188 NOOTKA SOUND-WAR WITH SPAIN AVERTED. the representation of the people in Parliament, was withdrawn; the ministe who had three times advocated Reform, now holding that if a more favourche time should arise, he might himself bring forward a specific proposition; b he felt that the cause of reform might now lose ground from being agitate. at an improper moment. There was a warlike episode in May of this year, which indicated, perhap advantageously to European powers, that Great Britain was not prepared: endure insults to her flag. In the previous year two English vessels had bee seized by a Spanish frigate in Nootka Sound, a harbour of Vancouver Island and the buildings for a settlement on that coast by English traders had bee pulled down, by direction of the Spanish government, which claimed all t lands from Cape Horn to the 60th degree of latitude. His Catholic Majest long refused to make reparation. War was the tone of a royal message: Parliament. A million was voted. But Spain yielded; and at a great crisis of European affairs we were saved from one of those petty quarrels whi had so often been the beginning of lavish bloodshed for the attainment a small commercial advantages. Fox supported the minister in the spirite conduct which averted this conflict; and Pitt had the merit of obtaining, resolute negotiation, concessions which rendered a future dispute improbabl The possibility of a war between Great Britain and Spain raised an importa question in the French Assembly. The governments of Spain and Frane were bound by treaty to mutual support. The question arose in the Assemb as to the power of making peace or war. Mirabeau, with surpassin eloquence, prevented the legislative body from assuming that power to itsel and it was resolved that war can only be decided on by a decree of the legis lative body, passed on the formal proposal of the king, and sanctioned by hi A resolution was carried by acclamation that the French nation renounce for ever all ideas of conquest, and confined itself entirely to defensive war. France during this summer presented the semblance of a happy peop celebrating the triumphs of liberty and equality by a pompous spectacle Paris; and the reality of disturbances in the army on the eastern frontier with much bloodshed at Nanci, and a general resistance amongst the highe clergy to the adhesion required of them to the new order of ecclesiastica affairs. It was resolved that the anniversary of the taking of the Bastill should be honoured by a magnificent festival in the Champ de Mars-a gran Federation to which deputies should come from every one of the eighty-thre departments of France. To prepare an immense amphitheatre for this gathering from the most remote parts, twelve thousand workmen were employed. But they worked too slowly. All Paris then went forth to dig and to move earth-all classes, men and women, coming in the early from their sections, and returning home by torchlight. Vast troops of fede rates had arrived in Paris, and were hospitably lodged. At six o'clock of the morning of the 14th of July, three hundred thousand persons, of both sexes, dwelling in Paris and the neighbourhood, had taken their seats on the grass of the amphitheatre, amidst a pouring rain. The federates marched into the area, each troop with the banner of its department. Fifty thousand armed men were in the space surrounded by the spectators on their grassy The king and the royal family, the president of the National Assembly, and the deputies, were on a raised seat, beneath an awning ornamented with fleurs morning elevation. 1790.] FÊTE OF THE FEDERATION IN PARIS. 189 de lis. Mass was celebrated by the bishop of Autun, attended by three hundred priests, at an altar placed in the centre of the amphitheatre. La Fayette then ascended to the altar, and swore, in the name of the troops and the federates, to be faithful to the nation, the law, and the king. The president of the National Assembly, and each of the deputies, took the same oath. Then Louis, standing in front of his throne, said: "I, king of the French. swear to the nation to employ all the power which is delegated to me by the constitutional law of the state, to maintain the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly, and accepted by me, and to cause the laws to be executed." The queen took the Dauphin in her arms, and presented him to the multitude. The sun shone out; the cannon boomed; one universal shout went up as if to proclaim that France had attained the consummation of its felicity. But again a deluge of rain came down, whilst Talleyrand was blessing the banners of the eighty-three departments. Again sunshine; and illuminations; and dancing in the Champs Elysées; and merriment for a week before the federates went home-perhaps to think whether it were possible that the loving oaths of the 14th