service, that many women cut off the hands of their husbands, to disable then for duty. The city guards, when they were ordered to march for Spain, tore the French cockade from their hats and trampled it under foot, took possession of the gates, and evinced a disposition which wanted only a Schill or a Palafox to have directed it. They were overpowered, and marched out of the town, and, many of them indicating the same spirit, 150 were brought back as prisoners, chained two and two, for punishment. Wherever the commercial system of Buonaparte extended, the same distress, the same resistance, or the same atrocities, occurred. At Vienna, the court plate was coined at the mint, and the king of Prussia, unable to procure money, sent English goods in bulk, which had been seized at Koningsberg, to discharge in part the heavy contributions extorted by France. From the stagnation of trade and of employployment, the continent was filled with banditti. In Bohemia and Thuringia, they were so numerous and powerful, that they often entered the towns in open day, while the civil magistrate looked on without daring to apprehend them. In the Black Forest, they possessed a considerable tract of country, and seized the convoys of artillery and ammunition on their way between France and Poland. A band, composed entirely of Jews, who were amenable to the conscription, preferred plundering on their account to fighting with Buonaparte.

With a view to conciliate the affections of his subjects in Holland, and to arrange and expedite his naval preparations, Buonaparte now proceeded on a tour to the coast. He arrived at Boulogne on the 20th of September, where he witnessed, as I have before related, the discomfiture of his flotilla by a single frigate. He visited the dockyards and fortifications of Ostend, Flushing, and Antwerp; and, on his arrival at Amsterdam, received the most warm reception and the most servile plaudits, from a nation which could once boast of a De Ruyter and a Nassau. On the 13th of October, he issued from the imperial palace at Amsterdam, a decree

for assembling the deputies to the legis lative body from the Dutch departments, and, after affecting to consult them, commanded a number of arbitrary and unwise regulations, but admirably calculated to gallicise the people for whom they were intended, and to obliterate the remembrance and the desire of political liberty. He returned to Paris on the 11th of November, and immediately commenced the active prosecution of those ambitious designs which terminated in his own ruin and in the deliverance of Europe.

In Sicily, the marriage of Buonaparte to a daughter of the house of Austria, gave him a family connection with the queen of Naples, a profligate woman, fond of political intrigues, and attached to the interest of France. Her extravagance was boundless; the sums which were wrung from the Sicilian peasantry, or obtained from the blind liberality of the English court, were wasted on her pleasures, or upon the sports of the feeble-minded king, who was encouraged to recreate himself with unlimited profusion, that he might not interfere with affairs of state. The whole revenue of Sicily did not amount to £700,000, including what it received from the British government. The expenditure was twice that sum; and the king's private expenses were supposed to have amounted to the whole of our subsidies. Even at this moment, when we were liberally rewarding. the court of Sicily for its supposed attachment to the cause of Europe, a plot had been formed for delivering over the British to destruction; and the partisans of England, prince Belmonte, his uncle, prince Villaharmosa, the grand huntsman, prince di Aci, the duke of Anjio, and prince Villa Franca, were the destined victims of the queen's malignity. Prince Belmonte and four of his friends were seized in their beds, and conveyed with every degree of insult on board a small vessel commanded by a despicable tool of the queen's, who, as she herself acknowledged, was the only person she could trust with such a commission. Lord William Bentinck, the English ambassador, arrived three days after the arrest. The queen was so transported with

the enjoyment of vengeance that she had openly expressed her determination to refuse every demand which might be made by the British government, and lord William finding himself without powers to act as the emergency required, determined to return immediately and press upon government, in person, the necessity of adopting vigorous and effectual measures. Lieutenant-general Maitland, who was left with the command of the forces at this critical moment, informed them in general orders that lord William's sudden departure was in consequence of the most urgent political motives, and intimated suspicions of a treacherous conspiracy, which were unexpectedly and completely verified.

