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EXECUTION OF THE KING.

[1793.

Englishman who had been elected a Deputy, Thomas Paine, voted for imprisonment, and banishment at the peace. It was late at night before the votes were counted. Three hundred and eighty-seven were for death without any condition; three hundred and thirty-four were for imprisonment on conditional death. Vergniaud, as President, declared the sentence. On the 19th the question was put, "Shall the execution of the sentence of Louis Capet be deferred?" For the suspension of the sentence there were three hundred and ten members; for its immediate execution there were three hundred and eighty. On the 20th of January, the decision of the Convention was officially communicated to Louis. He requested a delay of three days to prepare himself to appear before his Maker; he requested that he should have a priest, whose name he wrote down; he requested to see his family without witnesses, and that they might be allowed to leave France. The Convention refused the respite. They granted the priest, and the permission to see his family, which permission the brutal Commune refused to have carried out, causing them to be watched through a glass-door. They "authorized the Executive Council to reply to Louis, that the nation, always magnanimous and always just, would consider the situation of his family." We spare our readers the heart-rending details of the parting of the king with his wife, his son and daughter, and his sister. The priest that Louis had chosen was the Abbé Edgeworth. He attended the king to the scaffold; and as the knife of the guillotine was about to fall, exclaimed, "Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven." This tragedy was completed at ten o'clock of the morning of the 21st of January.

On the 28th of January a message was delivered to parliament, in which the king stated the indispensable necessity of a further augmentation of forces by sea and land, the correspondence between lord Grenville and M. Chauvelin having been at the same time presented. Mr. Pitt moved an Address of thanks, of which the following passages appear to have shut the door to any further negotiation with the existing government of France:

"To offer to his Majesty our heartfelt condolence on the atrocious act lately perpetrated at Paris, which must be viewed by every nation in Europe as an outrage on religion, justice, and humanity; and as a striking and dreadful example of the effect of principles which lead to the violation of the most sacred duties, and are utterly subversive of the peace and order of all civil society.

"To assure his Majesty, that it is impossible for us not to be sensible of the views of aggrandizement and ambition, which, in violation of repeated and solemn professions, have been openly manifested on the part of France,

of the most profligate men of Europe, the prince of Wales and the duke of Orleans. When this lady urged the duke to vote for the deliverance of his cousin, the king, he said sneeringly, "Certainly, and for my own death." He subsequently said, "he thought the king had been guilty by forfeiting his word to the nation, yet nothing should induce him to vote against him" on the final question of his sentence. After the execution of Louis, Mrs. Elliott said to the duke, "You, monseigneur, will die, like the poor king, on the scaffold." The duke replied, "The king has been tried, and he is no more. I could not prevent his death. . . . . I could not avoid doing what I have done. I am, perhaps, more to be pitied than you can form an idea of. I am more a slave of faction than anybody in France. But from this instant let us drop the subject."-pp. 117-118-127.

1793.]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.

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and which are connected with the propagation of principles incompatible with the existence of all just and regular government: that, under the present circumstances, we consider a vigorous and effectual opposition to these views as essential to the security of everything which is most dear and valuable to us as a nation, and to the future tranquillity and safety of all other countries."

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Execution of Louis XVI. From Tableaux Historiques de la Révolution Française.

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BURKE AND THE DAGGER.

[1792.

NOTE ON THE DAGGER-SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Lord Eldon, then Sir John Scott, in a letter to his brother of the 17th January, says, "You would hear of the dagger which Burke exhibited in the House or

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1792.]

NOTE ON THE DAGGER-SCENE.

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Commons. I have got the pattern specimen of that order, which I shall keep as a great curiosity." In a note to Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon, the inheritor of his title says, "On Lord Chancellor Eldon's death I found with his papers the dagger which, from conversations with him in the latter years of his life, I had understood to be the one thrown down by Burke in the House of Commons." But it appears that there were two specimens of this Birmingham manufacture, one of which was in the possession of Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb, the son of Sir James Bland Burgess, who was at that period Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign Department. The dagger-scene was the subject of a famous caricature by Gillray ; and so characteristic a likeness of Burke was never produced as in this sketch.

This dagger-scene was in some respects a matter-of-fact affair-elevated into an approach to sublimity by the imagination of the orator, and, like many other sublime actions, treading close upon the ridiculous. It certainly, upon the face of the thing, does appear a proper subject for caricature, when the man upon whom the eyes of all Europe were fixed,—who at that moment exercised more influence over public opinion than any speaker or writer who ever existed,- -a grave man well-stricken in years,-should draw out a dagger from his pocket, and cast it upon the floor of the House of Commons. The occurrence has been called " a stroke of oratorical acting;" but it appears, from the circumstantial account by Sir Charles Lamb, that Burke's possession of the dagger was an accidental occurrence, and that the "acting" was at any rate unpremeditated. This dagger, "a foot long in the blade, and about five inches in the handle, of coarse workmanship, and might serve either as a dagger or a pike-head," according to Sir Charles Lamb, was sent to a manufacturer at Birmingham, as a pattern, with an order to make a large quantity like it. At that time the order seemed so suspicious, that, instead of executing it, he came to London and called on my father at the Secretary of State's office, to inform him of it, and ask his advice; and he left the pattern with him. Just after, Mr. Burke called, on his way to the House of Commons; and upon my father mentioning the thing to him, borrowed the dagger, to show in the House. They walked down to the House together; and when Mr. Burke had made his speech, my father took the dagger again, and kept it as a curiosity."

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Retrospect of Indian Affairs from 1785-Lord Cornwallis Governor-General-Declaratory BillWar with Tippoo-Retreat of Cornwallis in 1790-Capture of Seringa patam in 1791Peace with Tippoo-The French West India Islands-Retrospect of Discoveries in the Pacific Otaheite-New Zealand-New South Wales-Canada-Military and Naval Establishments of Great Britain-France declares War.

Ir is desirable at this point, when our country was about to enter upon a war which developed events of unexampled interest, to take a brief view of some circumstances which may explain her position, without interruption to the progress of the general narrative of her history.

Let us first take up the thread of Indian affairs at the point at which we left them at the close of the administration of Hastings in 1785.

The India Bill of Mr. Pitt, while it gave the Governor-General of Calcutta supreme authority over the other two Presidencies, restricted him from com

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