PREFACE. HE History of the Reign of George III. is pregnant with the most momentous himself to his Maker and his fellow-man; in which respect for every tie of relationship, every feeling of humanity, was cast to the winds, and a great nation, drunk with blood, and mad with every evil passion and lust that can agitate the breast of man, dared to depose the Supreme Being Himself from his place as the object of their worship, and to set up in His stead-as if in the grimmest satire-the personification of that very Human Reason whose principles they had so amazingly outraged. We shall see in the course of this volume how the evil poison of the French Revolution extended even to our own country, in which at one time it threatened to bear dangerous fruit, had it not been happily arrested in time by the wisdom and vigilance of our rulers. Still, this period was to our country one of extreme peril and unfortunate consequences. While the nations of the European Continent had been worshipping but a marred and mutilated image of Liberty and Free Thought, a truer idea of these great principles had been growing in the breasts of our colonists on the other side of the Atlantic. It will be seen in these pages through what a series of errors, well-intentioned though they might have been, these possessions, which we had prized so highly, were alienated from the British Crown, and having shaken off the dominion of their mother country by a series of splendid successes in the field, and feeling themselves strong enough to walk alone, began their glorious career as the great republic of the United States of North America. But the troubles of England were not confined to the American war. A mistaken policy of interference with the affairs of the French nation, the cause of whose exiled dynasty we had chosen to espouse, involved this nation in the horrors of a Continental War, which lasted far on into the next century, failing, after all, of its original object, and in which the splendid victories gained by our forces, both by land and sea, scarcely half compensated the country for the prodigious loss of blood and treasure, and the crippling of her commerce, which she had to undergo. In fact, two great mistakes marked the policy of the English Government during this reign they endeavoured to rule our colonies by coercion, and they interfered to force on the French nation a dynasty it had repudiated. In both of these efforts they were eventually foiled, and from these defeats they learned two grand principles of international law-that colonies must be left to govern themselves, if they are to be retained; and that no people has, on any pretence whatever, a right to intrude itself into the domestic affairs of another people. We have closed this volume with a careful and minute picture of the excesses of a nation renouncing Christianity. We shall open the next with the grand error of England in commencing war to replant an impossible dynasty. 55 ... 61 66 67 Major André, from a pen and ink sketch by himself Memorial Stone marking the place of André's Execution American river scene, Europus Creek... Richard Brinsley Sheridan, from an authentic portrait The first Day of Liberty.-Scene in Paris, 1789, after the capture of the Bastille M. Necker, from an authentic portrait Attack upon the Bastille by the Revolutionists of Paris 450 451 457 ... 462 ... 269 ... 269 270 271 View of the Town of St. Helier's, Jersey The People driving Foulon from Vitry to Paris 463 ... General View of the ancient City of Paris 487 469 ... 474 ... 475 481 486 ... ... 498 499 505 ... 507 ... 507 510 St. John's, New Brunswick, Canada 300 A Hindoo Water Seller ... 511 ... 517 ... 519 522 East India House, Leadenhall Street, London 523 Fontenay Vendée, Department of La Vendée ... 529 Taking the Civic Oath Death of Mirabeau View of Notre Dame from the Seine, Paris ... 541 546 ... 547 552 ... 553 558 ... 135 ... 138 Dunbrody Abbey, near Waterford Meeting of the Irish Volunteers in the Church ... 325 330 ... of Dungannon Calcutta 144 The Great Mogul delivering to Lord Clive the Signing the Declaration of American Indepen- Thomas Jefferson, from an authentic portrait 150 Plan of the British operations in New York ... 169 the Hudson The Abduction and Murder of Jenny Macrea by the Indians Medal struck in honour of Washington Engagement between French and English Cheyte Sing rendering homage to Warren Corn Market in the City of Haarlem Trial of Warren Hastings in Westminster Hall 391 331 336 ... 337 342 343 348 La Vendée The Troops of Tippoo Saib pillaging Madras... 349 ... ... ... 360 361 An expelled Priest of the Gironde preaching in the fields... 583 View of Coblentz ... ... 589 Madame de Staël, from an authentic portrait... 594 Tippoo Saib's sons delivered as hostages to the English 595 Perspective plan of Seringapatam, indicating severally the British possessions in 1792 and 1799 600 Marriage of II.R.II. the Duke of York, in the Chapel Royal, St. James's 601 ... ... |