Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
of Aix-la-Chapelle--Raids of the Pindarrees--Lord Hastings
determines to suppress them--Malcolm's Campaign--Outbreak of
Cholera--Campaign against the Peishwa--Pacification of the Mahratta
District--Apparent Prosperity of Great Britain in 1819--Opening of
Parliament--Debates on the Royal Expenditure--Resumption of Cash
Payments--The Budget--Social Reforms--The Scottish Burghs--Roman
Catholic Emancipation rejected--Weakness of the Government--Meeting
at Manchester--The Peterloo Massacre--The Six Acts--The Cato Street
Conspiracy--Attempted Insurrection in Scotland--Trials of Hunt and
his Associates--Death of George III.
The Allied sovereigns and their Ministers met at Vienna, in the opening
of the year 1815, in congress, to settle the boundaries of all such
States as had undergone disruptions and transformations through the
will of Buonaparte. They were proceeding, with the utmost composure, to
rearrange the map of Europe according to their several interests and
ambitions. Austria, Spain, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia,
Russia, and Sweden had their sovereigns or their representatives there.
Those for Great Britain were the Duke of Wellington, the Lords Cathcart
and Clancarty, and Sir Charles Stewart. All at once a clap of political
thunder shook the place, and made every astute diplomatist look aghast.
It was announced that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba, and was rapidly
traversing France on the way to Paris, and that his old soldiers were
flocking with acclamation to his standard. It was what was certain to
occur--what every man not a cunning diplomatist must have foreseen
from the first, as certainly as that a stone thrown up is sure to come
down again. Yet no one seems to have foreseen it, except it were Lord
Castlereagh, who, not arriving at Paris before this foolish scheme was
adopted, had protested against it, and then yielded to it. On the 13th
of March the ministers of the Allied Powers met, and signed a paper
which, at length, was in earnest, and showed that they were now as well
convinced of a simple fact as the dullest intellect had been ten years
before--that there was no use treating Buonaparte otherwise than as a
wild beast. They now declared him an outlaw, a violator of treaties,
and an incorrigible disturber of the peace of the world; and they
delivered him over to public contempt and vengeance. Of course, the
British ambassadors were immediately looked to for the means of moving
the armies of these high and mighty Powers, and the Duke of Wellington
to plan and to lead the military operations against the man who had
once more developed himself from the Emperor of Elba into the Emperor
of the French.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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