V.

VALENCIA, BATTLE OF.--Taken by the Earl of Peterborough in 1705, and soon again lost. Resisted the attempts of many, but was taken from the Spaniards by the French, under Suchet, January 9th, 1812; all the garrison, 16,000 men, and immense stores, surrendered.

VALENCIENNES, SIEGE OF.--Besieged from May 23rd to July 14th, when the French garrison surrendered to the Duke of York, 1793. Retaken by the French, on capitulation; the garrison and 1100 emigrants made prisoners, with immense stores, viz. 200 cannon, 1,000,000 pounds of gunpowder, 8,000,000 florins in specie, 6,000,000 of livres, 1000 head of cattle, &c., on August 30th, 1794.

VALUE OF PRINCES.--£400,000 was the price paid to the Scots for delivering up to the English Charles I.

Margaret of Anjou was ransomed for £12,500.

£1,000 offered by Parliament for the head of Charles II.

£30,000 for that of the Pretender.

Richard I was ransomed for the large sum of £100,000 or 150,000 marks; he had before been sold by the Duke Leopold of Austria, to the Emperor Henry IV, for £60,000.

King John, of France, was to be redeemed by his subjects for the enormous sum of 3,000,000 crowns, but they could not raise the amount.

VARNA, BATTLE OF.--The Emperor Nicholas of Russia arrived before Varna, the head-quarters of his army, then besieging the place, August 5th, 1828. The Turks made a vigorous attack on the besiegers August 7th; another on the 21st, but they were repulsed; surrendered to the Russians, October 1st, 1828. Famous as the point of _rendezvous_ of the Allied army, preparatory to the Crimean war. The cholera made dreadful devastation in both the English and French armies; then a great fire nearly destroyed the town, but purified the air; and the news of the Crimean invasion expedition dispelled the gloom and melancholy which pervaded, to a very great degree, our troops.

VIENNA.--Besieged by the Turks, under Solyman the Magnificent, with an army of 300,000 men, but forced to raise the siege having lost 70,000 soldiers. Again besieged in 1683, and the siege raised by the celebrated John Sobieski, King of Poland, who totally routed the Turkish army of 100,000 men. Taken by the French, November 14th, 1805, and afterwards retaken and taken for some time.

VILLA FRANCA, BATTLE OF.--Engagement here between the British cavalry, under Cotton, and the French cavalry, under Soult. The French were defeated, April 10th, 1812. When Napoleon heard of the result he reproached Soult the first time in his life.

VIMEIRA, BATTLE OF.--Between the British, under Wellington, and the whole of the French and Spanish forces, in Portugal, under Marshal Guinot, whom the British signally defeated, August 21st, 1808. The enemy’s force were 14,000 men, of whom 1600 were cavalry. They attacked the English at Vimeira early in the morning. The principal assault was on the English centre and left, with the view, according to a favourite French expression of “driving the English into the sea,” which was close in their rear. The attack was made with great bravery but as bravely repulsed. It was repeated by Kellerman, at the head of the French reserve, which was also signally repulsed, and the French being charged with the British bayonet, withdrew on all sides in confusion, leaving many prisoners, a General Officer, and 14 cannon, with ammunition, in the hands of the British. French loss, killed and wounded, 1800. English 720; only one-half of the British force was actually engaged.

VINEGAR HILL, BATTLE OF.--Between the British troops and the Irish insurgents, in 1798. The rebels suffered a severe defeat, and much blood shed on both sides. June 12th, 1798.

VITTORIA, BATTLE OF.--Fought, June 21st, 1813, between the French and English. The following is a graphic account of this great victory:

“The splendid achievements of the campaign of 1812 produced their natural results. Even the torpid obstinacy of Castilian pride was at last overcome, and by a decree of the Cortes of September 22nd, 1812, the great English General was invested with the supreme command of the Spanish armies. He repaired to Cadiz on the 24th of December, and on the 30th he was received by the Cortes in full assembly. The news of Napoleon’s overthrow in Russia had just arrived, and all hearts seemed to expand with hope of the speedy expulsion of his troops from Spain.

England herself also now began to put forth efforts commensurate with the crisis. At the opening of the year 1813 her land forces consisted of 228,000 men, besides 28,000 in India, 95,000 militia at home, and 32,000 foreign troops in the British service. And, besides these, she had 200,000 native troops in India, a local militia of 300,000, and a yeomanry cavalry of 68,000, forming a grand total of 949,000 men in arms; and her expenditure in the year amounted to £118,000,000 sterling.

Thus supported, her great Commander, of whom it may be questioned if his equal _in all respects_ ever stood upon a field of battle, looked forward with reasonable expectation to a coming harvest; to a campaign in which, after four years’ toils and sufferings, the grand object of the final expulsion of the French from Spain might be anticipated. And assuredly the means he took to gain this end in the simplest and completest manner, were marked by the most consummate skill and wisdom.

To be nearer to his supplies, and to relieve the wasted provinces of Spain, Wellington had withdrawn his army into cantonments on the Coa and the Agueda, that is, in Leon and in Beira, or Northern Portugal. All the Lusitanian kingdom had long been free from the French, and the campaign of 1812 had compelled them to abandon all Andalusia Murcia, Granada, Asturias and Estramadura. The French army now occupied only central and eastern Spain, the bulk of the troops being quartered in New and Old Castile.

Wellington’s chief attention was naturally devoted, during the winter, to the task of reorganizing his forces for the final struggle of the opening year. His own English army was the only force he had which was at all in a condition to march against the enemy. Of the Spanish troops he found it necessary to give the Spanish Minister of War, in March 1813, the following description:--“There is not a single battalion or squadron in the Spanish armies in a condition to take the field; there is not in the whole kingdom of Spain a depôt of provisions for the support of a single battalion for one day; there is not a shilling of money in any military chest. To move them forward at any point now, against even inconsiderable bodies of the enemy, would be to insure their certain destruction.”

But by unceasing exertions these evils were, in a measure, overcome: and Wellington found himself, in the month of May, 1813, for the first time in a state approaching to an equality with the French. Their force, which in former years had often amounted to nearly 400,000 men, was now reduced to 239,000 of which about 197,000 were present with the eagles. Meanwhile Wellington’s nominal force now amounted to 200,000, and although only about one-half of this number were fit to take the field, the remainder was still of use in maintaining the communications, guarding convoys, and cutting off the foraging parties of the enemy. His principal army of English and Portuguese mustered about 75,000 men, of whom about 44,000 were English. The efficiency of the Portuguese troops was advanced in a surprising manner; reinforcements, especially of cavalry, had arrived from England; and the Anglo-Portuguese troops, conscious of an improved organization, were more confident than ever; while the French, hearing of the calamities of their brethren in Russia, were proportionably depressed. Even the Spaniards had, in some numbers, been brought into better condition:--Wellington had kept them fed and clothed during the winter, and had now several efficient corps of native troops, ready to act in conjunction with his own army. Hence, on the 22nd of May the great English General began his march, and when he crossed the stream which divides Portugal from Spain, he rose in his stirrups, and waving his hand, exclaimed, “Good bye to Portugal!”

The military skill and talent of a commander is never more conspicuously seen than in those manœuvres by which an enemy is defeated _without a battle_. Such manœuvres often resemble the skill and power with which an able and fearless horseman, even while on the ground, will control a powerful courser, forcing him backwards by a small leverage upon his mouth. In the present instance the French still had a considerable army and able Generals, and they occupied the centre of Spain, defending the capital, and ready to fight, if needful, a succession of battles before they would relinquish their prey. But their more able antagonist forced them to retreat, step by step, without fighting, until their last and only stand was made at Vittoria, almost in sight of France; and then delivering his attack, he utterly routed them, and chased them over the Pyrenees. On the 22nd of May, as we have said, the English army marched out of Portugal; on the 21st of June it fought and gained the battle of Vittoria; and before the 1st of July the shattered remains of the French army, with their King Joseph at their head, had fled over the Pyrenees. Little more than a single month had sufficed to destroy, uproot, and utterly abolish the French dominion in Spain, and that at a time, too, when there were still 197,000 French soldiers in the field, under many able Commanders.

A brave general of the ordinary kind would have marched in quest of the French, lying in front of Madrid; would have defeated them, and taken the capital. All the smaller bodies of French in Spain would then have been called round the King; and in July a second battle would have been fought in Arragon, or in front of Burgos. One more victory,--a third, supposing the English to have been always victorious, might have sent the French out of Spain; but any mistake or mishap might have prevented this. But Wellington, by masterly tactics, always threatening to turn the enemy’s right wing and to get upon his communications, backed his foe as a man backs a horse, till he could bring the opposing army into a position fit for his purpose; and then, delivering at once a knock-down blow, he drove the whole mass, king and army, in four-and-twenty hours, out of Spain.

King Joseph had reckoned, in the spring, upon a direct attack by the great road of Madrid; but when it would come, or where it would fall, he could not divine, for Wellington kept him constantly in doubt, by a variety of feigned movements.

At last, towards the end of May, he found that Wellington, sending 40,000 men under Graham through the difficult passes of the Tras-os-Montes, and moving himself a week after on the Esla, had carried his whole army, by the 4th of June, over the Douro, and was now in full march for Valladolid. If he should gain that place, Joseph well knew that his communications would be cut off, and his whole army taken, to use Napoleon’s phrase, “_flagrante delicto_.” Hastily, therefore, Madrid was abandoned, the whole army put in retreat; and now Joseph would make his stand at Burgos.

Thus 100 miles of Spanish ground had been cleared of the French without firing a shot. And now, Joseph would fight for his kingdom in this, his second position. But his Generals examined the country, and disliked the prospect. Meanwhile Wellington pushed on, conducting his operations continually on the same principle,--pushing forwards his left wing, and out-flanking and turning the French right. Again perplexed, Joseph now abandoned his second purpose, as he had abandoned his first. Burgos must be given up, and the retreat must be continued on Vittoria. Into Vittoria there was poured, therefore, the artillery depôts of Madrid, of Valladolid, and of Burgos, and the baggage and stores of several armies; with the King’s valuables, the archives, and papers of the State and of the army, and a large amount of treasure.

Vittoria is only 26 miles from Irun, on the French frontier. Here, therefore, had been driven together, like a flock of sheep, the intruders and plunderers of Spain, and one vigorous assault only was needed to rid the land of them altogether. It was not long delayed.

It was about the 15th of June when King Joseph found his army assembled round Vittoria, reckoning, Napier tells us, from 60,000 to 70,000 men. Wellington had left his sixth division at Medina de Pomar, and therefore had 60,000 English and Portuguese, besides some Spanish troops. In the number and calibre of their guns the French had the advantage.

From the mountain-region through which the British army was marching, the way to Vittoria lay over many a rugged steep, and through many dangerous defiles; but no difficulty was allowed to stop their march. “Six days they toiled unceasingly; but on the seventh, swelled by a Spanish reinforcement, they burst like raging streams from every defile, and went foaming into the basin of Vittoria.”

The French army was drawn up round this basin, which is a small plain about 10 miles in length, by 8 in breadth, through which runs the river Zadora. As this battle-field was approached by various mountain-passes, Wellington resolved to enter it from three sides at once, forming three distinct combats. General Graham, with a corps of about 20,000 men, was to attack from the British left, and to pass the Zadora at Ariaga, near the city of Vittoria. Hill was to attack from the right with an equal force. Wellington stationed himself in the centre, with a rather larger force, which was to descend from the mountain ridges, to cross the Zadora by various roads, and to march straight upon Vittoria. In fact, the whole battle was merely an attack on a strong army hemmed in, by an army equally strong, and marching to the attack on three sides at the same moment.

At daybreak the English began to move; but the distance to Vittoria was several miles, and every step was to be contended for. Hill reached the village of Puebla about ten in the morning; pushed on, fighting hard, till he gained the village of Subijana de Alava, and so placed himself in communication with the English centre. Graham had to make a march of several miles to reach Ariaga, near Vittoria; but about one o’clock his attack began to tell. This was a serious one for the French; for, if successful, it would cut them off from the great road to Bayonne. King Joseph, finding both his flanks thus threatened, sent an order to the centre to retire. But the troops were fiercely engaged, and retreat was difficult. Meanwhile, however, three attacks of the English, right, left, and centre, were all succeeding; and step by step, the French were being pushed back upon Vittoria.

“At six o’clock,” says Napier, “the French reached the last defensible height in front of Vittoria. Behind them was the plain in which the city stood, and beyond the city were thousands of carriages and animals, and of men, women, and children, crowded together in all the madness of terror; and as the English shot went booming overhead, the vast crowd started and swerved with a convulsive movement, while a dull and horrid cry of distress arose; but there was no hope, no stay for army or multitude, it was the wreck of a nation!” Still the courage of the French soldiers was unquelled. Their artillery for a time kept the Allies in check, but suddenly the fourth English division, rushing forward, carried a hill on the left, and the heights were at once abandoned. Joseph finding the main road so completely blocked up by carriages that the artillery could not pass, indicated the road of Salvatierra as the line of retreat, and the army went off in a confused and yet compact body on that side, leaving Vittoria on its left. The British infantry followed hard, and the light cavalry galloped through the town to intercept the new line of retreat. All became disorder and confusion, the guns were left, while the artillerymen fled with the horses. Vehemently and closely did the British pursue, and nothing could stop their victorious career until night and the disappearance of the flying masses had ended the struggle. The French lost all their artillery, all their baggage, all their equipages, all their stores, treasures, and papers, “so that no man,” says a French writer, “could prove even how much pay was due to him. Generals and subordinate officers were alike reduced to the clothes on their backs, and many of them were barefooted.”

“Never was victory more complete. The trophies were innumerable. Marshal Jourdan’s baton of command was brought to Lord Wellington, who sent it to the Prince Regent, from whom he quickly received one of an English marshal in return. The loss of the French was never ascertained; that of the Allies was 3,567 English, 1,059 Portuguese, and 550 Spanish. The spoil taken was enormous. “The soldiers of the army,” wrote Lord Wellington, “have got among them about 1,000,000 sterling in money, with the exception of about 100,000 dollars found in the military chest. Rich vestures of all sorts, gold and silver plate, pictures, jewels, parrots, monkeys, and children, lay scattered about the field amidst weeping mothers and wailing children. Joseph himself narrowly escaped; a squadron of dragoons pursued his carriage and fired into it.”

All the remaining bodies of the French in Spain fell in the fall of Vittoria. They escaped out of the kingdom by various roads as quickly as possible. “Joseph’s reign was over, the crown had fallen from his head, and after years of toil and combats, which had rather been admired than understood, the great English leader, emerging from the chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the summit of the Pyrenees a recognized conqueror. From those lofty pinnacles the clangour of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and the splendour of his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring nations.”[15]

Thus, in some five or six weeks, had a great kingdom been cleared of its invaders and oppressors--not by the power of superior numbers, but by the natural ascendency of a consummate military genius. “Here,” remarks Napier, “was a noble army driven like sheep before prowling wolves, although in every action the officers had been prompt and skilful, and the soldiers brave, firm, and obedient. The French troops were excellent and numerous, and the country strong and favourable for defence; but the soul of a great Commander was wanting; and hence, the Esla, the Tormes, the Douro, the Pisuerga, seemed to be all dried up, the mountains to be levelled; and 60,000 veteran soldiers, willing to fight at every step, were hurried with all the tumult and confusion of defeat across the Ebro.”

The deliverance of the Peninsula, by a force so far inferior to that of the French, must always remain one of Wellington’s greatest glories. The same French writer, whom we have already quoted, Jules Maurel, remarks this surprising fact. He says: “The truth is, that from 1808 to 1813, Wellington never had 30,000 English under his orders, even at a period when the Imperial armies deluged the Peninsula with no fewer than 370,000 men.”

Nor were the results of this great day confined to the Spanish peninsula. Like its predecessor, the victory of Salamanca, the battle of Vittoria shook the whole continent of Europe. Napoleon himself, holding his ground at Dresden, had, up to this moment, succeeded in withholding Austria from any actual participation in the confederacy against him. He had even succeeded, on the 30th of June, in obtaining a convention for the restoration of peace between himself, Russia and Prussia. But the very next day the news of the expulsion of the French from Spain reached Dresden, filling Napoleon and his ministers with consternation, and giving new life and vigour to the Russian and Prussian councils. The Allies regretted that any cessation of arms had been agreed to, and they began to long for its termination. The very moment it expired by lapse of time, Austria joined the Allies; war was actively resumed, and the autumn had not ended before Napoleon had been driven across the Rhine, and Germany freed from the presence of the French armies.

The French writer from whom we have just quoted, Jules Maurel, thus notices this remarkable passage in modern history:

“Scarcely had the armistice been signed when intelligence arrived that the French had lost everything in Spain. In 40 days Wellington had turned, one after another, all the positions occupied by the French armies of the centre, of the south and of the north, and had crossed the Tormes, the Douro, the Esla, the Carrion, and the Ebro. He had reached Vittoria; he had gained a decisive battle; he had expelled King Joseph from the Peninsula, and had planted his army on the Pyrenees. In the beginning of May he was in Portugal; on the 23rd of June he was on the frontiers of France. The defeat of Vittoria entirely neutralized the victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, and at once restored the coalition.”

VOUGLE, BATTLE OF.--Fought between Alaric II and Clovis of France. Alaric was entirely overthrown, and the whole country subdued. Clovis afterwards made Paris the capital, and became the founder of the French Monarchy.

W.

WAGRAM, BATTLE OF.--Fought, July 5th, 1809, between the Austrians and French, in which the former were completely overthrown; 20,000 were taken by the French. The slaughter on both sides was dreadful. The defeated army retreated into Moravia.

WAKEFIELD, BATTLE OF.--Fought, December 31st, 1460, between Queen Margaret, the wife of Henry VI, and the Duke of York, in which the latter was slain, and 3000 Yorkists fell in the field. This was one of the bloodiest battles between the houses of York and Lancaster.

WALCHEREN EXPEDITION.--This important expedition consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, and 200 smaller vessels, and 40,000 troops, under the command of the Earl of Chatham. The fleet was commanded by Sir Richard Strachan. A large number of the forces died, and the whole expedition came to nothing, December 28th, 1809.

WARSAW, BATTLES OF.--The Poles suffered a great defeat here from the Russians, October 10th and 12th, 1794. Suwarrow, the Russian General, after the siege of Warsaw, cruelly butchered 30,000 Poles, November 8th, 1794. The battle preceding the surrender of Warsaw was fearfully bloody; of 26,000 men, more than 10,000 were killed; nearly 10,000 were made prisoners, and only 2000 escaped the merciless fury of the Russian butcher. Another battle fought here, and the Poles again defeated, September 7th and 8th, 1831.

WASHINGTON.--Taken, August 24th, 1814, in the war between Great Britain and the United States, by General Ross, when all the superb national structures were consumed, in a general conflagration--the troops not sparing the national library.

WATERLOO, BATTLE OF.--The greatest of all British engagements, fought June 18th, 1815, between the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon. The carnage on both sides was immense. The account of this great battle is taken from the “Twelve Great Battles of England.” The following is a fine account of the visit of Scott to the field of Waterloo after the battle, and also Alison on the defeat of the Old Guard:

WATERLOO AT NOON ON THE DAY AFTER THE BATTLE.

“On a surface of two square miles, it was ascertained that 50,000 men and horses were lying! The luxurious crop of ripe grain which had covered the field of battle was reduced to litter, and beaten into the earth; and the surface, trodden down by the cavalry, and furrowed deeply by the cannon wheels, was strewn with many a relic of the fight. Helmets and cuirasses, shattered fire-arms and broken swords; all the variety of military ornaments; Lancer caps and Highland bonnets; uniforms of every colour, plume, and pennon; musical instruments, the apparatus of artillery, drums, bugles; but, good God! why dwell on the harrowing picture of a foughten field? Each and every ruinous display bore mute testimony to the misery of such a battle. * * * Could the melancholy appearance of this scene of death be heightened, it would be by witnessing the researches of the living midst its desolation for the objects of their love. Mothers, and wives, and children, for days were occupied in that mournful duty; and the confusion of the corpses, friend and foe intermingled as they were, often rendered the attempt at recognising individuals difficult, and in some cases impossible. * * * In many places the dead lay four deep upon each other, marking the spot some British square had occupied, when exposed for hours to the murderous fire of a French battery. Outside, lancer and cuirassier were scattered thickly on the earth. Madly attempting to force the serried bayonets of the British, they had fallen, in the bootless essay, by the musketry of the inner files. Farther on, you traced the spot where the cavalry of France and England had encountered. Chasseur and hussar were intermingled; and the heavy Norman horse of the Imperial Guard were interspersed with the grey chargers which had carried Albion’s chivalry. Here the Highlander and tirailleur lay, side by side, together; and the heavy dragoon, with Green Erin’s badge upon his helmet, was grappling in death with the Polish lancer. * * * On the summit of the ridge, where the ground was covered with death, and trodden fetlock-deep in mud and gore, by the frequent rush of rival cavalry, the thick-strewn corpses of the Imperial Guard pointed out the spot where Napoleon had been defeated. Here, in column, that favoured corps, on whom his last chance rested, had been annihilated; and the advance and repulse of the Guard was traceable by a mass of fallen Frenchmen. In the hollow below, the last struggle of France had been vainly made; for the Old Guard, when the middle battalion had been forced back, attempted to meet the British, and afford time for their disorganised companions to rally. Here the British left, which had converged upon the French centre, had come up; and here the bayonet closed the contest.”

DEFEAT OF THE OLD GUARD AT WATERLOO.

“The Imperial Guard was divided into two columns, which, advancing from different parts of the field, were to converge to the decisive point on the British right centre, about midway between La Haye Sainte and the nearest enclosures of Hougoumont. Reille commanded the first column, which was supported by all the infantry and cavalry which remained of his corps on either flank, and advanced up the hill in a slanting direction, beside the orchard of Hougoumont. The second was headed by Ney in person, and moving down the _chaussée_ of Charleroi to the bottom of the slope, it then inclined to the left, and leaving La Haye Sainte to the right, mounted the slope, also in a slanting direction, converging towards the same point whither the other column was directing its steps. Napoleon went with this column as far as the place where it left the hollow of the high road, and spoke a few words--the last he ever addressed to his soldiers--to each battalion in passing. The men moved on with shouts of _Vive l’Empereur!_ so loud as to be heard along the whole British line, above the roar of artillery, and it was universally thought the Emperor himself was heading the attack. But, meanwhile, Wellington had not been idle. Sir Frederick Adam’s brigade, consisting of the 52nd, 71st, and 95th, and General Maitland’s brigade of Guards, which had been drawn from Hougoumont, with Chasse’s Dutch troops, yet fresh, were ordered to bring up their right shoulders, and wheel inward, with their guns in front, towards the edge of the ridge; and the whole batteries in that quarter inclined to the left, so as to expose the advancing columns coming up to a concentric fire on either flank: the central point, where the attack seemed likely to fall, was strengthened by nine heavy guns; the troops at that point were drawn up four deep, in the form of an interior angle: the Guards forming one side, the 73rd and 30th the other;--while the light cavalry of Vivian and Vandeleur was brought up behind the line, at the back of La Haye Sainte, and stationed close in the rear, so as to be ready to make the most of any advantage which might occur.

It was a quarter past seven when the first column of the Old Guard, under Reille, advanced to the attack; but the effect of the artillery on its flank was such, that the cavalry were quickly dispersed: and the French battalions uncovered, showed their long flank to Adam’s guns, which opened on them a fire so terrible, that the head of the column, constantly pushed on by the mass in the rear, never advanced, but melted away as it came into the scene of carnage. Shortly after, Ney’s column approached with an intrepid step; the veterans of Wagram and Austerlitz were there; no force on earth seemed capable of resisting them; they had decided every former battle. Drouot was beside the Marshal, who repeatedly said to him they were about to gain a glorious victory. General Friant was killed by Ney’s side: the Marshal’s own horse was shot under him; but bravely advancing on foot, with his drawn sabre in his hand, he sought death from the enemy’s volleys. The impulse of this massy column was at first irresistible; the guns were forced back, and the Imperial Guard came up to within forty paces of the English Foot Guards, and the 73rd and 30th regiments. These men were lying down, four deep, in a small ditch behind the rough road, which there goes along the summit of the ridge. “Up Guards, and at them!” cried the Duke, who had repaired to the spot; and the whole, on both sides of the angle into which the French were advancing, springing up, moved forward a few paces, and poured in a volley so close and well directed, that nearly the whole first two ranks of the French fell at once. Gradually advancing, they now pushed the immense column, yet bravely combatting, down the slope; and Wellington, at that decisive instant, ordered Vivian’s brigade to charge the retiring body on one flank, while Adam’s foot advanced against it on the other. The effect of this triple attack, at once in front and on both flanks, was decisive: the 52nd and 71st, swiftly converging inward, threw in so terrible a volley on their left flank, that the Imperial Guard swerved in disorder to the right; and at that very instant the 10th, 18th, and 21st dragoons, under Vivian, bore down with irresistible fury, and piercing right through the body, threw it into irrevocable confusion. The cry, “Tout est perdu--la Garde recule!” arose in the French ranks, and the enormous mass, driven headlong down the hill, overwhelmed everything which came in its way, and spread disorder through the whole French centre.”

DESCRIPTION OF WATERLOO FROM THE TWELVE BATTLES.

“We have seen the three several stages by which the Duke of Wellington had conducted the British army to that elevated position in which the peace of 1814 left it. We have seen how it had, first, on the broad fields of Castile, boldly encountered a French army of twice its strength, and had sent it back in defeat. Next, at Salamanca, meeting an army of equal force, it had scattered it by an assault of a single hour, annihilating at a blow one-half of its strength. And lastly, falling upon the intrusive King himself in his final position of retreat and defence at Vittoria, it had driven his entire array, like a flock of frightened sheep, over the Pyrenees. After those triumphs, by which a whole realm of great extent had been delivered from its invaders, there seemed scarcely any way by which the fame and honour of the British army and its illustrious Commander could be enhanced, except by an event not to be anticipated--an encounter with the great conqueror of modern times, now an exile at Elba; and a triumph over him.

This event, however unlikely it might seem, was reserved for England’s soldiers and her General; and it occurred in less than a year after the apparent restoration of peace. Napoleon suddenly left his island-home, reappeared in France, gathered his soldiers round him, and re-entered Paris as once more its Emperor. Naturally enough, the Sovereigns who had compelled his retirement, scarcely nine months before, resolved to maintain their position; and they covenanted with each other to place armies amounting to 600,000 men on the soil of France in the course of July, 1815. The British portion of this force was collecting together in the months of May and June, under the Duke’s command; when Napoleon determined not to wait for the attack, but to carry the war into the allied territories; and, accordingly, in the second week in June he entered Belgium. Before he had proceeded twenty miles he encountered both the English and the Prussian armies, and on the fourth day, at a distance of about thirty miles from the French frontier, was fought the great and decisive battle of Waterloo.

This momentous contest will require of us a more lengthened description than we have given of any of the great battles; both because it was an event of the highest possible importance to the fate of England, of Europe, and of the world; and also because it was, so to speak, a succession of battles fought on one field, and on the same day. In a former case we have seen “an army of forty thousand men defeated in forty minutes;” but here the deadly strife occupied nearly ten hours. The French opened the attack at eleven in the morning, and at nine o’clock at night the last of their battalions had not yet quitted the field. In the course of these ten hours four or five desperate and prolonged contests had taken place; each of which might have been justly called a battle. It will be impossible, therefore, to give any fair or complete idea of this long continued struggle, without occupying much greater space than is required for an ordinary battle.

It is also a history which is thickly strewn with controversies. The defeated General himself was the first to open this wordy strife. The loss of the fight of Waterloo was a fact to which he never could be reconciled. That battle hurled him, finally, from the throne on which he had for the second time seated himself, and sent him to wear out the few remaining years of his life on the rock of St. Helena. In that retirement he occupied himself, for the most part, in a series of efforts to resuscitate his extinguished “glory.”[16] In these attempts he was hampered by no moral scruples; for, as Emerson has remarked, “this, the highest-placed individual in the world, had not the merit of common truth and honesty; he would steal, slander, assassinate, as his interest indicated.” Any reasonable man, therefore, will read his “Historical Memoir,” book ix, written at St. Helena, and published in London in 1820, with that caution which is so plainly called for when a document is confessedly an _exparte_ statement, and written by one who is known to be of unscrupulous character.

Yet that document has been received in many quarters with a credulity which is somewhat surprising. It is true that this credulity may be accounted for in the case of the French historians--who, obliged to confess that their defeat at Waterloo was “horrible”--a “massacre”--a “deluge of blood”--are glad to have supplied to them, under Napoleon’s own hand, the apology that he was overmatched and greatly outnumbered; and that yet, after all, he would have proved victorious if one of his Generals had not disobeyed his commands.

The latter of these two pleas has been generally rejected by English writers--utterly denied as its truth has been by the party so accused. But, strangely enough, although there was every probability that Napoleon’s account of his own strength, and of that of his opponent, would be wholly untrustworthy--several of our best English writers have given entire credence of his statement of the real amount of his army; even while those statements are clearly refuted by abundant testimonies of many Frenchmen. And this point is not an immaterial one. For if we could admit the truth of Napoleon’s final conclusion, that “On that day 69,000 French beat 120,000 men, and the victory was only torn from them between eight and nine o’clock at night by the increase of the allies to 150,000 men”[17]--what merit could we assign to the British soldiers, or to their great commander, for such a victory? But, in sober verity, of all the falsehoods deliberately put forth by Napoleon in the course of his life, this, probably, is nearly the greatest.

Let us, however, now endeavour to arrange our narrative in its proper order. The army which was assembling in Belgium under the Duke’s command, had reached, in the beginning of June, the respectable amount of almost 100,000 men. It contained, however, far more Belgians, Hanoverians, Brunswickers, and Dutchmen, than British troops, and far more new levies, landwehr, and militia, than of experienced soldiers. The English regiments which had followed the Duke through all the fields of Spain had been sent to America, and were now on the Atlantic, on their return home. He had some of the Guards, and a few other regiments of some standing; but the largest portion of the British troops which had yet reached Belgium were second battalions--new recruits drafted from the militia--and the same observation would apply to the Hanoverians and other auxiliaries.

It was a knowledge of this intrinsic weakness of the Duke’s army, and of the fact that 10,000 or 15,000 of his old Peninsular troops would soon join him, that decided Napoleon, as is frankly confessed,[18] to make a sudden attack on the British and Prussian forces before they were fully prepared to meet him. Silently, therefore, but with his usual skill and rapidity, Napoleon brought together a powerful army, and on the morning of the 15th of June he moved forward and entered Belgium.

And here we are met by the most current of all the fictions which are connected with this history. A variety of writers have repeated, one after another--Napoleon himself setting them the example--the story that the Duke never heard of the approach of the French until eleven o’clock in the evening of that day, while at a ball at Brussels. The facts, however, which are beyond dispute, are these--that the French did not enter Charleroi, the first Belgian town, until eleven or twelve o’clock on June the 15th--that tidings of their movement reached the Duke at Brussels by three o’clock, and that between four and five o’clock that same afternoon orders went out to every corps of the British army to move to the front, many of them beginning their march that same evening. There was no surprise, then, nor was there the loss of a single day. The French had not marched thirty miles--had not entered any place of the least importance, when, on the third day, they found the British army drawn up across their path, and had to fight the battle of Waterloo.

They had, indeed, found their progress arrested still earlier. Entering Belgium on the 15th, they were stopped the very next day at Ligny by the Prussians, at Quatre Bras by a part of the English army. Marshal Blucher being defeated, and retiring a few miles, the Duke fell back also, and thus was enabled to draw up his army at Waterloo--a position which he had before observed to be an advantageous one, and which was in all respects well suited to the defence of Brussels.

It was on the afternoon of the 17th June that the Duke’s army found itself assembled on this spot. The French army, led by Napoleon himself, soon approached, but the day was too far advanced to afford time for a general engagement. The two armies, therefore, took position, the English on a rising ground called Mont St. Jean, about half a mile in advance of the village of Waterloo, and nine miles on the French side of Brussels; the French on a series of heights facing Mont St. Jean, having the village of Planchenoit on the right, and looking down upon a small valley which separated the two hosts.

And now we are naturally brought to a consideration of the question, what was the respective strength of these two armies? This is a point upon which Napoleon has bestowed great pains in his “Historical Memoir, Book ix,” and on which he has succeeded in deluding many English writers.

As to the strength of the British army, there can be no kind of doubt upon that point, for the actual numbers present in each battalion and squadron was carefully recorded; and these records were needed to establish the respective rights of all present to honours and rewards. We have spoken of a gross amount of nearly 100,000 men. But of these, several thousands were required to garrison Antwerp, Ostend, Nieuport, Ypres, Tournai, and Mons,--the loss at Quatre Bras had been 3000 or 4000, and a post of observation at Hal, consisted of nearly 6000. When these deductions were made, not quite 70,000 men remained, to meet Napoleon’s attack at Waterloo.

