army, which if sent to Spain would have curtailed Napoleon's career, and spared torrents of blood and millions of money, was wasted away by fever in the marshes of Walcheren. During the inquiries into this expedition, strangers were excluded from the House of Commons; and this was made the subject of discussion by a debating club, for which breach of privilege the president was committed to Newgate. Sir Francis Burdett, the member for Westminster, wrote some severe remarks on this imprisonment in a letter to his constituents; and among other things denied the right of the Commons to imprison without trial. This was voted a libel on the house, and the Speaker's warrant was issued for his arrest. Burdett resisted its execution, and immense crowds of people collected round his house to protect him; but after holding out for two days, he was taken by an armed force and carried to the Tower. The metropolis was disturbed for several days, and during the tumults a number of lives were lost.

Hitherto our intervention in Spain had from various causes been fruitless; but in 1809 Sir Arthur Wellesley again landed in Portugal with reinforcements. His first great exploit was to drive the French from Oporto, which he did by skilfully crossing the river Douro, when Soult fled in disorder before the British general, whose caution he had affected to sneer at. Thence General Wellesley marched into Spain, where he was attacked by Marshal Victor at Talavera. The battle lasted two days (July 27 and 28), during which the French lost 1000 men, about 6000 wounded, and 17 guns. But the Spanish allies were so untrustworthy, and the English army was so small, that Sir Arthur, unable to profit by his great success, had to retire into Portugal. For this striking victory, which was, however, much depreciated by certain politicians at home, the general was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Wellington. Upwards of twelve months elapsed before he resumed the offensive; but finding that his soldiers grew dispirited from their forced inactivity, a necessity of his position with a small army between three larger ones in front and flanks, he determined to meet the French once more in the field. At Busaco he offered battle, and was immediately attacked by Massena, who was repulsed with severe loss (1810).

According to a plan arranged long before, the English army now began to retire towards Lisbon, in front of which were the strongly fortified lines of Torres Vedras. Against

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these impregnable works Massena could do nothing, and while his soldiers were almost starving, the British received their supplies regularly by sea, as they did in the Crimean war while entrenched on the heights of Sebastopol. At last the French were compelled to retreat, Wellington following them closely. On the 2d May 1811, Massena turned and attacked the English at Fuentes de Onoro. But the result was adverse; and a few days later (May 16) Soult experienced a terrible repulse from Beresford on the ridge of Albuera. "Then," says Colonel Napier, was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult with voice and gesture animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns, and sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and fiercely striving, fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering on the flank, threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front; their measured tread shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as slowly, and with a horrid carnage, it was pushed by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep. The rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded men, the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill."

Again Wellington withdrew his army into Portugal behind the old line of the Coa. In January 1812, the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo was captured, for which success he was made an earl. In April, Badajos was taken, at a dreadful cost of human life, after one of the most daring sieges on record. The way into Spain was now open. On the 22d July, he encountered Marmont and Clausel at Salamanca, and defeated them with signal loss. The British army soon

after entered Madrid, and Wellington was made a marquis. Failing in his attack on Burgos, he once more retired into Portugal, which he finally quitted in May 1813. By a series of skilful manoeuvres, Wellington marched through a country hitherto deemed impassable for an army, and without risking a battle compelled the French to retreat. A stand was made at Vittoria by King Joseph in person, but his army suffered a more complete defeat than any they had experienced before in Spain. They lost everything, and for this crowning exploit Wellington was made a fieldmarshal.

Soult was now placed at the head of the French army; but even his indomitable energy proved unavailing. In a series of combats, known as the battles of the Pyrenees, Wellington was always conqueror, and on the 7th October that army which he had led from the banks of the Tagus entered the French territory. Here nearly every foot of ground was fiercely contested. At Orthez, Soult was again worsted in a pitched battle, and at Toulouse was driven in confusion from his entrenchments. This was a useless fight, for it took place after Napoleon's abdication and the signing of preliminaries of peace between the belligerents in the north of France. For this last victory in the peninsular war, a dukedom, the highest rank in the peerage, was conferred on the successful general.

