Selim.
+  1520. Solyman.
+  1566. Selim II.
+  1574. Amurath III.
+  1595. Mohammed III.
+  1604. Achmet I.
+  1617. Mustapha I.
+  1618. Othman II.
+  1622. Mustapha II.
+  1623. Amurath IV.
+  1640. Ibrahim.
+  1655. Mohammed IV.
+  1687. Solyman II.
+  1691. Achmet II.
+  1695. Mustapha III.
+  1703. Achmet III.
+  1730. Mohammed V.
+  1757. Achmet IV.
+  1789. Selim III.
+  1807. Mustapha IV.
+  1808. Mohammed VI.
+  1819. Abdul Medjid.
+
+
+POPES.
+
+  1513. Leo X.
+  1522. Adrian VI.
+  1523. Clement VII.
+  1534. Paul III.
+  1550. Julius III.
+  1555. Marcellus III.
+  1555. Paul IV.
+  1559. Pius IV.
+  1566. Pius V.
+  1572. Gregory XIII.
+  1585. Sixtus V.
+  1590. Gregory XIV.
+  1590. Gregory XV.
+  1591. Innocent IX.
+  1592. Clement VIII.
+  1605. Leo XI.
+  1623. Urban VIII.
+  1644. Innocent X.
+  1655. Alexander VII.
+  1667. Clement IX.
+  1670. Clement X.
+  1676. Innocent XI.
+  1689. Alexander VIII.
+  1691. Innocent XII.
+  1700. Clement XI.
+  1721. Innocent XIII.
+  1724. Benedict XIII.
+  1730. Clement XII.
+  1740. Benedict XIV.
+  1758. Clement XIII.
+  1769. Clement XIV.
+  1775. Pius VI.
+  1800. Pius VII.
+  1823. Leo XII.
+  1831. Gregory XVI.
+  1847. Pius IX.
+
+
+
+
+GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF GREAT BRITAIN
+
++ _denotes date of decease._
+
+                                                JAMES I.
+                                               + 1625.
+                                                  |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |                      |                                                     |
+  Henry, d. young.      CHARLES I.                                   Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.
+                        + 1649.                                                   |
+                            |                                                     |
+         -----------------------------------                                      |
+         |                                 |                                      |
+     CHARLES II.                       JAMES II.                     Electress Sophia of Hanover.
+     + 1685                       Abdic. 1688.                                 + 1714.
+                                      + 1701.                                     |
+                                           |                                      |
+                  ------------------------------------------------                | George Louis,
+                  |                        |                     |                | Elector of Hanover,
+                MARY,                    ANNE,         James the Pretender.       | and GEORGE I.
+              + 1694                   + 1714.                                    |  + 1727.
+          Wife of William III.   Wife of George, Prince of Denmark,               |
+                                 Duke of Gloucester, d. young.         ------------------------
+                                                                       |                      |
+                                                                   GEORGE II.         Sophia, mother of
+                                                                    + 1760.          Frederic the Great.
+                                                                       |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |               |              |           |           |             |           |             |
+  Frederic,     Anne, married    Amelia,     Elizabeth,   William,      Maria,      Louisa,       George,
+   Prince          Prince       d. unmar.   d. unmar.     Duke of      Princess     Queen        d. young.
+  of Wales,      of Orange.                              Cumberland.   of Hesse.   of Denmark.
+   + 1750.
+     |
+     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |             |               |              |          |         |             |              |
+   GEORGE III.  Edward,       William, Duke    Henry,    Frederic,  Augusta,     Elizabeth       Caroline
+   + 1820.    Duke of York,  of Gloucester,   Duke of   d. young.  Duchess of    Louisa,         Mathilda,
+     |          + 1767.        + 1805.       Cumberland.           Brunswick.   d. unmarried.    Queen of
+     |                                                                                           Denmark.
