he was put on board the Northumberland, the flag-ship of admiral sir G. Cockburn, and conveyed to the island of St. Helena. Here he lingered till his death (May 5, 1821). He was incontestably the greatest general of modern times, and had taken every capital of importance in Europe, except London: yet he was deficient in the qualities which make a great man, and especially in dignity and fortitude in the endurance of misfortune.

The second peace of Paris, or definitive treaty between France and the allied powers, was signed in that capital on November 20. The settlement of Europe was arranged by the congress at Vienna. The emperor of Russia, the emperor of Austria, and the king of Prussia had also signed what they called the “Holy Alliance an agreement to govern on Christian principles; which the duke of Wellington wisely declined to sign, on the ground that it was too vague (September 26).

At the commencement of the war with France in 1793, the English funded debt had been a little under 240 millions. In February, 1816, the unredeemed debt, funded and unfunded, amounted to nearly 900 millions, entailing an annual charge of more than 28 millions. The last three years of the war alone had cost the country very nearly 200 millions.

§ 24. The triumph of the nation was succeeded by a reaction of internal distress and discontent. During the war, the excitement of national feeling and the natural exultation of victory had prevented the people from complaining, and it was not till the struggle was over that they began to feel the burthens occasioned by it. Trade languished from the exhaustion of the continental nations, and their consequent inability to purchase our goods; while through unfavourable seasons the price of wheat rose before the end of 1816 from 52s. to upwards of 100s. a quarter; and the distress was augmented by the corn-law of 1815, which closed the ports to the importation of foreign grain till the price of wheat reached 80s. A multitude of persons were thrown out of employment through the depressed state of trade, and their numbers were swelled by the soldiers and sailors discharged at the termination of the war. Thus seditions and tumults arose, marked in the agricultural districts by incendiary fires, in the manufacturing towns by the breaking of those ingenious machines by which human labour has been to a great extent superseded. The subject of parliamentary reform, previously little more than a speculative question, now began to be agitated among the great mass of the people. A ramification of clubs, called Hampden clubs, was established throughout the country, that of London being presided over by sir Francis Burdett. Other leading members were major Cart

wright and the demagogue orator Henry Hunt. Their demand for reform embraced annual parliaments and universal suffrage; and a report of a secret committee of the House of Commons in February, 1817, represented these clubs as meditating nothing short of a revolution. In the preceding December dangerous riots had taken place in Spa Fields, which were with difficulty put down through the firmness and courage of sir James Shaw and of the lord mayor. One result of the peace was the suppression of the Algerine pirates. During the war these nests of robbers had been connived at; but in 1816 sir Edward Pellew (lord Exmouth) proceeded to Algiers with 25 men-of-war, besides gunboats. Being joined by a small Dutch squadron under admiral Van Capellan, he almost completely destroyed, after a few hours' bombardment, the formidable fortifications of Algiers (August 27), together with nine Algerine frigates. A loss, however, of 818 officers and men was sustained by the British. The dey of Algiers now accepted the terms dictated, and 1083 Christian slaves, principally Italians, were liberated.

§ 25. The general feeling of discontent among the lower classes, and an outrage committed upon the prince regent, the windows of whose carriage were broken as he was returning from opening the parliament (January 28, 1817), led to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act (February 28). At the same time the execution of the law of libel was severely pressed, and numerous ex officio informations were filed against political writers. One of the most remarkable of these prosecutions was that against William Hone, a bookseller in the Old Bailey, for a profane libel, consisting of parodies on the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed. Hone conducted his own defence with considerable ability, and was acquitted by the jury, who seem to have felt that it was the political rather than the profane character of the libels that had excited the indignation of the government (December 18).

The princess Charlotte, only child of the regent, died in childbirth this year (November 6). The infant was still-born. She had espoused (May 16, 1816) prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, the late king of the Belgians.

In 1818 the prospects of the country seemed improving. Trade was more active, employment more constant, and sedition consequently less rampant. In September a congress of the allies was held at Aix-la-Chapelle in order to settle the withdrawal of the army of occupation from France, of which the duke of Wellington was generalissimo. The duke took leave of the troops by an order of the day dated at Cambray, November 7. On his return to England he was appointed master-general of the ordnance, with a seat in the cabinet.

§ 26. In 1819 was passed the act, commonly known as Mr. Peel's Act, to remove the Bank restriction passed in 1797, and to provide for the gradual resumption of cash payments. May 1, 1823, was assigned as the period for the payment of all notes on demand in the current gold coin of the realm; but the Bank anticipated this period by two years, and began to pay in specie on May 1, 1821

In August, 1819, Henry Hunt, the demagogue, collected a great meeting in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, on the subject of parliainentary reform. The attempt to apprehend him produced a disturbance, in which about half a dozen persons were killed and a score or two wounded. This affair obtained among the “Radicals,” as the extreme reform party were now called, the name of the Manchester Massacre, or "Peterloo." Hunt and eight or ten of his friends were captured, and, being tried and convicted of a misdemeanour in the following spring, were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Such was the alarm occasioned in the public mind by these disturbances, that parliament was opened in November, when the ministers brought in and passed six acts: namicly, for the more speedy execution of justice in cases of misdemeanour; to prevent military training; to prevent and punish blasphemous and seditious libels; an act for seizing arms; a stamp act, with the view of repressing libels; and an act to prevent seditious meetings and assemblies. But more effectual means of repression were found in the amendment of the criminal law, the extension of education, the establishment of savings banks, and other measures of a similar philanthropic character.