A plot was in progress for delivering over the whole of the Sicilian flotilla to the enemy. Of this the British general was now informed, and the scheme was met by a counter-plot, as perfect in its kind as any intrigue of a drama or a novel. The men through whom the correspondence with the French general in Calabria was carried on were brought over; every letter on both sides therefore was delivered to the officers in our service, to whom the whole conduct of the affair was entrusted; a fac simile was taken and forwarded to its destination, and the original detained as undeniable evidence whenever the time for producing it should come. At length the French general, Manches, wrote to colonel Constantino de Filippi, saying, that as there were many points respecting which he still wished to communicate, and which he would not venture to explain in a letter, he had determined on sending over one of his aid-de-camps, with whom colonel Filippi might freely conclude all the arrangements, and to guard, as he supposed, against all possibility of his being imposed upon he inclosed a complete description of the aid-de-camp's person. The British general had not yet obtained the full information which he wanted, and there was no other means of acquiring it than by finding some one who should personate this agent, but this could only be done by one who should answer the description,

and be at the same time a Frenchman, a man of ability and confidence, and a stranger in Messina. Such a man was found in one of the foreign regiments in our service. He was immediately sent for, landed in disguise, kept in concealment till his whiskers had grown to the pattern of his prototype's, and till he was perfectly master of his part; then carried again out of the harbor and landed in a small boat at night in a sailor's dress on an open part of the shore, as if from the Calabrian coast, furnished with such credentials as the materials in possession of the English general enabled him to provide. In the mean time every precaution was taken to prevent the appearance of the true aid-de-camp.

The feigned aid-de-camp found his way to Filippi's house, where he remained several days till he had gained all the information which he required, and a list of all the persons upon whom the French might rely. The most difficult part of his task was to avoid a meeting with some of the conspirators who were personally acquainted with the real aid-de-camp, but in this he succeeded, and after partaking "with what appetite he could," of the feasts provided for him, and arranging every thing for the surrender of the flotilla and the destruction or imprisonment of the English, he departed as he had arrived in disguise and at night, and embarked in an open boat. Further delay would now have been dangerous as well as useless, and on the 2nd of December fifteen of the principal agents were arrested. The French general, whose plots had been thus dexterously counteracted, attempted a diabolical revenge. Four Calabrians who had been well watched by the police were surprized in bed, but, being armed and dressed, they leaped up and made a desperate resistance. One of them was killed upon the spot, two two were were severely wounded, and the third was pursued and taken. Two of them, condemned as spies, confessed that they had been sent from Calabria by the French general Manches for the express purpose of assassinating an officer in the British army. Another of

these ruffians had been engaged to murder the courier from Palermo, for the purpose of seizing lord William Bentinck's despatches on that nobleman's first arrival.

His lordship arrived with full powers to act as the emergency required. The sub sidy was suspended, and the duke of Orleans, who had married the queen's daughter, joined the British embassy in urging the hereditary prince to step forward. The king, influenced by these circumstances, withdrawing from the queen the power by which she had exercised the supreme autho

rity consigned it to his son by a formal act. The five barons were released and returned to Palermo amidst the acclamations of their countrymen. The command of the Sicilian troops, whom we had so long and so profusely paid while in a state of inefficiency, was given to lord William Bentinck, and measures were immediately adopted for reforming the abuses under which the country groaned, and for rendering the British and Sicilian force available in the common cause.

TH

THE session of parliament was opened on the 7th of January, with the prince regent's speech delivered by commission. It commenced with the expression of deep concern for his majesty's continued indisposition, alluded to the success of those defensive measures which had been adopted for the security of Portugal, mention ed with commendation the surprise of a French corps in Estremadura by lieu tenant-general Hill, and descanted on the skill and bravery displayed by the officers and soldiers of the allies throughout the peninsula. It recommended to parliament the consideration of proper measures for the future government of India, and expressed the regret of his royal highness at the differences between this country and the United States of America, promising at the same time that all means of concilia tion should be employed consistent with the honor and dignity of the crown, and the rights and interests of the British empire: After an unanimous vote of the address in both houses, the attention of parliament was for some time engrossed by questions of trivial importance, and chiefly relating to domestic policy. A committee was appointed for the regulation of the nightly watch, and a bill enacted for the punishment of frame-breaking; and the preservation of peace in the county of NotVOL. II.

