ONE:The year 1816 was a most melancholy year. Both agricultural and manufacturing labourers rose in great masses to destroy machinery, to which, and not to the temporary poverty of the whole civilised world, exhausted by war, they attributed the glut of manufactured goods, and the surplus of all kinds of labour. In Suffolk and Norfolk, and on the Isle of Ely, the agricultural labourers and fen-men destroyed the threshing-machines, attacked mills and farms, pulled down the houses of butchers and bakers, and marched about in great bands, with flags inscribed "Bread or blood!" In Littleport and Ely shops and public-houses were ransacked, and the soldiers were called out to quell the rioters, and much blood was shed, and numbers were thrown into prison, of whom thirty-four were condemned to death, and five executed. The colliers and workers in the iron mines and furnaces of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, as well as in the populous districts of South Wales, were thrown out of work, and the distress was terrible. The sufferings and consequent ferments in Lancashire were equally great. In Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, the Luddites broke out again, as they had done in 1812, and by night demolished the stocking-frames and the machinery in the cotton-mills. Great alarm existed everywhere, and on the 29th of July a meeting was called at the "City of London" Tavern to consider the means of relieving the distress, the Duke of York taking the chair, the Dukes of Kent and Cambridge, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others attending. Many palliatives were proposed, but Lord Cochrane and other reformers declared that the only effectual remedy would be the abolition of the Corn Law. Soup-kitchens were recommended, but in Scotland these were spurned at as only insults to the sufferers; at Glasgow the soup-kitchen was attacked, and its coppers and materials destroyed; and at Dundee the people helped themselves by clearing a hundred shops of their provisions.On the 1st of September Wellington marched out of Madrid, and directed his course towards Valladolid, leaving, however, Hill in the city with two divisions. He then proceeded towards Burgos, and, on the way, fell in with the Spanish army of Galicia, commanded by Santocildes, ten thousand in number, but, like all the Spanish troops, destitute of discipline and everything else which constitutes effective soldiersclothes, food, and proper arms. Clausel quitted Burgos on the approach of Wellington, but left two thousand, under General Dubreton, in the castle. Wellington entered the place on the 19th, and immediately invested the castle. The French stood a desperate siege vigorously, and after various attempts to storm the fort, and only gaining the outworks, the news of the advance of the army of the north, and of that of Soult and King Joseph from the south, compelled the British to abandon the attempt. General Ballasteros had been commanded by the Cortes, at the request of Lord Wellington, to take up a position in La Mancha, which would check the progress of Soult; but that proud and ignorant man neglected to do so, because he was boiling over with anger at the Cortes having appointed Lord Wellington Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies. General Hill, therefore, found it prudent to quit Madrid, and fall back on Salamanca; and Lord Wellington, on the 21st of October, raised the siege of the castle of Burgos, and moved to Palencia, to be near to General Hill. At Palencia Lord Dalhousie joined him with a fresh brigade from England; and he continued his retreat to the Douro, pursued briskly by the French, under General Souham. At Tudela Souham halted to wait for Soult, who was approaching.
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THREE:
THREE:It must be confessed that it was impossible to keep peace with a nation determined to make war on the whole world. Perhaps on no occasion had the pride of the British people and their feelings of resentment been so daringly provoked. War was proclaimed against Britain, and it was necessary that she should put herself in a position to protect her own interests. The country was, moreover, bound to defend Holland if assaulted. But though bound by treaty to defend Holland, Great Britain was not bound to enter into the defence of all and every one of the Continental nations; and had she maintained this just line of action, her share in the universal war which ensued would have been comparatively insignificant. Prussia, Russia, and Austria had destroyed every moral claim of co-operation by their lawless seizure of Poland, and the peoples of the Continent were populous enough to defend their own territories, if they were worthy of independence. There could be no just claim on Britain, with her twenty millions of inhabitants, to defend countries which possessed a still greater number of inhabitants, especially as they had never been found ready to assist us, but on the contrary. But Britain, unfortunately, at that time, was too easily inflamed with a war spirit. The people as well as the Government were incensed at the disorganising and aggressive spirit of France, and were soon drawn in, with their Quixotism of fighting for everybody or anybody, to league with the Continental despots for the purpose not merely of repelling French invasions, but of forcing on the French a dynasty that they had rejected.
THREE:[414]
