tion, and, attacking the French, killed Rullecourt with the greater part of his army and obliged the rest to surrender. Thus ended the attempt on Jersey, which cost many brave men their lives, and Major Corbet his honour, for he was shortly afterwards brought before a court martial, and dismissed the service. The French achieved more success in their joint campaign with our own colonists in America. To adopt the words of 'Old Pierre,' as he sits and prates of old wars, in Mr. Thackeray's Chronicle of the Drum: 'In Chesapeake bay we were landed, Their weapons we caused to lay down.' The crowning disaster of the fatal policy which had brought England into this dangerous situation was the surrender of Earl Cornwallis and his army to the French and American forces at York Town in the Chesapeake Bay. The official intelligence of Lord Cornwallis' surrender reached the Cabinet on Sunday, November 25, 1781, at noon. Lord North's firmness gave way for a short time under the terrible calamity. 'I asked Lord George Germaine afterwards,' says his friend Wraxall, how he took the communication.' As he would have taken a cannon-ball at his breast,' replied Lord George, for he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the apartment during a few minutes, "Oh, God, it's all over!" words which he repeated many times under emotions of the deepest consternation and distress. The result was that in the House of Commons a motion was made that the House could no longer repose confidence in the present Ministers. Lord North anticipated the object of the intended motion by rising from his seat and saying that he could assure the House with authority that the administration was no more; that His Majesty had come to a full determination, and it was for the purpose of allowing time for full arrangements that he was going to move for an adjournment. It was said by one present that no painter could have done justice to the aspect of the House, where the emotions of exultation or regret were heightened by surprise. At first the Opposition seemed to hesitate and doubt, but after a little delay it was agreed that Lord Surrey's motion of no confidence should be dropped, and that the House should adjourn for five days. Lord North on entering the House had ordered his carriage to remain in waiting; but as all the other members had expected a long debate, having no notion of the sudden resignation, they had not ordered their equipages to be ready before midnight, and the housekeeper's room became excessively crowded by the gentlemen who preferred waiting for their carriages to walking away on foot. In the midst of the jabber and confusion Lord North's carriage drove up to the door, and as the heavy-bodied but light-minded premier prepared to get into it, he said to those who were left waiting, I protest, gentlemen, this is the first time in my life I ever derived any personal advantage from being in the secret.' And thus with a smile he quitted the House in which he had sat for twelve years as the supreme personage. A new administration was formed under the Marquis of Rockingham, in which Charles James Fox became Foreign Secretary. Shortly before taking office, Fox had more than once insinuated in the Commons that he possessed the means of detaching the Dutch from the French; but when he came to try his powers, his overtures were received by the StatesGeneral with coldness, if not with contempt. They were elated by the recent misfortunes of England and the promises of French protection. A more mortifying circumstance still, which Fox had time to know before quitting office, was that the Americans, whose moderation and magnanimity he had so often applauded from the Opposition benches, met his overtures for pacification with a coldness even greater than that of the States-General. The predictions of Lord North were fulfilled; the Opposition had made the enemies of England bold and insolent by their speeches in Parliament, and the continental nations thought that England could and would no longer fight them. Fox found himself obliged to submit to the humiliation of courting the half-offered mediation of the Czarina Catherine and the Emperor Joseph, who literally insulted England, while pretending a desire to serve her. In the first place however Fox had dispatched Mr. Thomas Grenville to Paris to open in a private capacity a direct negotiation with the Court of France; and he also empowered Sir Robert Murray Keith to commence a negotiation under the auspices of the Emperor and the Czarina, instructing him at the same time to avoid making Vienna the real scene of the treaty. Though France was on the very verge of national bankruptcy, and Spain almost drained to her last dollar, they would not at present listen to the terms of Fox, for the first expected prodigies from their great fleet in the West Indies under Count de Grasse, and the Spaniards, after nearly four years' perseverance in the siege, fancied that Gibraltar must be theirs at last. During these negotiations, when the cause of Great Britain seemed degraded to the lowest condition among the continental powers of Europe, it is possible that the proposal of ceding the Isle of Wight to France, referred