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FORE:Grenville rose and defended the Stamp Act. He denied that the right of taxation depended on representation. He complained justly, that when he proposed to tax America, there was little opposition in that House. He contended that protection and obedience were reciprocal, and he exposed the fallacy of Pitt's distinction between taxes and duties. There was much justice in these remarks. The words of Grenville, so pointedly directed against him, immediately called up Pitt again. He had spoken; it was contrary to all rule, but the lion of Parliament broke recklessly through the meshes of its regulations, and when he was called to order the members supported him by cries of "Go on! go on!" He went on, severely castigating Grenville for complaining of the liberty of speech in that House; and dropping in his indignation the terms of courtesy towards the late Minister of "honourable" or "right honourable," said simply"Sir, the gentleman tells us that America is obstinateAmerica is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." He then exposed the cases quoted by Grenville to show that taxation in this country had been imposed without representation, showing that these very instances led to immediate representation. "I would have cited them," he continued, "to show that even under arbitrary reigns Parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent. The gentleman asks when the Americans were emancipated? But I desire to know when they were made slaves?" He then touched on the true sources of benefit from our colonies, the profits of their trade. He estimated the profits derived from the American commerce at two millions sterling, adding triumphantly, "This is the fund that carried us victoriously through the late war. This is the price America pays us for protection." He then alluded to the comparative strength of the two countries. "I know the valour," he said, "of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. But in such a cause as this your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her."
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FORE:The restless Englishman, much more like a Frenchman in temperament and character than a native of England, had married Madame de Villette, a niece of Louis XIV.'s last mistress, Madame de Maintenon, a lady rich and well-trained in all the Court life of Paris. By this means Bolingbroke was brought into close connection with that Court. The notorious Cardinal Dubois had died in August, 1723, and in less than four months died also the Duke of Orleans, the Regent. Louis XV. being nominally of age, no other Regent was appointed; but the Duke of Bourbon, a man of better character but of less ability than the Regent, Orleans, was Prime Minister. He was greatly under the influence of his bold and ambitious mistress Madame de Prie; and Bolingbroke, who was high in the favour of both Minister and mistress, flattered himself that, with the aid of his courtier wife, he could govern both them and France.
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FORE:
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FORE:Buonaparte endeavoured to man?uvre so as to get into Kutusoff's rear, and thus to have the way into the fertile provinces beyond him open. He sent forward Delzon to occupy Maloi-Jaroslavitz, a very strong position; but Kutusoff penetrated his design, made a rapid march, and encountered Delzon in the very streets of Maloi-Jaroslavitz. A severe battle took place, and the French finally recovered Maloi-Jaroslavitz, but only to find it, like Moscow, in flames, and to lose Delzon and his brother, as well as some thousands of men. Beyond the burning town they also saw Kutusoff and one hundred thousand men drawn up in a position which the French generals declared impregnable. Buonaparte received this information with expressions of consternation unusual to him. He determined the next morning to examine this position for himself, and in so doing was very nearly captured by a band of Cossack cavalry. A council of war was held in a wretched weaver's hut, and he reluctantly concluded to forego this route, and take that by Vereiva and Viasma, the same by which he had advanced on Moscow. This was, in fact, to doom his army to perdition; for all the way by Borodino, Smolensk, and Vitebsk, the country had been ravaged and desolated in coming; there was nothing in it to keep alive an army. Had he waited only a few hours, he would have found[50] Kutusoff himself retreating from his strong defiles from fear of being outflanked by the French, and their making their way beyond him to the fertile provinces. Thus the two armies were each in retreat at the same moment, but Buonaparte's was a retreat upon death and horror.The great financial questions of 1786 were the Duke of Richmond's plan of fortifying Portsmouth and Plymouth, and Pitt's proposal of a sinking fund to pay off the national debt, an excise duty on wines, and Pitt's commercial treaty with France. During the previous Session the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance, had proposed a plan of fortifying these large arsenals, so that, in the supposed absence of our fleet on some great occasion, they would be left under the protection of regiments of militia, for whom enormous barracks were to be erected. A board of officers had been appointed to inquire into the advantages of the plan, and their report was now brought up on the 27th of February, and introduced by Mr. Pitt, who moved that the plan be adopted. This scheme was strongly opposed by General Burgoyne, Colonel Barr, and others. Mr. Bastard moved an amendment declaring the proposed fortifications inexpedient. He said the militia had been called the school of the army, but to shut them up in these strongholds, separate from their fellow-subjects, was the way to convert them into universities for pr?torian bands. He protested against taking the defence of the nation from our brave fleet and conferring it on military garrisons; tearing the ensign of British glory from the mast-head, and fixing a standard on the ramparts of a fort. The Bill was rejected, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, and all the leading Oppositionists declaiming against it.
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