The British infantry in the field were 15,181, and the German Legion infantry were 3301. The British and German cavalry were 7840, and their artillery was 3493. Thus the whole reliable force of the Duke--the force to which he must look to stand the French attack--was not quite 30,000 men. All this was well known to Napoleon, who, in his “Book ix,” says, “Victory appeared to be _certain_,” for the French army consisted of “good troops, while, in the enemy’s army, the English only, amounting to 40,000 _at most_, could be reckoned upon as such.”[19]

The “Allied troops,” who made up the Duke’s array, consisted of 10,755 Hanoverians, many of whom were mere landwehr or militia, and nearly 25,000 Belgians, Dutch, and men of Brunswick and Nassau. Some of these fought gallantly, but others retreated whenever the French approached,--some actually flying from the field. Hence Napoleon justly says, “one Englishman might be counted for one Frenchman:--two Dutchmen, Prussians, or soldiers of the Confederation, for one Frenchman.”

Adopting, therefore, Napoleon’s own method of calculation, we may say, that the Duke had an army nominally amounting to about 68,000 men, really equal to something less than 50,000.

And now we turn to the other side of the account. Here we must, to be safe, accept only French testimony. If we draw together all the credible statements of this class that we can find, we shall probably be able to arrive at a just conclusion.

There was published at Paris, in 1815, a volume by an officer attached to the staff, which may be considered to be “the French account,” at the time and in detail, of this battle. In this volume, the whole army which entered Belgium is stated to have been “150,000 effective men of whom about 30,000 were cavalry.” It seems improbable that a staff-officer should have greatly erred, or that a Frenchman should have exaggerated the strength of the beaten army. Reckoning, therefore, the gross number to have been 150,000; and deducting 15,000 for losses at Ligny, and at Quatre Bras, we may estimate the force detached under Grouchy on the 17th, at about 38 or 40,000 men, and the strength of the French army at Waterloo at something more than 90,000.

And this estimate precisely agrees with Napoleon’s own statement, written at Paris three days after the battle. In this bulletin he says, “We estimated the force of the English army at 80,000 men. We _supposed_ that a Prussian corps which _might be_ in line toward the right might be 15,000 men. The enemy’s force, then, was upwards of 90,000 men; ours less numerous.”

He is here speaking of the morning. But there was not a Prussian soldier in the field until five o’clock in the afternoon; and this Napoleon well knew. Why, then, does he here introduce a “supposed” Prussian corps? Clearly, in order to bring up the allied force to 95,000 men, so that he might be able to add, “Ours, _less numerous_.” He had every possible motive, as a beaten General, striving to make the best of his case,--for saying, _if he had dared_,--“The enemy was more than 90,000 strong, but we had not quite 70,000.” But he could not venture, in the face of abundant evidence then existing, to say that his army was less than 80,000, the force he assigns to the English. He therefore, by an “ingenious device,” augments the allied force to 95,000; and then he can venture to assert that his own army was inferior in numbers. There is clearly implied in this statement an admission that his own force was not greatly below 95,000.

Yet when Ney and others were dead, and the records, in all probability, scattered or destroyed, the same man who wrote this bulletin, concocted at St. Helena, four or five years after, a widely-different account. In his “Book ix,” p. 128, he puts forth an elaborate table, purporting to show, that the whole force of the French army at Waterloo was only 68,650 men! And such has been the imposing effect of this table, that many English writers, while they could detect the falsehood of other statements in that same volume, still accepted, as an undeniable fact, the conclusion, that Napoleon’s army at Waterloo consisted of only 68,650 men! Yet only common prudence, and the use of a little careful scrutiny, was needed, to prove that these same elaborate tables in “Book ix” were nothing more than what is usually called, in railway language, “a cooked account.”

The proof of this shall be given from French writers alone. And, first, let “Book ix” refute itself, by its own self contradictions. At page 71, it gives the second corps, 19,800 infantry; while at p. 95-97, it states the same infantry, at the same moment, at 21,000. At page 128 it gives the first corps 16,500 infantry, and at table F it calls the same infantry, 17,600. At page 128 the cavalry of the Guard and the third and fourth corps of cavalry are stated at 10,000; while at pp. 158 and 173 they are twice called 12,000. At p. 35 we are told that “the regiments generally had but two battalions; each battalion consisting of 600 men, _present and under arms_.” Yet in the principal table, F, the regiments are always estimated at either 1000 or 1100 men, the battalions at 500 or 550. Thus it is abundantly clear, even from the pages of “Book ix” itself, that its writer is one who “plays at fast and loose with figures.”

But other refutations, from purely French sources, are abundant. We have seen that Napoleon states, in “Book ix,” p. 35, that his battalions had 600 men; but that he quietly puts them down in table F, as being only 500 or 550.

Now in his portfolio, captured at Charleroi, and published at Brussels, there was one report, made by an officer named De Launoy, and dated “Montalimert, June 4th,” which said, “The first battalion, 720 strong, marched on the 1st of June.” And, in the _Moniteur_ of May 28th, published at Paris under Napoleon’s own authority, there was given a letter dated “Lille, May 26th,” which says, “Our garrison is entirely composed of battalions of select troops, which successively arrive: the 20th arrived yesterday; almost all consist of 720 men; we are expecting two battalions of veterans.” Now these troops formed part of the first corps, as stated in “Book ix,” p. 31; and in table F they are all set down as having in each battalion, 550 men!

It was of this first corps that Marshal Ney spoke in his letter of June 26th, 1815, in which he complained of having it taken away from him on the 16th. He describes it as having consisted of “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” He must have had the actual returns in his pocket when he wrote this. Now if the battalions generally consisted of 720 men, as the _Moniteur_ of May 28th had told us, then its thirty-two battalions would have contained 23,040; which added to 1400 cavalry, and 1564 artillery men, would be accurately described as “between 25,000 and 30,000 men.” But Napoleon, in his statement of the force at Waterloo, sets down the infantry of this corps as only 16,500; thus contradicting at once the statement of the _Moniteur_, the report found in his own portfolio, and the declaration of the Marshal who commanded that corps!

In the same spirit, in the table of the troops at Waterloo, (Book ix, p. 128,) we find the infantry of the Guard set down as being 11,500. Yet Gourgaud, Napoleon’s Aide-de-Camp, and Fleury de Chaboulon, his secretary, both concur in stating this infantry to have been 14,000.[20]

Of the heavy cavalry we have already seen, that while Napoleon, in his table, at p. 128, sets it down at 4000, 3000, and 3000, or 10,000 in all, he afterwards twice describes it, at p. 158 and at p. 173, as “these 12,000 select horse.”

Once more, in “Book ix,” p. 129, he states the force detached under Grouchy to have been 34,300. His own companion at St. Helena, General Montholon, in his history, (vol. i, p. 14,) calls this force 42,000.

All this evidence, then, drawn from several quarters, but wholly French, points to one conclusion,--namely, that Napoleon, in forming his tables for “Book ix,” deliberately reduced his real strength at Waterloo by about one-fourth or one-fifth; and that his first statement, in his bulletin issued at the time, was the true one; namely, that his army was only somewhat “less numerous than 95,000.”

And to this conclusion a remarkable support is found, in the behaviour of the two Generals on the day preceding the

## action. Wellington had beaten nearly every one of Napoleon’s

Marshals;[21]--and could not but feel a degree of exultation at the thought of meeting the master of them all. Napoleon, on his part, had to encounter a General who had never been conquered. Supposing, then, the armies to have been nearly equal in strength, what might have been anticipated, but a degree of eager anticipation on Wellington’s side, and of seriousness on Napoleon’s? Instead of which, what do we hear? The Duke writes to Marshal Blucher, that he will accept battle, _if_ the Marshal will assist him with one corps of his army. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s only anxiety is lest the English should escape him. “He was surprised,” writes his secretary, Fleury, “when daylight discovered to him that the English army had not quitted its positions, but appeared disposed to accept battle.” “He returned to his head-quarters (Book ix, p. 125) full of satisfaction at the great fault committed by the enemy’s General.” “He held this,” says Brialmont, “to be rashness, and a fault, exclaiming, ‘At last, then, I have them,--these English!’” Do not these views and anticipations, on the part of both of the Generals, make it quite evident that each of them was fully aware of the great superiority of the French army; and of the temerity of which the Duke would be guilty if, without any assurance of support, he ventured on an engagement in the face of such odds?

It is worth remark, too, that while several of the best English writers have accepted with the most good-natured simplicity, Napoleon’s own account of the force with which he fought this battle--French historians, even when admirers of Napoleon, show much less faith in his assertions. Thus, Lamartine, having Napoleon’s ixth Book before him, in which the number, “sixty-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty men,” is strenuously insisted on--quietly disregards the fiction, and repeatedly speaks of the French force as being “eighty thousand men.”[22]

But Napoleon’s “_certainty_ of success,” of which he speaks at p. 127 of his Book ix, rested more upon the superior _quality_ of his troops than on their superior _numbers_. He was thoroughly well aware, both of the slight value of the Belgian and Hanoverian auxiliaries, and of the excellence of his own troops. And the Duke, also, knew full well both of these facts. On the 8th of May he had written to Lord Stewart, “I have got an infamous army; very weak and ill-equipped; and a very inexperienced staff.” And seven days after the battle, he repeated to Lord Bathurst, that he had got “not only the worst troops, but the worst-equipped army, with the worst staff, that ever was brought together.”[23]

On the other hand, Napoleon’s army was, for its amount, the finest that he had ever led into the field. Thus his secretary, Fleury, says, “The whole army was superb, and full of ardour.” Lamartine speaks of it as “his grand army of chosen men; every battalion of which had a soul equal to the utmost extremity.” Napoleon himself, in “Book ix,” says: “The spectacle was really magnificent: the earth seemed proud of being trod by such intrepid combatants.” And at St. Helena he told O’Meara: “My troops were so good, that I esteemed them sufficient to beat a hundred and twenty thousand.”[24]

Thus, as Brialmont remarks, whatever might be the numerical proportion of the two armies, “when we come to look at the respective qualities of the troops, the inferiority of the Anglo-Belgian army _was enormous_. Not only was it composed of heterogeneous elements, but it consisted almost entirely of young soldiers, a large proportion of whom had never been under fire. The Hanoverian contingent was made up of militia; and many regiments were fit only for garrison duty.”[25]

The evening which preceded the memorable 18th of June was dark and cloudy; the rain fell in torrents, and the men were often ankle-deep in water. But, however deplorable might be their outward condition, the interest of this eventful moment rendered the combatants on either side, almost insensible to physical sufferings. Every man in both armies knew that a great and decisive battle was to be fought on the following day. With the opening morning, then, would begin what might prove the final contest,--ending a strife of nations which had lasted more than twenty years. The two greatest Generals of the age were for the first time to be brought into collision: the conqueror of Europe was to measure swords with the deliverer of Spain. No two such leaders, it has been well observed, had confronted each other, since Hannibal and Scipio met at Zama.

Doubtless, and very naturally, the greatest degree of confidence was felt in the camp of the invaders. The French soldiers relied with reason on the extraordinary talents of their great leader, victorious in fifty contests, foiled in scarcely any. The men who stood by his side, too, were the veterans who had marched triumphantly over many victorious fields, and who now felt defeat, under such a Captain, to be scarcely possible. They were confident, too, in their numbers. All of them had heard that the Emperor had carried over the frontier a picked army of 150,000 men. They saw on the heights around them the first and second corps, amounting together to nearly 50,000 men, with the sixth, less numerous, in reserve. The Imperial Guard was there, from 18,000 to 20,000 strong,--the finest troops that France had ever possessed, and the cuirassiers, nearly 6,000 in number. What could a mixed force of a few English, joined with Belgians, Hanoverians, and Dutchmen, do against such a power?

Very naturally, therefore, we learn from Gourgaud, that “the French troops were full of enthusiasm. Such were the acclamations of joy, that they prevented the orders from being heard.”[26] From Napoleon to his Generals, from the Generals to the troops, the feeling had spread and become universal. “Ah! we have them, then,--these English!”

The British troops had not the same ground of confidence. They knew well that their own numbers did not amount to one-third of the strength of Napoleon’s army, and that the Hanoverian and Belgian landwehr, by whom their line was to be filled up, were of very uncertain value. Many of the battalions, both English and foreign, had never been in action before. Still, they had a great and well-founded trust in their Commander; and with a spirit like his own, they meant to _do their duty_, and while they lived, to stand their ground.

The field of Waterloo, or the heights of Mont St. Jean, as the English and the French respectively call this spot, is a piece of slightly-elevated ground lying, as we have already said, about 1000 yards in advance of the village of Waterloo. Brussels, in which Napoleon intended to sleep that night, was about nine miles in the rear of the English army. The main road from Charleroi to Brussels passed through the French position, descended into the valley, and then ascended Mont St. Jean, cutting the English position at right angles near a farm-house called La Haye Sainte. The English line lay about 200 yards behind this farm-house. Here was the centre and left centre. In advance of the right wing of the English army, and between it and the left wing of the French, stood a larger house, surrounded by walled gardens and orchards, and called Hougoumont. As this place would have afforded great advantages to the French in preparing attacking columns, the Duke placed in it some companies of the Foot-Guards, with some Nassau and Hanoverian troops, and enjoined its resolute defence. Well were his orders obeyed, for the utmost efforts of a whole army corps of the French were ineffectual to carry this position. The French lost 6 or 8000 men in the attempt, but up to the very close of the day the English Foot-Guards maintained their possession.

The position of Waterloo was deliberately chosen by the Duke, and the choice is commended by all unprejudiced critics. Yet Napoleon, ungenerous throughout, strives to depreciate his antagonist’s judgment in this particular. He says, in “Book ix:”--“The English General had in his rear the defiles of the forest of Soignes, so that if beaten, retreat was impossible” (p. 125). Upon which M. Lamartine observes: “In fighting on the borders of a forest fortified in all its approaches, as well as by its own impenetrability, the Duke had every pledge of victory, if victory was possible; and of a secure retreat if defeat were unavoidable. Waterloo was an admirable field of battle, and it is to be regretted that Napoleon has not acknowledged this, but has obstinately striven to prove that his conqueror was unworthy of him. These are the littlenesses of glory. The choice of Waterloo on Wellington’s part was a further mark of that genius, at once resolute, powerful, and prudent, which has characterized all the campaigns of this General.”

It should be added, that the Duke, during five years of constant warfare with the French armies, had never once been beaten by them in a pitched battle. Nor had he any thought of retreating upon the present occasion, or any desire to make a special provision for such an emergency. In after years he dropped the remark: “I knew that they could never so beat us, but that we could have made good the forest against them.”

And now the several divisions of the two armies were placed in the positions which to the two commanders seemed suitable. On the left of Napoleon’s line he placed his second corps, which he himself states to have consisted of 17,000 men, and which undoubtedly was nearer 20,000. This corps, to which his brother Jerome was attached, was ordered to seize upon Hougoumont, and then to attack the right of the British army. Napoleon’s right wing was formed of his first corps, under Ney’s command. This corps had not yet been in action, and was complete. Napoleon sets down its strength us 17,900 men; but Ney, who commanded it, describes it as “from twenty-five to thirty thousand.” In the second line stood the sixth corps, consisting of 7 or 8000 men; the heavy cavalry, of about 7000; and in a third line stood the Imperial Guard, which, of cavalry and infantry, had at least 18,000. The artillery numbered more than 6000 men, with 240 cannon. The entire force was probably described with truth in Napoleon’s bulletin of the battle, in which he calls it “less than 95,000.”

Against these the Duke had to place in position, on the opposite heights, his 15,181 British infantry, his 3,300 infantry of the German Legion, and about 28,000 Belgians, Hanoverians, and Brunswickers. Many of these showed themselves, in the battle, unable to stand a French attack. In the second line he had 7,840 English and German cavalry, and about 4,500 Belgians, Hanoverians, and Brunswickers. His artillery (English, Belgian, &c.,) were 5,600 and his guns, 156. At Hal and Enghien, on the road from Mons to Brussels, the Duke placed a detachment of 5,819 men to guard against any possible device in that quarter. These could take no

## part in the battle, being fixed by their orders at a distance of

several miles from it.

The Duke had slept for a few hours at his headquarters in the village of Waterloo, and then rising before dawn on the morning of the 18th he wrote several letters, in which he expressed his confidence that all would go well, but still gave specific orders for all that was to be done in Brussels, Antwerp, &c., in the event of the success of the French attack. He then saw to the distribution of the reserves of artillery, which had been packed in the village, so that supplies should be readily forwarded to every point where they might be needed. He also personally inspected the arrangements made for the reception of the wounded. Then mounting his horse Copenhagen, he rode to Hougoumont, and thence down a lane leading through the wood beyond it. Halting on the eastern slant of the thicket, he narrowly surveyed all of the enemy’s arrangements that could be seen. Then giving some final orders at Hougoumont, he galloped back to the high ground in the right centre of his position, where he began to chat with the members of his staff with as much liveliness as if they were about to take part in an ordinary review.

There was now a pause of considerable duration. This was one of the chief mistakes committed by Napoleon. He had before him, as he well know, an army exceedingly inferior to his own; so inferior, in short, that it was a matter of joyful surprise to him that the Duke had not decamped in the night. But on his right he knew that there was Grouchy with less than 40,000 men, opposed to Blucher, who had 80,000 or 90,000. It was obvious to every one that the Prussian general might, and probably would, engage Grouchy with one or two corps, and carry the rest of his army to the succour of the English. It was, then, a great error not to use the present opportunity with decision and rapidity. He accounts for the delay by the state of the ground; but when Grouchy justified his inertness at Wavre by the same plea, Napoleon exclaims, in “Book ix,” p. 153, “The dreadful state of the weather, ridiculous motive!”

The village clock was striking eleven when the first gun was fired from the French centre, and this great battle began, which only ended with the darkness of night. There has never been a battle which was so distinctly divided, like a drama, into four or five acts. These were: 1. The attack on Hougoumont and the English right; 2. The attack on La Haye Sainte and the English centre and left; 3. The irruption of the French heavy cavalry upon the centre of the English position; 4. The Prussian diversion; 5. The charge of the Imperial Guard, and final defeat of the French army. These several acts or stages in this great contest usually followed each other at intervals of about two hours, _i.e._ at 11, at 1, at 3, at 5, and at 7 o’clock. There cannot, therefore, be a better way of obtaining a clear idea of the progress of this tremendous struggle, than by passing in review these five acts or stages, just us they occurred, and distinctly from each other.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK.

Precisely at this hour the French artillery opened fire upon the orchards of Hougoumont, and Jerome, with his division, moved forward to the attack. As we have seen, Napoleon himself assigns to his second corps, to whom this duty was assigned, a strength of 17,900 men; and, reasoning upon his uniform practice of diminishing his real numbers, we may safely estimate its real force at 20,000. This corps was to storm and take Hougoumont, and then, from this position, to annoy and perhaps to attack with success, the Duke’s right. But it never succeeded even in its first object. The whole power of these 18,000 or 20,000 men failed to carry a post which was never garrisoned by so many us 2,800. Thus, Gourgaud tells us that at noon “Prince Jerome with his division took possession of the wood: he was driven out, but a new attack once more rendered him master of it. The enemy, however, kept possession of the largo house in the centre.” Again, at half-past four, he says, “General Reille supported the attack of Jerome’s division by Foy’s division. (Each being 5,000 or 6,000 strong.) Howitzers had set fire to the house and nearly destroyed it; three-fourths of the wood was in our possession; the fields were strewed with the English guards, the flower of the enemy’s army.” But beyond this partial success the French never attained. They never carried the chateau itself, but in the attempt they lost from 6,000 to 8,000 men, while the killed and wounded of the defenders amounted to a few hundreds only. This portion of the battle lasted from noon until night, and all that the French could boast of, was, that with five or seven times the number of the British, they obtained possession of “three-fourths of the wood.”[27] Napoleon says, in “Book ix,” “The wood remained in the possession of the French; but the chateau, in which some hundreds of intrepid English troops defended themselves, opposed an invincible resistance.”[28]

ONE O’CLOCK.

But now, having commenced the battle by this vehement assault on Hougoumont by his left wing, Napoleon prepared what he admits to be his main attack, on the Duke’s centre and left, by Count d’Erlon’s whole corps, led by Marshal Ney. This was the corps which had not been engaged at either Ligny or Quatre Bras. Napoleon states its strength at 17,900; but Ney more frankly describes it us between “twenty-five and thirty thousand.” This force was directed against the centre of the English position. Throughout the day Napoleon seemed to rely on _mere strength_. He knew that he was superior on every point, in each branch of the service, and in every

## particular, and he had never experienced the obstinate endurance of

the English infantry. Thus, as the Duke afterwards said, “He did not manœuvre at all. He just moved forward, in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style.”

Great were the expectations based on this attack. Napoleon himself said to Ney: “This is a day and an action worthy of you: I give you the command of the centre; and it is you who are to gain the battle.”[29] But while all the French accounts admit the vast importance which was attached to this, the main attack, they entirely forget to say _what was the result of it_. Thus Gourgaud writes: “The Emperor directed Marshal Ney to commence the attack, and to take possession of La Haye Sainte;” “Our infantry advanced;” “The enemy’s line, however, made no manœuvre; it maintained its immobility. His cavalry made several successful charges on the flank of one of the columns of the first corps, and about 15 of our pieces of artillery, which were advancing, were driven back into a hollow road. One of Milhaud’s brigades of Cuirassiers advanced against this cavalry, and the field of battle was soon covered with their slain. When the Emperor perceived that some disorder prevailed on our right, he proceeded at full gallop.”[30]

Napoleon says, in “Book ix,” “Many charges of infantry and cavalry followed it; the detail of them belong more to the history of each regiment, than to the general history of the battle; it is enough to say, that after three hours’ fighting, the farm of La Haye Sainte was occupied by the French infantry; while the end which the Emperor had in view was obtained.”[31]

Thus, from the French accounts, we gain no intelligible information as to the actual result of this attack of 25,000 men on the English centre; except, indeed, that Gourgaud’s single phrase, “the enemy’s line maintained its immobility,” tacitly implies that the attack failed. We turn, then, to the English narrators, and learn from them what actually occurred.

“Seventy-four guns” (“Book ix,” says eighty) were ordered forward to a little elevation, so as to bring their fire to bear upon the English line at a range of about 700 yards. Soon after, as two o’clock approached, the columns of attack, under Ney’s command, were seen descending from their elevated ground, crossing the valley, and ascending the northern slope. The British artillery gave them a warm reception; but still the columns pressed on, until they approached the Duke’s line, near the centre and left centre. Here were placed the brigade of Sir Thomas Picton, about 3000 strong; and a Belgic-Dutch brigade under Bylandt. As the French columns drew near, with shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” the courage of the Belgians gave way, and the whole brigade, amidst the groans and hooting of the British soldiers, begun a hasty movement to the rear, from which they could not be induced to advance during the whole remainder of the day.

Left thus to himself, to sustain the whole attack of twice or three times his numbers, the gallant Picton never hesitated. Forming his little band two deep, he waited till the French column came within charging distance. It then halted, and endeavoured to deploy into line. Saluting it, at this moment, with a volley from his whole brigade, Picton gave the word “Charge!” and his men sprang forward with the bayonet. In an instant the whole French column was in confusion; and before they had time to recover themselves, Ponsonby’s brigade of heavy cavalry, the Royals, the Scots Greys, and the Enniskilleners, broke in upon them, and in a few moments the whole side of the hill was covered with fugitives. The heroic leader of “the fighting division,” however, the gallant Picton, fell, shot through the brain in the moment of triumph. Another fierce encounter was at hand. Milhaud’s Cuirassiers were close behind the French columns, and they essayed to retrieve the fight. But the Household Brigade met them, and after a desperate encounter--of the best horsemen in England and the best in France--the whole mass of the French, horse and foot, were driven back in confusion, leaving behind them the eagles of the 45th and 105th regiments, and nearly 3000 prisoners. The grand attack of Ney on the British centre had failed; and the first corps of the French army was so seriously cut up and disorganized, as to be in no condition to renew the attack. We now understand Gourgaud’s confessions, “The enemy’s cavalry made several successful charges on the flank of one of the columns of the first corps;” and, “when the Emperor perceived that some disorder prevailed on our right, he proceeded thither at full gallop.”

It was now considerably past two o’clock. The principal attack had been repelled: the English position had not been forced, or even endangered. “The enemy’s line,” says Gourgaud, “maintained its immobility.” But Napoleon’s second corps had been beaten and much damaged at Hougoumont; and now his first was crippled and nearly disabled in front of La Haye Sainte. In this strait, either Ney or Napoleon, or both of them, still confident in their superior strength, had recourse to a desperate measure, which had, indeed, a probability of success; but which, if it failed, would involve a serious danger.

They had, still untouched, or nearly so, a reserve of what Napoleon himself styles, “twelve thousand select horse,” the two corps of Cuirassiers, the light cavalry of the Guard, and the horse grenadiers and dragoons of the Guard. There need be no dispute as to the strength of this force, since Napoleon himself twice states it to have been 12,000.

THREE O’CLOCK.

At this period of the battle, then, desperate at the two failures on the left and on the right, either Ney or his master launched this enormous mass of “select cavalry” against the centre of the British line. The error, if it is one, is sought by Napoleon to be charged on somebody else. In his bulletin, written at the time, he says:--

“Our two divisions of cuirassiers being engaged, all our cavalry ran at the same moment to support their comrades.”

Gourgaud endeavours to cast the blame upon Ney, saying:--

“Marshal Ney, borne away by excess of ardour, lost sight of the orders he had received; he debouched on the level height, which was immediately crowned by two divisions of Milhaud’s cuirassiers, and the light cavalry of the Guard. The emperor observed to Marshal Soult, “This is a premature movement, which may be attended with fatal consequences.”

These accounts would represent Napoleon himself famous for his rapidity and decision, to have had no command over his own troops. They are, therefore, not credible.

But remembering that Napoleon was himself at this moment in a forward position, and that the heavy cavalry placed in the rear as a reserve force must have defiled past him, we must at least believe him to have permitted this movement. Gourgaud says that Ney ordered forward Milhaud’s Cuirassiers, and that “the emperor ordered Kellerman’s corps to support him.” Colonel Heymes, aide-de-camp to Ney, says, “That movement took place under the eyes of the emperor, who might have stopped it, but did not.” Still as he afterwards, in private conversation, charged the fault on Ney,[32] we must suppose that the marshal, in his desperation, called for the reserve of cavalry, and that Napoleon permitted him to employ them. However this might be, it is certain that about three or four o’clock--the attack of the first corps on the centre and left of the English having failed, the whole mass of the “cavalry of reserve,” was brought forward and thrown upon the centre of the Duke’s position. Such an assault has rarely been made upon any other army in modern times. Deducting the troops in Hougoumont, and the losses from four hours’ fighting, there could not have been at this moment so many as 12,000 British infantry in the whole line. Yet it is from Napoleon’s own narrative that we learn, that upon this weak array there was launched a mass of 12,000 heavy horse, 6,000 of whom wore armour, and who seemed, in their united strength, able positively to ride down the insignificant force of resolute soldiers who still kept the heights of Mont St. Jean.

The British accounts generally divide this tremendous onset of the cavalry into two attacks, the first, between three and four o’clock, when forty squadrons, twenty-one of them being composed of cuirassiers, ascended the heights behind La Haye Sainte; the second perhaps an hour later, when the first assailants, having found it difficult to maintain their ground were rallied behind thirty-seven fresh squadrons sent by Napoleon to their succour. And this agrees with Gourgaud’s account who tells us, first, that “Ney debouched upon the level height, with Milhaud’s Cuirassiers and the light cavalry of the Guard,” and then adds, a little after, that “the Emperor directed Kellerman’s Cuirassiers to support the cavalry on the height lest it should be repulsed.” It is clear, therefore, that the first onset of 5,000 or 6,000 men had failed, or was in danger of failing, when Napoleon sent forward a second until, as he himself says, the whole “twelve thousand select horse” were involved in the struggle.

How it was that this tremendous attack failed, it is not easy at this distance of time to understand. The whole of the infantry in the British line were quickly formed into squares; the front ranks kneeling and presenting fixed bayonets, and the second and third lines keeping up a constant fire of musketry. The artillery, also, saluted the intruders with grape-shot; but many of the British guns were soon taken possession of by the cuirassiers. The Duke, always prepared for every emergency, had instructed the artillerymen that they should, on the approach of danger, take off a wheel and retire with it into the nearest square of infantry. Thus the cuirassiers, when they had seized a gun, found themselves hampered with it, and while they were trying to carry it off, the musketry of the British squares thinned their numbers.

Wellington, in describing the battle in a letter to Marshal Beresford, said, “I had the infantry for some time in squares, and the French cavalry walking about us as if it had been our own.”

There probably never was such a trial of “pluck” as this part of the contest presented. It was a hand-to-hand struggle, _lasting two or three hours_. Had a regiment of cuirassiers ever found courage enough to throw themselves on the British bayonets, there can be little doubt that some of the weaker squares might have been broken. But this never once occurred. Gourgaud, indeed, says, “Our cavalry penetrated many of the enemy’s squares, and took three standards,” but he must here be speaking of the Belgian or Hanoverian troops, many of whom were unsteady, and some of whom were scattered and cut up. There was, in fact, no absolute reliance to be placed on any but the British troops, and some of the best of the German. A whole Dutch-Belgian brigade, on the approach of the cuirassiers, moved off without firing a shot. After several charges of the British horse upon portions of the French cavalry, Lord Uxbridge put himself at the head of Tripp’s brigade of Dutch-Belgian carabineers, and ordered them to charge; and so they did, but not until they had first turned their backs to the enemy! Somewhat later, he ordered forward the Hanoverian regiment called the Cumberland hussars; but the colonel “did not see what good was to be done” by moving him from his snug position, which was out of reach of the firing. He added, that he could not answer for his men, for that they rode their own horses, and could not afford to lose them! Receiving from Lord Uxbridge the vehement reproof which might have been expected, he and his men moved off to Brussels, where they spread the report that the allied army was destroyed, and that Napoleon was advancing at the head of his Guards!

Yet this tremendous attack failed, as the two preceding attacks had done. And its failure was one chief cause of Napoleon’s ruin. He had risked his cavalry reserve, and had lost it. For it is a remarkable and wonderful fact, that, continuing this struggle for two or three hours, this splendid body of “twelve thousand select cavalry” was wholly destroyed. Individuals, and parties of fugitives, doubtless escaped, and their number in the aggregate might be considerable; but this arm of the service was utterly disabled. In his Bulletin, Napoleon said, “For three hours numerous charges were made, several squares penetrated, and six standards taken;--an advantage bearing no proportion to the loss which our cavalry experienced by the grape-shot and musket-firing.” Fleury de Chaboulon, his secretary, says, “Our cavalry, exposed to the incessant firing of the enemy’s batteries and infantry, sustained and executed numerous brilliant charges, took six flags, and dismounted several batteries; but in this conflict we lost the flower of our intrepid cuirassiers, and of the cavalry of the Guard.” He adds, that on reaching Paris, and describing the battle, the emperor said, “Ney behaved like a madman!--he got my cavalry _massacred_ for me.” And it is the chief complaint of all the French accounts, that when at the close of the day the English horse swept over the field, the Emperor had not a single regiment of cavalry to oppose to them![33] The “twelve thousand select cavalry” had broken into the English position; but, except as scattered fugitives, they never returned!

FIVE O’CLOCK.

But the battle had now lasted six hours, and Napoleon had allowed his opportunity to pass away. Five o’clock brought the Prussians; and after they had entered the field a decisive victory for Napoleon became impossible.

Bent on his object of proving that he had been not so much beaten as overpowered by numbers, Napoleon in his “Book ix,” brings the Prussians into the field at _noon-day_! In doing this he does not scruple to employ the most direct and obvious falsehood. To give a single instance,--Gourgaud, his _aide-de-camp_, in his account of the battle, thus writes:

“It was _half-past four o’clock_, and the most vigorous fire was still kept up on every side. _At this moment_ General Domont informed his Majesty that he observed Bulow’s corps in movement, and that a division of 8,000 or 10,000 Prussians was debouching from the woods of Frischenois.”

Yet in “Book ix” Napoleon does not hesitate to say: At _two o’clock_ in the afternoon General Domont had given notice that Bulow formed in three columns; that the enemy appeared to him to be very numerous,--he estimated the corps at 40,000 men.”

But he does not even postpone their arrival until two o’clock:--two pages earlier he insists upon it that he saw them, in the distance, at _noon_.[34] Now as it is absolutely certain that, with the greatest exertion, the earliest of the Prussian brigades were unable to reach the field until half-past four, we may be sure that at twelve o’clock they must have been eight or ten miles off! Hence this passage in “Book ix” must either be a downright fiction; or else Napoleon must have discovered on a distant hill a party of the Prussian staff who had ridden forward to observe the position of affairs, and who must have been magnified by his alarms into an army-corps!

