HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



HOME AFFAIRS WAR WITH AMERICA. 



On the nth of May 1812, the premier, Mr 

 Perceval, was shot in the lobby of the House o: 

 Commons, by a man named Bellingham, whom 

 some private losses had rendered insane. Lords 

 Liverpool and Castlereagh then became the minis- 

 terial leaders in the two Houses of Parliament, but 

 were quickly voted down by a majority of four. 

 ~ome changes in the Cabinet were made, Lord 

 iverpool continuing as Premier, and Lord Castle- 

 agh as Foreign and War Secretary. Neither 

 e Regent nor his ministers, however, were popu- 

 and the former, whose morals were far from 

 being free from reproach, made himself very un- 

 pular by fixing a criminal charge on his consort. 

 In this unhappy state of affairs, the United 

 tates, provoked by orders in council prohibiting 

 commerce of neutral states, as well as by a 

 ight assumed by British war-vessels to search for 

 and impress English sailors on board the commer- 

 cial shipping of the United States, declared war, 

 June 1812, against Britain. Before the news had 

 reached London, the orders had been revoked by 

 the influence of Lord Liverpool ; but the Ameri- 

 cans, nevertheless, were too much incensed to 

 retrace their steps. During the summer and 

 autumn, several encounters took place between 

 single American and British ships, in which the 

 former were successful. It was not till June i, 

 1813, when the Shannon and Chesapeake, the one 

 a British, the other an American frigate, met on 

 equal terms, that the British experienced any naval 

 triumph in this war. On land, the Americans 

 endeavoured to annoy the British by assaults upon 

 Canada, but met with no decisive success. The 

 British landed several expeditions on the coast of 

 the States ; and were successful at Washington, 

 at Alexandria, and at one or two other points, 

 but experienced a bloody and disastrous repulse 

 at New Orleans. The war ended, December 1814, 

 without settling any of the principles for which 

 the Americans had taken up arms. 



PEACE OF 1814 SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 



At the close of 1813, it was evident that Bona- 

 parte could hardly defend himself against the vast 

 armaments collected on all hands against him. 

 Two months were spent in almost incessant conflict 

 with the advancing allies, who, on the 3oth of 

 March, entered Paris in triumph ; and in the 

 course of a few days, ratified a treaty with 

 Napoleon, by which he agreed to resign the 

 government of France, and live for the future as 

 only sovereign of Elba, a small island in the 

 Mediterranean. Peace was proclaimed in London 

 on the 2oth of June. France was deprived of all 

 the acquisitions gained both under the Republic 

 and the Empire, and restored to the rule of the 

 ancient royal family in the person of Louis XVIII. 

 Wellington, now created a Duke, received a grant 

 of ^400,000 from the House of Commons, in 

 addition to one of ^100,000 previously voted ; and 

 received in person the thanks of the House for his 

 services. Representatives from the European 

 powers concerned in the war met at Vienna, 

 October 2, in order to settle the disturbed limits 

 of the various countries, and provide against the 

 renewal of a period of war so disastrous. 



In March 1815, however, their proceedings were 

 interrupted by intelligence that Napoleon had 

 landed in France, and was advancing in triumph 

 to the capital. So unpopular had the new govern- 

 ment already become, that, though he landed with 

 only a few men, he was everywhere received with 

 affection, his old soldiers rallying round him, and 

 on the 2Oth of March was reinstated in his capital, 

 which had that morning been left by Louis XVIII. 

 Bonaparte then took the votes of the nation 

 for his restoration ; on which occasion he had a 

 million and a half of affirmative, against less than 

 half a million of negative voices, the voting being 

 performed by ballot. His exertions to reorganise 

 an army were successful to an extraordinary degree. 

 On the ist of June he had 559,000 effective men 

 under arms, of whom 217,000 were ready to take 

 the field. 



A Prussian army of more than 100,000 men, 

 under Bliicher, a veteran general, and one of about 

 80,000 British, Germans, and Belgians, under 

 Wellington, were quickly rendezvoused in the 

 Netherlands; while still larger armies of Austrians 

 and Russians, making the whole force above 

 1,000,000, were rapidly approaching. Napoleon, 

 knowing that his enemies would accumulate faster 

 in proportion than his own troops, crossed the 

 frontier on the I4th of June, with 120,000 men, 

 resolved to fight Bliicher and Wellington separ- 

 ately, if possible. The rapidity of his movements 

 prevented that concert between the Prussian and 

 English generals which it was their interest to 

 establish. On the i6th, he attacked Bliicher at 

 Ligny, and compelled him to retire upon a point 

 nearly a day's march from the army of Wellington. 



After some further fighting next day, Napo- 

 leon brought his forces to bear, on the i8th 

 against Wellington alone, who had drawn up his 

 troops across the road to Brussels, near a place 

 called Waterloo. The battle consisted of a con- 

 stant succession of attacks by the French upon 

 the British lines. These assaults were attended 

 with great bloodshed, but nevertheless were resisted 

 with the utmost firmness, till the evening, when 

 Bliicher came up on the left flank of the British, 

 and turned the scale against the French, who 

 dad now to operate laterally as well as in front. 

 The flower of the French army, the Imperial 

 Guard, made a desperate charge upon the British 

 troops, but were beaten back ; and the whole 

 army then retired, the Prussian cavalry cutting 

 down the fugitives in great numbers during the 

 flight. On his return to Paris, Napoleon made 

 an effort to restore the confidence of his chief 

 counsellors, but in vain. After a fruitless abdica- 

 tion in favour of his son, he retired to Rochefort, 

 with the intention of proceeding to America ; but, 

 inding no means of escape, was obliged to sur- 

 render to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon, a 

 British ship of war. He was condemned by his 

 riumphant enemies to perpetual confinement on 

 he island of St Helena, in the Atlantic, where 

 ic died in 1821. The conquests kept by Great 

 Britain at the end of the war were the Cape of 

 Good Hope, the Dutch possessions in Ceylon and 

 Berbice, and other Dutch settlements in Guiana ; 

 Mauritius and Seychelles taken from the French ; 

 and Malta and Heligoland in Europe. 



Louis XVIII. was now restored, and the 



arrangements of the Congress of Vienna were 



:ompleted. The expenses of Great Britain during 



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