A. D.

ceeded with his bill for modifying the constitution of 1784} the East India Company.

The example of the American colonists was not lost upon Ireland. In the autumn of 1783, a number of delegates from Ulster met at Dungannon for the purpose of reforming the Irish parliament. The province of Leinster followed a similar course; and in November a convention of protestant volunteers from every county assembled at the rotunda in Dublin to remodel the constitution. This rival parliament endeavoured to overawe the legitimate body, and the volunteers, who had been armed by the government during the American war to repel invasion, continued their military training. In January 1785, a new body, entitled the National Congress, met at Dublin, and their proceedings were a mere imitation of the conduct of the Americans, with the addition of permanent corresponding committees. In order to redress the commercial grievances complained of, Pitt brought in his Irish trade. bill, establishing a free trade on mutual exchange between the two countries. With some slight alterations, this bill was passed; but it was strongly opposed by the Irish parliament, and ultimately relinquished.

3. WARREN HASTINGS.-Although the history of our Indian colonies will be treated of elsewhere, we may here notice the impeachment of Warren Hastings, for high crimes and misdemeanours during his administration at Calcutta. In 1773, the "Regulating Act" came into operation in England, and under it one of the first duties of government was to nominate the governor-general. The choice fell upon Mr Warren Hastings, at the very time when Lord Clive was subjected to an inquiry scarcely less notorious than that by which his own eastern career was to terminate. From 1773 to 1785 Hastings conducted the Indian government with prudence and success; but on his return home, a prosecution was raised against him at the instigation of Sir Philip Francis, one of the members of the governor's council. In 1786, Burke laid before the Commons nine charges, afterwards increased to twenty-two, against Hastings, and after two years had been consumed in preliminary matters, the House of Lords assembled in Westminster Hall to try the impeachment. The heads of the accusation most relied upon were four :-the oppression of the Rajah of Benares; the maltreatment and robbery of the begums or princesses of Oude; and the charges of receiving presents, and conniving at unfair contracts and ex

travagant expenditure. Mr Burke opened the case with a most eloquent speech which lasted three days, and he was assisted by Sheridan, Fox, Grey, and others. Three years were occupied by the case for the prosecution, and in 1791 Mr Hastings began his defence, which was protracted until the 23d of April 1795, when he was acquitted on every article by a very large majority.

Hastings had returned home comparatively poor. After a residence of thirty years in India, during thirteen of which he had been governor-general, his fortune did not exceed £130,000,-a large portion of which was expended in law and other expenses during his lengthened prosecution. As some compensation for his losses, the company granted him an annuity of £4000, and lent him £50,000 for eighteen years without interest. He retired altogether from public life, to an estate which he purchased in Worcestershire, and died in 1818, a short time after he had been raised to the dignity of a privy councillor.

In the autumn of 1788, rumours began to be circulated that the king was afflicted with mental derangement, and on the 5th of November concealment of the monarch's real condition became no longer possible. In this incapacity of the first branch of the legislature, it was necessary to take immediate measures for supplying the royal authority. Long and violent debates took place on the subject of a regency; Fox and his party claiming it for the Prince of Wales, the heir apparent, as a matter of right, without the previous consent of parliament; while Pitt insisted that the heir-apparent had no more right to the executive power in this case than any other subject in the realm. The latter opinion prevailed with parliament; but during the discussions on the course to be adopted and the limitations to be imposed on the regent, the king recovered. The joy of the people was universal at this welcome change, for his dreadful malady had only increased their sympathy for the "good old king," as he was already called. This illness was one of the causes that led to the union of the Irish legislature with that of England, the former body having unconditionally conferred the regency on the Prince of Wales.

Several years of peace had now been enjoyed, during which the public revenue increased, commerce and manufactures were extended, and the general prosperity of the people was augmented. This state of tranquillity was, however, endangered in 1789, by the Spaniards taking possession of the

small settlement of Nootka Sound, on the north-west coast of America, where they pulled down the British flag and hoisted the Spanish in its place. After some unavailing negotiations, both parties vigorously prepared for war, when Spain at last yielded, and agreed to make reparation for the injury sustained. The folly of going to war about an insignificant settlement on a distant coast was ridiculed then, as similar instances have been sneered at before and since; yet, independently of the necessity of a port in those distant seas for the accommodation of our numerous merchant-ships, it was a gross insult upon the national honour. In the words of Mr, afterwards Lord, Grey, "this national honour is not a visionary thing: a nation without honour is a nation without power. In losing this one inestimable attribute, it inevitably loses the genuine spring of its spirit, energy, and action. Every nation, therefore, ought to be vigilantly careful of its honour; lest by one mean submission, it encourage an attack upon the dignity of its character, the best security for the preservation of peace."