The real time of the arrival of the Prussians is one of the most clearly-defined facts of the whole history. All the witnesses agree upon it. We have just cited Gourgaud’s words, that “at half-past four General Domont observed a division of 8,000 to 10,000 Prussians debouching from the woods of Frischenois.”

In strict agreement with which the Prussian official account says.

“It was half-past four o’clock.... The difficulties of the road had retarded the march of the Prussian columns; so that only two brigades had arrived at the covered position which was assigned them. The generals resolved to begin the attack with the troops which they had at hand.”[35]

And General Drouet, who was at Napoleon’s side during the action, said, in his speech in the Chamber of Peers on the 24th of June, 1815,--“The Prussians began to attack us at about half-past five in the afternoon.”

It is quite clear, then, and beyond all dispute, that the Prussians first began to enter the field of battle, and to be visible to the French at half-past four in the afternoon; that the Prussian commanders immediately proceeded to make arrangements for an attack;--and that their first collision with the French troops took place about half-past five in the afternoon.

But Napoleon had been forewarned of their approach; for his flying

## parties had brought in, he tells us, two or three hours before, a

Prussian hussar who was bearing a letter to the Duke of Wellington, announcing that General Bulow and his corps were on their march. Hence Napoleon had already set apart his sixth corps, under Count Lobau, to receive the Prussians whenever they should make their appearance.

He introduces at this period many complaints of Marshal Grouchy, who, he pretends, ought to have followed Bulow’s corps, and have taken part in the battle of Waterloo. This is the very height of injustice and absurdity; since he had employed Grouchy distinctly to follow and occupy the attention of the main body of the Prussian army; and in obedience to this command the marshal was at that moment engaged with the Prussian third corps at Wavre. But, on looking at Napoleon’s first bulletin of the battle, we see that this aspersion of Grouchy is an afterthought,--a mere device to lessen his own defeat. Writing at the time, and giving to France a full account of the battle, in that bulletin _not one word_ of any default of Grouchy’s appears.

This, of itself, is enough to show the hollowness of the excuse for the loss of the battle. Grouchy himself, when the “ixth Book” made its appearance, instantly wrote and published an indignant denial of its statements; and Brialmont remarks, that “Napoleon has so expressed himself to make it clear that he was anxious to diminish the amount of his own responsibility by sacrificing the reputation of his subordinates. Thus he pretends that he received on the night of the 17th a letter from Grouchy, which letter _never could have existed_.”

But Gourgaud himself, Napoleon’s own aide-de-camp, is the best witness in exculpation of Grouchy. He tells us, that in the afternoon, hearing the cannonade of Waterloo, General Excelmans urged upon Grouchy to leave following the Prussians and to march towards the cannonade. But Grouchy, “though he burnt with desire to take part in the great battle, _showed Excelmans his instructions_, which were to march upon Wavre, and said, that he could not take such a responsibility on himself.”[36] It is clear therefore, that up to the afternoon of the 18th Grouchy had no other orders than those which bade him follow the Prussians who were in position at Wavre.

Grouchy then, was not at Waterloo, simply because Napoleon had sent him to Wavre, a town some twelve miles distant; and because he was there engaged in a struggle with the third Prussian corps. But the fourth Prussian corps was at Waterloo at five o’clock, because Blucher had promised to send it there, and because Wellington expected it; and gave battle with inferior forces, relying on this assistance. Napoleon ought to have foreseen the probability of all this,--and, foreseeing it, he ought to have delivered his blows more rapidly so as to break the English line, if that were possible, before the Prussians could enter the field. But now that he had allowed his opportunity to pass, and now that Bulow was actually beginning to take part in the battle,--what was the respective strength ranged on either side? This question must be answered; for Napoleon says, “The enemy’s army had just been augmented by 30,000 men, already ranged on the held of battle; thus placing 120,000 men against 69,000, or two to one.” (p. 148.) And then he immediately afterwards, adds “It was _noon_.”

This statement, however, like most of Napoleon’s other statements, is untrue. The Duke’s army had never amounted to 70,000 men, of whom some 10 or 15,000 were merely nominal combatants, whom it was impossible to persuade to fight. And Napoleon wilfully overlooks the plain averment of the Prussian official account, that when their commanders began the attack,--not at _noon_, but some time after half-past four, _only two brigades_, had arrived on the field. Captain Siborne, who took the greatest pains to ascertain every fact of the case, states that at half-past four o’clock the Prussian force which had come up, amounted to 16,000 men; which, added to the Duke’s army of 68,000, made a joint force of about 84,000; but, if the non-fighting part of the Duke’s army were deducted,--of scarcely 70,000. Thus, even with the addition of the newly-arrived Prussians, the allied force was still numerically weaker than Napoleon’s army.

This diversion, however, which was caused so opportunely by Bulow’s arrival, naturally brought great relief to the British line. It drew off Count Lobau’s corps, the sixth, of 7000 men, which might otherwise have been sent forward to attack the British centre. The remark, however, which is sometimes made, that “the English were saved by arrival of the Prussians,” is singularly absurd. Bulow’s arrival was not an unexpected thing; or a lucky chance;--it was a part of the Duke’s plan. He had demanded this aid of Blucher, and had obtained the promise of it, and without this aid, his acceptance of battle would have been an act of great temerity. The arrival of the Prussians, so far from being unexpected, had been calculated on three hours earlier; Blucher having promised that they should be in the field by two o’clock.

And sorely had they been needed. The “thin red line” of the British infantry had scarcely ever found it so difficult to maintain its ground. At this moment, as we have already remarked, there could not have been so many as 12,000 of this branch of the Duke’s army left in position. And yet upon them rested the whole burden of the battle. Some of the German troops behaved gallantly; but of the mixed mass of 25,000 Belgians, Hanoverians, Dutchmen, &c., a large proportion were unable to stand the French attacks. So soon as one of Napoleon’s columns approached them, they became unsteady, and often went to the rear. Meanwhile there still stood in front of the Duke’s right wing, the second corps; and in front of his left wing, the first corps; and all that were left of Napoleon’s “12,000 select cavalry” were riding about the British position, as if they were masters of it. This hour, then, or two hours, from five o’clock till seven, must have been a most anxious one for the British General and his troops. The commander of one brigade sent to the Duke to beg for some relief or reinforcement; and the answer he received was, “Tell him, that what he wishes is impossible. He, and I, and every man here, must fight till we die on the spot where we stand.” Some one asked for a general instruction, as to what plan should be followed if the Duke himself should fall. “My only plan,” said the Duke, “is to stand my ground here to the last man.” Long after the battle, he remarked, of this period of the day, “I looked oftener at my watch than at anything else. I knew that if my troops could keep their position till night, I must be joined by Blucher before morning; and we should not have left Bonaparte an army next day. But I was glad, as one hour of day-light slipped away after another, and our position was still maintained.” It is scarcely possible for words to imply more distinctly, that the Duke felt that he was standing his ground with an inferior force; relying on Blucher’s aid, to enable him to strike a blow in return.

Meanwhile, as he was constantly calm, so he was ever hopeful and high-minded. An Italian officer in the French service, being taken prisoner afterwards described the dismay he felt, on observing the quietness of the Duke’s demeanour, and the calmness of his countenance; which forced him to think that he must have some concealed reserve, of which the French generals knew nothing. His brief remarks, too, were always cheerful and reassuring. A young Piedmontese officer made himself useful, in carrying orders. “Were you ever in a battle before?” asked the Duke. “No, my lord.” “Then you are a lucky fellow, for you will never see such another!” was the rejoinder. At another time, encouraging the 95th regiment, expecting a charge of cavalry, he said, “Stand fast! 95th, we musn’t be beat; what would they say in England!” Shortly after, when the French cavalry came on with threatening aspect, he said, “Never mind, we’ll win this battle yet!” To a regiment exposed to a brisk cannonade, he remarked, “Hard pounding this! let’s see who’ll pound longest!” Often he was evidently the object of the enemy’s aim, and a tree under which he sometimes took his stand, was repeatedly struck. “That’s good practice,” said the Duke; “I think they fire better than in Spain.” But, as we have said, he was ever high-minded; and when an officer of artillery came to the Duke to tell him, that he had a clear view of Napoleon, and had several guns pointed in that direction, the Duke exclaimed, “No! I’ll not allow it. It is not the business of commanders to be firing upon one another!”

At half-past five, according to Count Drouet, the Prussians first came into collision with the sixth corps, which, with Domont’s cavalry, had been placed on Napoleon’s right wing, specially to give these new comers a warm reception. The contest soon became an earnest one on this side; Planchenoit, in the rear of Napoleon’s right centre, was taken, and retaken, and he felt obliged to send some battalions of the Young Guard to strengthen Count Lobau. In this new struggle an hour or more passed, and seven o’clock, the last hour of the day drew on.

Here Gourgaud stops to claim a triumph. He says, “65 to 68,000 French troops _had beaten_ 115,000 English, Prussians, &c.” But then he adds, “The Emperor was of opinion that this was the moment for making a decisive attack, and _determining the fate of the day_.” So that, although the English and Prussians are assumed to be beaten, the “fate of the day” remains “to be determined.”

In fact, not one single step in retreat had the English army yet taken. About six o’clock, indeed, the farm-house of La Haye Sainte was abandoned by its English defenders, simply because their ammunition was expended, and without ammunition they could not defend the place. This was the one solitary advantage gained by the French in the whole day; and even this was not wrested by them from the English; the post was evacuated by the latter for the reason we have stated. And La Haye Sainte, it should be remembered, was about 200 yards _in advance_ of the British line. It was an outpost, and not a part of the main line. Its capture at an earlier period might have seriously endangered the Duke’s centre; but at this late hour Napoleon had but one card left to play, and in playing it the possession of La Haye Sainte did not greatly aid him.

Up to seven o’clock, then, this one poor outpost was the only foot of ground gained by the French, in compensation for what Ney calls “the most frightful carnage that I have ever witnessed.” He is not here speaking of the defeat of the Imperial Guard, but of what preceded it. He had led, at one o’clock, the attack by D’Erlon’s corps on the centre and left of the English position, and at three o’clock he had sent the heavy cavalry in among the British battalions. It is of these two attacks that Ney is speaking, and of the manner in which they were repulsed; and this veteran soldier, after witnessing Borodino, Leipsic, and twenty other fields of slaughter, describes the defeat of the first corps, and the destruction of the cavalry, as a “carnage” the like of which he had never before beheld.

“The Emperor,” says Gourgaud, “was now of opinion that the moment was come for making a decisive attack, and determining the fate of the day.” Yes, the moment was come; for, if the matter had been left as it stood, Napoleon’s overthrow on the following morning would have been made certain. “I knew,” said the Duke, long after, “that if my troops could keep their position till night, I must be joined by Blucher before morning, and we should not have left Bonaparte an army next day.” To keep the English and Prussian armies apart had been Napoleon’s chief endeavour, but the sagacity and military talent of the two Generals had defeated this purpose. The French army had only crossed the frontier on the 15th, and here, on the 18th, were the two allied armies already uniting on the same battle-field. When, therefore, Gourgaud tells us, in lofty and decorous language, that “the Emperor was of opinion that this was the moment for making a decisive attack, and determining the fate of the day,” the real meaning of these dignified phrases is, that Napoleon saw that one chance only remained to him, and that he must break the British line by the whole force of the Imperial Guard, or retire from the field a discomfited commander; to sustain in his turn an attack from the united armies the very next day. His strongest army-corps, the first and second, had both been cut up and crippled; his splendid cavalry were at that moment being “massacred” by the English grapeshot and musket-firing; and the only weapon of power that remained to him was this noble body of men, who had triumphed in fifty battles--his invincible phalanx, the Imperial Guard. At seven o’clock, therefore, or about that hour, he turned to this, his last resource, and ordered to the front this chosen and favourite arm, the right employment of which had given him so many victories.

SEVEN O’CLOCK.

It is not easy, amidst the various and contradictory accounts of the different French historians, to ascertain with exactness the real force employed in this attack. The Young Guard, under General Duhesme, had been partly employed in the defence of Planchenoit. The Old Guard, and the Middle Guard, had not up to this period of the battle drawn a trigger. Their strength is stated by Gourgaud to have been on this day 4400 and 4200, or, united, 8600 men.[37] This force far exceeded any strength which the Duke could bring to bear upon any given point. In fact the two brigades of General Maitland and General Adam had to sustain this attack. The first, consisting of two battalions of Foot-guards, had marched forth two days before 1997 strong. On the evening of Waterloo it numbered only 1027; and doubtless, when this attack of the Imperial Guard came, it had not more than 1100 or 1150 bayonets. The other, General Adam’s brigade, consisting of the 52nd, 71st, and 95th regiments, had been 2621 strong, but it was now reduced to about 2000. Such was the force on either side which was now to engage in the last terrible encounter of this great contest.

But, while he was preparing for what he hoped would be the decisive blow, Napoleon sent orders to both his wings to prepare for a renewed attack, simultaneously, on Hougoumont and on the British left and centre. The chateau defended itself bravely and successfully, as it had done throughout the day. But the possession of La Haye Sainte gave the first corps of the French army great advantages, and the pressure on the British line at this point became fearfully severe. A German battalion was cut up by a charge of French cuirassiers: a body of Brunswick infantry, which the Duke had moved up to strengthen the line, gave way, and retired about 100 paces, and it required all the Duke’s personal exertions to bring them to reform and stand their ground. The Prince of Orange had been wounded, and the Nassau troops under his command were with great difficulty induced to keep their ground. The British line had never been in so much danger of being broken as at this moment. But scarcely an hour of the day now remained, and the contest which was just taking place on the right centre was to be decisive of the fate of the day.

The grand attack of the Imperial Guard, to which Napoleon looked to decide the fate of his empire, was now beginning. Captain Siborne states the two columns of attack to have consisted of ten battalions, besides two battalions left as a reserve. If these battalions consisted of 600 men each, they would amount to 6000; but if of 720 men each, they would amount, on the whole, to 7200 men, and these were unquestionably the first soldiers in France.

These columns were formed in front of La Belle Alliance, and began their advance with that kind of mismanagement which had marked many of the movements of the French leaders throughout the day; they did not advance simultaneously, but the first column preceded the second, although the two took different courses. Neither did they assail that part of the Duke’s line which was the weakest, but threw themselves upon two brigades of the British infantry.

Of the two columns,--one of which skirted the enclosures of Hougoumont, and aimed at the right of the British line, while the other made its onset nearer to the centre,--the latter gained the precedence. As it descended into the valley, and allowed the French artillery on the heights behind an opportunity for action, the whole of these guns opened fire with a rapidity and weight which had not been experienced before throughout the day. Wherever a regiment was visible in the British line, there the round-shot and howitzer shells rained death upon it. But by degrees the attacking columns passed through the hollow ground, and began to ascend the opposite heights. Now they became visible to the British artillery, and the cannon-shot plunged into their masses with tremendous effect. The horse of Marshal Ney was killed; General Friant was wounded, and General Michel was killed. On the fall of the latter, a battalion of grenadiers came to a halt; but another General succeeded in inspiring it with new courage. The column moved forward, sorely shaken by its losses; but at last it crowned the height, and to its astonishment saw nothing before it but a small battery of field-pieces, and a few mounted officers in the rear. But one of these was the Duke, and the next moment the word of command was heard, “Up, Guards, and at them!” The British Guards, who had been ordered to lie down, sprang to their feet, in a compact line of four deep, and in a few seconds, a volley was heard, and then another, and a third; and in the first minute 300 of the attacking column fell. The French officers rushed to the front, and called upon the men to deploy into line. Lord Saltoun exclaimed to the English Guards, “Now’s your time, my boys!”--and the Duke exclaimed, “Charge!” The brigade sprang forward, with a cheer, to the charge. All was disorder in the French ranks. Many flung down their arms and knapsacks and dispersed; the mass, in dire confusion, rushed down the slope, with the English Guards in full pursuit.

But the English were instantly called back, for now appeared in sight the second column, which, shrinking from the fire of the batteries which had so crushed the first, diverged to the right, and by this mistaken move, presented its flank to General Adam’s brigade. The brigade of Guards was formed in its front, while the 52nd and 71st regiments were on its flank. The three regiments poured such a fire into the mass, that it melted like snow in the sunshine. Soon was repeated the order, “Charge!” and the two brigades assailing the devoted column at once in its front and on its flank, swept it from the field. In a few moments the hollow ground was crowded with fugitives; Napoleon’s last stake was lost; the battle of Waterloo was, practically, ended.

Of this terrible conflict, Lamartine rapidly sketches the progress, in a few glowing lines,--a summary of various French narratives:

“These 6000 grenadiers advanced with shouldered arms, amidst cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Wellington awaited them with forty pieces of cannon, with the matches lighted. As they ascended and approached, the battery fired a volley point-blank into the advancing mass, which, as the smoke arose, was seen to waver for a moment; then to close up and advance as compact as ever. On a second discharge the same oscillation took place, the same closing up. On the third discharge the English saw the column reduced to a block of men, decimated by grape-shot:--two of the battalions had been struck down, the other two hesitated, and recoiled to seek another means of access to these impregnable heights. Napoleon turned pale, and at length doubted of victory.”

This may be said to be the language of a florid writer, depicting the event long after its occurrence. But Count Drouet, who witnessed the whole scene, thus described it in the Chamber of Peers, just six days after the battle:--

“The (first) four battalions of the Guard, when they arrived on the plateau, were received by the most terrible fire of musquetry and grape. The _great number of wounded men_ who separate from the column, cause it to be believed that the Guard is routed. A panic terror communicates itself to the neighbouring (or second) column, which precipitately takes flight.”

Count Drouet, witnessing the repulse of both the columns, from the height behind, might suppose that the dispersal of the second arose from panic; but in so thinking, he did injustice to his countrymen. The second column came into action as gallantly us the first; but, although it was the stronger of the two, it had to contend with two English brigades instead of one; and its chance of success was therefore proportionally smaller. Clearly, it was bad generalship to send the two columns, one after the other, to be beaten separately. Had they reached the British position at the same moment, they would have brought against the two British brigades a force outnumbering them by two to one. Gourgaud thus describes the fate of this second column: “The eight battalions of the Guard which were in the centre, after having withstood for a long time all the attacks of the enemy, and contended for every foot of ground, were at last completely disorganized by the mass of the fugitives, and overwhelmed by the numbers of the enemy.”

With the failure of this, his last attack, Napoleon’s hopes, and his empire, ended. His fall, when it came at last, proved a crash which left nothing for destruction to do. At the moment when the Imperial Guards were sent back in confusion, the Prussians under Marshal Blucher had come into action. His cavalry had supported the English left, and two brigades of English cavalry, which guarded the extreme left of the Duke’s position, had been released from this duty, and had moved to the support of the British centre. And now, the Prussian infantry of the first corps, commanded by General Zieten, rushed upon the villages of La Haye and Smohain, and instantly carried them at the bayonet’s point. A third column renewed the attack on Planchenoit, which was almost in the centre of the French position. The moment was come for a general advance, and the Duke, with that wonderful perception which distinguished his whole career, instantly seized it. He himself describes this critical moment, in the account written the very next day. He says:--

“Having observed that the troops (Imperial Guard) retired from this attack in great confusion, and that the march of the Prussians on Planchenoit had begun to take effect, I determined to attack the enemy, and immediately advanced the whole line of infantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery.”

An eye-witness thus described the scene at the time, “The Duke, who had been attentively observing what was passing in the French and Prussian armies, suddenly shut up his telescope, and exclaimed to the officers near him, ‘Now, every man must advance!’”

Long had this order been eagerly expected. The British troops had stood for more than eight hours under a terrible fire. They had seen more than one-fourth of their numbers struck down by cannon-shot, and they longed for one final struggle, which should end the whole contest. The order flew to the right and to the left, and loud were the shouts with which it was received. Everywhere the lines of infantry were formed, the cavalry mounted and rode on, and a scene of triumph and exultation commenced, of which none who witnessed it could ever lose the memory.

We have observed, a few sentences back, that only half an hour before, two brigades of light cavalry, Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s, had been moved from the extreme left of the English line, and brought nearer to the centre. These six regiments, numbering about 2000 sabres, were now of the greatest possible service, in driving before them the broken and scattered French. They charged and dispersed various bodies of cavalry which attempted to form and make a stand, and continued pressing upon the fugitives of the infantry till the whole mass of Napoleon’s army melted into a chaotic crowd. And now were seen, on all sides, “unfurled colours raised aloft, bands striking up, the soldiers cheering tumultuously, as, with one simultaneous movement, they quitted the height on which they had so long stood, and descended joyfully into the plain, over which the French, on all sides, were now retreating in disorder.”

Their great commander himself was naturally among the foremost in this magnificent advance. Napier says, “The Duke, who was stationed on the left of the guns and the right of the Guards, gave the order to advance, and like lightning rode to the rear, and brought up the light cavalry, cheering them on, with his hat off--his cheers most cordially echoed by my brave fellows and myself.” He rode in front of Adam’s brigade, cheering it forward, speaking joyously to the men, and receiving their hearty shouts of congratulation. At last one of his staff ventured to hint to him that they were getting into the enemy’s lines, and that his life ought not to be thrown away. “Never mind,” was the reply, “the battle’s won, and my life is of no consequence now.”

Down the slope of their own heights, across the valley, up the face of the enemy’s hill, marched the British line triumphantly. Here and there a remnant of a French battalion or squadron offered a brief resistance; but the cry of “_Sauve qui peut!_” had been heard, and the French knew that the battle was lost, and that the Prussians were already in their rear. Hence Fleury de Chaboulon, Napoleon’s own secretary, thus describes the close:--

“Wellington did not allow our grenadiers time to recollect themselves. He caused them to be attacked in flank by his cavalry, and compelled them to retire in the greatest disorder. At the same moment the Prussians carried the village of La Haye; and our cavalry, our infantry, already staggered by the defeat of the Guard, were afraid of being cut off, and precipitately retreated. The other troops of the right, seeing some of our squadrons pell-mell, and some of the Guards running away, thought all was lost, and quitted their position. This contagious movement was communicated in an instant to the left, and the whole army abandoned its strongest posts as eagerly as they had previously assailed them. Soon the whole army was nothing but a confused crowd, which the English and Prussians routed without effort, and massacred without pity.”[38]

“Napoleon,” says Lamartine, “saw that army which a few hours before was his only hope, now returning in broken fragments, and exclaimed, ‘All is lost!’ For a moment he contemplated the disastrous scene, turned pale, stammered, and shed some tears, the first he had ever shed upon a field of battle.”

On marched the English, seized at every step the artillery which had so long poured its iron hail upon them, and driving before them the crowds of dismayed and disordered French. Up the heights on which Napoleon and his army had stood, they now exultingly pressed, and here the two Generals met, with mutual congratulations. Marshal Blucher had well performed his part, though the state of the roads had hindered his arrival until the very close of the battle. In less than an hour he had driven in the whole right wing of the French army, and now reached the very centre of Napoleon’s position, at the same moment when the Duke had penetrated to the same point with his attack in front. After a few moments of hearty rejoicing, the English commander gladly resigned to the Prussian, the remaining duty of a vigorous pursuit. The British troops, after a long day’s work, were physically unable to chase their enemies far. The Prussian General, therefore, to quote their own accounts, assembled his officers, and gave orders to send the last horse and the last man in pursuit of the enemy.”

Well and earnestly was this duty performed. All night long were the wretched French pursued. Nine times did they attempt to halt for rest, and nine times was the Prussian drum heard, and the flight was again to be resumed. A French officer[39] thus describes the scene:--

“Near one of the hedges of Hougoumont, without even a drummer to beat the rappel, we succeeded in rallying 300 men; these were nearly all that remained of our splendid division. Thither came also a band of Generals. Here was Reille,[40] D’Erlon, Bachelor, Foy, and others. All were gloomy and sorrowful. They said, one to another, ‘Here is all that is left of my corps,--of my division,--of my brigade!--I myself!’

“The enemy’s horse approached, and we were obliged to retreat. The movements of the English cavalry had demoralized our soldiers, who, seeing all regular retreat cut off, strove each man to save himself. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, all jammed together, were pressing along pell-mell. Figure to yourself 40,000 men all struggling along a single causeway. We could not take that way, so we struck across the fields. We were humiliated, we were hopeless; we walked like a troop of mourners.

“We passed through Thuin, and finding a little copse, we gladly sought its shelter. While our horses grazed, we lay down and slept. We rested in the little copse till noon, and sat watching the wrecks of our army defile along the road. It was a soul-harrowing sight!

“We drew near to Beaumont, when suddenly a regiment of horse was seen debouching from a wood on our left. The column that we followed cried out, ‘The Prussians! the Prussians!’ and hurried off in utter disorder.

“I was trying to return to General Foy, when another horde of fugitives burst into Beaumont, swept me into the current of their flight, and hurried me out of the town with them. I reached Landrecy, though I know not how or when.”

Such is the description given by one of the fugitives, and it exactly corresponds with the official report of the Prussian General, Gneisenau, who says, “The French army, pursued without intermission, was absolutely disorganized. The highway presented the appearance of an immense shipwreck; it was covered with an innumerable quantity of cannon, caissons, baggage, arms, and goods of every kind. As soon as the enemy heard the sound of our drums, they fled, while the moonlight favoured the pursuit, for the whole march was a continued chase, whether in the corn-fields or in the houses.”

“At three o’clock Napoleon had despatched a courier to Paris with the news that victory was certain: a few hours afterwards he had no longer an army.”

The French accounts, Gourgaud’s, Napoleon’s, &c., written long after, endeavour to diminish the defeat by representing that within a week as many us 60 or 65,000 men were re-assembled at Laon. Some one attempted to make a representation of this sort in the French Chamber of Peers, on the 24th of June; when Marshal Ney rose in his place, and declared all such accounts to be deceptive. “It is a mere illusion to suppose that 60,000 men can be collected. Marshal Grouchy,” said he, “cannot have more than 20,000, or 25,000 at the most.”

Fortunately, however, the question is set at rest by Fleury de Chaboulon, Napoleon’s secretary, who describes very vividly what followed immediately after the battle. He tells us, how, in his flight, on meeting Maret, “the Emperor could not repress his emotion; a large tear, escaping from his eyes, betrayed the efforts of his soul.” Again he says, “The Emperor stopped beyond Rocroi to take some refreshment. We were all in a pitiable state: our eyes swelled with tears, our countenances haggard, our clothes covered with dust or blood.” And, on arriving at Paris, when one of his ministers spoke of the army, Napoleon exclaimed, “_I have no longer an army!_ I have nothing but fugitives!”[41]

It was this absolute destruction of the French army which made Waterloo one of the greatest and most important of all victories. Thus, Jules Maurel, a French historian, says:--

“From a comparison of all the documents, it appears, that Bonaparte was already beaten when the mass of the Prussian army appeared on the field; but the arrival of Bulow had powerfully assisted the British, and the arrival of Blucher changed the defeat into _an unparalleled disaster_.”

Lamartine, another Frenchman, adds:--

“This defeat left nothing undecided,--nothing for the future to do. Victory had given judgment: the war began and ended in a single battle.”

But let us return for a moment to the great victor of the day. At a road-side house, near Rossomme, he left Blucher, who gladly undertook the pursuit, and after twelve hours of constant exertion, he turned his charger’s head once more towards Mont St. Jean and Waterloo. Darkness now shrouded a thousand scenes of horror, over which it had been useless to pause. At his quarters the Duke found assembled the survivors of his staff, the representatives of the allied powers, and a few other friends. All sorely needed rest and food, and the meal was ready. On leaving his quarters in the morning, he had desired his domestics to have dinner ready to place on the table “whenever it might be wanted” and his cook excited amusement by the confidence with which he asserted, that “his master had ordered dinner, and would certainly return to eat it.” But the thoughts which would throng into the conqueror’s mind, at that moment, must have been such as few men have ever experienced.

The foremost considerations with the Duke of Wellington always were, _his country, and his duty_. But besides these there was a personal question, little spoken of by him, but which could not be excluded from his thoughts.

“I go to measure myself with Wellington,” exclaimed Napoleon, when he flung himself into his carriage, only a few days before, to join his army on the Belgian frontier. The Duke spoke not of such matters, but he could not possibly forget that the muse of history was waiting all that day, to know _which_ of the two great names was to take the highest place among the many able commanders of the nineteenth century. The one had defeated, in turn, nearly every general in Europe, except Wellington. The other had triumphed over almost all the Marshals of France, but had not yet confronted Napoleon.

Captain Moyle Sherer thus writes:--

“Upon the night of that memorable battle, the words and emotions of the conqueror will long be remembered by those who sat with him at supper, after the anxious and awful day had closed. The fountain of a great heart lies deep, and the self-government of a calm mind permits no tears. But, this night, Wellington repeatedly leaned back in his chair, and rubbing his hands convulsively, exclaimed, “Thank God! I have met him: Thank God! I have met him.”[42] And, ever as he spoke, the smile that lighted up his eye was dimmed by those few tears that gush warm from a grateful heart.

“His many and deep anxieties; his noble desire to defeat his country’s implacable enemy; his rational doubts of success against so great a general;--these and many other fears and hopes, undisclosed to any one, all were now resolved and dissipated by a result more sudden, full, and glorious than any expectation he could have formed, or any hope he could have admitted. England was placed on the very pinnacle of glory; her foe was prostrate, his legions fugitives, and her general might joyfully look around and say, ‘This work was mine!’”

But after necessary food, and the writing of despatches and letters, came such rest as the excited mind and body could take. The Duke threw himself, unwashed but exhausted, on his bed long after midnight. He had desired Dr. Hume to bring him the report of the surgeons at seven in the morning. The doctor was punctual, but the claims of nature were not satisfied, the Duke’s sleep was still sound. Knowing that, with him, duty was paramount to all other considerations, the doctor at once awakened him. The list was produced, and the doctor began to read; but as name after name came forth--this one as dying, that as dead--the voice failed, and Hume, looking up, perceived the tears rapidly chasing each other down the victor’s blackened cheeks;--he laid down the list and instantly left the apartment.

The British loss was indeed great. Of the Duke’s staff twelve were killed and forty-six wounded. The number of British officers killed and wounded in these three days exceeded 700, and of privates it was more than 10,000, so that about every third man in the British ranks had been struck down in this terrible battle. The loss of Dutch, Hanoverians, &c., had been 7,000; and that of the Prussians exceeded 6,000. As to the French, their loss in killed and wounded never could be ascertained; but it is certain that of 150,000 men who crossed the frontiers, not 50,000 were ever re-assembled under their colours.

The utter loss of his army sent Napoleon back to Paris. But the news of his total defeat arrived along with him. His fame, his “glory,” and his power perished together. The Chambers rose in rebellion against him; and his abdication was demanded. The English and Prussian armies, meanwhile, rapidly advanced; and on their arrival before Paris the city capitulated; the King returned to his palace; and Napoleon gave himself up to the Captain of an English ship of war. On the 15th of June one of the finest armies that he had ever led into the field entered Belgium to take advantage of the Duke of Wellington’s unprepared state;--on the 3rd of July, just fifteen days after, _Paris itself capitulated_! Such were the vast results of Waterloo.

Napoleon, indeed, had been in some peril, for the Prussian general showed a particular anxiety to get hold of him, in order that he might hang him! The Duke had no fondness for him,--always designating him in his despatches, merely as “Bonaparte;” but the old Prussian field-marshal, remembering the cruel treatment of his country by the French in 1807, felt, and constantly expressed, sentiments of positive hatred. The Duke, however, with that loftiness of aim and of feeling which had forbidden his officers to fire upon Napoleon during the action, firmly resisted Blucher’s desires on this point. General Muffling, the Prussian commissioner, tells us, that the Duke said to him, “I wish my friend and colleague to see this matter in the light I do: such an act would give our names to history stained with a crime; and posterity would say of us, “They were not worthy to be his conquerors; the more so, as such a deed would be useless, and can have no object.”

In the same tone the Duke wrote to Sir Charles Stuart, telling him, “I said, that as a private friend, I advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined that if the Sovereign put him to death, they should appoint an executioner, _which should not be me_.”

In a similar spirit, the Duke succeeded in preventing the Prussians from executing other plans of vengeance, such us the blowing up the bridge of Jena, pulling down the column of Austerlitz, and the like. In fact, had the old marshal been alone in these transactions, he would gladly have indulged his troops with the plunder of Paris.

Indeed, such an utter overthrow as France had received, and that in the course of a few days, was hardly to be paralleled in history. Sufficient stress has seldom been laid upon that wonderful working of the Divine Providence by which this great contest, expected by all men to be so long, so desperate, and so sanguinary, was suddenly brought to a close on the fourth day after its commencement. All the great powers of Europe had agreed upon a united effort. They had pledged their faith to one another to place 600,000 men on the soil of France in July, 1815.