3 THE REGENCY.-During these successes and reverses, events were transpiring in England that must not be overlooked. In 1810, the king was afflicted by a return of that fatal disease which accompanied him to the grave. His mind is said to have given way under the shock caused by the death of his favourite daughter the Princess Amelia. The charge of the king's person was intrusted to his amiable and affectionate queen, while the Prince of Wales was appointed regent with almost regal power. The following year was one of serious distress and suffering; and one individual, named Bellingham, who had not escaped the universal depression, fancied that by killing the prime minister all would be well. For this purpose he lay in wait for his victim in the lobby of the House of Commons, and Mr Percival fell by a pistol shot as he was entering the house.

THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL.-The task of the new ministry, of which Lord Liverpool was premier, was one of no slight difficulty. The lower classes were discontented, and loudly

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called for a reform in parliament, while the number of our enemies was likely to be increased by the addition of America. After the prostration of Prussia by the battles of Jena and A. D. Auerstadt, Napoleon issued the famous "Berlin decree," declaring Great Britain in a state of blockade, and shutting all the harbours of Europe against her merchandise. The king's ministers retaliated by the equally notorious "orders in council," to the effect that no merchant vessel belonging to a neutral power should enter the port of any country at war with England without first landing its freight and paying duty on it in Britain. The result of these measures, if they could have been fully carried out, would have been to stop the trade of the world, to deprive mankind of all the benefits of commerce and manufactures, and to reduce them nearly to the primitive barbarism of fighting savages. But commerce is a practice so natural to the human race, that when it has once got into a channel, no despotism is sufficiently strong absolutely to stop it. It so happened, that just at this time we were making the chief improvements in the cotton spinning and other manufactures, and our fabrics were produced so cheap, that in spite of decrees and armies, they found their way to every market in Europe. It has been said with some truth, that it was our spinning-jennies rather than our troops that beat Napoleon. By these measures, however, the commerce of the United States was greatly embarrassed, and a bad feeling excited against us among their inhabitants. This was exasperated by the right assumed by our ships of war to search for English seamen on board of the American vessels. After much angry negotiation, the president declared war against Great Britain in June 1812; and although the obnoxious orders had been revoked before the proclamation reached England, the States were too much excited to recall their declaration. On land the Americans were unsuccessful in their invasion of Canada, and the several English expeditions along the sea-coast were of a mixed character. At sea the Americans were victors in several encounters, until the meeting of the Shannon and the Chesapeake, the result of which showed that the parent country was more than a match for her vigorous and youthful descendants. The war terminated in 1814, leaving unsettled the principles in defence of which it had been commenced.

4. The disasters of the Russian campaign in 1812, and the reverses experienced in Northern Germany in the following

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year, drove the French within their own frontiers. Europe was now once again allied in arms against the ambition of France and of her ruler: the "sacred territory" was invaded, Paris surrendered to the victors, and Napoleon, A. D. descending from his imperial throne, exchanged it for 1814. the petty sovereignty of Elba. In the beginning of the next year, Bonaparte suddenly appeared again in France, and resumed the government. One hundred days only elapsed before his power was finally destroyed by the army of the allies under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The several forces assembled together in the Netherlands towards the middle of June, while Napoleon was on his march from Paris. About nine miles from Brussels, the Duke had marked a wide and gentle declivity between two rising grounds, on the top of one of which was the small village of Waterloo, and it appeared to him that here the capital of Belgium might be best defended against an army approaching from Paris. The high road to the French frontier passed through it, and on the side of Brussels there was a great forest which would have secured a retreat had that been the fate of the army. He was not, however, permitted immediately to occupy this position. Napoleon's movements were as usual rapid and secret, for no general of the age could equal him in the skill with which he marched his troops over a great space of ground in a short time and in regular quiet order. He intended to follow up the system which had so often led him to victory-to come by surprise on the two armies of the allies one after the other-to beat Blucher, and then beat Wellington. On the 15th of June 1815, the French troops crossed the border of France and entered Flanders in three divisions. The Duke of Wellington was stationed at Brussels. News of the crossing of the frontier reached him about six o'clock on the same afternoon, but merely as a rumour which might put him on his guard, while it was not sufficient authority for moving his troops. He therefore did not let it prevent himself and his principal officers from attending a ball given by an English lady of rank that night in Brussels. At eleven o'clock he received more distinct intelligence, and without bustle or alarm a great movement towards the enemy began, and continued during the forenoon of the sixteenth.

About sixteen miles from Brussels there was a spot called Quatre Bras or the Four Arms, because two important roads there crossed each other. The possession of this central point