of July would ever be broken. Fête of the Federation. From a View by Duplessis-Bertaux. The Sixteenth Parliament of Great Britain, having nearly completed its full term of seven years, was dissolved soon after the prorogation in June, 1790. The new parliament assembled on the 25th of November, when Mr. Addington was chosen Speaker. There was no allusion to the affairs of France in the king's Speech. That the great events which had taken place in that country were occupying the thoughts of public men, there could be small doubt. Whilst the royal Speech, and the echoing Addresses, dwelt upon a pacification between Austria and the Porte, upon dissensions in the Nether 190 BURKE PUBLISHES HIS "REFLECTIONS." [1790. lands, upon peace between Russia and Sweden, and upon war between Russia and the Porte, the national mind was absorbed almost exclusively by conflicting sentiments about the Revolution in France. A few weeks before the meeting of Parliament, Burke had published his famous "Reflections on the Revolution."* Probably no literary production ever produced such an exciting effect upon public opinion at the time of its appearance, or maintained so permanent an influence amongst the generation to whose fears it appealed. The reputation of the author as the greatest political philosopher of his age; his predilections for freedom, displayed through the whole course of the American Revolution; his hatred of despotic power, as manifested in his unceasing denunciations of atrocities in India; his consistent adherence to Whig principles as established by the Bill of Rights-this acquaintance with the character and sentiments of Burke first raised an unbounded curiosity to trace the arguments against the struggle for liberty in another country, coming from a man who had so long contended for what was deemed the popular cause at home. The perusal of this remarkable book converted the inquirer into an enthusiast. In proportion as the liberal institutions of our own country were held up to admiration, so were the attempts of France to build up a new system of government upon the ruins of the old system, described as the acts of men devoted to "every description of tyranny and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold this revolution." To the argumentative power was added an impassioned eloquence, which roused the feelings into hatred of the anarchists who led the royal family captives into Paris on the 6th of October, and directed every sympathy towards a humiliated king, a proscribed nobility, and a plundered church. Burke was accused of an abandonment of his old principles, as he grew more and more strongly opposed to the French Revolution, even before the period of its greatest excesses. He who produced the most elegant and temperate answer to the "Reflections," most truly said: "The late opinions of Mr. Burke furnished more matter of astonishment to those who had distantly observed, than to those who had correctly examined, the system of his former political life. An abhorrence for abstract politics, a predilection for aristocracy, and a dread of innovation, have ever been among the most sacred articles of his public creed." Coleridge, at a period when his Gallican enthusiasm had entirely sobered down, complains of "the errors of the aristocratic party," in lamenting with tragic outcries the injured monarch and the exiled noble, and displaying a disgusting insensibility to the sufferings and oppressions of the great mass of the population; and he adds, in a note, "The extravagantly false and flattering picture which Burke gave of the French nobility and hierarchy, has always appeared to me the greatest defect of his, in so many respects, invaluable work."‡ Another eminent thinker of our own day has thus given his opinion of the causes of Burke's indifference to the condition of the governed, and his sympathies with the governing: "It is the natural tendency of men connected with the upper ranks of society, and separated The title of the book indicates that its chief purpose was to spread alarm as to the preva lence of revolutionary opinions in England: "Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain Societies in London relative to that event." + Mackintosh-"Vindicia Gallicæ," Introduction. "The Friend," Essay I. 1790.] RUSSIA AND TURKEY-SIEGE OF ISMAIL. 191 from the mass of the community, to undervalue things which only affect the rights or the interests of the people. Against this leaning, to which he had yielded, it becomes them to struggle." Mackintosh, writing in 1791, says: "No series of events in history have probably been more widely, malignantly, and systematically exaggerated than the French commotions." He adds, with reference to the furious indignation with which Burke had spoken of some popular atrocities: "The massacres of war, and the murders committed by the sword of justice, are disguised by the solemnities which invest them."