All at once, in the middle of June, while the bulk of these armies were moving up from Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and other distant lands, they hear that the war is begun. And in four days after, they hear that it is _finished_! Such is not the ordinary course of human history.

All, however, is easily accounted for. Napoleon saw in England the most resolute, consistent, and indomitable of his foes, and in England’s Great General, the only Captain whom he could hold in no light esteem. He said, and not unwisely, “If the Anglo-Belgian army had been destroyed at Waterloo, what service could the Allies derive from the number of armies which were preparing to cross the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees?”[43]

And acting upon this sound view of the case, and knowing that one or two more weeks would elapse before Wellington could have his veteran battalions around him, he resolved to throw himself like an avalanche upon the Duke’s army in its unreadiness; in the hope that a campaign beginning with a defeat of this his chief opponent would alarm England, terrify the other powers, and so make peace, with his continued retention of the throne of France, attainable.

This plan was a sagacious as well as a bold one. It grappled at once with the grand difficulty of the case. But the difficulty, when grappled with, overmastered him. Still, the peculiar characteristics of this momentous struggle deserves to be carefully remarked. A judicious writer has well observed, that:--

“Waterloo seemed to bear the features of a grand, immediate interposition of Providence. Had human judgments been consulted, they would have drawn a different plan. The Prussians would have joined the English and have swept the enemy before them; or, the British would have been in force enough to have beaten the French long before the set of sun, &c., &c. But if the French had suffered a common defeat, with consummate generals at their head they would have rallied; or, retiring in force, would have called in all available aids, and have renewed the struggle. So the conflict held on till the last moment, when they could neither escape nor conquer. If they had retreated an hour before nightfall they might have been saved; if they could have fought an hour after it, darkness would have covered them. But the crash came on the very edge of darkness. The Prussians came up unfatigued by battle and fresh for pursuit. The night was to be a night of slaughter. ‘Thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.’”

Such was one of the grand events of modern history,--the victory which gave all Europe peace for forty years. Ascribing, as we most unreservedly do, the whole ordering of this momentous struggle to an overruling Providence, it still seems a duty to add a few words on the respective merits, or demerits, connected with this tremendous contest, of the two great commanders, who for the first and last time met at Waterloo. Let us first glance at the great deeds achieved, and the great mistakes committed, by Napoleon in the course of these three eventful days.

He carried his magnificent army over the frontier, and threw it upon the allied armies in a manner exhibiting the most consummate skill. Twenty years spent in the practice of war had given him an expertness in the handling of large bodies of troops which few generals have ever possessed. He showed also on the 16th that he was a better general than Blucher, and that his army was a better army than that of the Prussians. But here our commendation must close; for a variety of faults and errors have been pointed out by military critics, of which we shall only mention a few of the chief. Napoleon was guilty of two great miscalculations, and of three important practical mistakes. These were:--

1. He rashly and erroneously assumed that his appearance in Belgium at the head of a fine army would force his opponents, Wellington and Blucher, out of mere awe and terror, to fall back, to evacuate the country, and so to give him a triumph at the opening of the campaign. In his ixth Book he seriously argues that they _ought_ to have done so: but this was a strange miscalculation. When had either Wellington or Blucher showed any alacrity in running away? And what right had he to assume that a force amounting, when united, to nearly 200,000 men, would act as if terror-stricken, on the mere appearance of a French army of only 150,000? Yet he constantly tells us that they ought to have retreated, and that his calculations always rested on the presumption that they certainly would retreat.

2. In like manner was he disappointed when he sent Grouchy with 35,000 or 40,000 men, to occupy and keep employed the whole Prussian army. Again did he absurdly overlook the real character of Blucher, who was not one to be easily duped. Napoleon might speculate, if he pleased, on the chance of keeping Blucher at Wavre while he was overpowering and crushing Wellington at Waterloo; but Blucher was equally at liberty to despise all such devices, and to leave Napoleon’s lieutenant in order to seek for Napoleon himself. This was what actually took place, and hence we see that again Napoleon is exposed to the imputation of having fatally miscalculated.

3. But as in his plans there were these two errors, so in actual execution we meet with three egregious faults. Having found Wellington with his weak army apart from Blucher, why did he allow several hours to elapse before he seized the opportunity for which he had been hoping? He speaks of the softened state of the ground after several hours’ rain. But, as we have seen, when Grouchy advances the same excuse for inaction at Wavre, he styles it “ridiculous!” and who can say that the movements which he actually made at eleven o’clock, _could not_ have been made at ten, or even at nine o’clock? Meanwhile, although Napoleon was _waiting_, the Prussians were _marching_. They found the task _difficult_, while he deemed it _impossible_. In earlier days he would have replied that “there was no such word in his vocabulary.”

4. Again, to what strange hallucination was it owing, that, all through the day, attacks which might have been made simultaneously were only discharged in succession? Thus, at three or four o’clock, he sorely tried the nerve and pluck of the English infantry by pouring in upon them “twelve thousand select horse.” It took them three hours to kill or drive away these formidable intruders. And _then_, when the French cavalry had been destroyed, Napoleon next attacked the English line with six or eight thousand of his Imperial Guard. But what prevented his moving this formidable column up the heights of Mont St. Jean, while the cuirassiers were already in possession of the plateau? They had seized or silenced the English artillery; they had compelled the infantry to throw themselves into squares. If a mass of the finest infantry in France had then been thrown upon the British centre, how fearful would have been the trial? But Napoleon still delayed. He sent on his cavalry, unsupported by any infantry; and then, when the cavalry had been “massacred,” he sent on a column of infantry, unsupported by any cavalry. Will the greatest admirer of his genius hesitate to admit that his practical generalship, his excellence as a leader in battle, was not conspicuous at Waterloo? Yet, wherefore was he less vigorous, less audacious at Waterloo, than at Austerlitz or Jena? He was still in the very prime of life. Must we suppose that the toils and troubles and disappointments of 1812-1814 had prematurely worn out his mind; and that he was already, at only forty-six years of age, mentally decrepit?

5. The most singular exhibition of defect in generalship, however, and of blindness to that defect, is seen in this,--that he could not lose a battle without utterly losing his army also!

The general who can bear a defeat well, and can carry off his army with only a moderate loss, is entitled to take a high rank amongst commanders. He who cannot do this is only a fair-weather general.

The Prussian commander was attacked on the 16th before his army was all assembled. He placed his men badly,--so badly that Wellington predicted their certain defeat. Yet, when that defeat fell upon him, he rallied his army at a distance of a quarter of a league, and was ready and eager to fight another battle on the second day after. It was this unconquerability which made Blucher one of the most formidable antagonists of his time.

But let us turn to Napoleon. He invites us to do this, by the pertinacity with which he assails Wellington on this very point. Again and again he brings the charge vehemently against him, that at Waterloo he had made no provision for a retreat. Thus, in Book ix, p. 124, he says:--

“He had in his rear the defiles of the forest of Soignes, so that, if beaten, retreat was impossible.”

And again, at p. 158--

“The enemy must have seen with affright how many difficulties the field of battle he had chosen was about to throw in the way of his retreat.”

And again, at p. 207--

“The position of Mont St. Jean was ill-chosen. The first requisite of a field of battle, is, to have no defiles in its rear. The injudicious choice of his field of battle, rendered all retreat impossible.”

Thus Napoleon challenges our criticism on this very point. All military authorities are agreed that he was wrong in his censure on Wellington. It is conceded even by Frenchmen like Lamartine, that the forest of Soignes, instead of being a source of peril, was an element of safety. But he who assails his rival on this especial point, of a provision for retreat, must expect to be asked, himself, “How his own retreat was conducted?”

There is no parallel to its disastrous character. An army of nearly 90,000 fine soldiers, not 40,000 of which could have been killed or wounded, was nothing the next day but a vast horde of fugitives. We notice, with contemptuous pity, how the Spanish generals, in 1809, managed to incur such a disgraceful defeat at Ocana, that out of 50,000 men, not 1,000 kept the field a week after. But here was one of the finest armies that ever France sent forth, commanded too, by the conqueror, of Europe; and even the very day after the battle, not a single thousand men were to be found in the field! All were utterly scattered and broken up. And yet their general has the assurance, in criticising the general who has beaten him, to censure him, especially, because “he had taken no precautions to secure his retreat!”

But now of his great rival and conqueror:--The Duke of Wellington had not the same opportunity for displaying his skill and talent in 1815, which he had enjoyed in 1813. His proposed campaign was to open on the 1st of July, and it had been the favourite object of Napoleon to take the initiative, to open the campaign before the British troops from America had arrived, and thus to lead the campaign himself without waiting for the Duke to open it. Hence, during these three days, Napoleon was always advancing, attacking, while Wellington, with his weak army was making the best defence he could. And, accordingly, at Waterloo, the Duke knowing the disparity of his force, could only hope to “keep his ground” till the Prussians should arrive. He was in the position of a small man attacked by a giant. He could only parry his blows and allow the assailant to exhaust his strength, in the hope that, at last, by a well-aimed thrust he might lay his enemy prostrate. For nine long hours, therefore, the Duke’s whole business was to meet and repel the powerful attacks of Napoleon; and he had to do this with, according to Napoleon’s own admission, “less than 40,000 good troops.” In fact, his infantry, British and of the German Legion, were only 18,485, his British and German Legion cavalry 7,834, while Napoleon had very nearly 70,000 excellent infantry, and more than 18,000 splendid cavalry. Yet for these nine hours did the Duke meet and repel all his assaults. This sort of soldiership is less showy than daring manœuvres, but it is equally valuable; and in the present instance, when the materials the Duke had to work with are considered, the merit of it is not at all inferior. One of the best generals commanding under the Duke, when acknowledging the thanks of the House of Commons, said, “An army hastily drawn together, composed of the troops of various nations, and amongst which were counted several brigades of inexperienced militia, was the force which the Duke had to oppose to one of the most formidable and best-appointed armies that France ever produced. No other man living could have rendered the service which he performed, with an army so composed.”

The chief point, however, in the character of a great general is the possession of that “eagle eye” which enables him, amid all the din and turmoil of a horrible contest, to perceive exactly the right moment for vigorous action, and the right place at which to aim an attack. It was this, especially, which gave the Duke his first signal victory over the French at Salamanca; and it was this which turned the repulse of the French at Waterloo into a disastrous defeat.

Narrative-writers, collecting, long after, the best available testimony from all quarters, and carefully comparing and sifting the whole, are able to arrive at probable conclusions as to the order and date of the leading events. But this sort of calm investigation is wholly different from the horrible din, the ceaseless clamour, and the almost impervious smoke which obscures everything on the battle-field. We, for instance, comparing the accounts of the French, the Prussians, and the Austrians, are able to arrive at the conclusion, with absolute certainty that General Bulow’s corps first showed itself on the right of the French line about half-past four, and began to take part in the engagement about half-past five. But it is quite certain that the Duke, fully occupied just then with the French cavalry, who were riding round his squares, knew nothing of the actual arrival of the long-expected succour until long after. It was nearly two hours after this, when, by carefully examining every part of the left of his line, the Duke was able to perceive the rising of smoke over Planchenoit. This was not until seven o’clock; but it assured him of this, that some part of the promised Prussian support had arrived, and that more must be coming up. And this was sufficient to give him new hopes of ultimate success, though he could be certain, as yet, of very little more than that some aid was at hand.

It was shortly after this, and about the time of the movement of the Imperial Guard, when news reached him from Marshal Blucher himself that he was then actually joining the extreme left of the British line. It was this support which enabled the British light cavalry to move from the left of the line, and to take a position nearer the centre. And hence, when the English and the French Guards had tried each other’s mettle, and the latter had retired in disorder, the Duke saw at one comprehensive glance the arrival of that moment for which he had been longing,--the defeat and confusion of Napoleon’s last reserve; the presence of the long-promised Prussian succours, at that last moment of daylight, which just allowed time for one daring movement and no more. And the decision and boldness with which the Duke seized this golden opportunity are among the finest traits in the whole history of great military deeds. A brief hesitation, if only of a quarter of an hour, would have allowed the French, although beaten, to retire at leisure. A renewal of the contest might have followed after the lapse of a couple of days, but how different would have been the whole history of such a campaign from that of Waterloo! It was this clear perception of the right moment for an attack, and the fearlessness with which fewer than 30,000 men were led forward to assault at least twice their numbers, commanded by Napoleon, Soult, and Ney,--it was this wonderful union of prudence, decision, and the highest kind of valour, which made the Duke of Wellington the first of all the generals of his day.

And, united with those lofty endowments, there was the patient, enduring, untiring discharge of every duty of a commander. In this, as in every other of his battles, the Duke was constantly wherever his presence was needed. There could not be a pressure felt at any portion of the line,--there could not be an anxious moment when even the bravest might look around him and begin to think of the possibility of an overthrow, but presently the well-known chestnut-horse would be seen, and the whisper would run through the ranks, “Here’s the Duke! stand fast!” This might seem to some to be merely a matter of course; but it is the being always in the right place at the right time; it is the union of the commonest duties with the highest which fills up the outline of a great character, and leaves to posterity not only a brilliant name, but a really bright example.”[44]

WAWZ, BATTLE OF.--Fought, March 31st, 1831, between the Poles and the Russians. After two days of hard labour in fighting, the Poles carried the Russian works, who were obliged to retreat, with the loss of 12,000 men and 2000 prisoners. This triumph of the Poles was shortly after followed by defeat and massacre.

WHITE PLAINS, BATTLE OF.--Between the revolted American Provinces and the British, under Sir William Howe. Fought, November 30th, 1776. This was the most serious of the early battles of that unfortunate war, and terminated in the defeat of the Americans, who suffered considerable loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners.

WIGAN, BATTLE OF.--In the civil war of England, fought between the King’s troops and the Parliamentary forces. The former were defeated, 1643. Another battle, between the same parties, was fought here, 1651.

WITEPSK, BATTLE OF.--Between the French and Russians. The former commanded by Marshal Victor, and the latter by General Wittgenstein. The French were defeated, after a desperate engagement, having lost 3000 men. Fought, November 14th, 1812.

WORCESTER, BATTLE OF.--In the civil war fought between the Royalist army and the forces of the Parliament, the latter commanded by Cromwell, a large body of Scots having marched into England to reinstate Charles II, Cromwell signally defeated them, and it afforded to him what he called his _crowning mercy_; more than 2000 of the Royalists were slain, and of 8000 prisoners, nearly all were sold as slaves to the American Colonies. Fought, September 3rd, 1651. The following is an account of the flight of the young King, after the disastrous day of battle:--

“Charles, in his progress towards Bristol, was pursued by a party of the enemy to the new ferry over the Severn. He rode through Shire Newton, and crossed the Severn at Chiswell Pit, on the Gloucestershire side. The boat had scarcely returned, before a body of the republicans, amounting to 60 men, followed him to the Black Rock, and threatening them with instant death if they refused, compelled the ferrymen to take them across. The boatmen were royalists, and left them on a reef called English Stones, which is separated from the Gloucestershire side by a lake, fordable at low water; but the tide, which had just turned, flowed in with great rapidity, and they were all drowned in attempting to cross. Cromwell, when informed of this disaster, abolished the ferry, and it was not renewed until the year 1748. The renewal occasioned a law-suit between the family of St. Pierre and the guardians of the Duke of Beaufort. In the course of the suit, documents were produced which tended to confirm this anecdote.”

WRECKS.--The most remarkable shipwrecks of British men of war or transports, or of ships, connected with military events, are the following which have happened within the last 85 years:

A tremendous storm occurred in October, 1780, in the West Indies, and the following vessels of war were all lost.

_Thunderer_, of 74 guns; _Stirling Castle_, of 64 guns; _Phœnix_, of 44 guns; _La Blanche_, of 42 guns; _Laurel_, of 28 guns; _Andromeda_, of 28 guns; _Deal Castle_, of 24 guns; _Scarborough_, of 20 guns; _Barbadoes_, of 14 guns; _Cameleon_, of 14 guns; _Endeavour_, of 14 guns; and the _Victor_, of 10 guns.

_The Royal George_--June 28th, 1782,--1000 persons and brave Admiral Kenpenfeldt perished by the sinking, or rather oversetting of this 100 gun man-of-war. The guns on one side all rolled over to the other, and with the extra weight immediately overset the ship riding at anchor at Spithead.

_Ramilies_, of 74 guns, off Newfoundland, September 21st, 1782. 100 souls perished.

_Pandora Frigate_, on a reef of rocks, August 28th, 1791. 100 souls perished.

_Droits de l’Homme_--A British ship of the line, and the _Amazon_, a frigate, lost off Hodierne Bay. Many hundreds perished, January 14th, 1797.

_Nassau_, of 64 guns, October 25th, 1799. 100 of the crew and marines perished.

_Queen_, transport on Trefusis Point, January 14th, 1800. 369 souls lost.

_Queen Charlotte_, of 110 guns, lost March 17th, 1800. This was the flag ship of Lord Keith, commanding in the Mediterranean Sea, burnt by accidental fire off the harbor of Leghorn. More than 700 perished. The ship took fire just before day break. It was occasioned by a match kept burning for the purpose of firing salutes, having communicated itself to some hay, &c., and so rapidly did the fire rage, that nothing could save the noble vessel. She burned rapidly to the water’s edge, and then blew up.

_Invincible_, of 74 guns, March 20th, 1801. 400 souls perished.

_Apollo_, frigate, lost April 2nd, 1804, in a heavy gale off Capo Mondego. 61 of her crew and her commander, perished, and with her 40 sail of the outward-bound West India fleet, lost.

_Venerable_, of 74 guns, Nov. 24th, 1804. Crew saved.

_Tartarus_, of 74 guns, December 20th, 1804. Crew saved.

_Æneas_, transport, off Newfoundland, lost October 23rd, 1805. 340 perished.

_Aurora_, transport, lost on the Godwin Sands, December 21st, 1805. 300 perished.

_Athenienne_, of 64 guns lost off Sardinia, October 20th, 1806. 347 perished.

_Ajax_--Lost by fire off the Island of Tenedos, February 14th, 1807. 300 perished.

_Boreas_, man-of-war, lost upon the Hannois Rock in the Channel, November 28th, 1807.

_Anson_, frigate, lost near Land’s End, December 29th, 1807. 125 persons drowned.

_Magicienne_, frigate, August 16th, 1810. She ran aground at the Mauritius, and was abandoned and burnt by her crew.

_Satellite_, sloop-of-war of 16 guns, December 14th, 1810. Upset and all on board perished.

_Minotam_, of 74 guns, wrecked on the Haak Bank, December 27th, 1810. Of 600 persons on board, about 480 were drowned.

_Amethyst_, frigate of 36 guns, lost in the Sound, February 15th, 1811.

_Barham_, of 74 guns. Foundered July 29th, 1811, on the coast of Corsica.

_Saldanha_, frigate, lost on the Irish coast, December, 1811. 300 souls perished.

_St. George_, of 98 guns, and the _Defence_, of 74 guns, stranded on the coast of Jutland, and all souls perished, except 16 seamen, December 24th, 1811.

_Seahorse_, transport, near Tramore Bay, January 30th, 1816. 365 souls, chiefly soldiers of the 59th Regiment, and most of the crew, lost.

_Lord Melville_, and _Boadicea_, two transports lost near Kinsale, Ireland, when several hundred of the 82nd Regiment, and almost all the crew perished, January 31st, 1816.

_Harpooner_, transport, off Newfoundland, November 10th, 1816. 100 persons drowned.

_Kent_, shattered by a dreadful storm, February 28th 1825. Afterwards she caught fire; but the passengers and crew were providentially saved by the _Cambria_. There were on board 301 officers and men of the 31st regiment, 66 women, 45 children, and 139 seamen.

“The _Kent_, _Indiaman_, was making her way in the Bay of Biscay on the morning of the 1st of March, 1825, across the heavy swell common in that stormy entrance to the Atlantic, when her progress was arrested by a fatal accident. An officer, who was sent into the hold to see whether the rolling of the vessel had disturbed the stowage, perceiving that a cask of spirits had burst from its lashings, gave the lamp he had in his hand to a seaman to hold, while he should replace the cask. Unfortunately, in the continued rolling of the vessel, the man let the lamp fall near the spirits, to which it set fire in a moment. The flames spread; attempts were made to smother them by wet blankets and hammocks, but all was in vain, and they soon assumed an aspect so tremendous, as to show that it would be impossible to subdue them.

At this moment of despair, the man at the mast-head exclaimed that a sail was in sight; guns were fired, and a signal of distress hoisted. The gale, however, was so heavy, that it was for some time doubtful whether the strange vessel perceived the signals, or was likely to turn aside from her course; but this painful suspense was soon removed by her approach. The boats of the _Kent_ were now got out and placed, not alongside, on account of the flames and the danger of staving the boats, but a-head and a-stern. In the latter many got out from the cabin-windows, but the chief part were let down from the bowsprit into the boat a-head, and the men sliding down by a rope, while the soldiers’ wives were lowered into the boat slung three together.

The fire had burst out about ten o’clock, and about twelve the signal of distress had been perceived by the strange sail, which proved to be the _Cambria_, outward-bound to Mexico, with mining workmen and machinery, shipped by the Anglo-Mexican company. It was two o’clock when the _Cambria_ received the first boat-load of passengers, consisting of ladies and children, half clothed, and pale with fright and fatigue. The whole afternoon was passed in exertions on board the one vessel in sending off the sufferers, and in the other in receiving them. The _Cambria_ had amongst her passengers several stout workmen, who took their station at the ship’s side, and were indefatigable in hoisting the poor sufferers on board; so that, out of 642 persons in the _Kent_, no less than 547 were safe in the _Cambria_ before midnight. The remainder (95 in number) were lost, chiefly in getting out and in of the boats, the swell of the sea being very great all the time. The captain of the _Kent_ was the last man to leave her. She blew up at a few minutes before two o’clock on Wednesday morning.

It may naturally be asked how the vessel could keep so long together amid so destructive a conflagration? She could not have kept together two hours, had not the officers, to avoid one danger, encountered another by opening the ports and letting in the water, when she shipped such heavy seas as to become water-logged, which of course prevented her burning downwards.

The _Cambria_, a vessel of little more than 200 tons, was previously sufficiently filled, having goods in her hold, and about 50 persons in passengers and ship’s company. How great then must have been the pressure and confusion caused by the influx which carried the total on board to more than 600! The progress of the fire in the _Kent_ had been so rapid, as to prevent the sufferers from saving any clothes, except what was on their persons, and both officers and soldiers were thus ill prepared to encounter the wet and cold of the deck. The cabin and the ’tween decks (the space for the steerage passengers) were thus crowded beyond measure, and most fortunate it was that the wind continued favourable for the return of the _Cambria_ to an English port. She reached Falmouth in 48 hours after quitting the wreck, and landed her unfortunate inmates on the 4th of March.”

_Lord William Bentinck_, lost off Bombay; 58 recruits, 20 officers, and seven passengers perished. This lamentable occurrence happened June 17th, 1840.

_Abercrombie Robinson_, and _Waterloo_, transports, in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope; of 330 persons on board the last named vessel, 189, principally convicts, were drowned, August 28th, 1842.

_H.M.S. Fantome_, of 16 guns, lost off Montevideo, June 25th, 1843.

The troop ship _Albert_ from Halifax with the 64th Regiment on board which was miraculously saved July 13th, 1843.

_H.M. Frigate Wilberforce_, lost on the coast of Africa, February 2nd, 1844.

_Birkenhead_, troopship, from Queenstown to the Cape of Good Hope, with detachments of several regiments on board. She struck on a pointed rock off Simon’s Bay, and 454 of the crew and soldiers were drowned; 184 only were saved by the ship’s boat.

The _Trent_, and a great number of other ships of all capacity, wrecked off the Crimea during the war. A tremendous tornado swept the Black Sea and literally dashed many of the brave ships of England and France to pieces.

WURTZCHEN, BATTLE OF.--One of the most bloody and fiercely contested battles of the campaign of 1813. Fought between the allied Russian and Prussian armies, and the French, commanded by Napoleon himself. The carnage was dreadful on each side, but the Allies retreated from the field. Fought, May 21st, 1813.

X AND Y.

XIMERA, BATTLE OF.--Between the Spanish army, under the command of General Ballasteros, and the French corps, commanded by General Regnier. The Spaniards were defeated with great loss; the French also lost very much. Fought, September 10th, 1811.

XERXES’ BRIDGE. See Bridge of Xerxes.

YEAVERNY, BATTLE OF.--Between the Scots and the Earl of Westmoreland. Fought, 1415. In this memorable engagement, 430 English discomfited 4000 Scots, and took 160 prisoners; also called the battle of Geteringe.

YPRES, BATTLE OF.--Between Henry IV of France, and the Generals of the Roman Catholic League, over whom he obtained a complete victory.

Z.

ZAMA, BATTLE OF.--Between the two greatest Generals of the age, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. The Romans lost 2000 in killed and wounded, whilst the Carthaginians lost, in killed and prisoners, more than 40,000. Fought B.C. 202.

“These two generals, who were not only the most illustrious of their own age, but worthy of being ranked with the most renowned princes and warriors that had ever lived, meeting at the place appointed, continued for some time in a deep silence, as though they were astonished, and struck with a mutual admiration at the sight of each other. At last Hannibal spoke; and, after having praised Scipio in the most artful and delicate manner, he gave a very lively description of the ravages of the war, and the calamities in which it had involved both the victors and the vanquished. He conjured him not to suffer himself to be dazzled by the splendor of his victories. He represented to him, that how successful soever he might have hitherto been, he ought, however, to tremble at the inconstancy of fortune: that without going far back for examples, he himself who was then speaking to him, was a glaring proof of this: that Scipio was at that time what himself, Hannibal, had been at Thrasymene and Cannæ: that he ought to make a better use of opportunity than himself had done, and consent to peace, now it was in his power to propose the conditions of it. He concluded with declaring, that the Carthaginians would willingly resign Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and all the islands between Africa and Italy to the Romans. That they must be forced, since such was the will of the gods, to confine themselves to Africa; whilst they should see the Romans extending their conquests to the most remote regions, and obliging all nations to pay obedience to their laws.

Scipio answered in few words, but not with less dignity. He reproached the Carthaginians for their perfidy, in plundering the Roman galleys before the truce was expired. He imputed to them only, and to their injustice, all the calamities with which the two wars had been attended. After thanking Hannibal for the admonition he gave him, with regard to the uncertainty of human events, he concluded with desiring him to prepare for battle, unless he chose rather to accept of the conditions that had been already proposed; to which he observed some others would be added, in order to punish the Carthaginians for their having violated the truce.

Hannibal could not prevail with himself to accept these conditions and the generals left one another, with the resolution to decide the fate of Carthage by a general battle. Each commander exhorted his troops to fight valiantly. Hannibal enumerated the victories he had gained over the Romans, the generals he had slain, the armies he had cut to pieces. Scipio represented to his soldiers, the conquests of both the Spains, his successes in Africa, and the tacit confession their enemies themselves made of their weakness, by thus coming to sue for peace. All this he spoke with the tone and air of a conqueror. Never were motives more prevalent to prompt troops to behave gallantly. This day was to complete the glory of the one or the other of the generals; and to decide whether Rome or Carthage was to prescribe laws to all other nations.

I shall not undertake to describe the order of the battle, nor the valour of the forces on both sides. The reader will naturally suppose, that two such experienced generals did not forget any circumstance which could contribute to the victory. The Carthaginians, after a very obstinate fight, were obliged to fly, leaving 20,000 men on the field of battle, and the like number of prisoners were taken by the Romans. Hannibal escaped in the tumult, and, entering Carthage, owned that he was irrecoverably overthrown, and that the citizens had no other choice left, but to accept of peace on any conditions. Scipio bestowed great eulogiums on Hannibal, chiefly with regard to his capacity in taking advantages, his manner of drawing up his army, and giving out his orders in the engagement; and he affirmed that Hannibal had this day surpassed himself, although the success had not answered his valour and conduct.

With regard to himself, he well knew how to make a proper advantage of the victory, and the consternation with which he had filled the enemy. He commanded one of his lieutenants to march his land army to Carthage, whilst himself prepared to sail the fleet thither.

He was not far from the city, when he met a vessel covered with streamers and olive branches, bringing ten of the most considerable persons of the state, as ambassadors to implore his clemency. However, he dismissed them without making any answer, and bid them come to him at Tunis, where he should halt. The deputies of Carthage, being 30 in number, came to him at the place appointed, and sued for peace in the most submissive terms. He then called a council there, the majority of which were for razing Carthage, and treating the inhabitants with the utmost severity. But the consideration of the time which must necessarily be employed before so strongly fortified a city could be taken, and Scipio’s fear lest a successor might be appointed him whilst he should be employed in the siege, made him incline to clemency.”

ZARAGOZA, SECOND SIEGE OF.--“The sufferings of the gallant Zaragozans, during the former siege, had not subdued the spirit of heroic devotion by which they had been animated. Another trial awaited them, not less memorable and glorious, though less fortunate in its result.

After the defeat of Tudela, Palafox retired to Zaragoza, to make preparations for a second siege. He was not present in the action. The intelligence of its issue came upon him like a thunderbolt; and the refusal of Castanos to throw his troops into Zaragoza, instead of retreating on Madrid, put an end to those feelings of confidence and frankness which had hitherto existed between the generals.

The multiplied disasters of the Spanish armies, however, so far from shaking the resolution of Palafox or the Zaragozans, appear only to have stimulated them to redoubled exertions in the service of their country. Proclamations were issued, commanding all women, old men, and children, to quit the city. Every inhabitant was imperatively called upon to make sacrifice, if necessary, of his life and property, in the common cause; and the whole population were required, by their personal exertions, to contribute to the completion of the fortifications of the city.

The approach of the enemy cut short the preparations for defence. Neither women nor children left the place. Even these refused to seek safety at a distance from their fathers and husbands, and preferred participating in the danger and the glory which awaited them in Zaragoza, to wandering unprotected through a troubled and a suffering country.

During the former siege, the defenders had been embarrassed by the presence of French residents in the city. These had been strictly guarded, with the double object of preventing any intercourse between them and the besiegers, and of protecting them against the fatal effects of popular suspicion, to which, without such precaution, it is more than probable they would have fallen victims. In order to prevent the repetition of such danger and inconvenience, Palafox determined that these unfortunate persons should be removed from the city to other places of confinement. This was done, notwithstanding the hostility of the populace, though not until Palafox had issued a proclamation appealing to Spanish honour and humanity, and imploring the gallant Zaragozans not to stain the sacred cause of liberty and justice by the foul murder of these defenceless victims.

The aid of superstition was not wanting to strengthen the confidence of the Zaragozans. They relied on the miraculous protection of Our Lady of the Pillar, who had made their favoured city the seat of her peculiar worship. The successful termination of the former siege had given strength to their belief in the beneficent regards of the patron saint. Omens, too, had been observed in the sky. Approaching victory had been prefigured by unwonted conformations of the clouds; and celestial voices were heard in the elements, offering divine promise of glory and protection.

Fortunately, the Zaragozans were not induced, by their belief in these flattering portents, to disregard any of the human means of safety in their power. A continued line of exterior defensive works had been planned and executed, as far as time and circumstances permitted. Yet this, imperfect as it was, added little to the real strength of the city; and, in forming a just estimate of the zeal and courage of the defenders, Zaragoza should almost be considered as an unfortified town. The walls, originally built rather for the purpose of civic impost than defence, were surmounted by 150 pieces of cannon. Large stores of provisions had been formed. Arms and ammunition were in abundance; and the town contained upwards of 20,000 regular troops, besides 15,000 armed peasants.

All the houses within 700 toises of the place were demolished, and the materials employed to strengthen the fortifications. The trees around the city were cut down. The greatest activity reigned on all hands; the women were employed in making clothes for the soldiers; the monks made cartridges: and all those not employed in labouring at the works, practised the use of arms.

Measures were likewise taken for the defence of the city, in case the enemy, which was scarcely to be doubted, should effect an entrance. Traverses were cut across the streets. The doors and windows on the ground-floor were strongly barricaded. Communications were made between the houses; and parapets were constructed on the roofs. Every householder had in his dwelling an ample store of provisions, to enable him to continue his resistance when the enemy should gain possession of the streets. Thus prepared, the Zaragozans awaited the approach of the besiegers.

In the meanwhile, the corps of Marshal Moncey, which had been ordered to blockade the city, remained at Alagon, collecting materials, and awaiting the arrival of his heavy artillery from Pamplona. On the 19th of December it was joined by the corps of Mortier, and on the 20th the united army appeared before Zaragoza. It consisted of about 35,000 infantry, and was accompanied by a battering train of sixty pieces. A corps of cavalry was stationed at Fuentes, to keep the surrounding country in a state of subjection.

The city was approached on both sides of the Ebro. Gazan’s division, having passed the river at Tauste, marched, by the road of Castejon, to Cuera and Villa Nuevo. That of Suchet took post on the right of the Ebro, near a convent, about a league distant from Zaragoza, after driving in the Spanish outposts.

