Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
he was grossly ignorant of the state and character of the British
Parliament; he had read De Lolme and other popular writers upon the
British Constitution, and he fell into the fatal, the irretrievable
error, of believing that the practice of that constitution was the same
thing as the theory described by these writers; and thus he was betrayed
into a gulf from whence he was never to be extricated. I have before
observed, that at the Congress of Vienna it was proposed and seriously
urged to seize Napoleon at Elba, and to convey him to St. Helena; and
those who proposed this measure had taken care to have all things in
readiness to carry their project into execution, in case it had been
agreed to. No time was, therefore, now lost in acting upon this plan.
The English Ministers knew the sentiments of the Allied Despots upon the
subject, and the brave Napoleon, the fallen Emperor, was shipped off to
linger, pine, and rot upon a barren rock, in a distant and pestilential
climate, in the same way that we would send out a wretch convicted of
the highest crimes, as a transport for life. He who had spared Emperors,
Kings, and Princes--he who had restored them to their thrones after
having bravely conquered them, was now treated like a common convict
transport! Disgraceful, damnable, imperishable blot in the escutcheon of
England's character!!!
The Assembly of France now met, and passed such laws as might naturally
be expected in a country filled with foreign troops. Treaties were
entered into by the restored Monarch, to settle the terms of peace, and
were signed on the twentieth of July. By these treaties France lost all
the conquered territory which she had been allowed to retain in 1814,
and was placed nearly in the same geographical situation as before the
revolution. One hundred and fifty thousand troops of the five Allied
Powers were to remain in France for five years; France was to maintain
them, and pay a large pecuniary indemnity, in which a provision was made
for the claims of British subjects; and all other matters, good, bad,
and indifferent, were to be settled by a convention, to be held at
Vienna. The expenditure of this year, drawn out of the pockets of John
Gull, amounted to no less a sum than EIGHTY ONE MILLIONS, of which
TWENTY-SEVEN MILLIONS were borrowed by loan. The Honourable House of
Commons voted TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS as an additional remuneration
to the Duke of Wellington. In the meantime, the wretchedness of the
people of Ireland had driven them to a state of desperation; the
resistance to the collection of the TITHES became general in many
counties, and a large army of regulars and militia was employed to put
down the poor, starved, distressed, and plundered people. Many lives
were lost, and a special commission was appointed, by which great
numbers were found guilty, and transported to Botany Bay, and all this
arose from the most horrid system of rapine and plunder that ever
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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