+     |
+     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+     |            |          |       |      |            |            |             |           |          |            |           |          |
+   GEORGE IV. Frederic,  WILLIAM IV. |   Edward,      Augusta     Elizabeth,     Ernest,    Augustus,   Adolphus,     Mary,      Sophia,    Amelia,
+    + 1830.    Duke of     + 1837.   | Duke of Kent,  + 1840.     Princess of    Duke of     Duke of    Duke of     Duchess of   d. unmar.  + 1809.
+     |          York.        |       |   + 1820.                 Hesse-Homburg, Cumberland,  Sussex.    Cambridge.  Gloucester.
+     |         + 1827.       |       |      |                       + 1840.      King of                   |
+     |                       |       |      |                                    Hanover.       -----------------------
+     |                       |       |      |                                       |           |          |          |
+  Charlotte,            Charlotte,   |  VICTORIA.                                George.     George.    Augusta.    Mary.
+  Princess of           Elizabeth.   |      |
+    Wales,                           |      |
+    + 1817.                          |      |
+                                     |      |
+                                     |      |---------------------------------------------------------------
+                                     |      |                        |                  |                  |
+                             Charlotte,   Victoria Adelaide.    Prince Edward.     Alice Maud.    Alfred Ernest Albert.
+                             Queen of
+                            Wirtemberg,
+                              + 1828.
+
+
+
+
+GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE BOURBONS.
+
++ _denotes date of decease._
+
+                                     HENRY IV. + 1610.
+                                         |
+                                     LOUIS XIII. + 1643.
+                                         |
+                         ---------------------------------
+                         |                               |
+                   LOUIS XIV. + 1715.         Philip, Duke of Orleans,
+                         |                            + 1710.
+                         |                               |
+                   Louis (Dauphin,)              Philip (Regent,)
+                       + 1711.                        + 1723.
+                         |                               |
+        -----------------------------            Louis, Duke of Orleans,
+        |                           |                 + 1752.
+        |                           |                    |
+      Louis,                    PHILIP           Louis Philip, D. of Orleans,
+    Duke of Burgundy,      (Duke of Anjou,)           + 1785.
+      + 1712.               King of Spain,               |
+        |                        + 1746.                 |
+        |                           |                    |
+        |             -----------------              -------------------
+        |             |               |              |                 |
+    LOUIS XV.    FERDINAND VI.   CHARLES IV.     Louis Philip   Louisa Maria,
+      + 1774.       + 1759.     King of Naples,   (Egalite,)     Duchess of
+        |             |             + 1759.         + 1796.       Bourbon.
+        |             |               |              |
+      Louis      CHARLES III.   FERDINAND IV.        |
+    (Dauphin,)     + 1788.          + 1825.          |
+      + 1765.         |               |              |
+        |        CHARLES IV.      FRANCIS.           |
+        |         Ab. 1808         + 1830.           |
+        |             |               |              |
+        |   --------------------      |             -----------------------
+        |   |                  |      |             |         |           |
+        | FERDINAND VII.  Charles, FERDINAND V.   LOUIS   Anthony,      Louis,
+        |    + 1833.        or                  PHILIPPE.  Duke of     Count of
+        |   |            Don Carlos.                     Montpensier.  Beaujolais,
+        |   |                                                           + 1808.
+        | ISABELLA II.
+        |
+        -------------------------------------------------
+        |                         |                     |
+    LOUIS XVI.              LOUIS XVIII.           CHARLES X.
+      + 1793.                  + 1825.                (Abd.)
+        |                                             + 1836.
+        |                                               |
+        ------------------------          --------------------------
+        |                      |          |                        |
+    Louis Joseph,      Louis XVII.      Louis,             Charles, Duke of Berri,
+      + 1789.            + 1795.       Duke of                   + 1820.
+                                      Angouleme.                   |
+                                                           Henry, Duke of
+                                                              Bourdeaux.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern History, From the Time of
+Luther to the Fall of Napoleon, by John Lord
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN HISTORY ***
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