During the night, the enemy erected a battery, which commanded the Torrero, and, in the morning, opened fire on the fort. Unfortunately, a quantity of ammunition was blown up, by the bursting of a shell, which occasioned considerable disorder in the garrison. The French took advantage of this. A column crossed the canal by an aqueduct, of which on the evening before, they had become masters, and entering the fort by the gorge, succeeded in maintaining the place against the efforts of the garrison. At the same time, a brigade of Morlot’s division advanced up the ravine of the Huerba, and, passing the canal under the aqueduct on which it crosses that river, gained possession of a work commanding the sluices of the canal. Two guns were taken in this work. Three guns and 100 prisoners in the fort. General St. Mark succeeded in withdrawing the rest of the garrison.

On the 22nd, General Gazan advanced against the suburb, on the left of the river. He was encountered by about 4000 of the garrison, posted in the woods and gardens, from which, after a warm contest, he succeeded in dislodging them. Gazan then attempted to carry the suburb by a _coup-de-main_. In this he failed. Repulsed in all his efforts, after a long and fruitless contention, he at length withdrew, pursued by the garrison, and with the loss of near 1000 men. The chief loss of the besieged consisted of a corps of Swiss, almost all of whom were killed or taken prisoners in a large building considerably in advance of the suburb.

For several days all was quiet. The enemy were now aware that it was necessary to make a regular investment of the place; and the works in all quarters, were pushed on with vigour. The besieged on their part endeavoured, by incessant labour, to complete the works of defence; batteries were constructed, to enfilade the principal approaches--the magazines were rendered bomb-proof--every outlet was palisaded and traversed; and, thus prepared, they waited with calm fortitude for the approaching struggle.

On the 30th, Marshal Moncey addressed a letter to Palafox, summoning him to surrender the city, now entirely invested, and to spare the effusion of blood which must necessarily follow any further attempt at hopeless resistance. Moncey likewise informed him that Madrid had fallen; and that Napoleon, at the head of a great army, was then in the act of chasing the English to their ships.

To this Palafox replied, that if Madrid had fallen, Madrid had been _sold_. The works of Zaragoza were yet entire; but, were they levelled with the ground, the people and the garrison would rather be buried in the ruins of their city, than disgraced by surrender.

In the meanwhile, General Gazan succeeded in effecting the blockade of the suburb.

On the 29th, the trenches were regularly opened against the Chateau of the Inquisition on the left, the bridge of the Huerba in the centre, and the convent of St. Joseph on the right. The last of these was the principal object of the enemy, because the works in rear were destitute of a rampart, and it was intended to connect the attack with a simultaneous attempt to gain possession of the suburb.

The garrison, however, were not idle. The communication between the convent and the city could not be interrupted; and the garrison of the former, being daily relieved, made frequent sallies, by which the progress of the besiegers was materially retarded. On the 31st, a general sortie, supported by the whole guns of the place, was made against the enemy’s line. Though gallantly supported, it was unattended by any successful result. The repeated attacks of the garrison were repulsed; and, baffled in their efforts, they again entered the city. The loss on both sides was nearly equal.

On the 2nd of January, Moncey was superseded by Marshal Junot in the command of the besieging army. The latter was the bearer of an order to Mortier, to move on Calatayud with Suchet’s division, in order to keep open the communication with Madrid. This arrangement occasioned a material diminution of the besieging force, but no cessation of hostile operations. The works against the convent of St. Joseph still went on, and between the 3rd and 6th of January the second parallel was completed. Till the 10th no action took place; but on that day a tremendous fire from thirty guns was opened on the convent. It was soon rendered untenable. But, amid the ruins, the gunners covered by bags of wool, still continued to exercise their vocation, and fired on the enemy, till the walls were levelled with the ground. Even then the post was not relinquished without a gallant effort. At midnight a sortie was made against one of the batteries, in ignorance that two guns had been planted for its protection. The intention of the brave assailants was thus defeated; and, having suffered heavy loss from a murderous fire, both in front and flank, they again retreated to the city.

Even in the dilapidated condition of the convent, it was not till the evening of the next day that the enemy attempted to carry it by assault. At the same time a party, having turned the convent, succeeded, by means of a wooden bridge which the besieged had omitted to destroy, in effecting an entrance; and thus did the French at length become masters of a heap of ruins, and of about 100 gallant men by whom they were defended.

No sooner were the enemy in possession of St. Joseph, than they employed themselves in repairing the works, and completing the communication between the second and third parallels, the latter of which they established on the right and left of the convent. The garrison on that side were now compelled to remain within their walls; for the besiegers were secured against their efforts by the double obstacle of a river and an escarpment eight feet high.

On the 15th a second parallel was opened against the town; and batteries were commenced in it, to enfilade the defences of the Augustine and Capuchin convents, and that of Sta. Engracia. Yet neither the loss of their outworks, nor a tremendous bombardment, which the French kept up for several days, had the effect of diminishing the ardour of the inhabitants. The Zaragozans were not only actuated by that active and living energy which stimulates to deeds of high enterprize, but they possessed, likewise, that calm and passive fortitude, that buoyant upbearing of the spirit, which suffering cannot depress, nor misfortune overthrow.

But their cup was not yet full. The inhabitants of the part of the city most injured by the bombardment, were driven into the other quarters, where many of them took up their abode in cellars, which afforded comparative security from the shells. The consequence was, that these dark and miserable receptacles became the focus of infectious fever. The disease spread rapidly among a crowded and redundant population. Thus did death, on all hands, present itself to the unshrinking Zaragozans; and the greater part preferred exposing themselves on the ramparts, to breathing the infected air which pervaded the dark and noisome retreats in which they had sought refuge from the shells.

From the 17th to the 21st, the besiegers were occupied in the construction of new batteries to overcome the defences of the garrison; and the third parallel was extended to command two sides of the convent of Sta. Engracia. In these circumstances, a sortie was made, in the hope of spiking the enemy’s artillery. The fire of a battery of four mortars was found peculiarly annoying: and eighty men, commanded by Don Mariano Galindo, volunteered to attack it. They boldly precipitated themselves on the guard of the third parallel, put them to the sword, and succeeded in entering the battery. At the same moment the enemy’s reserve came up. There was no retreat; all perished except the officers and a few wounded soldiers, who were made prisoners.

The movements of the numerous bodies of armed peasantry, in the surrounding country, occasioned great inconvenience to the besiegers. Bands were formed on all hands; which, though unable to resist the attack of disciplined troops, yet were sufficiently formidable to require perpetual vigilance, and numerous enough to narrow the supplies of the besieging army, in a very considerable degree.

About this time, Napoleon, dissatisfied with the slow progress of the siege, sent Marshal Lannes to assume the command. This officer directed Mortier, with his division, to leave Calatayud, and to act on the left of the Ebro. Mortier attacked the force of Francisco Palafox, and succeeded in dispersing it with very considerable loss. Lannes, in order to depress the hopes of the garrison of external assistance, addressed a letter to Palafox, communicating this circumstance, and all the other disasters which had befallen the Spanish armies. But the mortifying intelligence thus conveyed, did not shake the firmness of the undaunted leader. He rejected all compromise, and continued, with undiminished vigour, to oppose every possible obstacle to the progress of the enemy.

All the outworks of the place had now fallen, except the castle of the Inquisition, which had been subjected to no serious attack. The newly-raised works of the _Enceinte_ had been battered by fifty-five guns, and, on the 27th January, three breaches were declared practicable. One was near an oil-mill, which stood without the walls of the place, though but little removed from them. The second was to the left of this, between the convent of St. Joseph and the town. The third was in the convent of Sta. Engracia. All these were attacked. At mid-day, a column issued from the oil-mill, which had been occupied over-night, and, rapidly clearing the short distance which divided it from the walls, entered the breach, unbroken by the heavy fire to which they were exposed, and the explosion of two _fougasses_. Having reached the summit, the assailants found an interior retrenchment armed with two guns, which the garrison had unexpectedly erected to obstruct their progress. They attempted, without success, to surmount this obstacle, under a shower of grape, musketry and grenades. Forced to retire, the besiegers took advantage of the cover afforded by the exploded _fougasses_ to effect a lodgment on the breach.

The breach in face of St. Joseph presented fewer obstacles to be overcome. The column of attack having reached the summit, succeeded in occupying the opposite house, which the artillery, in firing on the wall, had laid open. The houses adjoining were then gained; and on the right of the breach they found a gate which afforded another entrance into the town. Here, however, their progress was arrested by a battery of the enemy, commanding a court which it was necessary to pass. On the left, a double _caponnier_, which the garrison had used to communicate with St. Joseph’s, was repaired and lengthened to the breach.

The attack on Sta. Engracia was yet more successful. After a severe struggle, the assailants gained the breach of the convent, but in attempting to advance further, they met a spirited repulse. Another effort was made, which terminated in their gaining possession of the building. The curtain leading from Sta. Engracia to the bridge of the Huerba was then enfiladed, and, taking the _tête-de-pont_ in reverse, the enemy at once became masters of that important post. Here they were joined by fresh troops, and, pushing on within the curtain of the convent of Mount Carmel, made an effort to gain possession of it, which met with a repulse.

From thence they advanced rapidly to the Capuchin convent, putting forty artillerymen, who constituted the whole of its garrison, to the sword, The assailants then established themselves along the rampart, in order to guard the posts they had been successful in acquiring.

A dreadful fire was soon opened on the besiegers from the houses commanding the rampart. From this they in vain sought shelter among the ruins of the half-demolished walls. Retreat became necessary, and the column was directed to retire on the Puerta del Carmen. The garrison, by a bold attack, regained possession of the Capuchin convent; but two battalions coming up to reinforce the assailants, it was again taken, and maintained, though at a dear price, by the enemy.

During the night, a strong but unsuccessful effort was made by the besieged to regain possession of the convents of Sta. Engracia and the Capuchins. The result of these operations were the loss to the besieged of fifteen guns and 200 prisoners, and that the enemy gained footing in the city at two different points. The loss in killed and wounded, by the French accounts, was nearly equal on both sides. It amounted to about 600.

The misfortunes of the Zaragozans were hourly accumulating. The fever demon stalked through the city like a destroying angel, conquering and to conquer. The number of dead per day amounted to 350, without including those who fell the more immediate victims of war. The hospitals were too small to contain the host of patients, and the medicines were exhausted. The burying grounds were choked with corpses; and large pits were dug in the streets, into which the dead were tossed indiscriminately. Heaps of bloated and putrescent bodies were piled before the churches, which were often struck by the shells; and the maimed and ghastly carcasses lay dispersed along the streets, a frightful spectacle of horror. Even under such evils the courage of the Zaragozans did not quail.

The city was now open to the invaders, and the war, as formerly, was carried on in the streets and houses. Not one inch of ground was yielded by the besieged without a struggle; and when finally driven from a building, they frequently, by a desperate offensive effort, recovered it; and an equal resistance had again to be encountered by the assailants. Traverses were cut around the portions of the city occupied by the enemy; and at the sound of the tocsin, the garrison were ever ready to rush to any quarter where hostilities had commenced.

Palafox, however, did not limit his efforts to obstructing the progress of the enemy; he made vigorous efforts to recover the ground already lost, and drive the assailants from their stations. Two attempts were made to regain the convent of the Capuchins. Both failed. A third more powerful effort was made on the 31st. A breach was effected during the day, and at night the assault took place. The besieged advanced with signal resolution towards the breach, but owing to a ditch sunk by the enemy, it was found impossible to mount it. They then threw themselves on the floor of the church, and endeavoured to force it. In spite of the fire from the windows, and the grenades showered from the steeple, they maintained their ground, and forced the door; but an epaulement within obstructed their progress; and fresh troops being brought up by the enemy, the project was at length renounced.

Priests and women bore part in these operations. The former carried munitions, and gave ghostly succour to the dying, animating the soldiers at once by their words and their example. The latter bore refreshments to their sons, or husbands, or fathers; and sometimes, when one of those dear relatives fell by their side, they seized his arms, determined to revenge his death or perish in the same glorious cause. In truth, the contest lay between skill and enthusiasm--mingled, indeed, with superstition, yet active, firm, vigorous, and unshrinking; skill exerted in a struggle as unjust and degrading, as any by which the pages of history are contaminated and defaced.

Notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the garrison, the French gained ground. The 1st of February was marked by the capture of the convents of St. Augustin and St. Monica. Having been repelled in assaulting the breaches, the assailants sprung a mine, and by that means effected an entrance, and took in reverse the works erected for their defence. A deadly struggle took place in the church. Every chapel, every column, every altar, became a point of defence--the pavement was strewed with blood, and the aisles and nave of the church were covered with the dead. During this terrific conflict, the roof, shattered by bombs, fell in. Those who escaped, renewed the contest on the bodies of the dead and dying. The French were at last successful, and advancing on the Rua Quemada, gained possession of several houses. From these, however, they were eventually compelled to retreat, with a loss of above 100 men.

At the same time, an attack was made on the houses near Sta. Engracia. Two mines, one on the left, the other on the right, of the convent, were sprung by the besiegers; after which two columns of Polish infantry succeeded in gaining possession of the ruins caused by the explosion. The loss of the besiegers was very considerable, and General Lacoste, commandant of engineers, was killed. He was an officer of great professional eminence, and untarnished character.

During four days, the besiegers were employed in constructing three galleries to cross the Rua Quemada. Two of these failed. By means of the third they succeeded in establishing themselves in the ruins of a house which formed an angle of the Cozo, and of the Rua del Medio. A building, called the Escuelas Pias, commanded several traverses, made for the defence of the Cozo. Aware of the importance of this post, the assailants made several unsuccessful efforts to gain possession of it. They then attempted the adjoining houses; but in this also they failed. The system of blowing up the houses, now adopted, was favourable to the besieged; for the enemy, who established themselves on the ruins, were thus exposed to the fire of the surrounding buildings. In the meanwhile the continual succession of formidable and unforeseen obstacles, which presented themselves to the French soldiers, had damped their ardour; while the spirits of the besieged, who had to contend against famine, fever, and the French army, were yet unbroken.

The inner town is encircled by the Cozo, which reaches at both extremities to the river; and the French, in order to connect their operations with those of Gazan, on the left of the Ebro, determined, at all risks, to gain possession of it. The convent of St. Francisco, therefore, became their immediate object. A mine was exploded, which brought down part of the building; and a severe contest ensued, which lasted for two days. The Spaniards were at length driven out by the bayonet--the superiority of physical, as well as of numerical strength, being on the side of the assailants.

From the tower of this building, the French now commanded the street, for a musket-shot on either side. There, however, their progress was for a time arrested. The buildings in the Cozo were large and massive; and from their construction with roofs of arched masonry, nearly incombustible. Experience had perfected the Zaragozans in their defensive warfare; and the contest was continued with, if possible, augmented pertinacity. Three days were the French sappers successfully opposed in their endeavours to cross the Cozo. The university was partially breached by the explosion of two small mines. The besiegers then endeavoured to carry the building by assault; but they were met by a fire so destructive as to compel them to retreat.

Hitherto the suburb on the left of the Ebro had been exempted from attack, since Gazan’s failure on the first night of the investment. That officer, availing himself of some ambiguity in his orders, had declined to re-engage in active operations; nor was it till Lannes arrived, with authority to enforce his orders, that Gazan was induced to resume the offensive.

On the 7th, the convent of Jesus, on the left of the road to Lerida, was attacked. Trenches were opened against it; and twenty battering pieces having effected a breach, it was carried with little loss, the building not being considered by the besieged as of material importance. The enemy then succeeded in establishing a lodgment to the right and left.

On the 18th, the suburb, after two unsuccessful efforts, was carried by assault. A tremendous fire from fifty guns soon laid open the way to the assailing columns. By mid-day a breach was effected in the convent of St. Lazarus, commanding the bridge; and the defenders, after a strenuous resistance, were driven from the building. All communication between the suburb and the city was now cut off; and the French advancing to the river, intercepted the retreat of about 1500 men, who, enfeebled by disease and suffering, were made prisoners. The capture of St. Lazarus necessarily involved that of the suburb, which was without ammunition or provisions, yet many of its defenders continued to wage a fierce but hopeless war in the streets. The loss of the besieged amounted to about 2000. The brave Baron de Versage, who commanded on the Ebro, was killed.

The besiegers, imagining that the courage of the garrison had been abated by this irreparable misfortune, continued their operations with vigour. By means of mining, two enormous breaches were made in the university--both of which were attacked and carried; and the traverses of the Cozo were at length abandoned by the Spaniards. In the mean time, Palafox had been smitten with the dreadful disease, whose ravages had been more widely spread than even those of famine and the sword. This admirable and heroic leader, who, for above a month, had been unable to quit the vault where he lay stretched on a bed of suffering, at length saw the necessity of resigning the command.

On the 19th he transferred his authority to a junta, of which Don Pedro Ric was appointed president. A council was immediately assembled, to deliberate on the condition of the city, and the measures most proper to be adopted. At this meeting it was stated, by the general of cavalry, that only 62 horses remained, the rest having died of hunger. Of the infantry it appeared there were little more than 2800 men fit for service. Ammunition was nearly exhausted; and should a shell penetrate the Inquisition, their only manufactory of powder would be destroyed. The fortifications were stated, by the chief engineer, to have been almost utterly demolished. There were neither men nor materials necessary for repairing them; and bags of earth could no longer be formed from want of cloth.

With regard to the measures to be adopted, the junta were divided in opinion. Twenty-six voted for capitulation; eight against it. The latter were averse to surrender, while even a possibility of succour remained. With proud gallantry of spirit, the opinion of the minority was adopted by the junta. A flag of truce was sent to the enemy, proposing a suspension of hostilities, with the view of ascertaining the situation of the Spanish armies; it being understood, that should no immediate succour be at hand, the junta would then treat for a surrender. This proposal was peremptorily declined by Marshal Lannes; and the bombardment recommenced.

On the 20th, the garrison made a last and unsuccessful effort to recover two guns which the enemy had captured on the preceding day. Affairs were now desperate. The fifty guns which had been employed in the attack of the suburb, now opened fire on the city; and the streets of the quay were laid in ruins.

Thus situated the junta ordered measures to be taken to ascertain the sentiments of the people with regard to the situation of their city. Two-thirds of it were in ruins. Fire, famine, and slaughter, had done their work; and from 300 to 400 persons were daily dying of the pestilence. Under such circumstances, the junta declared that they had fulfilled their oath of fidelity--and that _Zaragoza was destroyed_. A flag of truce was dispatched to the French head-quarters, followed by a deputation of the junta, to arrange the terms of capitulation. Marshal Lannes was at first disposed to insist on unconditional surrender. The proposal was indignantly rejected by the deputies; and Ric declared, that rather than submit to it the Zaragozans would die beneath the ruins of their city. “I, and my companions,” said this noble patriot, “will return there, and defend what remains to us as best we may. We have yet arms and ammunition, and if these fail we have daggers. Should the Zaragozans be driven to despair, it yet remains to be proved who are to be victorious.”

In this temper of the garrison, Lannes did not think it prudent to refuse granting terms. It was accordingly conceded that the troops should march out with the honours of war: that the heroic Palafox should be suffered to retire to any place where he might think proper to fix his residence, and that all persons, not included in the garrison, should be suffered to quit the city, to avoid the contagion.

On the 21st of February, 1809, the city was delivered up to the French; and thus terminated one of the most strenuous and extraordinary struggles of which history bears record. The resistance continued for 52 days with open trenches; 29 of these were consumed by the enemy in effecting an entrance--23 in the war subsequently carried on in the streets and houses. By their own account, the French threw above 17,000 bombs into the city, and expended above 160,000 pounds weight of powder. More than 30,000 men and 500 officers perished in the defence, exclusive of a vast number of women and children. The amount of loss sustained by the besiegers was studiously concealed--that it was very great, cannot be doubted; and the contemplated operations on Lerida and Valencia, for which the army was destined, were in consequence given up.

When the garrison quitted the city, only 2400 men were capable of bearing arms; the rest were in the hospitals.

Among the prisoners, was Augustina Zaragoza, who had distinguished herself in the former siege. At the commencement, she had resumed her station at the Portillo gate. When Palafox visited the battery, she pointed to the gun she had formerly served with so much effect, and exclaimed, “See, general, I am again with my old friend.” Once, when her wounded husband lay bleeding at her feet, she discharged the cannon at the enemy, in order to avenge his fall. She frequently led the assaulting parties, and with sword in hand mingled in the daily conflicts which took place in the streets. Though exposed, during the whole siege to the most imminent danger, Augustina escaped without a wound. On the surrender of the city, she was too well known to escape notice, and was made prisoner. But she had already caught the contagion; and being taken to the hospital, she subsequently succeeded in effecting her escape.

The terms of capitulation were shamefully violated by Lannes. Palafox was sent a prisoner into France; and the city became a scene of pillage and atrocity. Nothing was to be heard but the drunken shouts and cries of the French soldiery. Even the convents were not spared; their gates were beaten in, the costly plate seized, and the decorations torn down; while the monk, with uplifted hand and scowling brow, listened to the drunken revelry and obscene jests of the heavy mailed cuirassier.”

ZEALAND, NEW.--Discovered by Tasman in 1642. Captain Cook planted several spots here in 1773. Great Britain’s right to this island recognized at the general peace of 1814. Since then it has continued slowly developing its inland resources. A rather disastrous war was waged against the British forces by the New Zealanders not long ago; but after some months of continual annoyance the Aborigines were subdued and the island quieted, with every prospect of commercial development.

ZELA, BATTLE OF.--In which Julius Cæsar defeated Pharnaces, King of Pontus, and sent the Senate the well-known laconic letter of three words: “_Veni, Vidi, Vici._” Fought B.C. 47.

ZELICHON, BATTLE OF.--Fought, April 6th, 1831, between the Poles and Russians. The Russians were terribly defeated, with the loss of 12,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners, and Deibitsch, the Russian General, narrowly escaped being taken prisoner in the rout.

ZEUTA, BATTLE OF.--Fought, between the Germans and Turks, the former commanded by Prince Eugene; and it is memorable for the tremendous slaughter of the enemy, A.D. 1697.

ZORNDORFF, BATTLE OF.--Fought between the Prussian and Russian armies: the Prussian commanded by their King. They gained a great victory over the forces of the Czarina of Russia--21,529 men being lost to the Russians, while the Prussians lost 11,000. Fought, August 25th and 26th, 1758.

ZOUAVE OR ZOU-ZOU.--“The _gamins_ of Paris, we believe, first applied to the world-renowned Zouaves the pet name of _Zou-Zous_; and France has confirmed the pleasant diminutive. We know well enough that Zou-Zou has certain faults; but we also know that he possesses some estimable qualities. On the whole, we gaze at his scarred bronzed face and long shaggy beard with respect, and do not shrink from cordially clasping his horny brown hand, powder-begrimed though it be. We read all about his valorous doings, and his somewhat ludicrous and not unpardonable misdoings, during the late Italian campaign, as chronicled daily by his own countrymen, and we shall now compile some interesting examples of his exploits and racy peculiarities, which have fallen under our notice.

When the Zou-Zous embarked at Marseilles, they leapt on board the vessels as though charging a column of Croats, crying to their comrades, “Come, gentlemen, take your tickets for Austria!” Arrived at Genoa, they received their fair share of flowers and kisses from the enraptured signoras, and embracements and orations from their lords and fathers.

M. Achard visited the camp of the famous 3rd Zouaves, and gives us a graphic sketch of the fire-eaters reposing. We must premise that they had only arrived four or five days from Algeria. “It was,” says he, “like a little corner of a great war picture. The canvas town possessed regularity, animated order, picturesque and lively movement, and one felt the presence of discipline, and a pleasing sense of gaiety and fearlessness. Behold the little, narrow, short tents reserved for the sub-officers; their neighbours large, and similar to a squab coffee-pot, for the captains and commandants; others ample and conical, each for five soldiers, ranged in ranks; groups of Zouaves round a candle, in a low tone chatting about their African campaigns; some silently smoking a pipe apart; two or three lying on the ground in corners, reading letters and dreaming, their comrades singing the chorus of songs; the evening dies away and sleep succeeds. Here and there, under the canvas, a little lamp gives light to an officer, who writes in haste a last letter. Little noise, great order; each battalion has its place. As the darkness increases, we see red sparks in the air along the tents. The cigar enlivens the promenade, then the sparks disappear one by one; the bivouac fires are extinguished; the mules of the regiment bite at each other, and endeavour to break their straps; close by, the Arab horses of the officers, digging the earth with their hoofs, snuffing the air, devoid of the warm odour of the desert, and shaking their manes. * * * The next day, at seven o’clock in the morning, the regiment, containing three battalions on a war strength--2700 men, exclusive of officers--was reviewed by Prince Napoleon. They looked models of hardy active soldiers. Their faces, which appeared cut out of Florentine bronze, had the manly ardour and the confidence resulting from habitual acquaintance with danger. They were in marching order. At eight o’clock they started, clarions at their head and tarbouch in front for their first _étape de guerre_, twenty-seven kilometres, and in the evening they encamped in the mountain, at Toreglia, very near the Austrians!”

We may remark that one great reason for the very singular celerity with which the Zouaves encamp, provide their food, etc., is the fact, that each company, or portion of a company, or “tribe,” as it is called by the men themselves, is subdivided for what we may term domestic duties, each individual being charged with a distinct and special function; and constant practice naturally renders them amazingly expert at doing whatever they are called upon to daily and nightly perform.

The Zou-Zous, and their African friends the Turcos, are said to have an invincible preference for fighting at close quarters with the bayonet. A certain quantity of cartouches were served out at the moment of departure, but these cartridges were not forthcoming at Genoa. The officers were angry, and required the production of the missing ammunition. “Be not troubled,” said the Zou-Zous; “leave us alone, and we will return you ten for one at the first battle.” A stubborn old sergeant added, “We wish to see if the Austrians are like the Kabyles.” In fact, their point of honour is to charge with the bayonet, and to charge at a swift run. Their activity is incredible; and they have been aptly called “foot cavalry,” which is hardly a paradoxical jest like our own time-honoured sneer of “horse marines.”

The Zou-Zous have a marvellous capacity for physical endurance. Some black coffee, and a biscuit or piece of hard ammunition bread steeped in it, generally formed their breakfast, and then they were able and willing to march with their very heavy knapsacks a whole day in the broiling sun before dining. A Zouave’s knapsack is full of a wonderful variety of articles, and, when in marching order, he actually carries the enormous weight of sixty pounds! But Zou-Zou is not an anchorite; he does not voluntarily endure hunger when he can lawfully, or (as some whisper) even unlawfully, obtain an appetizing addition to his rations. At Palestro, the Zouaves drolly distinguished themselves, by marching with a pleasing variety of edible prizes secured about their persons. They bore quarters of lamb, immense pieces of raw meat, salad, cabbage, and all kinds of vegetables; upon the shoulder of one was perched an old cock, tied by the foot by way of precaution! All the world knows how omnivorous Zouaves are; and, by way of illustration, we will only mention the astounding fact, that at Solferino they daintily feasted on fillets cut from the backs of the horses killed in that tremendous battle!

The Austrians sent some daring spies into the Zouave camp, fully and carefully dressed as Zou-Zous, speaking French, and affecting in all respects the habits and language of the men among whom they treacherously stole. But, as an old soldier observed, “the asses who wear lions’ skins are recognized, not by the dress, but by the language.” So it was with these Austrian spies. The touch-stone which infallibly detected them was the Arab, or rather the Sabir tongue. The Sabir is a dialect used by the Zouaves and the Turcos, and is a singular mixture of French, Italian, Maltese, Spanish and Arabian. Let us see what the Sabir can do with the wicked hawk who has stolen into the Zouave dovecot, disguised in innocent plumage like their own.

“A spy, dressed as a Zouave, holding his cap behind him, accosts other Zouaves, (true ones these). They talk of war, ambuscades, battles; they drink and sing. An old Zouave addresses the spy: ‘Didou, camarade, gib el touchran; j’ai laisse mon sipsi dans la gitoun.’ This, in Sabir, signifies, ‘Comrade, hand me some tobacco; I have forgotten my pipe in the tent.’ The spy, surprised, does not reply. ‘Enta machache narl el Arabi?’ (Dost thou not understand Arabian?) continues the Zouave. The same silence. Suspicions are aroused: the pretended Zouave is closely questioned. He is confused; he confounds Blidah with Orléansville: finally he is seized, and duly shot.”

No body of men attracted more notice, on first landing in Italy, than the 3rd Zouaves. Nearly all the officers had risen from the ranks, or, at any rate, all had been sub-officers, and had won their epaulettes and crosses in Africa. The men could reckon a number of years’ service, both in Africa and the Crimea. Their flag was in tatters, and tied together with shoemaker’s thread.

At Palestro, these 3rd Zouaves performed a brilliant feat of arms. A wounded Zou-Zou subsequently described it most graphically. “We were,” said he, “very tranquilly opposite a rivulet; we beheld five or six horsemen upon an eminence; it was said that they must be enemy’s hussars, watching us, and the word passed to prepare to have a chat with them. But all in a moment, and without a note of warning, a parcel of bullets, accompanied by a hail of cannon balls, saluted us. The rogues had mounted cannon on the hills, and their tirailleurs skulked in the corn, where one could not see them. Whilst we looked out, the _mitraille_[45] mingled in the conversation. The colonel saw whence it came by the smoke. The officers turned towards us. ‘Eh Zouaves!’ cried they, ‘to the cannon!’ We leapt in the stream. There was water up to our elbows, and so our cartridge boxes took a bath; we were no longer able to fire a single charge. From the stream to the batteries we had to run about 300 metres. Ah, we already surpass the _pas gymnastique_!

The _mitraille_ mowed the grass around our feet. In the twinkling of an eye we carried the guns!”

Among the wounded Austrians taken prisoners, was a young man of twenty-two, who had previously studied at Paris five or six years. He fought at Palestro, and when he saw the Zouaves running and leaping with bayonets in advance, he cried, “Comrades! they are Zouaves! We are lost!”

An Austrian officer related that General Jellachich, struck with astonishment at sight of the Zouaves in action, exclaimed, “They are not men, they are tigers!” And then he muttered, “They told me so, but I did not believe it.” A good many others of his countrymen had reason to think and speak very much the same. Yet, even among the Zouaves there are some who pre-eminently distinguish themselves by their surpassing activity, daring, and successful valour.

Zou-Zou has a humour of his own even in the heat of battle--grimmest of all grim humours! Endless anecdotes are told of their strange speeches and stranger deeds in the midst of the storm of battle. Many of these would be painful to our readers, but the following give relief to the stern cruelties of war. Would that the kindly or generous feelings which they record could be displayed on more peaceful scenes!

During a bayonet fight, a Zouave fought against an Austrian, and broke his thigh with a violent butt-end blow; the Austrian, in falling, broke the arm of the Zouave. There they lay side by side, their mutual fury extinguished. The Zouave, who had a smattering of Italian, said to the Austrian, “Thou art brave, and I will not leave thee to die like a dog. I have yet an arm and a pair of good legs, and I will carry thee to the ambulance.” He was as good as his word. When he arrived with his burthen, he said to the surgeon-major. “You see, major, that we are on a level; cure us quickly, that we may do our duty afresh.” We will add, that the compassion and kindness manifested after a battle by the erewhile fierce Zouaves towards their wounded enemies, is a fine trait in their character. Like our own matchless seamen, the Zouaves, are lions whilst the battle rages, and lambs after it is ended.

Here is a touching incident. The day after the battle of Palestro, the Zouaves buried their dead comrades in a great pit dug on a little eminence. When the earth was levelled, they bid adieu, with emotion, to their slain brothers-in-arms. “Comrades!” cried a sergeant, “may God receive you! ’Tis your turn to-day--to morrow it may be ours!” With these simple words the Zou-Zous left their dead brethren to repose on the field of their victory.

And the wounded Zou-Zous, how bear they the agony of musket ball, or bayonet thrust, or sabre gash, when the excitement of the actual combat is over? When Commandant de Bellefonds, of the Zouaves of the Guard, was wounded at Magenta, his men wished to carry him to the ambulance. “Remain in your place,” said he. “Leave me, my friends; I forbid you to remove me: continue to fight.” After the Austrians were repulsed, the Zou-Zous sought their brave officer and bore him away. He eventually recovered.

The Zouaves being by far the most popular and brilliant corps in the army, it is considered, both by officers and privates, an absolute privilege to wear their uniform, and both sub and superior officers have been known to refuse to exchange into line regiments even with prospect of higher rank.