4. The tranquillity of Europe and of the world was disturbed by the breaking out of the French Revolution in 1789. In a very short space of time the government of France was overthrown; the king and queen were guillotined, and Christianity was disavowed. The pen of the most eloquent historian could but faintly describe the horrors that ensued, the torrents of blood that were shed on the scaffold or in civil strife, and the universal depravity that pervaded the nation. At length the furious flood burst its banks, and threatened the adjoining countries. It must be admitted, however, that they did not show sufficient caution. Their kings thought more of Louis XVI. and his rights than of the French people. The Emperor of Austria especially manifested a determination to restore the kingly authority to its old state. He professed to despise the republicans as an undisciplined rabble, who would at once be brought to a sense of their duty by his imperial troops, an arrogance which afterwards was the cause of his bitter humiliation.

BIRMINGHAM RIOTS.-Differences of opinion on the subject of the events in France created violent animosities in this country. Many people continuing to sympathize with the republicans others, and they were by far the larger and more popular party, began to draw from their excesses opinions hostile to every change; and it may safely be said that the French Revolution postponed the progress of rational reform,

at the head of which Pitt himself was enrolled, for nearly half a century. An event occurred which, in the person of the philosopher Priestley, showed the unpopularity of those who sympathized with the republicans. He had for some time been declining in favour with the people of Birmingham, where he resided, when, on the 14th of July 1791, a few of his friends met at a dinner held in celebration of the taking of the Bastile. A false report of the toasts which were drunk roused to violence a number of the inhabitants, who attacked the house where they were assembled, and drove them from the table. The mob, gaining courage from their victory over this small body, and from the circumstance of no troops being in the town, next proceeded to burn down two dissenting meeting-houses, and afterwards sacked and fired Dr Priestley's house, and the dwellings of all who were supposed to be opposed to the established order of things in church and state. Other excesses occurred, but no blood was shed; and after four days of anarchy, the tumult was suppressed by a small body of horse from Nottingham.

FRENCH WAR.-In 1792, Mr Pitt made a most encouraging statement of the national prosperity, the income greatly surpassing the expenditure; and as if to confirm the blindness of the wisest politicians of the age, he asserted, that "unquestionably there never was a time when a durable peace might more reasonably be expected than at the present moment." But this delusion was of brief duration. The execution of Louis XVI. in January 1793, and the previous opening of the navigation of the Scheldt, contrary to treaty, by the French troops in Holland, made neutrality impossible: the French envoy was ordered to quit the country, and France declared war against England on the 1st of February. The presumption of the dominant party in France had reached such a pitch, that probably under no circumstances could hostilities have long been delayed; and there can be little doubt that the English ministry were not averse to a war ostensibly waged in defence of public order and of the rights of nations.

A British ariny was immediately sent to the Netherlands, under the command of the Duke of York, to co-operate with the Austrians and Prussians. From disunion in their councils and incapacity in their commanders, the combined armies were unable to resist the French, and the duke, after great losses, was compelled to return to England. This failure was in a measure compensated by Lord Howe, who, on the 1st of Juno

1794, gained a signal victory over the French fleet at Ushant, when two ships were sunk, two burnt, and six captured.

5. From 1793 to 1795 many state prosecutions were carried on against persons who were charged with attempts to subvert the government, and imitate the French revolutionists. In England these trials were generally defeated, for, however unpopular were the principles of the persons accused, liberty of opinion and the integrity of jury trial were considered of more importance than the suppression of dangerous sentiments. Thus the celebrated philologist John Horne Tooke, when tried for treason in 1794, was acquitted. The ministry were more fortunate in their trials in Scotland, where, through defects in the jury system, convictions were obtained against Thomas Muir and others, who were sentenced to transportation.

For the next two years England was little more than a spectator in the affairs of the continent, until Spain, in 1797, took part with France, already in possession of all the naval resources of Holland. The Spanish fleet was defeated off Cape St Vincent by Sir John Jervis in February, and the Dutch fleet by Duncan off Camperdown in October. Thus England single-handed, for Austria and Prussia had made peace with France, was enabled to maintain her supremacy on the ocean.

MUTINY OF THE FLEET.-The same year was remarkable at home by the restriction of cash-payinents by the Bank of England, and the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. The former was occasioned by the threatened invasion by France,an attempt considered very probable after the unexampled success of the French arms on the continent. Alarm spread through the country, and a run was made upon the bank for gold in exchange for its notes. As the resources of this establishment were insufficient to meet so great and sudden a call, an order in council authorized it to suspend cash-payments. The mutiny among the seamen was of a more serious nature. It broke out at Spithead, where the sailors demanded an increase of pay and the redress of various grievances. When these were granted, order was immediately restored; but the flame soon burst forth again at the Nore, where the mutineers, upon the refusal of their demands, blockaded the mouth of the Thames. This was indeed a critical moment for the maritime existence of England; but the firmness of the government prevailed, and discipline was restored. The ringleaders, of whom Richard Parker, a young seaman of considerable ability, was the chief, were tried and executed