Part 55 (1/2)

The trial was continued at intervals for over seven years. It resulted in the acquittal of the accused (1795); but it was proved that the chief business of those who went out to India was to wring fortunes from the natives, and then go back to England to live like ”nabobs,” and spend their ill-gotten money in a life of luxury. This fact, and the stupendous corruption that was shown to exist, eventually broke down the gigantic monopoly, and British India was thrown open to the trade of all nations.[1]

[1] See Macaulay's ”Essay on Warren Hastings”; also Burke's ”Speeches.”

556. Liberty of the Press; Law and Prison Reforms; Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Since the discontinuance of the censors.h.i.+p of the press (S498), though newspapers were nominally free to discuss public affairs, yet the Government had no intention of permitting any severe criticism. On the other hand, there were men who were determined to speak their minds through the press on political as on all other matters. In the early part of the reign, John Wilkes, an able but scurrilous writer, attacked the policy of the Crown in violent terms (1763). Some years later (1769), a writer, who signed himself ”Junius,” began a series of letters in a daily paper, in which he handled the King and the ”King's friends” still more roughly. An attempt was made by the Government to punish Wilkes and the publisher of the ”Junius” letters, but it signally failed in both cases. Public feeling was plainly in favor of the freest political expression,[2] which was eventually conceded.

[2] Later, during the excitement caused by the French Revolution, there was a reaction from this feeling, but it was only temporary.

Up to this time parliamentary debates had rarely been reported. In fact, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, members of Parliament would have run the risk of imprisonment if their criticisms of royalty had been made public; but now, in 1771, the papers began to contain the speeches and votes of both Houses on important questions. Every effort was made to suppress these reports, but again the press gained the day. Henceforth the nation could learn how far its representatives really represented the will of the people, and so could hold them strictly accountable,--a matter of vital importance in every free government.[3]

[3] See Summary of Const.i.tutional History in the Appendix, p. xxvi, S30.

Another field of reform was also found. The times were brutal. The pillory still stood in the center of London;[4] and if the unfortunate offender who was put in it escaped with a shower of mud and other unsavory missiles, instead of clubs and brickbats, he was lucky indeed. Gentlemen of fas.h.i.+on arranged pleasure parties to visit the penitentiaries for women to see the wretched inmates whipped. The whole code of criminal law was savagely vindictive. Capital punishment was inflicted for about two hundred offenses, many of which would now be thought to be sufficiently punished by one or two months'

imprisonment in the house of correction.

[4] The pillory (S531) was not abolished until the accession of Queen Victoria.

Not only men, but women and children even, were hanged for pilfering goods or food worth a few s.h.i.+llings.[1] The jails were crowded with poor wretches whom want had driven to theft, and who were ”worked off”

on the gallows every Monday morning in batches of a dozen or twenty, in sight of the jeering, drunken crowds who gathered to witness their death agonies.

[1] Five s.h.i.+llings, or $1.25, was the hanging limit; anything stolen above that sum in money or goods might send the thief to the gallows.

Through the efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly, Jeremy Bentham, and others, a reform was effected in this b.l.o.o.d.y code. Next, the labors of the philanthropic John Howard, and later of Elizabeth Fry, purified the jails of abuses which had made them not only dens of suffering and disease, but schools of crime as well.

The laws respecting the pubishment for debt were also changed for the better, and thousands of miserable beings who were without means to satisfy their creditors were set free, instead of being kept in useless lifelong imprisonment. At the same time Clarkson, Wilberforce, Fox, and Pitt were endeavoring to abolish that relic of barbarism, the African slave trade. After twenty years of persistent effort both in Parliament and out, they at last accomplished that great and beneficent work in 1807.

557. War with France (1793-1805); Battle of the Nile; Trafalgar, 1805.

Near the close of the century (1789) the French Revolution broke out.

It was a violent and successful attempt to destroy those feudal inst.i.tutions which France had outgrown, and which had, as we have seen, disappeared gradually in England after the rebellion of Wat Tyler (SS250, 252). At first the revolutionists received the hearty sympathy of many of the Whig party (S479), but after the execution of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette,[1] England became alarmed not only at the horrible scenes of the Reign of Terror but at the establishment of the French democratic republic which seemed to justify them, and joined an alliance of the princ.i.p.al European powers for the purpose of restoring monarchy in France.

[1] See ”Death of Marie Antoinette,” in Burke's ”Reflections on the French Revolution.”

Napoleon had now become the real head of the French nation, and seemed bent on making himself master of all Europe. He undertook an expedition against Egypt and the East, which was intended as a stepping-stone toward the ultimate conquest of the English empire in India, but his plans were frustrated by Nelson, who completely defeated the French fleet at the battle of the Nile (1798).

With the a.s.sistance of Spain, Napoleon next prepared to invade England, and was so confident of success that he caused a gold medal to be struck, bearing the inscription, ”Descent upon England.” ”Struck at London, 1804.” But the English wars.h.i.+ps drove the French and Spanish fleets into the harbor of Cadiz, and Napoleon had to postpone his great expedition for another year.[2] In the autumn of 1805, the French and Spanish fleets sallied forth determined to win. But Lord Nelson, that frail little man who had lost his right arm and the sight of his right eye fighting his country's battles, lay waiting for them off Cape Trafalgar,[3] near by.

[2] In 1801 Robert Fulton, of Pennsylvania, proposed to Napoleonthat he should build wars.h.i.+ps propelled by steam. The proposal was submitted to a committee of French scientists, who reported that it was absurd. Had Napoleon acted on Fulton's suggestion, his descent on England might have been successful.

[3] Cape Trafalgar, on the southern coast of Spain.

Two days later he descried the enemy at daybreak. Both sides felt that the decisive struggle was at hand. With the exception of a long, heavy swell the sea was calm, with a light breeze, but sufficient to bring the two fleets gradually within range.

”As they drifted on their path There was silence deep as death; And the boldest held his breath For a time.”[4]

[4] Campbell's ”Battle of the Baltic,” but applicable as well to Trafalgar.

Just before the action Nelson ran up this signal to the masthead of his s.h.i.+p, where all might see it: ”England explects Every Man to do his Duty.” The answer to it was three ringing cheers from the entire fleet, and the fight began. When it ended, Napoleon's boasted navy was no more. Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London, with its tall column bearing aloft a statue of Nelson, commemorates the decisive victory, which was dearly bought with the life of the great admiral.