Green, pp. 761-768. Green, pp. 769, 770. Bright, III, 1177-1181. Repressive measures. Bright, III, 1161. of privilege and property. Burke, once the advocate of political progress, became now the mouthpiece of reaction. His Reflections on the French Revolution was the manifesto of a crusade against democracy. The propagandist attitude of the French Revolutionists aroused a panic of alarm in England, which Pitt strove in vain to stem. At last he gave way before the demand of the king and the nation for war, and joined hands with the monarchs of Europe in an attack upon the French Republic. The French Revolution and the war that followed dealt the cause of progress a fatal blow. Pitt turned his back forever on his plans for financial and political reform. Henceforth all his energies were absorbed in the conflict with France. In the outset the war was a crusade against democratic opinion, and it meant the establishment of Tory ascendency. Reactionary views and arbitrary methods prevailed in the government. Wild fears of a revolutionary rising led to the adoption of a policy of repression. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended from 1794 to 1801, new treasons were created, the liberty of public meeting was restricted, numerous prosecutions of the press were instituted, and men were found guilty of sedition and harshly punished for advocating measures which Pitt had himself proposed a few years before. A poor bill-sticker was imprisoned for six months for posting up an address asking for Parliamentary reform, and a clergyman, named Palmer, was sentenced to seven years' transportation for circulating a paper in favor of the same measure. Break-up of the Whig Party. In this repressive policy, the government had the steady support of Parliament and the country. Fear of revolution had brought about a revulsion of feeling. In 1794 the great bulk of the Whigs went over to Pitt. The Opposition, led by Fox, dwindled to a mere handful, too weak to impose any check upon the arbitrary policy of the government. It became, however, what it had never been before, a party of popular reform. In 1792, in 1793, and again in 1797 motions for the reform of Parlia ment were introduced by Grey. They could scarcely obtain a hearing, and were thrown out by large majorities. The prospect of reform, so bright in 1780, seemed, twenty years later, hopelessly deferred. More than a century had elapsed since the overthrow of the Stuart despotism, but England had apparently made no advance toward popular government. In reality much had been gained. In the organization of political parties and in the development of the Cabinet, governmental forms had been established well fitted to give effect to the will of the people, and to make democracy possible. 770-772. The War with France. The war lasted from 1793 to Green, 1802. In the beginning Spain, Holland, Austria, and Prussia PP. 767-769. were united with England against France. Notwithstanding these odds, the French not only repelled invasion, but carried the war across the border into the enemy's country. The Republican armies, fired with zeal and patriotism and led by Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest military genius of the age, Bonaparte. were irresistible. On land England accomplished nothing. Her armies were badly made up and badly led, and the subsidies which she lavished on the petty German states brought little return. On the seas, however, the English were almost uniformly successful. English supremacy in the Mediterranean was soon established, the French Atlantic fleet was defeated by Lord Howe, and the French settlements in India and some of the West Indian islands passed into the possession of England. the coalition. In 1795 the coalition began to give way before the vic- Break-up of tories of the French. Most of the continental states concluded treaties with the Republic. England, however, still continued on the offensive. For a time (in the year 1797) her situation seemed desperate. She stood alone, threatened with invasion from France, menaced with rebellion in Ireland, the fleet paralyzed by a widespread mutiny. But the crisis was met with determination and success. The attempted invasion ended in failure, and before the year was out, by the destruction of the Spanish and Dutch fleets, in the battles of Cape Vincent and Camperdown, England had lessened the danger of attack. The interest of the next year centred in Egypt, whither Bonaparte had gone in the belief that the occupation of Egypt would open the way to the restoration of the French domination in India. Nelson's victory at the battle of the Nile (1798), by severing the connection between France Battle of the and the French forces in Egypt, placed insuperable diffi- Nile, 1798. culties in the way of this scheme, and in 1799 it was abandoned. On land, however, Bonaparte, now at the head of the French government, swept all before him. A second coali- The second tion with Austria and Russia, laboriously built up by Pitt in coalition. 1799, fell to pieces within the year. Austria maintained the struggle until 1801, when she was forced to sign the treaty of Luneville, which left France supreme on the continent. In the East and on the sea, England's success was still unbroken. Southern India fell before Wellesley, the French were defeated at Alexandria, and Nelson's victory at Copenhagen (1801) dealt a fatal blow to the alliance of Sweden, Denmark, and Russia which had threatened England's commercial supremacy. But England needed peace, she stood Green, alone in Europe, her debt was enormous, taxation was heavy. P. 779. Bonaparte was ready to come to terms, and in 1802 the peace of Amiens was concluded. "It was a peace," so Sheridan of the Opposition declared, "which everybody would be glad of, but which nobody would be proud of." In spite of the fact that England gave back all her conquests except Ceylon and Trinidad, the peace was greeted with joy throughout the country. Peace of Amiens, 1802. Green, The Union of England and Ireland. Before the negotiapp. 772-776, tions for the peace of Amiens were begun, Pitt had withdrawn from the ministry because of the king's refusal to agree to the emancipation of the Irish Catholics. 777-779. The surrender of Limerick in 1691 (p. 364) was followed by the establishment of Protestant ascendency in Ireland. Many of the Catholic leaders went into exile or were ruined by confiscations, and the bulk of the army entered foreign service. The fate of the Catholic people, threefourths of the population of Ireland, was in the hands of the Irish Parliament, which represented simply the small intolerant Protestant minority. In spite of the pledges of LimeLaws against rick, crushing penal laws were enacted against the Catholics. the Catholics. Their worship was practically proscribed, they were disfranchised, they were excluded from the professions, from Parliament, from municipal office. The law thrust itself between a Catholic father and his children, a Catholic's right to hold land was restricted, he was forbidden to own a horse worth more than £5. Destruction of Irish industries. The Irish Parliament made the position of the Catholics almost intolerable, the English Parliament spared neither Catholic nor Protestant. The Cromwellian Settlement had added a vigorous and intelligent element to the population, and after the Restoration there was a beginning of prosperity in Ireland. The land was chiefly pasture, and the importation of cattle into England became an important source of wealth; but the English landowners took alarm, and laws were passed excluding from England Irish cattle and sheep, meat and butter and cheese. Ireland had certain commercial advantages in her good harbors and proximity to America, but as soon as she showed signs of turning these to profit she was cut off almost entirely from the colonial trade. As Swift said, Ireland's fine ports were of no more use to her than "a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon." Forbidden to send their sheep to England, the Irish landowners turned to wool-growing, and the woollen manufacture began to develop; but in 1699 |