† "The massacres of war were never more fearfully exhibited than at the season when the revolutionists of France were held up to execration, and the savage murders perpetrated by the ministers of vengeance let loose by Catherine of Russia provoked no parliamentary denunciation, and excited little public feeling. On the anniversary of our Saviour's nativity, in 1790, Suwarrow, the Russian general, wrote to his court: Glory to God and to the Empress, Ismaïl is ours." It is not necessary to read the two cantos of "Don Juan," which Byron devoted to the siege of Ismaïl, to shudder at the atrocities which have been perpetrated by established authorities. This fortress, the key of the Lower Danube, was stormed; the Turks obstinately resisted till midnight, and then the conquering Russians entered the body of the place. The rising sun exhibited such a spectacle in Ismaïl as had not for several ages shocked the feelings of mankind. In the morning, when the Russian generals put an end to the carnage, thirty thousand of the Turkish population, of all ages, sexes, and conditions, had perished.‡ Mirabeau, in January, 1791, was named President of the National Assembly. During the previous year he had pursued a systematic course of opposition to the measures of the extreme democratic party. He supported, as we have seen, the king's prerogative as to the right of peace and war. He opposed the violent measures that were contemplated with regard to emi He maintained a complete independence of clubs and mobs. He saw that the Revolution was passing out of the hands of the few who were qualified to guide it to a moderate course, into the management of factions, who were ready to stifle the comparatively sober voice of the legislative body. He dreaded the turbulence of those who were becoming a real and a terrible power, as the Club of the Friends of the Constitution (who, from their place of meeting, the Hall of the Jacobins' Convent, came to be known as Jacobins); and of another body, still more violent, the Club of the Cordeliers. There were in Paris, too, somewhat more than a hundred Journals. Mirabeau was himself a journalist, and counselled in this character adherence to constitutional moderation. Marat, the representative of the fury of the Revolution, was for erecting eight hundred gibbets, and for hanging Mirabeau the first, as the chief of the advocates of order. Nevertheless, the wonderful energy, the indomitable courage, the overwhelming eloquence of Mirabeau not only made him supreme in the National Assembly, but gave him the hearty allegiance of the people, in their universal recognition of his intellectual supremacy. * Lord Brougham-"Statesmen of the time of George III."-Art. "Burke." There is a very graphic account of this event in the "Annual Register," 1791. 192 MIRABEAU'S NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE COURT. [1791. The very post-boys called the best horse of a team-the horse that did the most work-their Mirabeau. The king and queen of France began to feel that their safety might depend upon the efforts of this man, who had done so much to destroy the ancient order of things, but in whom the will, and probably the power, abided, of saving the monarchy. Mirabeau secretly met Marie Antoinette at St. Cloud, to which palace the royal family had removed He came in the summer of 1790, and there enjoyed some little freedom. away with the conviction that she was the only man of the family. He was poor; and he doubtless accepted great presents from some source, for his style of living suddenly became extravagantly luxurious. Louis wrote to Bouillé that he had paid the services of Mirabeau at an enormous price. Dumont believes that Mirabeau thought himself, on receiving payment, as an agent who could accomplish salutary ends with adequate means. He also says, that Mirabeau's only object was to have the ministerial power in his hands; that he had no notion of a counter-revolution; that his desire was to re-establish the royal authority, with a national representation; that he even would have endeavoured to revoke the decree of the National Assembly which had abolished the nobility; and that he was dissatisfied with the part he had himself taken as to the question of the clergy. When Mirabeau entered upon his functions as President of the National Assembly, the versatility of his talent was signally displayed. He was no longer the impassioned tribune of the people. He was the moderator of a tumultuous body-the impartial supporter of orderly proceedings-the dignified assertor of the respect due to the legislature. But the physical health of this extraordinary man was gone. Dumont parted with Mirabeau, on quitting Paris after the nomination of his friend to the presidency of the Assembly. "If I |