Some of the Zouaves were themselves taken prisoners and sent to Vienna, where they attracted extraordinary notice. On their arrival they were surrounded by Hungarian and Polish soldiers, who examined their uniform and criticized their personal appearance with lively curiosity, making each poor Zou-Zou exhibit himself and explain the use of every portion of his equipments--which, it is said, he did with great good humour. By way of contrast to the above, we present the following. A number of Austrian prisoners arrived at Toulouse. A sub-officer of the 3rd Zouaves, whose family lived there, and who was himself _en route_ to Paris, happened to be at the railway station when the prisoners arrived, and he recognized three Austrians whom he had made prisoners at the battle of Magenta, where he was wounded by one of them. He now shook hands with his ex-captives, and having obtained permission to defer his own departure, he took all three home with him, and treated them with the utmost hospitality.”

ZURICH, BATTLES OF.--The French were defeated here, losing 4000 men, June 4th, 1799. The Imperialists were also defeated here by the French, under Messina, and lost the great number of 20,000 men in action. September 24th, 1799.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the Register of the Convent of the Friars Minors in Poictiers, there appear the names of the knights and great men buried there after this battle. Among these we find, the Constable of France, the Bishop of Chalons, the Viscount of Chauvigny, the Lords of Mailly, of Rademonde, of Rochecheruire, of Chaumont, of Hes, of Corbon, and a great number of knights. In the church of the Frères Prescheurs there were buried the Duke of Bourbon, the Marshal de Clermont, the Viscount de Rochechouart, the Lord de la Fayette, the Viscount d’Aumale, the Lord St. Gildart, and more than fifty knights.

[2] The rocket consisted of an iron tube, about two foot long, and three inches in diameter, attached to a bamboo cane of fifteen or twenty feet in length. The tube is filled with combustible matter; and this dreadful missile entering the head of a column, passes through a man’s body, and instantly resumes its original force; thus destroying or wounding twenty men, independent of innumerable lacerations caused by the serpentine motion of the long bamboo, which in its irresistible progress, splinters to atoms, when the iron tube assumes a rapid rotary motion, and buries itself in the earth.

[3] It is a curious and interesting literary fact, that Campbell wrote this in a foreign land, viz., at Ratisbon, on hearing of war being declared against Denmark. Some portion of it is said to have been previously roughly sketched out, owing to his admiration of the music of “Ye Gentlemen of England.” His splendid lyric, “The battle of the Baltic,” soon followed.

[4] Herod. 1. vii. c. 175, 177.

[5] Herod. 1. vii. c. 103, 132.

[6] Ibid. 1. viii. c. 116.

[7] Paus. 1. x. p. 645.

[8] Herod. 1. vii c. 207-231. Diod. 1. xi. p. 5-10.

[9] Plut. in Lacon. Apoph. p. 225.

[10] Ἀντεγραψε, μολων λαβε.

[11] Οτι πολλοι μεν ανθρωποι ειεν, ολιγοι δε ανδρες. Quod multi homines essent, pauci autem viri.

[12] When the Gauls 200 years after this, came to invade Greece, they possessed themselves of the Straits of Thermopylæ by means of the same by-path, which the Grecians had still neglected to secure. Pausan. 1. i. p. 7. et 8.

[13] Polyb. 1. iii. p. 231-238.

[14] Apparebat ferociter omnia ac præpropere acturum. Quoque pronior esset in sua vitia, agitare eum atque irritare Pœnus parat. Liv. 1. xxii. n. 3.

[15] Napier, vol. v. p. 132.

[16] A French writer tells us, that when he had dictated, at Paris, the bulletin of this battle, he finished, by exclaiming with a groan, “It was lost, and _my glory_ with it!”

[17] Hist. Memoirs, book ix, p. 209.

[18] “Information which might be depended upon had made known the position of the Allies in all particulars.--_Fleury_, vol. ii, p. 161.

“To anticipate the Allies, and to commence hostilities _before they were ready_, it was necessary to take the field on the 15th June.”--_Hist. Memoir_, Book ix, p. 59.

“The period of the arrival of the English army from America was known. The Allied armies could not be in readiness to act simultaneously until July.”--_Gourgaud’s Campaign_, p. 29.

[19] Hist. Memoir, Book ix, p. 127.

[20] Gourgaud, p. 38; Fleury, vol. ii, p. 167.

[21] Junot, at Rolica and Vimiera; Victor at Talavera; Massena at Busaco; Ney, after Torres Vedras; Marmont at Salamanca; Jourdan at Vittoria; and Soult in the Pyrenees, Toulouse, &c. &c.

[22] History of the Restoration, vol. ii, p. 377, 388.

[23] Despatches, vol. viii, p. 168.

[24] O’Meara, vol. i, p. 464.

[25] Brialmont’s Wellington, vol. ii, p. 440.

[26] Gourgaud’s Waterloo, p. 96.

[27] The first French attack was repulsed about two o’clock: but Bonaparte renewed it five or six times, until about seven o’clock in the evening.--_Austrian Account._

[28] Hist. Memoir, book ix, p. 143.

[29] Lamartine, b. xxv, § 34.

[30] Gourgaud’s Campaign of Waterloo, p. 97.

[31] Page 151. This attack on the centre was made at one o’clock, and La Haye Sainte was not evacuated by the English till six in the evening. Of what occurred in the five hours which intervened the French accounts are ominously silent.

[32] Fleury, vol. ii, p. 217.

[33] At St. Helena, he told O’Meara, “When the English advanced, I had not a single corps of cavalry in reserve to resist them. Hence the English attack succeeded, and all was lost,”--_O’Meara_, vol. i, p. 465.

[34] “It was _noon_, the troops of General Bulow were stationary beyond the extreme right: they appeared to form and wait for their artillery.”--_Hist. Mem._ b. ix, p. 150.

[35] The Austrian account says “About five o’clock, the first cannon-shot of the Prussian army was fired from the heights of Aguiers.”

[36] Gourgaud’s Campaign of 1815, p. 113.

[37] They are described, both in Count Drouet’s speech and in “Book ix,” as “sixteen battalions.” If the battalions consisted of 600 men, this would give a total of 9600.

[38] Vol. ii, p. 192.

[39] Colonel Lemonnier de Lafosse: Memoirs, p. 385.

[40] Reille had commanded the second corps, D’Erlon the first--each of which had consisted of about 20,000 men! Can there be a more striking proof of the utter dissolution of the French army, than this fact, narrated by a French officer?

[41] Fleury de Chaboulon, vol. ii, pp. 203, 206, 218.

[42] The modesty,--the singular abstinence from a boast or a vaunt,--which is perceptible in this exclamation, is wonderfully characteristic of the man. The same quietness of manner distinguished him through life; and it contrasts strongly with the constant strut and proud assumption of Napoleon.

[43] Hist. Memoir, book ix, p. 203.

[44] I cannot conclude this article on Waterloo without inserting the following: Many years ago a prize poem on the Duke of Wellington was announced at one of the English Universities, I forget which. The gainer took for his subject the life of Napoleon, and finished an elaborate description of that great commander, in the following couplet, which gained him the prize:

“So great a man, the world scarce ever knew, Bent to THY GENIUS, CHIEF OF WATERLOO.” J. D. B.

[45] “Mitraille,” grape shot, with scraps of metal, and all sorts of small missiles.

CHRONOLOGY.

Chronology is the science of computing and adjusting the periods of time. It ascertains when events occurred, and assigns to each its correct date. Thus we learn from it that the world was created 4004 years before Christ, and that the flood took place 1656 years after the creation; and so of all other known and ascertained events, each one is placed in connection with its proper period or year. Of the transactions between the Creation and the Flood, we know nothing except from Scripture, and of many of those which occurred after the flood, and before the time of Christ, we know nothing with certainty, except from the same source; but about 800 or 900 years before our Saviour’s time, a succession of profane historians arose, from whom, especially those of Greece and Rome, numerous facts in Chronology have been obtained. Various Eras, Epochs, or methods of Chronology, have been adopted by different nations. The Greeks reckoned time by Olympiads of four years each, commencing from the year 776 before Christ. In marking a date by this method, the year and Olympiad were both given; for example, the year 1845 is the first of 656th Olympiad. The Romans reckoned time from the founding of Rome, 753 years before Christ. Dates reckoned from this Era are designated by the initials A. U. C. (ab urbe condita; that is, from the building of the city). The year 1845 is the 2598th year of the Roman Era. The Christian Era, now in use amongst all Christian nations, was first introduced in the sixth century, but was not very generally adopted for some centuries after. This begins 4004 years after the creation of the world, and four years after the birth of our Saviour. Dates reckoned backwards are usually marked B.C., or before Christ, but those reckoned forward are distinguished by the prefix A.D., signifying Anno Domini, or in the year of our Lord. The Mahomedans reckon time from the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, in the year 622 after Christ; but they use the lunar year of 354 days; so that thirty-two of our years make thirty-three of theirs. The year 1845 is the 1260th year of the Hegira. Many other epochs or eras have been used in different countries, and at different periods. The Jews, Egyptians, Tyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and other ancient nations, have each had their eras. The Hindoos and Chinese of the present day have modes of reckoning time which differ from each other, as well as from our method. In the United States, public documents, proclamations, &c. have often, besides the date in common use, the year of the national independence attached to them. This is computed from July 4th, 1776, and hence may be reckoned a national era or chronological period.

ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY

B.C. From the Creation 4004 to the Deluge 1656 yrs elapsed.--Antediluvian P.* From the Deluge 2348 to the Call of Abraham 427 yrs elapsed.--Dispersion P. From the Call of Abraham 1921 to the Exode from Egypt 430 yrs elapsed.--Patriarchal P. From the Exode 1491 to the Kingdom of Saul 396 yrs elapsed.--Theocratic P. From Saul 1092 to the Captivity of Israel 507 yrs elapsed.--Monarchical P. From the Captivity 588 to Alexander the Great 258 yrs elapsed.--Persian P. From Alexander the Great 330 to Subjugation of Greece 184 yrs elapsed.--Grecian P. From Subjugation of Greece 146 to the birth of Christ 146 yrs elapsed.--Roman P. * P = Period.

MODERN CHRONOLOGY.

A.D. From the Birth of Christ to the Reign of Constantine the Great 306 years elapsed to the Extinction of the Western Empire 476 “ “ to the flight of Mahomet 622 “ “ to the Crowning of Charlemagne at Rome 800 “ “ to the Battle of Hastings 1066 “ “ to the Founding of the Turkish Empire 1299 “ “ to the Taking of Constantinople 1453 “ “ to the Edict of Nantes 1598 “ “ to the Death of Charles XII of Sweden 1718 “ “ to the Battle of Waterloo 1815 “ “ to the Present time 1866 “ “

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

B.C.

4004 CREATION OF THE WORLD.

2944 Birth of Noah.

2348 The _Flood_ or _Deluge_ covers the whole earth--lasts about a year.

2347 Noah quits the Ark; offers sacrifices of thanksgiving; God appoints the rainbow as a pledge that he will never again destroy the earth by the waters of a flood. (Gen. ix. 11.)

2300 The Tower of Babel built; confusion of languages; dispersion of mankind.

2233 Babylon founded by Nimrod; Nineveh founded by Asshur; commencement of the Assyrian monarchy.

2188 The Egyptian monarchy founded by Mizraim; continues 1663 years.

2059 Age of Ninus and Semiramis, Assyrian monarchs.

2000 Sicyon founded--the earliest town in Greece; Sidon founded.

1996 Birth of Abram, in Ur of the Chaldees; 1998 Noah dies.

1921 CALL OF ABRAM; he leaves Ur; comes to Haran, where his father, Terah, dies, aged 205 years; emigrates to Canaan, with Sarai his wife, and Lot his nephew, and dwells at Shechem.

1920 Abram removes to Egypt; returns the same year.

1912 Abram defeats Chedorlaomer and the confederate kings; rescues Lot.

1910 Birth of Ishmael, the son of Abram and Hagar. (Gen. xvi. 16.)

1897 Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, &c.; Lot retires to Zoar; Abram’s name changed to Abraham; Sarai’s changed to Sarah.

1896 Isaac born at Beersheba; 1871 Offered up as a sacrifice by his father.

1836 Birth of Esau and Jacob; 1821 Abraham dies.

1800 Argos founded by the Pelasgians, under Inachus.

1759 Jacob retires to his uncle, Laban, in Padan Aram; 1745 Joseph born.

1739 Jacob returns to Canaan; resides at Shechem.

1728 Joseph sold by his brethren; 1716 Isaac dies.

1706 Jacob removes to Egypt; 1689 his death.

1705 Joseph raised to distinction in Egypt; 1635 Joseph dies.

1600 Hyksos or shepherd kings conquer Egypt; they oppress the Israelites.

1577 Age of Job; 1575, Birth of Aaron; 1571, Birth of Moses.

1550 Athens founded by Cecrops; 1531 Moses leaves Egypt.

1500 Tyre founded; Gades founded; 1493 Thebes founded by Cadmus.

1491 Moses returns to Egypt; _Exodus_ or _departure_ of the Israelites from Egypt cross the Red Sea; law given on Mount Sinai.

1452 Death of Aaron, aged 123 years; buried on Mount Hor.

1451 Sihon defeated at Jahaz; Death of Moses, aged 120 years; Og defeated at Edrei; the Israelites cross Jordan; capture Jericho; sun and moon stand still at the command of Joshua; 1445, 1444 the _Land of Canaan_ divided among the Twelve Tribes.

1443 Death of Joshua, aged 110 years; 1423 Tribe of Benjamin destroyed.

1406 Age of Minos, the Cretan lawgiver; 1405 Othniel first judge of Israel.

1400 Troy founded; Pelasgians expelled from Greece by the Hellenes.

1365 Age of Sesostris, king of Egypt; a great conqueror; built magnificent cities in his dominions.

1329 Amphictyonic council established.

1300 Voyage of the Argonauts from Aphetæ, in Thessaly, to Colchis, under the command of Jason; Hercules, Theseus, and his other companions were called Argonauts.

1290 Age of Mœris, king of Egypt; he causes lake Mœris to be dug, to receive the surplus waters of the Nile.

1285 Barak and Deborah defeat Jabin.

1245 Age of Gideon; defeats the Midianites and Moabites.

1187 Jephtha, the tenth judge of Israel, sacrifices his daughter.

1184 Troy captured, after a siege of ten years; Age of Agamemnon, Achilles, Diomedes, Nestor, Ulysses, Helen, Priam, Hector, Æneas, Andromache, &c.; Æneas sails for Italy.

1156 Age of Eli; 1155 Birth of Samuel; 1150 Utica, in Africa, founded.

1124 Æolian colonies established in Asia Minor.

1107 Age of Samson; judged Israel twenty years; betrayed to the Philistines by Delilah; buries himself under the ruins of the temple of Dagon, with a great number of his enemies.

1100 Salamis founded by Teucer.

1095 Saul first king of Israel; 1085 Birth of David; 1062 slays Goliath.

1055 Death of Saul; succession of David; 1048 crowned king of all Israel; 1047 takes Jerusalem from the Jebusites.

1044 Settlement of the Ionian colonies in Asia Minor; Age of Homer; the cities of Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos and Athens afterwards contend for the honour of his birth.

1037 The Moabites and Ammonites conquered by David.

1035 Rabbath Ammon taken by Joab; Uriah killed at the siege.

1033 Birth of Solomon; Age of Hiram king of Tyre.

1014 Death of David; succeeded by Solomon; Most flourishing period of the kingdom of Israel.

1003 Temple at Jerusalem built and dedicated by Solomon.

994 Dorians establish colonies in Asia Minor.

975 _Death of Solomon_; Rehoboam succeeds him; his tyranny causes a division of the realm into the kingdom of Judah and Israel; Jeroboam king of Israel; Rehoboam king of Judah.

971 Shishak, king of Egypt, plunders the temple at Jerusalem.

907 Age of the poet Hesiod; 900 Pygmalion, brother of Dido.

897 Ahab, king of Israel, slain; Ahaziah, king of Judah; Elisha taken up to heaven; 884 Jehu king of Israel.

880 Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver.

878 Carthage founded by Dido, a Tyrian Princess.

827 Ethiopians conquer Egypt; 825 Jonah visits Nineveh; the people repent.

820 Death of Sardanapalus; First Assyrian empire destroyed; Median empire founded; Kingdom of Macedonia founded.

810 Uzziah, king of Judah, takes the cities of the Philistines.

800 Persepolis built; 776 Era of the Olympiads begins.

772 Pul invades Israel.

753 Rome founded, April 20; 743 First Messenian war lasts 19 years.

740 Damascus taken by Tiglath-pileser.

732 Syracuse founded; 730 Tarentum founded.

729 Samaria taken by Shalmanezer; End of the Kingdom of Israel; Captivity of the Ten Tribes.

713 Sennacherib threatens Hezekiah; his army miraculously destroyed.

685 Second Messenian war; lasts fourteen years; Ira besieged eleven years; its capture ends the war.

657 Holofernes slain by Judith, near Bethulia.

650 Naval battle between the Corcyreans and Corinthians--the first sea-fight on record.

641 Josiah king of Judah reforms abuses; restores the worship of God.

630 Cyrene founded; 627 Nabopolazzar king of Babylon.

616 Age of Pharaoh Necho; Tyrians in his service sail round Africa.

607 Nineveh taken by the Medes and Babylonians.

604 Age of Pittacus (general of Mitylene); Sappho (Greek poetess).

594 Age of Ezekiel.

591 Pythian Games begin; Age of Thales (philosopher); Æsop (fabulist).

588 Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem; End of the kingdom of Judah; Beginning of the Babylonish captivity; 572 Nebuchadnezzar takes Tyre after a siege of thirteen years.

570 Voyage of Hanno along the west coast of Africa; about the same time Himilco sails to Britain.

560 Union of the Medes and Persians; Cyaxares king of the Medes.

559 Persian empire founded by Cyrus; Age of Anaximander, inventor of globes and charts.

548 Cyrus defeats Crœsus at Thymbra; Takes Sardis; Conquers Lydia.

539 Massilia founded; Age of Pythagoras (philosopher); Anacreon (poet).

538 Cyrus takes Babylon; Age of Daniel; 525 Cambyses conquers Egypt.

521 Age of Darius Hystaspes; 518 End of the Babylonish captivity.

516 Age of Artaxerxes Longimanus or Ahasuerus; Queen Esther.

515 The Temple of Jerusalem rebuilt; 510 Sybaris, in Italy, destroyed.

509 Consular government established in Rome.

504 Athenians burn Sardis; Age of Heraclitus (naturalist); Democedes (physician); 500 Milesians emigrate from Spain to Ireland.

500 First Persian war against Greece; 490 Battle of Marathon; the Greeks commanded by Miltiades, defeat the Persians, under Dates and Artaphanes; 480 Xerxes crosses the Hellespont at Abydos; invades Greece; Battle of Thermopylæ; Naval battles of Artemisium and Salamis; Age of Themistocles (Athenian statesman); Anaxagoras (philosopher); Pindar (poet); Æschylus (tragic writer); Corinna (poetess).

479 Battles of Platæa and Mycale on the same day.

470 The Athenians, under Cimon defeat the Persians, on the Eurymedon river, twice in one day, first on water and then on land.

465 Third Messenian war; lasts ten years.

457 Battle of Tanagra; Age of Pericles (Athenian statesman).

445 Age of Herodotus (historian); Phidias (sculptor).

431 First Peloponnesian war commences; continues twenty-seven years; Age of Hippocrates (physician); Democrates (philosopher, &c.)

424 Bœotians defeat the Athenians at Delium.

406 Naval battle of Ægos Potamos; Athenian fleet defeated by the Spartans; Age of Protagoras (philosopher); Parrhasius (painter).

401 Battle of Cunaxa; Death of Cyrus the younger; Retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon.

400 Death of Socrates; 396 Age of Zeuxis (painter); Aristippus (philosopher).

395 Veii besieged by the Romans for ten years.

394 Spartans defeat the Thebans at Coronæa; Falerii taken by Camillus; Age of the Cyrenaic philosophers.

389 Battle of the Allia; Gauls defeat the Romans; burn Rome; inhabitants fly to Cære or Agylla; Gauls defeated near Cabii by Camillus.

379 Age of Plato (philosopher); Conon (Athenian commander); Epaminondas and Pelopidas (Theban generals); Diogenes (Stoic).

371 Epaminondas defeats the Spartans at Leuctra; 370 builds Messene in eighty-five days; Founds Megalopolis; Age of Eudoxius (astronomer).

362 Battle at Mantinea; death of Epaminondas.

360 Methone captured; Philip of Macedon loses his right eye.

357 Phocian war begins; lasts ten years; 355 Alexander born.

351 Capture of Sidon by Artaxerxes Ochus.

343 Age of Aristotle (philosopher), Demosthenes (orator), Phocion (Athenian general).

338 Battle of Chæronea; Philip defeats the Athenians and their allies.

336 Philip assassinated; Archidamus, King of Sparta, killed in battle at Manduriæ.

335 Alexander the Great destroys Thebes; 334 conquers Greece; begins his Persian expedition; battle of the Granicus; 333 battle of Issus; siege of Tyre; 332 conquers Egypt; founds the city of Alexandria; visits the temple of Jupiter Ammon; 331 crosses the Euphrates at Thapsacus; battle of Arbela; fall of the Persian Empire; death of Darius Codomanus; 326 Defeat of Porus by Alexander; the latter afterwards descends the Indus to the sea; his Admiral, Nearchus, navigates a fleet from the Indus to the Tigris; Age of Apelles (painter); Antipater (Macedonian General, &c.)

323 Death of Alexander, May 21; his empire divided between Ptolemy, Cassander, Lysimachus and Seleucus.

320 Samnites defeat the Romans near Caudium; their army pass under the Caudine Forks; Age of Praxiteles (sculptor); Demetrius (orator); Phalerius Theopompus (historian); Apollodorus (poet.)

312 Seleucus takes Babylon; dynasty of the Selucidæ begins.

310 Pytheas, the navigator, sails from Gades to Thule.

301 Battle of Ipsus, between Antigonus and Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus and Cassander; Age of Zeno (philosopher).

292 The Sabines conquered by Curius Dentatus; Age of Euclid (mathematician).

284 The Pharos, or light-house of Alexandria, built.

281 The Achæan League formed, by the chief cities of the Peloponnesus, for mutual defence.

280 The Romans defeated at Pandosia by Pyrrhus King of Epirus; Age of Antiochus 1st, surnamed Soter, King of Syria.

274 Romans defeat Pyrrhus; 272, conquer Samnium, after a seventy years’ war.

262 First Punic war begins; continues twenty-six years; 260 Duillius obtains the first naval victory gained over the Carthaginians by the Romans; 256 Regulus defeated by Xantippus; Age of Diodatus.

251 Age of Eratosthenes (mathematician); Callimachus (poet).

249 Asdrubal defeated at Panormus, in Sicily, by Metellus.

246 Arsaces founds the Parthian empire; Age of Hamilcar, a noted Carthaginian General, and father of Hannibal.

242 The Romans defeat the Carthaginians at sea, near the Ægades islands; ends the first Punic war.

231 The Romans take Corsica and Sardinia.

224 The Spartan king Cleomenes III defeated by Antigonus Doson; Colossus, at Rhodes, overthrown by an earthquake; Age of Apollonius (poet), Philopæmen (Achæan General.)

219 Hannibal takes Saguntum; originates the second Punic war, which lasts seventeen years; 218 Crosses the Alps; defeats the Romans, first on the river Ticinus, then on the Trebia; 217 Battle of Thrasimene--his third victory; 216 Battle of Cannæ--his fourth victory; 50,000 Romans slain; Capua declares in his favour.

212 Marcellus takes Syracuse, after a three years’ siege; death of Archimedes, the noted geometrician.

206 Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, defeated and slain by the Romans; Age of Syphax (Latin poet); Ennius (Latin poet); Masinissa, King of Numidia.

202 Sicily becomes a Roman province.

201 Battle of Zama; Hannibal defeated by Scipio Africanus; End of the second Punic war.

200 Romans conquer Illyricum; 197, defeat the Macedonians at Cynoscephalæ; 196 Hannibal banished from Carthage.

190 Antiochus defeated by the Consul Acilius at Thermopylæ; Age of Cato the elder.

187 Scipio Asiaticus defeats Antiochus I at Magnesia and Sipylum.

186 Scipio Africanus banished to Liturnum.

183 Death of Hannibal in Bithynia, by poison, aged sixty-five.

168 Insurrection of the Maccabees against Antiochus, King of Syria.

168 Paulus Æmilius defeats Perseus at Pydna; Macedonia becomes a Roman province; Age of Hipparchus (philosopher); Polybius (historian), &c.

167 Epirus conquered by the Romans; 165 Age of Judas Maccabæus.

149 Third Punic war begins; 146 Scipio destroys Carthage, Mummius destroys Corinth; Agatharchides (Greek geographer).

137 Demetrius Nicator defeated at Damascus by Alexander Zebina.

133 Numantia destroyed by the inhabitants; Spain becomes a Roman province; The kingdom of Pergamus bequeathed to the Romans by Attalus, its last king.

131 Tiberius Gracchus treacherously slain at Potentia.

109 Jugurthine war begins; lasts five years; 106 Jugurtha betrayed by Bocchus to the Romans; Armenia Major becomes a Roman province.

105 Aristobulus crowned king of the Jews; 106 Pompey born at Rome.

102 Marius defeats the Cimbri and Teutones at Aquæ Sextæ; 101 defeats the Cimbri on the Raudian Plains.

100 Birth of Julius Cæsar, July 12; this month was named after him.

92 Bocchus sends Sylla a present of 100 lions from Africa.

89 The Mithridatic war begins; lasts twenty-six years; 86 Sylla defeats the consuls Carbo and Cinna; Metellus (consul); Sertorius (Roman General); 78 death of Sylla; 76 Calaguris besieged by Pompey; the inhabitants, reduced to extremity, feed on their wives and children.

75 Bithynia bequeathed to the Romans by Nicomedes.

73 Sertorius assassinated by Perpenna and others at Osca.

73 Servile war begins; Roman slaves revolt against their masters, under Spartacus; defeated, two years afterwards, by Pompey and Crassus.

72 Lucullus defeats Mithridates the Great at Cabira; 69 defeats Tigranes; captures Tigranocerta; 68 defeats Mithridates at Zela; 66 again at Nicopolis.

67 Pompey takes Coracesium; 65 dethrones Antiochus Asiaticus.

64 Pontus annexed to Rome; Death of Mithridates the Great.

63 Palestine conquered by Pompey; Cataline defeated and killed at Pistoria.

60 First triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey and Crassus; Age of Catullus (poet); Cicero (orator); Sallust (historian); Roscius (actor), &c.

57 Gaul becomes a Roman province; 55 Cæsar invades Britain.

53 Crassus plunders the Temple of Venus at Hierapolis; his defeat and death, by the Parthians, near Carrhæ.

51 Siege and capture of Pindenissus by Cicero.

50 Civil war between Cæsar and Pompey; 49 Cæsar crosses the Rubicon; takes Ariminum; 48 defeats Pompey at Pharsalia, July 30th, death of Pompey.

47 Cæsar defeats Pharnaces at Zela; writes from thence his famous letter of three words, “Veni, vidi, vici;” I came, I saw, I conquered; 46 Victorious at Thapsus; Death of Cato; 45 Battle of Munda; the last in which Cæsar commanded.

44 Cæsar killed in the Senate-house, March 15th, by Brutus, Cassius, &c.

43 Antony defeats the Consul Pansa, and is defeated the same day by Hirtius; Cicero murdered by order of Antony; Age of Varro (historian and philosopher); Diodorus Siculus and Pompeius (historians).

42 Antony and Octavius defeat Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

37 Herod, an Idumean, placed on the Jewish throne.

31 Naval battle at Actium; Octavius defeats Antony; _Ends the Commonwealth of Rome_.

30 Death of Antony and Cleopatra; Egypt becomes a Roman province.

28 _Roman Empire begins_.

27 Title of Augustus given to Octavius; Augustin age; Virgil, Livy, Ovid, Propertius (poets); Horace (historian); Dionysius Halicarnassus (antiquarian).

20 Roman standards taken from Crassus restored to Augustus, by Phraates, king of Parthia; death of Virgil.

19 Noricum and Pannonia conquered by the Romans; Candace, queen of Meroe, in Ethiopia, blind of an eye, invades Egypt, but is repelled.

15 Rhætia and Vindelicia conquered by Drusus.

6 Archelaus, surnamed Herod, banished to Vienna, in Gaul.

4 JESUS CHRIST, our SAVIOUR, born four years before the vulgar era, December 25th.

2 Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, by order of Herod; his death; Archelaus succeeds him.

_A.D. First year of the Christian Era, 4004 years after the Creation._

2 Silk first introduced into Rome.

6 Procurators or governors appointed over Judea.

8 Christ, at twelve years of age, is three days in the temple.

9 Arminius or Herman, a German chief, destroys the army of Varus; this defeat causes a great sensation at Rome; Ovid banished to Tomi.

14 Augustus dies at Nola, after a reign of forty-five years; succeeded by Tiberius; Age of Germanicus (Roman general).

20 Jews expelled from Italy by Tiberius; 28 Age of Strabo (geographer).

29 John the Baptist commences preaching: 30 Baptizes our Saviour.

31 Our Saviour delivers the Sermon on the Mount.

32 Feeds the 5000: his transfiguration; John the Baptist beheaded.

33 Our Saviour’s death; First Christian Church at Jerusalem.

37 Conversion of St. Paul; Death of Tiberius; succeeded by Caligula; 40 Caligula assassinated.

41 Seneca banished to Corsica; is recalled eight years afterwards; Age of Pomponius Mela (geographer).

43 Expedition of Claudius into Britain; 51 Caractacus, British king, taken as a prisoner to Rome.

52 Paul visits Athens; 54 preaches the Gospel at Ephesus; Age of Persius (satirist); Age of Lucan the poet.

60 St. Paul arrested; 62 voyage to Rome; 63 arrives in that city.

61 Boadicea defeated by Suetonius Paulinus at Camulodunum.

68 Nero dies: Josephus (historian); Pliny (naturalist); Petronius (poet).

69 Galba slain; Suicide of Otho; Vitellius slain.

70 Jerusalem taken and destroyed by Titus, September 8th; Agricola’s fleet sails around Britain; Agricola promotes useful arts among the Britons.

76 Agricola defeats Galgacus at the foot of the Grampian Hills.

79 Herculaneum, Pompeii, and other cities, overwhelmed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius; Death of the elder Pliny.

81 Titus dies, aged 40; Age of Martial (poet); Quintilian (rhetorician).

96 Domitian slain; Age of Tacitus (historian); Juvenal (satirist).

103 Dacia conquered by Trajan; 106 Age of Pliny the younger; Plutarch.

117 Death of Trajan, at Selinus, in Cilicia; succeeded by Adrian.

120 Wall built by Adrian across Britain.

139 Death of Adrian, aged 71; Antoninus (emperor); Ptolemy (geographer).

140 Wall built by Antoninus across Britain.

169 Death of Polycarp the Martyr; Age of Galen (physician).

180 Marcus Aurelius (emperor) dies at Sirmium.

192 The Emperor Commodus slain; Pertinax succeeds him.

194 Severus defeats Niger at Issus; becomes emperor.

210 Wall built across Britain by Severus; 218 Heliogabalus emperor.

226 Artaxerxes founds second Persian empire; Dynasty of the Sassanides begins.

238 Maximinus killed by his own soldiers before the walls of Aquileia. This emperor was a monster of cruelty, and of gigantic size and strength, being eight feet high.

259 Sapor I captures the emperor Valerian, and flays him alive; Odenatus king of Palmyra; Gallienus succeeds Valerian.

267 Odenatus dies; Zenobia, his wife, assumes the title of Queen of the East.

270 Death of Claudius; Aurelian succeeds; regards Zenobia as a usurper; 272 defeats her at Antioch and Emesa; 273 captures Palmyra; takes Zenobia prisoner; puts Longinus, her secretary to death.

275 Emperor Tacitus; 282 Emperor Probus killed, near Sirmium.

286 Age of the emperors Diocletian and Maximianus.

305 Both resign their authority to enjoy private life; the first retires to Salona in Illyricum, and the other to Lucania.

306 Constantine the Great proclaimed emperor; 313 establishes Christianity as the religion of the empire; 315 defeats Licinius at Cibalis; 324 again at Adrianopolis; 328 removes the government from Rome to Byzantium.

338 Death of Constantine; succeeded by his sons Constantinus, Constantius and Constans.

348 Sapor defeats Constantius at Singara; 350 Constantius sole emperor; 351 defeats Magnentius at Mursa; 353, again at Mons Seleucus.

360 Julian the Apostate (emperor); 363 dies; next year Jovian dies.

367 Age of Ausonius (poet); 375 Emporor Gratian.

378 Valens defeated by the Goths at Adrianopolis. This was the most disastrous defeat experienced by the Romans since the battle of Cannæ.