to by Horace Walpole, may have occurred. After the death of Lord Rockingham Fox quitted office. Personal pique and animosities had, no doubt, some weight even in the generous nature of the brilliant Charles James Fox, whose bitterness was, it must be allowed, nearly all on his tongue when in the House of Commons; but there were other reasons for his retiring. He must have been cruelly mortified and discouraged by the disappointment of his splendid hopes in diplomacy, and by the insolent rejections of his overtures on the part of the French and American negotiators. Though he was not in all respects the model of what an English statesman should be, he was influenced by a sense of high principle, and would not sacrifice patriotism to party. There was something grand, as Mr. Thackeray admits, in the courage of George the Third. The King and the people of England held their own with indomitable spirit in that period of wars and revolutions. The history of that long reign remains to be told by some future Macaulay; it is one of which Englishmen need not be ashamed. April 30, 1887. II. The foregoing letter attracted the attention of_more than one historical student. The statement that France had in that time of great national distress, in 1782, demanded the cession of the Isle of Wight to her crown rested upon the authority of Horace Walpole. In the Last Journals of that lively and amusing writer, under the date of February 20, 1782, he states as follows: 'At this time, and indeed generally, secret negotiations were going on with France, probably with little intention on their side of concluding them. Now was that Court so elated by the capture of Lord Cornwallis's army, and the total desperation of the Royal cause in America, that France was so insolent as to demand cession of the Isle of Wight! I do not know that our Court had made them presume such a cession possible! it certainly was not artful, if they meant to keep the negotiation open.' Then again, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated January 23, 1783, Walpole tells him: 'Your great Mediterranean object is safe-Gibraltar . . . There are many, I believe, who . . . would have as easily relinquished the Isle of Wight, which French modesty once demanded.' A very friendly correspondent, writing from London, and very well versed in the history of this period, in kindly forwarding me these references has added. some remarks of his own which throw light upon this obscure matter. 'It is, I think, not difficult to explain the French demand (if it were really made) notwithstanding its apparent extravagance. Throughout the rebellion agents of ours in Paris were sounding France as to the terms on which they would cease to continue their aid to the Americans. To these inquiries the French replied in fact by a refusal to treat. It is incredible that they should have seriously demanded a surrender to what our Government could not without the most abject humiliation submit, and which moreover would only have been embarrassing to the French themselves, unless they were intending to proceed forthwith to the conquest of the rest of England. Though the Isle of Wight is no fortress its position may have suggested to the French Government the form they adopted in refusing the negotia tions at a moment when, in conjunction with Spain, they were strenuously endeavouring to eject us from Gibraltar. It is not hard to guess what the French really wanted, and why they should be unwilling to explain themselves. After Yorktown it was confidently expected that the English would be expelled from all their American possessions, insular and continental. The West India Islands would naturally fall to France, and she might well think it possible that if the war continued the course of events might enable here to replace herself in Canada. But this would only be if her American allies had no previous suspicion of her hankering in this direction. These anticipations were shattered by Rodney's unexpected victory later on. After this, and when it appeared that England had already signed or was about to sign preliminaries of peace with America, the French saw that there was no longer any hope of turning our troubles to account for the recovery of their lost colony, and they then purchased peace by the sacrifice of Dominica, an Island which was to France of really great importance. Perhaps the most surprising part of the matter is that Walpole should believe, as he evidently did, that the French were in earnest in such a demand.' Another great difficulty in this transaction has been pointed out to me by a second friend in conversation, that, had the French been in earnest, they would have asked for the cession of the Channel Islands -Guernsey and Jersey-rather than have demanded the Isle of Wight to be handed over to them. So much indeed did France covet these Islands, that in the first American War Jersey was thrice attacked by them; for the third and last time in December, 1780, when the French with 700 men took possession of St. Heliers, but were afterwards driven out by the British troops and Island Militia under Major Pierson, who himself fell in the beginning of the attack. August 11, 1888. |