tingham. A law was passed for preventing the grant of offices in reversion till the close of the year 1814, and some animated but fruitless discussions arose respecting the appropriation of the droits of the admiralty. A private matter was discussed in the house of commons at an early period of the session, which chiefly deserves the notice of the historian as involving a question of parliamentary law. Mr. Benjamin Walsh, a member of parliament, had been guilty of a breach of trust in his business of a stock-broker, for which offence he had been tried at the Old Bailey and convicted of felony. He had afterwards obtained the royal pardon for his crime, on the ground that it did not properly amount to felony, but his retention of a seat in the house could not be regarded but as derogatory to the dignity of that assembly. After re peatedly and ineffectually summoning him to appear before them, it was resolved "that Mr. Walsh is unworthy and unfit to continue a member in this house," and he was expelled by a large majority. A bill for the abolition of sinecure offices; introduced by Mr. Banks, was passed in the house of commons by 134 to 123, but rejected in the lords after a vehement: harangue from the lord chancellor who said that "such a bill. never met the eye of a lawyer since the establishment of

2 s

law;" and all alleviation of the public burdens was rendered hopeless. In consequence of the spirited animadversions of the opposition members of the house of commons on the appointment of colonel Mac Mahon to the situation of paymaster of widow's pensions, a sinecure which the commissioners of public accounts had twice recommended the government to abolish, the prince regent was induced to deprive him of his place. But a few weeks only had elapsed before he was remunerated by the appointment of keeper of the privy purse, and private secretary to the prince regent. This circumstance was noticed in the house of commons, (March 23rd,) by the honorable J. W. Ward, who desired to be informed by the chancellor of the exchequer, what salary was attached to these places, and what were their duties, as he had not been aware that such situations existed. The observation was answered on the part of ministers by an appeal to the expedience of aiding his royal highness in the execution of the important duties of his station, and the question was dismissed, but the expression of the popular sentiment was too strong to be mistaken, and his royal highness notified to the house, that the salary of the new secretary should be paid out of the regent's privy purse. On the 13th of April, Mr. Wharton moved in the committee of supply that a sum not exceeding 554,441 be granted for the expense of the barrack department. The demand excited a general expression of surprise even among the friends of the ministers. Mr. Huskisson stated, that the expense of the barracks for the life guards, would be. found, on calculation, to amount to £450 for each horse, an enormous sun, announting, according to the interest usually allowed for money laid out in building, to £40 for each trooper and his horse. The debate assumed a personal and acrimonious character; but it was at length agreed that the grant should be reduced to £400,000, and the projected barracks in Mary-le-bone park, Bristol, and Liverpool, were postponed. On the 21st of April, the earl of Donoughmore moved the order

of the day, to take into consideration, the claims of the catholic body for the removal of the disabilities under which they labored. In the long debates which ensued, every topic was agitated which had come beneath the consideration of the disputants in former sessions. The marquis of Wellesley in the lords, and Mr. Grattan in the house of commons, were peculiarly distinguished by the comprehensive and able views which they entertained of this intricate and undecided question; and though the motions in favor of the catholics were rejected, the numbers of their partisans had considerably increased, and their speeches obtained a powerful influence over the feelings and opinious of the community.

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Scarcely had this question been decided, when all other proceedings were suspended, and all other interest absorbed, by the perpetration of a crime of which English history had been polluted by no record since the time of Buckingham. As the prime minister, Mr. Perceval, on the 11th of May, was entering the lobby of the house. of commons, at a quarter past five o'clock, a person of the name of Bellingham, who had placed himself at the side of the door for that purpose, fired a pistol at him, the ball of which entered his left breast. Immediately," says Mr. Smith, upon hearing the report, I turned my head to the place from whence the noise appeared to have proceeded, and observed a turmult, and probably about a dozen or more persons gathered around the spot. Almost at the same instant a man rushed hastily from the crowd, and several voices cried, out, Shut the door! Let no one escape. The person I alluded to came to me, looking first one way and then another, and, as I thought at the moment, rather like a person seeking for some one, than as a, person who had received a wouud; but, taking two or three steps towards me, as he approached, I found he rather reeled by me, and almost instantly fell upon the. floor with his face downwards. . Before he, fell, I heard a cry, not very distinct, which appeared to come from him, in which was the word murder, or something very much