380 Age of St. Augustine, one of the fathers of the Church.

395 Theodosius, emperor, divides the Roman empire between his sons Arcadius and Honorius, into Eastern and Western.

403 Stilicho defeated by the Goths at Pollentia.

407 The Alans, Vandals and Sueves invade Gaul and Spain.

408 Alaric takes Rome first time; 409, second time; 410, third time; the city given up to plunder for six days; Death of Alaric; Kingdom of Burgundy founded.

441 Age of St. Patrick; 448 Romans leave Britain; next year Angles and Saxons land under Hengist and Horsa.

451 Attila defeated at Durocatalaunum; 452 destroys Aquileia; 453 Dies.

455 Rome captured by Genseric, king of the Vandals; Heptarchy established in Britain.

474 Romulus Augustulus, last emperor of the west.

476 _End of the Roman Empire_.

489 Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, becomes king of Italy; Ostrogoths invade Italy and defeat Odoacer.

496 Clovis the Great, king of France; Feudal system begins.

529 Age of Justinian; Belisarius (Roman general).

622 Mahomet, aged 53, flies from Mecca to Medina, which forms the first year of the Hegira or Mahometan Era.

632 Death of Mahomet; Abubeker, his successor or first Caliph.

636 Saracens conquer Egypt; destroy the Alexandrian Library.

712 The Moors invade Spain; 713 conquer the Visigoths.

742 Charlemagne, son of Pepin the Short, born; 768 crowned king of the Franks; 774 crowned king of Italy; 800 crowned emperor of the West, by Pope Leo III; 814 Charlemagne dies. Charlemagne was the most powerful Christian monarch of the middle ages; he was a renowned warrior, he also encouraged learning and religion, and collected around him the most noted scholars of his time.

827 The Heptarchy united under Egbert, king of England.

843 Kenneth Macalpine first king of Scotland.

849 Alfred, King of England, born; 872 ascends the throne; 901 dies. This monarch rescued his country from the power of the Danes; encouraged learning and religion; enacted wise laws, and laid the foundation of the naval power of Britain.

853 Tithes of all England granted to the church.

856 The English crown first disposed of by will.

862 Winchester burnt by the Danes.

867 The monasteries ravaged by the Danes.

886 Ships first built to secure the coasts. Learning restored at Oxford, by Alfred the Great.

890 Brick and stone first used in building. Time calculated by wax candles marked.

897 A plague happened which caused great desolation among the inhabitants.

900 Athelstan created knight, and the first who enjoyed this title in England.

937 A severe frost, which continued 120 days. The Bible translated into the Saxon. Colebrand, the Danish giant, killed by Guy, Earl of Warwick.

944 A storm blew down 1500 houses in London.

945 The first tuneable bells in England were this year hung in Croyland Abbey.

946 Stealing first punished with death.

955 Edred enjoyed the honor of being the first who was styled King of Great Britain.

960 Laws to prevent excessive drinking. Wolves’ heads made a tribute. Eight princes rowed Edgar over the river Dee.

979 Juries instituted.

982 A fire destroyed the King’s palace and a great part of London.

991 The land-tax first levied.

999 Danegelt first levied, to bribe the Danes to leave the kingdom.

1002 November 13, a general massacre of the Danes began at Welwin in Hertfordshire.

1012 The priests first inhibited from marrying.

1014 Selling English children and kindred to Ireland, prohibited.

1017 Canute caused the assassins of Edmund, and the traitor Edric who by a plot of regicide had advanced him to the throne, to be hanged.

1040 Macbeth murders Duncan king of Scotland.

1058 Edward the Confessor began to cure the King’s evil. Godiva relieved Coventry from some heavy taxes by riding naked through the town.

1060 The cross of Waltham erected.

1065 The Saxon laws written in Latin.

1066 William Fitzosborne created earl of Hereford, being the first Earl created in this kingdom.

1068 The tax of Danegelt was re-established; and the curfew-bell ordered to be rung at eight every evening, when the people were obliged, on pain of death, to extinguish their fire and candle.

1072 Surnames first used in England.

1075 William was reconciled with his son Robert, who had rebelled against him. Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, was beheaded for rebellion, and was the first English nobleman thus executed.

1076 William refused to pay homage to the see of Rome for the possession of England, and forbade his bishops to attend the council that Gregory had summoned. He however sent to Rome the tribute of Peter-pence. A great earthquake in England, and a frost from November to the end of April.

1078 William laid the foundation of London.

1079 The Norman laws and language introduced.

1085 Thirty-six parishes, containing a circuit of sixty miles in Hampshire, were depopulated and destroyed without any compensation to the inhabitants, in order to make New-Forest for William’s diversion of hunting. The tyrannical laws of the Forest were made.

1087 A dreadful famine in England. William went to France and destroyed the country with fire and sword. He died at Rouen by a fall from his horse, and was buried at Caen, in Normandy, in the monastery he had himself founded, but was denied interment by the proprietor till the fees were paid.

1088 An earthquake in London. A great scarcity this year, and corn not ripe till the end of November. William II embarked for Normandy, and made war against his brother Robert. William returned to England; and Henry his brother, was forced to wander without a residence.

1091 A tempest which destroyed 500 houses. Great part of London consumed by fire.

1092 Malcolm, king of Scotland, killed at Alnwick, by the Earl of Northumberland.

1094 Man and beast destroyed by a great mortality.

1095 Peter the hermit preached up a crusade to the Holy Land.

1096 The Christian princes raised 700,000 men, and began the holy war. The first single combat for deciding disputes between the nobility.

1097 The Voyage for the Holy War, was first undertaken. Being a contrivance of Pope Urban, to compose the divisions of the church, the whole Christian world being then at discord among themselves. This war lasted almost three hundred years.

1098 Tower surrounded with a wall. Westminster Hall built. Its dimensions are 224 feet by 74.

1099 Jerusalem taken by storm, and forty thousand Saracens put to the sword.

1100 Godwin-Sands, the property of Earl Godwin, first overflowed by the sea, destroying four thousand acres of land. King Henry married the lady Maud, daughter of Margaret, late queen of Scots, and niece to Edgar Atheling, descended from Edmund Ironside. The use of fire and candle, after eight o’clock at night restored to the English.

1106 King Henry subdues Normandy, takes Robert prisoner, and orders his eyes to be put out.

1109 Three shillings levied on every hide of land, which tax produced £824,000.

1110 Arts and sciences taught again at Cambridge.

1112 A plague in London.

1114 The Thames dry for three days.

1116 A council called of the nobility, which is supposed by some to be the first parliament.

1122 The order of the Knights Templars founded.

1123 The first park (Woodstock) made in England.

1129 The revenue of the royal demesne altered from kind to specie.

1132 London mostly destroyed by fire.

1134 Duke Robert, having been imprisoned and blinded twenty-eight years, ended his miserable existence. Wheat sufficient to subsist 100 men one day, sold at one shilling--a sheep 4d.

1136 The distance from Aldgate to St. Paul’s (included), destroyed by fire in London.

1136 The Empress Maud besieged in Oxford, and made her escape from thence on foot, being disguised in white, on a snowy night, to Abingdon. The tax of Danegelt entirely abolished. No less than fifteen hundred strong castles in the kingdom.

1139 The Empress Matilda lands at Arundel, and claims the crown. Makes her natural brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, her general.

1141 Stephen taken prisoner at the battle of Lincoln, and confined in chains by Maud, in Gloucester gaol. Stephen released.

1148 A new Crusade undertaken.

1151 Gratian of Bologna, the monk, collects the canon laws after twenty-four year’s labour.

1153 Agreed, between Henry and Stephen, that eleven hundred of the castles, erected by permission of the latter, should be abolished. Appeals were first made to the Pope, and canon laws instituted. There was no regular mode of taxation. Contending

## parties supported themselves by plundering each other’s tenants.

There were more abbeys built, than in the hundred years preceding.

1155 The castles demolished, agreeably to the treaty of 1153.

1157 The Welsh, subdued, do homage, and swear allegiance. A sect, called Publicans, rejecting baptism and marriage, came into England from Germany. The bishops pronounced them heretics; they were branded in the forehead and whipped.

1174 Henry scourged for the supposed murder of Becket. The bishops and abbots of Scotland swore fealty to England and its church. The earls and barons of Scotland swore allegiance to Henry and his son.

1176 London bridge begun by Peter Colmar, a priest. It was thirty-three years in building.

1177 Glass windows in private houses first used. Debasers of coin first severely punished. A new coinage.

1185 A total eclipse of the sun; and, at the same time, an earthquake, which destroyed Lincoln and other churches.

1186 Near Oxford in Suffolk, was a sort of wild-man caught in a fisherman’s net. Trial by jury established, or the verdict of twelve men, to punish offenders with the loss of a leg or banishment. Henry secreted his concubine (Rosamond, daughter of Walter, lord Clifford) in a labyrinth at his palace at Woodstock, who being discovered by his queen Eleanor, was poisoned by her, and buried at Godstow nunnery near Oxford.

1189 The castles of Berwick and Roxburgh delivered up to William, king of Scotland, who was, at the same time relieved from subjection to England. Richard began, with Philip of France, his expedition to the Holy Land. About this time were those famous robbers and outlaws, Robin Hood, and Little John. Upon Richard’s coronation-day, (3rd September,) was a great slaughter of the Jews in London, who coming to offer their presents to the new king, were set upon by the mob, to the loss of their lives and estates; and the example of London was followed by other towns, as Norwich, St. Edmunds-Bury, Lincoln, Stamford and Lynn.

1190 King Richard marries the Lady Berengaria, daughter to the king of Navarre, and goes to the Holy Land, having sold some of the crown lands to raise the money for that expedition. In which voyage he took the Island of Sicily and Cyprus.

1191 Richard obtained a great victory over Saladin, at Jerusalem, September 3. He soon after defeated a Turkish troop of 10,000, who were guarding a caravan to Jerusalem. He took, on this occasion, 3,000 loaded camels, 4,000 mules, and an inestimable booty which he gave to his troops.

1192 Multitudes destroyed by a raging fever, which lasted five months. Two suns appeared on Whitsunday, so resembling each other, that astronomers could scarcely distinguish which was the centre of our system, according to Copernicus.

1194 Richard having been absent four years, returned to England, March 20. He made war with France, and having obtained a great victory over the French at Gysors “Not we” says he, “but _Dieu et mon Droit_,” i.e. God and my Right, has obtained this victory. Ever since, the kings of England have made it their motto. The king of Scotland carried the sword of state at the second coronation of Richard.

1197 Robin Hood, being indisposed, and desiring to be blooded, was purposely and treacherously bled to death. In this reign, companies and societies were first established in London. Three lions passant first borne in the king’s shield.

1199 Surnames first used.

1200 The king of Scotland performed public homage to John, at the parliament held in Lincoln. Assize of bread first appointed.

1204 The Inquisition established by Pope Innocent III. The most ancient writ of parliament directed to the bishop of Salisbury. Five moons seen at one time in Yorkshire.

1205 A fish resembling a man taken on the coast of Suffolk, and kept alive six months.

1207 The first annual mayor and common council of London chosen.

1208 Divine service throughout the kingdom suspended by the Pope’s interdict.

1209 John excommunicated.

1210 Twenty Irish princes do homage to John at Dublin. The clergy taxed to the amount of £100,000.

1211 England absolved by the Pope from its allegiance to John.

1212 Great part of London burnt down by a fire which began in Southwark in Middlesex, and consumed the Church of St. Mary Overy, went on to the bridge; and whilst some were quenching the flames, the houses at the other end took fire, so that numbers were inclosed; many were forced to leap into the Thames, whilst others, crowding into boats that came to their relief, were the cause of nearly 3,000 people perishing, partly by water, and

## partly by fire.

1213 John resigned his dominions to the Pope, and was absolved. In this reign, sterling money was first coined.

1216 Wheat was sold for twelve-pence a quarter, and beans and oats for four-pence a quarter.

1222 The ward-ship of heirs and their lands was granted to king Henry.

1226 The Pope demanded a sum annually from every cathedral church and monastery in Christendom. This demand was refused. Thomas à Becket’s bones were enshrined in gold and precious stones. Two imposters executed, the one for pretending to be the Virgin Mary, the other Mary Magdalen.

1228 The Jews obliged to pay a third part of their property to the king.

1236 Water first conveyed to London with utility. The Pope’s ambassador going to Oxford, was set upon by the students, and his brother slain, himself hardly escaping; whereupon the Pope excommunicated the University, and made all the bishops who interceded in the University’s behalf, and the students, go without their gowns, and barefooted from St. Paul’s church to his house, being about a mile, before he would revoke the sentence.

1246 Titles first used.

1251 Wales entirely subdued and subjected to English laws.

1253 Fine linen first made in England.

1255 All possessing £15 per annum, obliged to be knighted, or pay a fine. Tapestry introduced by Eleanor, wife of prince Edward.

1264 There were 700 Jews slain in London, because one of them would have forced a Christian to have paid more than two-pence, for the use of twenty shillings a week.

1269 About this time, Roger Bacon, a divine of Merton College in Oxford, was imprisoned by the Pope, for preaching against the Romish church.

1273 The Scots swear fealty to Edward, June 12.

1275 Jews obliged to wear a badge; usury restrained by the same act of parliament, October 6.

1279 The first statute of Mortmain. 280 Jews hung for clipping and coining.

1282 The Rolls in Chancery-lane given to the Jews. Wales reduced, after having preserved her liberties 800 years.

1284 Edward II born at Caernarvon, and created first prince of Wales, April 25.

1285 The abbey Church of Westminster finished, being sixty years in building.

1286 The Jews seized, and £12,000 extorted from them by order of the king. He likewise laid great fines upon his judges, and other ministers, for their corruption; the sum imposed upon eleven of them was 236,000 marks.

1289 15,000 Jews banished.

1291 Charing, Waltham, St. Albans, and Dunstable crosses erected, where the corpse of queen Eleanor was rested on its way from Lincoln to Westminster for interment.

1295 The Scots confederate with the French against the English.

1296 Baliol, king of Scotland, brought prisoner to London.

1298 40,000 Scots killed by the English at the battle of Falkirk. Sir William Wallace defeated at Falkirk. Baliol released. Spectacles invented.

1301 Parliament declared Scotland subject to England.

1302 The treasury robbed of property to the amount of £100,000. Magnetic needle first used.

1308 Crockery ware invented.

1314 The king defeated at Bannockburn, in Scotland.

1319 Dublin University founded.

1322 Knights templar order abolished. Under the accusation of heresy and other vices, all the knights templar were seized by order of the king, in one day. The knights templar were an order instituted by Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, for the defence of the Holy City, and of the pilgrims that travelled thither, and were afterwards dispersed through all the kingdoms in Christendom. They were so enriched by the superstitious world, that they possessed no less than 14,000 lordships, besides other valuable lands.

1325 The queen and her adherents declared enemies to the kingdom.

1326 The nobility renounce all fealty to Edward. The king resigns his crown to his son Edward III.

1327 The first general pardon granted at a coronation, which was afterwards imitated by succeeding kings.

1330 Gunpowder invented. The use of guns by Berthold Swartz of Cologne in Germany, a monk, who being addicted to the study of Chemistry, and making up a preparation of Nitre, and other things, a spark of fire fell into it and caused a quick and violent explosion; whereupon he made a composition of powder, and inclosing it in an instrument of brass, found it answer his intention, and by this accident came the invention of Guns.

1331 The art of weaving cloth brought from Flanders.

1340 Copper money first used in Scotland and Ireland. Thomas Blanket and some other inhabitants of Bristol, set up looms for weaving those woollen cloths that yet bear that name.

1341 Gold first coined in England.

1346 Cannon first used by the English at Cressy.

1347 So great a plague in England, that in one year there was buried in London 50,000; and there succeeded a famine and murrain. August 3rd, king Edward took the City of Calais, which he filled with English inhabitants; and it remained in the possession of the Crown of England 210 years after.

1348 The Order of the Garter instituted by Edward the Black Prince, April 3. The plague destroyed one-half of the people.

1352 The largest silver coin in England was groats.

1357 Coals first imported into London.

1362 Council obliged to plead in English.

1364 Four kings entertained at one time, by Sir Henry Picard, lord mayor of London.

1377 The first champion at coronation. Orders to arm the clergy.

1378 The plague in the north of England. In this year Greenland was discovered.

1379 Every person in the kingdom taxed, April 25.

1381 Bills of Exchange first used. Wat Tyler’s rebellion begun May 3. 1506 rebels hung, July 2.

1385 The French land in Scotland, in order to invade England, whereupon king Richard went to fight them, and put Edinburgh into flames, but they refusing to fight, he returns.

1386 Linen-weavers company first settled.

1387 The first high-admiral of England appointed. William of Wickham, bishop of Winchester, and lord treasurer, and chancellor of England, laid the foundation of the college in Winchester, as a nursery for his college in Oxford.

1388 Bombs invented.

1391 A great plague and famine. Cards invented for the King of France. Charles VI.

1392 Thirteen counties charged with treason, and obliged to purchase their pardons. Provision seized, without payment, for the army. Duke of Lancaster landed, and declared his pretensions to the crown, July 4. Richard confined in the tower, August 20. Resigned his crown, September 29. In this reign piked shoes were worn tied with ribands and chains of silver to the knees. Ladies began to ride on side saddles, before which time they used to ride astride like men.

1399 Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, died. A conspiracy formed to restore Richard.

1400 Richard II murdered in Pontefract Castle. Emperor of Constantinople visited England.

1403 The battle of Shrewsbury, July 22, gained by Henry and the valour of his sons.

1405 Great guns first used in England, at the siege of Berwick.

1407 A plague destroyed 30,000 persons in London.

1409 Wickliffe’s doctrine condemned.

1414 King Henry sends his brother, the Duke of Bedford, &c., with 200 sail of ships, who fell upon the French fleet, sunk 500 French vessels, and took three great Carricks of Genoa; relieved Harfleur, and so forced the French to raise the siege. In this

## action many thousands of the French were killed.

1415 The battle of Agincourt gained by Henry, with a loss of 10,000 men to the French, killed, and 14,000 prisoners, October 25th. Henry sent David Gam, a Welsh captain, to view the strength of the enemy, who reported, “There were enough to be killed, enough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run away.”

1418 Sir John Oldcastle burnt for heresy in St. Giles’s fields.

1419 Vines and sugar-cane first planted in Madeira.

1420 Henry assumes the title of King of France, on a new coin, April 18th. Kings of France and England make a magnificent entry into Paris.

1421 The Duke of Clarence, making an inroad into Anjou, in an unhappy engagement with the French, he and about 2,000 English were slain.

1422 The two Courts of England and France held at Paris, on Whitsunday: the two Kings and Queens dined together in public, May 21st. In this reign it was enacted that knights, citizens, and burgesses, should be resident in the place for which they were chosen. The crown and jewels were pawned to raise money for maintaining the war with France.

1422 The French King enlisted 15,000 Scots.

1424 The King of Scotland ransomed.

1430 Every person possessed of £40 per annum, obliged to be knighted.

1436 Paris taken by the English.

1437 James, King of Scotland, murdered, February 19th. So great a dearth, that bread was made of fern roots and ivy berries.

1447 The Bodleian library at Oxford founded.

1448 Duke of York asserts his title to the crown.

1449 A rebellion in Ireland.

1450 The King and his forces defeated at Seven-oaks, by Jack Cade, in May. Cade killed, and his followers dispersed, in June.

1453 The first Lord Mayor’s show. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, encounters the Queen’s army, near Wakefield in Yorkshire, in which he was killed, and his army routed. Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March, hearing of his father’s death, took upon him the title of Duke of York, and in a battle, at Mortimer’s-cross, near Ludlow, overthrew the Earls of Pembroke, Ormond, and Wiltshire, and beheaded Owen Tudor, the King’s father-in-law. And in another battle with the Queen, he killed the Earls of Northumberland, and Westmoreland; the Lords Dacres, Wells, Clifford, Beaumont, and Grey. This was the bloodiest battle that England ever knew, for there were killed that day 36,776 men.

1454 The king defeated by the Duke of York, at Barnet.

1459 Engravings and etchings invented.

1460 The King taken prisoner at the battle of Northampton.

1461 Edward, the Duke of York, proclaimed King. Richard Plantagenet, brother to Edward IV, created Duke of Gloucester. Henry, Margaret, their sons, and adherents, attained by parliament, November 6th.

1463 Woollens, laces, ribands, and other English manufactures, prohibited exportation.

1464 Henry, in disguise, taken prisoner, and conveyed to the Tower.

1469 5,000 Welsh slain at the battle of Branbury.

1470 Warwick, being offended at the marriage of Edward IV, landed September 13th, with 60,000 men from France. Edward IV flies to the Duke of Burgundy, his brother-in-law, in Holland.

1471 King Edward, endeavouring to re-obtain the crown, encounters King Henry in a bloody battle, upon Gladmore heath, near Barnet, and King Henry taken prisoner a second time. On both sides were slain 10,000 men. King Henry’s Queen, in a battle with King Edward, was taken prisoner, 3,000 on her side were slain, and her son Edward killed; and soon after, King Henry himself was murdered by the hand of the crook-back’d Duke of Gloucester.

1472 A plague in England destroyed more than preceding fifteen year’s war.

1475 Margaret of Anjou, ransomed for £12,500.

1481 James, King of Scotland, caused one of his brothers to be murdered. Thomas Parr born this year, and lived 152 years. A remarkable act was passed in this reign, which enacted what sort of dress each class of men should wear. Another enacted that no peaked shoes should be worn.

1483 Gloucester conveyed the King to Northampton. Lords Hastings, Rivers, and Grey beheaded. The Lord Mayor, &c., at the instigation of the Duke of Buckingham, offered the crown to the Duke of Gloucester, who, with affected hesitation, accepted it, June 17th. King Edward V, and his brother, the Duke of York, murdered in the Tower. Jane Shore, concubine to King Edward IV, and afterwards to Lord Hastings, was obliged to do penance publicly in St. Paul’s. She was afterwards starved to death, no person being allowed to relieve her, and died in a ditch; to which circumstance, Shoreditch is said to owe its name. Edward V was born in Westminster Abbey, November 4th, 1470; reigning two months and eighteen days, was murdered in the Tower, and buried there privately. His remains were afterwards found in 1674, and removed to Westminster. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, (the English Nero,) proclaimed King of England. Post-horses and stages established. Earl of Richmond landed at Pool in Dorsetshire. Being nearly surprised by Richard, he embarked again, and returned to Picardy.

1484 Anne, the Queen of Richard, died March 16th. Richard treats with Laudais, the Duke of Bretagne’s prime minister, for surprising and delivering up the Earl of Richmond. Richmond, escaping from Bretagne, went to Angers, in Anjou.

1485 Lord Stanley raises 5000 men, and his brother 2000, with whom they joined Richmond. The sweating sickness, raged in London.

1486 King Henry, to balance the power of the Lords, found a way to raise that of the Commons, which ever since has carried a much greater sway than formerly in the government.

1487 Lambert Simnel, who personated the Duke of York, was made a scullion in the King’s kitchen. The star chamber instituted.

1488 The King of Scotland, James III, killed by his subjects. Cape of Good Hope discovered.

1489 Maps and sea charts first brought into England by Bartholomew Columbus.

1491 The Greek language first introduced into England.

1492 3rd August, Columbus set sail from Palos, a port of Spain, and on the 12th of October, to his unspeakable gratification, he made his first discovery in the New World. This was one of the Bahama Islands, called by the natives Guanahani, named by Columbus St. Salvador, and afterwards, by some unpardonable caprice, called by the English Cat Island. He landed the same day, took possession of it in the name of the Spanish sovereigns, and assumed the titles of Admiral and Viceroy, which had been awarded to him before he sailed from Europe.

1493 15th March. Columbus arrived in Spain after a stormy and dangerous voyage, having taken not quite seven months and a-half to accomplish this momentous enterprize.

1494 Poyning’s law, which enacted that the statutes in England, respecting the English, should be observed in Ireland likewise, first instituted by Sir Edward Poyning.

1495 Cicely, Duchess of York, mother to King Edward IV, died, being very old, who had lived to see three Princes born of her body, crowned, and four murdered.

1497 Perkin Warbeck besieged Exeter. The passage to the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope discovered. 3rd July, John Cabot discovered Newfoundland. He sailed from the Port of Bristol, in the spring of 1497, and, on the 3rd of July, discovered the coast of Labrador. The opposite Island, now called Newfoundland, they called St. Johns, having landed there on St. John’s day. To the mainland they gave the name of _Terra prima vista_--or Primavista (first seen). The English navigators thus reached the continent of North America only five years after Columbus had discovered the West Indies, and more than a year before he had landed on the continent or main land.

1499 Perkin Warbeck taken and hung at Tyburn, and the last Earl of the Plantagenet line was beheaded on Tower-hill, November 28th.

1500 A plague in London, which destroyed 30,000 of its inhabitants. A marriage was concluded between James IV, King of Scotland, and Margaret, the daughter of King Henry VII, which afterwards united England and Scotland under one King.

1505 Shillings first coined in England.

1513 Earl of Surrey gained the battle of Flodden-field, over the Scots, whose King, James IV, fell in the contest. King Henry invades France in person, takes Terwin and Tournay, at the siege of which, the Emperor Maximilian served under the King’s pay. At which siege likewise, was fought that battle called the battle of Spurs, because the English put some of the French troops to flight who made great use of their spurs.

1514 Enacted that surgeons should not sit on juries, nor be employed in parish offices.

1517 Oxford depopulated by stagnated waters. Martin Luther began the reformation in Germany.

1521 King Henry derived the title to him and his successors of Defender of the Faith, from writing a book against Luther. Musquets first invented. Mexico city yielded, after a prolonged siege, to Cortez, in August.

1522 Magellan performed his voyage under the auspices of Charles V, of Spain. He set sail from Seville, in Spain, in August, 1519. After spending several months on the coast of South America, searching for a passage to the Indies, he continued his voyage to the South, passed through the strait that bears his name, and after sailing three months and twenty-one days, through an unknown ocean, he discovered a cluster of fertile islands, which he named the Ladrones, or the Islands of Thieves, from the thievish disposition of the natives. The fair weather and favourable winds which he experienced induced him to bestow on this the name of the Pacific, which it still retains. Proceeding from the Ladrones, he discovered the islands which were afterwards called the Philippines in honour of Philip, King of Spain, who subjected them forty years after the voyage of Magellan. Here, in a contest with the natives, Magellan was killed, and the expedition was prosecuted under other commanders. After taking in a cargo of spices at the Moluccas, the only vessel of the squadron then fit for a long voyage, sailed for Europe by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived in Spain in September, 1522.

1530 The palace of St. James built.

1535 Brass cannon first cast in England by John Owen. Jacques Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence on that Saint’s day. He explored the north-east coast carefully, and, passing through the Strait of Belleisle, traversed the great Gulf of the St. Lawrence, and arrived in the Bay of Chaleurs in July. He was delighted with the peaceable and friendly conduct of the natives, “who,” says Hakluyt, “with one of their boats, came unto us, and brought us pieces of seals ready sodden, putting them upon pieces of wood: then, retiring themselves, they would make signs unto us, that they did give them to us.” From this hospitable place, where the natives seem to have displayed some of the politeness of modern society, Jacques Cartier proceeded to Gaspé Bay, where he erected a cross thirty feet high, with a shield bearing the three fleurs-de-lis of France, thus taking possession in the name of Francis the First. He carried off two natives from Gaspé, who were of great use to him on his succeeding voyage. It appears, however, that it was with their own consent, as they allowed themselves to be clothed in shirts, coloured coats and caps, and to have a copper chain placed about their neck, “whereat they were greatly contented, and gave their old clothes to their fellows that went back again.” Cartier coasted along the northern shores of the Gulf, when, meeting with boisterous weather, he made sail for France, and arrived at St. Malo on the 5th of September. This celebrated navigator deserves especial notice, inasmuch as he was the first who explored the shores of Canada to any considerable extent, and was the very first European who became acquainted with the existence of Hochelaga, and in 1535 pushed his way through all obstacles till he discovered and entered the village which occupied the very spot on which now stands the city of Montreal.

1536 376 monasteries suppressed.

1539 Leaden pipes to convey water invented.

1540 645 religious houses seized, and their property, amounting to £161,000, given to the King. The number of monasteries suppressed in England and Wales, were 313, Priories 290, Friaries 122, Nunneries 142, Colleges 152, and Hospitals 129; in all 1148.

1541 1st voyage to India by an English ship.

1543 Mortars and cannon first cast in iron.

1544 Pistols first used.

1545 William Foxley slept fourteen days, and lived forty-one days after.

1547 The vows of celibacy before taken by priests, annulled, and the communion ordered to be administered in both kinds. Evening prayers began to be read in English in the King’s chapel, April 16th. The Scots refusing to marry their young Queen to King Edward (according to their promise in his father’s life-time), the protector enters Scotland with an army of 12,000 foot, and 600 horse, and fights them in Pinkey-field, near Musselburgh, and kills 14,000 Scots, and takes 1500 prisoners, having lost but sixty of his own men.

1548 Some ceremonies were now abrogated, and an order of council against the carrying of candles, on Candlemas-day, ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and palms on Palm-Sunday.

1549 Telescopes invented.

1551 The sweating-sickness broke out this year In England with such contagion, that 800 died in one week of it in London. Those that were taken with it were inclined much to sleep, and all that slept died; but if they were kept awake a day, they got well. A college founded in Galway in Ireland. Common-prayer books established by act of parliament. Monks and nuns allowed inheritances. Sternhold and Hopkins translated and put the Psalms into verse.

1553 There was so great a plenty of malt and wheat, that a barrel of beer with the cock sold for six-pence, and four great loaves for one penny. The King founded St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Bridewell, improved the Hospital of Christchurch and St. Thomas’ Hospital, Southwark. Judge Hales, in his circuit into Kent, required the justices to see to the execution of King Edward’s laws: for which he was committed, and removed from prison to prison, and threatened so, that he attempted to cut his own throat, and at last drowned himself.

1553 Spitzbergen, the White Sea, and Nova Zembla, discovered by the English.

1554 The laws against Lollards and Heretics were revived, and the statutes of Mortmain repealed. There was at this time a discovery in London of the imposter of the Spirit of the Wall, who, by the help of a whistle, uttered several things relating to religion, and the state, through a hole in a wall. It was found to be Elizabeth Croses, and one Drake, her accomplice, who were both made to do penance for it publicly at St. Paul’s. Scory, bishop of Chichester, renounced his wife, and did penance for his marriage. It is supposed there were 12,000 of the clergy deprived for being married, and most of them were judged upon common fame, without any process, but a citation.

1555 The church lands, in the Queen’s possession, restored. Coaches first used in England.

1556 300 Protestants burnt for heresy.

1557 This year began with a visitation of the Universities. Commissioners were sent to Oxford, where they burnt all the English Bibles and heretical books they could find; and took up the body of Peter Martyr’s wife, who they said was a heretic, and buried it in a dunghill. And at Cambridge, they dug up the bodies of Bucer and Fagius, two heretics, and tied their coffins to stakes, and burnt them and their heretical books together. Cardinal Pole died November 15th.

1576-77-78 Three voyages by Frobisher in search of a North-west passage. Greenland explored.

1580 Drake, the first English circumnavigator.

1584 Virginia discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh.

1587 Davies’ Straits discovered by Davies, an English navigator. February 9th. Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Fotheringay Castle.

1588 Destruction of the Spanish Armada.

1595 Falkland Islands, discovered by Hawkins.

1596 The first trading expedition to the East Indies.

1599 East India Company. Chauvin made two voyages to Tadousac.

1603 Death of Queen Elizabeth on 24th March, and accession of James VI.

1604 The present translation of the Bible made.

1605 The gun-powder plot discovered. The channel for the New River allowed to be cut. 97,304 person died in London, this year, whereof 68,596 died of the plague.

1608 Virginia planted by the English. Champlain returned to Canada, and Quebec founded 3rd July.

1609 East India company’s patent removed. Chelsea college founded. Alum brought to perfection by Sir J. Bouchier. Silk-worms first brought into England.

1610 Thermometers invented. King Henry IV of France murdered at Paris, by Ravillac, a Romish priest.

1611 Bartholomew Legat was condemned by the convocation for an Arian heretic. Legat was burnt at Smithfield for an Arian.

1612 Edward Wightman of Burton, burnt at Lichfield for a heretic.

1614 Sir Thomas Overbury poisoned in the Tower. The New River brought to London. Champlain returned to France. An inundation of the sea overflowed an extent of twelve miles in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

1618 Sir Walter Raleigh is executed for high treason, at the instigation of the Spanish ambassador. The poet Shakspeare flourished during the beginning of this and the latter part of the preceding reign. Synod of Dort began: who generally agreed to condemn the doctrines of Arminius, concerning election, reprobation, and the universality of Christ’s death, and man’s redemption by it.