On January 23, 1820, died the duke of Kent, aged 52, leaving an only daughter, her present majesty, born May 24, 1819. In less than a week afterwards, George III. expired (January 29), at the age of 82, and in the 60th year of his reign, a longer period than any king had ever sat on the English throne. His private conduct had been always unexceptionable; and his plain and unostentatious manner, his warmth of feeling, and his attachment to rural pursuits, had endeared him to a large portion of his subjects. As a sovereign he undoubtedly had the honour and welfare of the nation at heart. Though occasionally somewhat narrow and contracted in his views, these defects are rather to be attributed to his early training than to any want of natural good sense. To the opinions he had once adopted he was apt to cling with a firmness nothing could shake. Unpopular at the outset of his reign, and surrounded by those who either were unable to advise, or unwilling to conciliate, he succeeded, long before his death, in gaining the affection and esteem of his subjects. Queen Charlotte had died in November, 1918.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

GEORGE IV., AND WILLIAM IV. A.D. 1820-1837.

§ 1. Accession of GEORGE IV. Cato-street conspiracy. Prosecution and death of queen Caroline. § 2. Ministerial changes. Commercial panic. § 3. The catholic question. O'Connell and the Catholic Association. Canning's ministry and death. § 4. Battle of Navarino. Kingdom of Greece. The duke of Wellington premier. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. § 5. Catholic emancipation. § 6. Death and character of George IV. § 7. Accession of WILLIAM IV. Earl Grey premier. § 8. Parliamentary Reform Bill. Rejected by the lords. Riots at Bristol, etc. § 9. Proposed creation of peers. Reform Bill carried. Irish Coercion Bill. § 10. Abolition of slavery. Lord Melbourne prime minister. Sir Robert Peel prime minister. Lord Melbourne's second administration. § 11. Municipal Reform Bill. Death of William IV.

GEORGE IV., b. 1762; r. 1820-1830.

§ 1. GEORGE, prince of Wales, now ascended the throne, with the title of GEORGE IV., at the age of 58. As he had been regent during the last ten years, while his father was in seclusion, his accession produced little or no change in the state of affairs.

The excitement of "Peterloo" was followed by the Cato-street conspiracy, so called because the conspirators were captured in a room over a stable in Cato-street, Edgeware-road (February 23). They consisted of some twenty or thirty persons, headed by one Thistlewood, a man of desperate character; and their design was to murder all the cabinet ministers when they should be assembled at dinner at lord Harrowby's. But they were betrayed by one of their own gang: nine of them were captured, and Thistlewood and four more of the ringleaders were executed (May 1).

One of the first steps of George IV. after his accession was to attempt to procure a divorce from his consort, Caroline of Brunswick. The marriage had never been a happy one. It had been in a manner forced upon the prince as a condition of having his debts paid. The princess's person and manners were distasteful to him, and she soon became the object of his aversion. Though she bore him a daughter, they separated shortly after their marriage; and Caroline went to live abroad in 1814. Her conduct in England had already excited some scandal, and in 1818 a commission was appointed to watch her conduct and collect evidence. Our ambassadors abroad were instructed not to recognize her; and when the king came to the throne her name was omitted from the liturgy.

She determined on returning to England, and arrived (June 6, 1820) the very day on which lord Liverpool had opened an inquiry into her conduct in the House of Lords. In July a bill of pains and penalties was brought in, to deprive her of her rights and privileges as queen, and to dissolve the marriage. In the trial which ensued Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman acted as her attorney and solicitor general. She was charged in particular with adultery with one Bergami, a menial servant. Several Italian witnesses were examined, and it cannot be doubted that her conduct in Italy had gone far beyond the bounds of discretion; but the witnesses were of a low class, and frequently equivocated: and there was naturally a popular feeling in favour of a woman whose case assumed somewhat the aspect of persecution. At the third reading of the bill, the majority in its favour in the House of Lords had fallen to nine; and, as the bill had still to pass the commons, the ministers determined to abandon it. The popular feeling was expressed by a general illumination. In the following session the commons voted the queen an annuity of 50,0007.

The king's coronation having been fixed for July 19, 1821, queen Caroline insisted on being crowned with him, and on having her name inserted in the liturgy. This was refused; and when she repaired to the abbey to view the coronation as a spectator, she was turned back from the door. This disappointment, added to the excitement she had already undergone, was her deathblow. She expired of internal inflammation (August 7), at the age of 52. Her funeral was attended with riots. The mob compelled the procession to pass through the city, and two persons were shot by the military. Her remains were then taken to Harwich to be conveyed to Brunswick.

§ 2. In 1822 lord Sidmouth retired from the home office, and was succeeded by Mr. Peel. In August the suicide of lord Londonderry (formerly lord Castlereagh) created another vacancy in the ministry. Mr. Canning was now the leading man in the House of Commons, but he had incurred the king's displeasure by refusing to take any part in the proceedings against queen Caroline, and had therefore been passed over on the preceding occasion. His great talents, however, could not be entirely overlooked, and the East India Company had offered him the governor-generalship of India, for which he was preparing to depart. But, as his services in England were indispensable, the king was forced to waive his antipathy, and Canning became foreign secretary and leader of the House of Commons. His discharge of that office was marked by a more liberal policy than had prevailed under his predecessor.

As the disciple of Pitt, Canning followed Pitt's principles of