1623 The fatal Vespers at Black-Friars.

1625 A plague in London destroyed 35,417 of its people.

1626 The king raised money by sale of the crown lands, loans, and ship-money.

1628 Dr. Lamb murdered in the streets of London. The city fined for Dr. Lamb’s death, £6,000.

1629 Quebec surrendered to Sir David Kirkt.

1635 Thomas Parr, reported to be aged 152 years, died November 15.

1640 The fatal Long Parliament, began November 3. An act to abolish the Star-chamber.

1641 The princess Mary married to William of Nassau, prince of Orange, at Whitehall. The earl of Strafford attained, May 8: executed May 12. A bill passed for pressing soldiers.

1642 Edge-Hill fight: the number of the slain amounted to above 5,000, whereof two-thirds were conceived to be of those of the parliament party, and a third part of the king’s. June 17th, Montreal founded by Champlain. In the year 1640 the King ceded the whole Island of Montreal to the St. Sulpicians and in the following year M. de Maisonneuve brought out several families from France, and was appointed governor of the island. On the 17th of June, 1642, the spot destined for the city was consecrated by the Superior of the Jesuits, the “Queen of Angels” was supplicated to take it under her protection, and it was named after her “la Ville Marie.” On the evening of this memorable day, Maisonneuve visited the mountain. Two old Indians who accompanied him, having conducted him to the summit, told him that they belonged to the nation which had formerly occupied the whole of the country he beheld, but that they had been driven away, and obliged to take refuge amongst the other tribes, except a few who, with themselves, remained under their conquerors. The governor kindly urged the old men to invite their brethren to return to their hunting-grounds, assuring them they should want for nothing. They promised to do so, but it does not appear that they were successful. In the year 1644, the whole of this beautiful domain became the property of the St. Sulpicians of Paris, and was by them afterwards conveyed to the Seminary of the same order at Montreal, in whose possession it still remains.

1644 York relieved by Prince Rupert, after which happened the fight on Marston-Moor, in which action about 7000 were slain, and 3000 of the King’s party taken prisoners, with all their baggage.

1645 The fatal battle of Naseby, in which 600 private soldiers were killed on the King’s side, and 4500 were taken prisoners; 3000 horse, &c. Montrose defeated the Scotch army at Ketsith, near Glasgow, in Scotland. Cromwell made lieutenant-general.

1646 The whole order of archbishops and bishops abolished, October 9th.

1646-7 Charles delivered up by the Scotch to the English for the consideration of £400,000, January 30th.

1648-9 The King sentenced to be beheaded as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy.

1649 Oliver Cromwell made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, August 13th.

1650 The Marquis of Montrose defeated in Scotland, taken prisoner, sentenced, and barbarously murdered.

1651 Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland, July 22nd. Charles II defeated at Worcester by Oliver, September 3rd.

1653 Oliver chosen protector of England, December 16th. The Rump parliament turned out by the army, which had sat twelve years six months and thirteen days. Scotland and Ireland united in one commonwealth with England, April 12th. Jamaica taken by the English.

1655 Cromwell dissolved the parliament.

1656 Oliver would not suffer the French King to call himself the King of France.

1656-7 A plot to destroy Oliver discovered.

1657 Doctor William Harvey, the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood, died January 5th.

1659 The House of Commons shut up, and entrance denied its members. The Rump sat again, May 7th. The Rump parliament turned out again by Lambert, October 18th. The Rump parliament re-admitted, December 26th.

1660 Oliver Cromwell’s corpse hung at Tyburn, December 2nd. The Long parliament dissolved, and another called, to be holden at Westminster, April 25th.

1661 The body of the noble Marquis of Montrose taken up, and interred in great state.

1662 152 slaves redeemed from Algiers.

1663 Laird Warreston executed at Edinburgh, according to a sentence in parliament, on a gibbet twenty-two feet high.

1665 90,000 people destroyed by the plague in London.

1666 Great fire in London, September 2nd, when 13,200 dwelling-houses were destroyed. The Dutch and English fleets fight for four days, neither party having the advantage. They engage again, and the English obtain the victory.

1669 Death of the poet Sir John Denham.

1670 The church of Quebec constituted a bishopric.

1671 The exchequer shut for want of money. Blood attempted to steal the crown from the Tower.

1674 King Charles received from France a pension of £100,000 per annum. Milton, the poet, and the Earl of Clarendon died.

1676 Carolina planted by English merchants.

1678 Statue at Charing-Cross erected.

1679 The meal-tub plot.

1683 The charter of London taken away by Charles. The Rye-house plot. Lord Russel beheaded on a charge of high treason. Algernon Sidney beheaded, for writing a libel never published, November 21st.

1684 The Buccaneers of America, about 100 in number, with the assistance of some Indians, went into the South seas, and made a bold attack on the Spaniards. Bombay, in the East-Indies, was surrendered to Sir Thomas Grantham, for the use of the East-India company.

1685 Duke of Monmouth proclaimed King at Taunton Dean, defeated at Sedgemore, taken and beheaded.

1685 Justice Jeffries and General Kirk exercise great cruelties on the adherents of Monmouth.

1686 The Newtonian philosophy published. Kirk, at Taunton, while at dinner with his officers, ordered 30 condemned persons to be hanged, namely, 10 in a health to the King, 10 to the Queen, and 10 to Jeffries; but one action the most cruel, was, a young girl throwing herself at his feet to beg her father’s life, he made her prostitute herself to him, with a promise of granting her request; but having satisfied his lustful desire, was so inhuman as out of the window to show the poor unfortunate girl her father hanging on a sign-post: the spectacle so affected her, that she went distracted. The King encamped 15,000 men on Hounslow heath.

1688 Seven bishops committed to the Tower for not countenancing popery. The city of London lent the Prince of Orange £20,000, January 10. The parliament declared James’s abdication. James escorted to Rochester by a Dutch guard, and sailed to France. James landed in Ireland with an army, and assembled a parliament. Brass money coined by James in Ireland. Bill of rights passed. Every hearth or chimney paid two shillings per annum. King William and Queen Mary crowned at Westminster, April 11. The Hanover succession first proposed, May 31.

1690 The battle of the Boyne in Ireland, where James was finally defeated by William, and obliged to embark for France, July 1.

1691 William III took his seat as Stadtholder in Holland. The Queen issues out her royal proclamation for the more reverend observing the Sabbath day, and against profane cursing and swearing. A terrible battle between the Imperialists and Turks, near Salenkemen, in the principality of Sclavonia: in which the Imperialists had about 7,000 killed and wounded, and a great many good officers; but the Turks lost 18,000 men, and almost all their officers killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. Five captains of Admiral Benbow’s squadron in the West-Indies, were tried on board the Breda, at Port-Royal, in Jamaica, for cowardice and breach of orders, in an engagement with Ducasse. The Irish defeated at the battle of Aughrim, in Ireland.

1692 The French fleet destroyed at La Hogue and other places by Admiral Russell. A terrible earthquake in the island of Jamaica in the West-Indies, which almost entirely ruined the town of Port-Royal, the best of all the English plantations.

1692 37 cities, towns, and large villages, and about 130,000 people destroyed in the kingdom of Naples, by an earthquake, February 11. The massacre of Glencoe, in Scotland.

1692 James’s descent on England frustrated; the destruction of the French fleet, May 19.

1693 The English fleet defeated by Tourville.

1694 Queen Mary died of the small-pox. The bank of England incorporated.

1694-5 Discipline of the Church restored. Commissioners appointed to direct the building and endowment of Greenwich hospital.

1695 Duties imposed on births, marriages, burials, bachelors, and widowers.

1695-6 Guineas went at the rate of thirty shillings. Six-pence per month deducted out of every seaman’s wages, for the support of Greenwich hospital.

1696 Czar of Muscovy, Peter the Great, came into England, and remained incognito. The window tax first levied.

1700 The New-Style introduced by the Dutch and Protestants in Germany.

1700-1 Earl John, of Marlborough, appointed General of the foot, June 1, and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s forces in Holland. King James II died of a lethargy at St. Germain’s in France, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, September 6.

1702 King William died at Kensington in the fifty-second year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign, March 8.

1702 Captain Kirby and Captain Wade were condemned to die, and being sent to England, were shot on board a ship at Plymouth, not being suffered to go on shore. Admiral Benbow, who had his leg shattered with a great shot in the engagement with Ducasse, died of his wounds soon after he had the Captains condemned.

1703 The Earl of Marlborough chosen Captain General of Queen Anne’s army. A dreadful tempest in England. The old and new East-India companies united.

1704 Gibraltar taken in three days, by Admiral Rook. The battle of Blenheim gained by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The French fleet defeated at Malaga, by the English.

1705 The colours and standards taken at Blenheim, hung in Westminster Hall. The English take Barcelona from the Spanish.

1706 The battle of Ramillies gained by Marlborough. The colours and standards hung at Guildhall.

1707 England and Scotland united. An interview between the Duke of Marlborough and Charles XII. Sir Cloudesly Shovel shipwrecked on the rocks of Sicily.

1708 The battle of Malplaquet gained by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The French defeated at Oudenarde by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The first parliament of Great Britain met April 24. Dr. Sacheverel impeached by the Commons for high crimes and misdemeanors.

1709 Charles XII defeated by the Russians at Pultowa.

1712 Robert Walpole committed to the Tower for bribery. Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, died, aged ninety.

1714 Mr. Steele expelled the House of Commons for writing the Englishman and the Critic. £5,000 offered to apprehend the Pretender.

1714 George I arrived at Greenwich from Hanover.

1715 The Pretender proclaimed as James VIII in Scotland, by the Earl of Mar, who assembles forces.

1716 The tide forced back by a strong westerly wind for one day and night, and the Thames lay perfectly dry both above and below the bridge. A dreadful fire happened in Thames street, near Bear-key, by the imprudence of a boy who was making squibs and rockets, which consumed upwards of 120 houses.

1717 The Prince of Wales banished the court.

1718 James Shepherd, a lad of eighteen, executed for conspiring the King’s death. Charles XII of Sweden killed at the siege of Frederickshall.

1719 The Pretender received at Madrid as King of Great Britain. The Mississippi scheme at its height in France. The English and French invaded Spain by land, and took the towns of Fontarabia, St. Sebastian, and St. Antonio, and reduced the province of Gui Puocoa.

1720 South-sea stock rose 400 per cent, and continued to rise until July, when it rose to 1,000 per cent.

1721 Several persons ruined by the South-sea stock falling to 150 per cent. Several members of parliament expelled for being concerned in the South-sea bubble, and their estates confiscated for the use of the sufferers.

1725 The Lord Chancellor (Earl of Macclesfield) displaced, impeached, and fined £30,000 for corruption. Jonathan Wild, a notorious thief-taker, executed.

1727 The Spaniards besiege Gibraltar. Sir Isaac Newton died, aged 85.

1729 Deaths of Dr. S. Clarke, Sir Richard Steele, Congreve the poet, and the noted John Law.

1731 Deaths of Dr. Atterbury, and Defoe.

1732 Death of Gay, the poet and fabulist.

1737 A comet appeared. Death of Howe.

1739 Admiral Vernon takes Porto Bello.

1742 Sir Robert Walpole resigned, after holding his places twenty-one years.

1743 King George defeated the French at Dettingen.

1744 Admiral Anson returned with £1,500,000 which he had taken in the Acapulca ship. Deaths of Pope the poet, and Roger Gale. Prague taken by the King of Prussia.

1745 The Duke of Cumberland defeated at Fontenoy. Battle of Preston-Pans. Death of Dean Swift.

1746 The rebels defeat the royal army at Falkirk. The Pretender totally defeated by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden. Several Lords and others executed for rebellion.

1747 The French fleet defeated by Admiral Hawke.

1748 Death of Thompson, the poet.

1752 The style altered.

1755 General Braddock defeated.

1757 Admiral Byng shot for cowardice.

1758 100 French ships destroyed at St. Maloes, by the Duke of Marlborough, called by his soldiers, _Corporal John_.

1759 The French defeated at Minden. Quebec taken by General Wolfe, and death of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham. Boscawen defeats the French off Gibraltar, (Gabel-el-Tarifa) hence Gibraltar, which is also called the Babel of Nations, and the Key of the Mediterranean. Guadaloupe surrendered to the English.

1760 General Lally defeated in the East Indies. Canada surrendered to the English.--Capitulation signed 8th September.

1762 War declared against Spain. The Hermione, a Spanish ship taken, valued at near £1,200,000. Manilla taken from the Spaniards. Havana taken from the Spaniards. Preliminaries of peace between England and France signed at Fontainbleau, November 3. Martinico and Guadaloupe taken by the French.

1763 Peace proclaimed between England, France, and Spain.

1764 The longitude found at sea by means of Harrison’s time-piece. The massacre of Patna in the East Indies, where 4,000 of the garrison and inhabitants were put to the sword.

1765 Otaheite discovered by Captain Willis.

1766 The American Stamp Act repealed. Gibraltar nearly destroyed by a storm.

1769 New Zealand explored by Captain Cook. Electricity of the Aurora Borealis discovered. Stratford Jubilee held in honour of Shakspeare.

1771 Falkland islands seized by the Spaniards.

1772 Negroes adjudged free, in England. Solway moss began to flow.

1773 A large quantity of tea belonging to the East India Company, destroyed at Boston by the citizens.

1774 The port of Boston shut up by an act of parliament. Civil war commences in America. A violent storm, by which 40 ships were lost near Yarmouth. Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons instituted.

1775 Trade with America prohibited. The battles of Lexington and Bunker’s hill. The Americans invade Canada and besiege Quebec.

1776 America declared itself independent.

1777 General Burgoyne and his army surrender to the Americans at Saratoga.

1778 War declared against France. Pondicherry taken from the French. Admiral Keppel fights the French fleet off Ushant. The Earl of Chatham died, and interred in Westminster Abbey.

1779 Ireland admitted to a free trade. The French make a fruitless attempt on the island of Jersey. Their shipping destroyed in Concale Bay. An American fleet totally destroyed off Penobscot. Pitch and tar made from pit-coal at Bristol.

1780 Admiral Rodney defeats the Spanish fleet near Cape St. Vincent, and takes their Admiral Laugara prisoner. Dreadful riots in London. War with Spain and Holland. Torture abolished in France. His Majesty’s ships Andromeda, Laurel, Deal-Castle, Thunderer, Stirling-Castle, Cameleon, and many others, lost in a dreadful hurricane in the West Indies.

1781 Lord Cornwallis and his army surrender to the Americans and French at York-Town. Sir Eyre Coote defeats Hyder Ally. Ceylon taken from the Dutch. Florida conquered by the Spaniards. Engagement between Admiral Parker and the Dutch fleet off Dogger Bank. St. Eustatius, St. Martin, and other Dutch settlements, captured.

1782 Batavia taken by the English. The memorable attack of Gibraltar by the French and Spaniards;--their gun-boats totally destroyed, and the garrison relieved by a squadron of 33 ships of the line, under Lord Howe, in the face of the combined fleets of France and Spain, consisting of 47. Admiral Rodney defeats the French fleet in the West Indies; takes Admiral Count de Grasse and five ships of the line. The Ville de Paris and other French prizes lost at sea.

1783 Great Britain declares the United States of America independent. A new planet discovered by Mr. Herschell, and called the Georgium Sidus. A new island rose out of the ocean near Iceland.

1784 The great seal stolen. Mail coaches first established, by Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester. Slave trade abolished in Pennsylvania, and in New England.

1785 Blanchard and Dr. Jefferies cross the English Channel, in a balloon, from Dover, and land near Calais. M. Pilatre de Rosiere, and M. Romain, ascend in a balloon, which takes fire and they are dashed to pieces.

1786 Margaret Nicholson attempts to assassinate the King. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, died. Convicts first sent to Botany Bay, and Sierra Leone. The young Lord Gormadston clandestinely carried abroad, in order to force him to embrace the Romish persuasion.

1787 Three American priests ordained bishops by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The house of Peers commenced the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq., on a charge of high crimes, &c., committed by him in the East Indies, of which he was impeached.

1789 The abolition of the Slave trade proposed in Parliament. Beginning of the French Revolution.

1790 War commenced in India with Tippoo Sultan.

1791 Riots at Birmingham.

1793 The Alien-bill passed in the British House of Commons. The English evacuate Toulon.

1794 The Habeas Corpus Act suspended. Lord Howe defeats the French fleet off Ushant.

1795 Mr. Hastings’ trial ended by his acquittal. The Cape of Good Hope taken by the British forces. Ceylon taken by the British.

1796 The East India Company votes an indemnification and recompense to Mr. Hastings.

1797 A mutiny of the British fleet at Portsmouth and the Nore suppressed. The Dutch fleet beaten and captured by Lord Duncan.

1798 Ireland in open rebellion. Lord Nelson totally defeated the French fleet in the battle of the Nile. The French fleet defeated by Sir J. B. Warren.

1799 Seringapatam taken by General Harris and Sir David Baird, and Tippoo Sultan killed. The French under Bonaparte defeated by Sir Sidney Smith at Acre. The expedition of the British against Holland. The British troops evacuate Holland.

1800 Vote of the Irish House of Commons agreeing to the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.--Similar vote of the House of Lords. Malta taken by the British forces.

1801 Mr. Pitt resigns, after being minister 18 years. Battle of Alexandria,--the French defeated and Sir Ralph Abercrombie killed. Battle of Copenhagen, the Danish fleet taken and destroyed by Lord Nelson. Taking of Cairo and Alexandria, by the British troops.

1802 Definitive treaty with France signed at Amiens.

1803 Execution of Col. Despard for high treason. Dissolution of the peace with France, May. Insurrection in Dublin; Habeas Corpus suspended, and Martial Law proclaimed. Defeat of Row Scinda and Berar Rajar at Ajunty, by General Arthur Wellesley. The British troops enter Delhi and the Great Mogul puts himself under their protection.

1804 Mr. Pitt resumes his situation as Prime Minister.

1806 The Spaniards declare war against Great Britain. Lord Nelson defeats the combined fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar; takes twenty sail of the line, and is killed in the engagement. Sir R. Strachan takes four French ships of the line, off Cape Ortegal.

1806 Death of William Pitt; his debts discharged at the public expense, and a statue decreed to his memory. Admiral Duckworth captures and destroys five French ships of the line. Sir John Stuart defeats the French under Regnier at Maida in Calabria. Surrender of Buenos Ayres to General Beresford and Sir Home Popham. French squadron of five frigates captured by Sir Samuel Hood. Death of Charles James Fox. Rupture of a negotiation for peace with France, and return of Earl Lauderdale. Recapture of Buenos Ayres by the Spaniards. The slave trade abolished by act of Parliament.

1807 Copenhagen bombarded, and the Danish fleet surrendered to the British, under Lord Cathcart and Admiral Gambier. South America evacuated by the British. The British troops evacuate Egypt. The island of Madeira surrendered to Great Britain in trust for Portugal.

1808 The French prohibit all commerce with Great Britain. Battle of Vimiera in Portugal; the French under Junot defeated by Sir Arthur Wellesley.

1809 The French defeated at the battle of Corunna; Sir John Moore killed. The French fleet in Basque roads destroyed by Lord Cochrane. Senegal surrendered to the British. The battle of Talavera; the French defeated by Sir Arthur Wellesley. The 50th anniversary of the King’s reign celebrated as a jubilee. The French fleet in the Mediterranean defeated by Lord Collingwood.

1810 An attempt made to assassinate the Duke of Cumberland; Sellis, the Duke’s valet, found with his throat cut. Murat’s army in Sicily defeated by General J. Campbell. Battle of Busaco; the French defeated by Lord Wellington. Capture of the Isle of France by the British. This island has ever since remained in the hands of the British. Its other name is Mauritius, famous for Peter Botte Mountain and its fine sugar.

1811 The Prince of Wales appointed Regent. Battles of Barossa, Albuera, &c. in which the French were beaten with great loss. Isle of Java capitulated to the British arms.

1812 Ciudad Rodrigo taken by storm, by Lord Wellington. Right Honorable Spencer Percival, prime minister of Great Britain, assassinated by John Bellingham. Battle of Salamanca, and defeat of the French.

1813 Great battle of Vittoria in Spain, in which Lord Wellington totally defeats the French under Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jourdan. Defeat of Marshal Soult, in Spain, with the loss of 15,000 men, by Lord Wellington.

1814 A fair on the Thames, it being frozen over above the London bridges, Feb. 2. Bourdeaux surrenders to Lord Wellington. Peace between England and France. The allied Sovereigns visit London. City of Washington taken by the British army under General Ross. Treaty of peace between England and America, Dec. 24. Joanna Southcott an impostor, died; and, with her, the hopes of the promised Shiloh, and all her other prophecies.

1815 Bonaparte sailed from Elba, and landed with 1,000 men at Cannes, in France. Bonaparte enters Paris, March 21. An attempt made by Margaret Moore to steal the Crown from the Tower. Memorable battle of Waterloo, June 17, 18; Bonaparte fled; the Duke of Wellington’s horse killed under him. Bonaparte sailed for St. Helena, August 7. Submission of the island of Ceylon to Britain. Bonaparte landed at St. Helena, October 16. The English repulsed at New Orleans, with the loss of several thousand in killed and wounded, including several generals. General Jackson commanded the Americans. General Packenham was killed. A column of light appeared in the north-east, so vivid as to alarm many persons. By the explosion of a coal-pit near Newbattle, in the county of Durham, 70 persons perished. Bonaparte resigns the government to a provisional council. In the colliery above-mentioned at Newbattle, a steam engine burst, and 57 persons were killed or wounded.

1816 Princess Charlotte of Wales married, to Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, May 2. Sir Humphrey Davy invented a Safety Lamp to prevent the accidents which happen in coal-mines from fire damp.

1817 The Princess Charlotte died in child-birth, having been delivered of a still-born child. Steamboats generally adopted for river navigation in America and Europe. The magnetic needle, which had for many years taken a western declination from the meridian, returned towards the north.

1818 The Queen of Great Britain, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, died Nov. 21. Two expeditions to penetrate the North-pole sailed, one to the north-east, and the other to the north-west, but neither succeeded. The kaleidoscope, a new optical instrument, invented by Dr. Brewster of Edinburgh. Three systems of education in this year claimed public attention: that of mutual instruction propagated by Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster; the interrogative or intellectual system of questions without answers; and that of Mr. Pestalozzi by oral questions. Belzoni transported from Egypt to England the statue of Memnon. The Duke of Clarence married to the Princess of Saxe Meiningen; and the Duke of Kent to a Princess of Saxe Coburg. For two or three days the metropolis, as well as the country round, were enveloped in a thick impenetrable fog, which obstructed all travelling, and caused a number of fatal accidents. The Duke of Richmond died in Canada, from the bite of a rabid fox.

1819 Messrs. Perkins and Co., of Philadelphia, introduced into London a mode of engraving on soft steel, which, when hardened, will multiply fine impressions indefinitely. Many distressed persons embarked, under the sanction of government, to establish a new colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Southwark bridge opened, making the sixth metropolitan bridge over the Thames. Forty persons killed by the explosion of a mine near Newcastle. A shoal of young whales appeared in Dungannan Bay, forty taken by the fishermen. A whirlwind at Aldborough, Suffolk, carried up a quantity of barley from a field to a great height. Another expedition was fitted out to try a north-west passage to the Pacific Ocean. Field Marshal Prince Blucher died.

1820 Lieutenant Parry returned from his voyage to attempt the discovery of a north-west passage: he reached the 10th degree of west longitude, where he passed one winter in latitude 74, and returned for further supplies. Lamented death of H.R.H. the Duke of Kent. Death, in Windsor-castle, of George III, in the 82d year of his age, and 60th of his reign. George IV held his first court in Carlton-house. Takes oath to maintain the Church of England. Oaths of allegiance administered. Cato-street conspirators arrested. Thistlewood and his associates executed before Newgate. Regent’s canal from Paddington to Limehouse opened. Extraordinary solar-eclipse; central and annular in the interior of Europe. An _Estadfod_, or assembly of Welch bards, in Wrexham, North Wales. Lieutenant Parry returns from his voyage of discovery in the seas on the north of North America.

1821 A Pedo-motive machine invented by Dr. Cartwright for travelling the public roads without the aid of horses. A mammoth’s bones found by Captain Vetch, on the west bank of the Medway, near Rochester. Mr. Kent of Glasgow, invented a machine for walking on the surface of the water, at the rate of three miles an hour. A penknife, containing 2,016 blades, was presented to the Queen, by a Sheffield manufacturer; another was afterwards made containing 1,821 blades. Duel between Mr. Scott, of the London Magazine, and Mr. Christie, of an Edinburgh Magazine, in which the former was mortally wounded. News received of a dreadful massacre in Manilla, arising from religious fanaticism. A gambling-house, in London, entered by the police, and about 70 individuals held to bail. The Discovery-ships sailed from Deptford, for the American Arctic Seas. Sale of a collection of Pictures, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which produced £15,000. A bog burst forth from Kilmalady, in Ireland, and in an hour covered 100 acres from 20 to 60 feet deep; it proceeded to a great extent, 200 yards wide, and 80 feet deep, at the rate of two yards per hour. Roads and bridges were covered, communications cut off, and great damage done. Queen Caroline died at Hammersmith, after an illness of eight days. Loss of the Juliana, East-Indiaman, in the Margate-roads, in which 38, out of the 40 individuals on board, perished.

1822 The King surrendered £30,000 per annum of the civil list. A coroner’s jury decided that publicans are legally bound to receive into their houses all persons in extremity. Fifteen thousand Greeks massacred in the island of Scio, by the Turks. A south-west gale so retarded the flow of the tide in the Thames, that it was fordable at London bridge. Subscriptions opened for the starving Irish peasantry, which amounted to £300,000. Dreadful cases of misery and oppression published. Upwards of 800 Greek virgins exposed in the slave markets, and 20,000 Christians slaughtered in various villages. The Marquis of Londonderry, cut his throat at his house, North Cray. Mr. Canning appointed Secretary of State, in lieu of the Marquis of Londonderry. Grand eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the most tremendous since 1794. Fonthill abbey purchased by Mr. Farquhar, for £330,000. Sir William Herschell, the celebrated Astronomer, died. Canova, the celebrated Sculptor, died. Madame Lætitia Bonaparte, mother of the late Emperor of France, died.

1823 George IV presented to the nation the library of his late father, at Buckingham House, consisting of 120,000 vols. An insurrection of the Negroes at Martinique detected: several planters had died by poison. Two hundred Negroes ordered for execution. Captain Parry arrived from his exploratory voyage to the Polar regions; he had failed in the chief object of the expedition. Three grand Musical Festivals held within a month, at York, Birmingham, and Gloucester, produced the enormous sum of £30,500. By the melancholy accident from fire damp, at the William Pitt colliery near Whitehaven, 14 men, 16 boys, and two girls, lost their lives; 17 horses were also killed. Dr. Jenner, discoverer of Vaccination, died. Mrs. Radcliffe, authoress of the Mysteries of Udolpho, &c., died. At Rochetts, Earl St. Vincent died. At Kincardine, Admiral Lord Keith, died. At Rome, Pope Pius the Seventh, died.

1824 A subterraneous forest of oak was discovered, on the shores of the Solway Frith, beyond Brough, imbedded in a stiff blue clay; the trees were of large dimensions, and the wood so perfect as to be scarce perceptible from new timber, although it must have lain there many thousands of years. Mr. Mantell discovered, in the iron sand-stone of Sussex, the teeth of a herbivorous reptile of gigantic magnitude, being of the lizard tribe; from a thigh bone found, it must have equalled the elephant in height, and been more than 60 feet long. The pictures of J. J. Angerstein, 38 in number, purchased by Government for £57,000 to begin a national gallery; Sir G. Beaumont liberally presented his collection to the public for that purpose. The Hecla, discovery ship, with Captain Parry left her moorings on a voyage of discovery to the Arctic region. Mr. Harris, accompanied by Miss Stocks, ascended in a balloon, when the former was killed by being thrown from the car. The remains of Lord Byron were conveyed from London, amidst a concourse of people, for Newstead Abbey. A copy of Columbus’ letter to the King of Spain, on the discovery of America, sold for 34 guineas. Particulars were received respecting the death of the celebrated traveller Belzoni, at Gato on his journey to Timbuctoo. Mr. Sadler, jun., the aëronaut, was killed on descending in his balloon, near Blackburn in Lancashire. The enormous timber ship, called the Columbus, arrived at Blackwall, from the river St. Lawrence, being 300 feet long, 50 broad, and 30 deep. Patrick Grant died, aged 111; to this venerable Highlander, His Majesty had granted a pension of a guinea a week.

1825 In January, wool was exported from England to the United States of America, being the first instance for two centuries. Organic remains of antediluvian animals found in a cave near Chudleigh. Steam engines in England, representing the power of 320,000 horses, equal to 1,920,000 men, managed by 36,000 only, now add to the power of our population 1,884,000 men! A phenomenon observed on the coast of Kent, being a cloud, resting part on the sea, extending as far as the eye could reach, reflecting two distinct images of every vessel passing, one inverted, the other in its proper position, apparently sailing in the air. An earthquake happened in Algiers, when the town of Blida, was totally destroyed, and, of a population of 15,000 persons, scarcely 300 were left alive. £2,000 granted to Mr. M‘Adam for improvement of the roads. The Tower of Fonthill-Abbey fell, and destroyed great part of that elegant building.

1826 London was visited by such a dense fog, in the forenoon, that candles were burned in all the shops. The abduction of Miss Turner by E. G. Wakefield. The death of the celebrated composer, Baron Von Weber, occurred, being in his 40th year. Mr. Canning dined with the King of France, and Sir Walter Scott with the King of England.

1827 Canal Excavation by the plough in lieu of manual labour. It is remarkable, that England, which usually sets the example to all Europe in the application of machinery as a substitute for manual labour, should have been anticipated by the small state of Wurtemberg; an extensive line of canal having been projected, and sanctioned by the Government, an eminent engineer constructed a set of ploughs of various forms to suit the nature of the soil to be intersected, which, by the aid of from eight to twelve horses, excavated the line of canal, at less than a fourth of the price which would have been expended in manual labour. His Royal Highness the Duke of York expired. Will of Mr. Rundel, the silversmith, proved, whose personal property amounted to £1,200,000. The steam vessel George the Fourth left Portsmouth for Africa. Mr. Canning appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, April 24. Mr. Canning expired, Aug. 8. Lord Goderich appointed Premier. Death of Dr. Good, F.R.S., author of various works on Science, &c. Death of Rebecca Fury, of Falmouth, Jamaica, aged 140. Clapperton’s second voyage to Africa. Parry’s attempt to reach the North Pole over the ice without success. Lord Liverpool died, George Canning succeeded. Intervention of England, France, and Russia in the affairs of Greece: battle of Navarino. Premiership and death of Canning.

1828 Duke of Wellington premier. Russian invasion of Turkey. Capo d’Istria President of Greece: a French army in the Morea. Don Miguel usurps the throne of Portugal.

1829 The Russian Field-Marshal Diebitsch crosses the Balkan. Treaty of Adrianople. Independence of Greece recognized by Turkey. Catholic emancipation in England.

1830 Accession of William IV. Algiers taken by the French. July 25th, revolution at Paris: abdication of Charles X: Duke of Orleans called to the throne, by the title of Louis Philippe, King of the French, Belgian and Polish revolutions.

1831 The cholera appears in Europe. Polish insurrection suppressed, and the kingdom of Poland incorporated with the Russian empire. London conferences: Leopold of Saxe-Coburg chosen King of Belgium.

1832 Civil war in Portugal betwixt Pedro and Miguel. The French occupy Ancona, and lay siege to Antwerp. Parliamentary reform in England.

1833 Meeting of the first reformed Parliament. Abolition of slavery in the British colonies, with a compensation of £20,000,000 to the slave-owners.

1834 Don Miguel expelled from Portugal. Civil war in Spain. Formation of the German Zollverein. Accession of Queen Victoria. Buckingham Palace completed. Insurrection in Upper Canada. A meeting of the Provincial Convention called at Toronto. Colonel Moodie killed. McKenzie, Van Egmont and others invest Toronto. Rebels dispersed and leaders flee to the United States.

1838 Second Insurrection in 1838. In Lower Canada, Mr. and Mrs. Ellice of Beauharnois, taken prisoners by the rebels at that place and given over for keeping to the Curé. The Caughnawaga Indians take 64 prisoners and, tying them with their sashes and garters, send them to Montreal. Affairs at Napierville and Laprairie. Colonel Prince did, what should have instantly been done to the Fenian prisoners in the late raid, viz., condemned some of the insurgents by drum head Court Martial, and executed them forthwith. Quiet restored.

1839 Treaty of peace betwixt Holland and Belgium. End of the civil war in Spain.

1840 Intervention of England and Austria in the Egyptian question. Thiers minister of France: apprehensions of a general war: removed by the overthrow of Thiers: Guizot minister. Union of the two Canadas.

1841 Resignation of Melbourne ministry. Peel becomes premier. Death of Lord Sydenham in Canada. Fortification of Paris. Bonaparte interred in Paris, 15th December.

1842 Affghan and Chinese wars: cession of Hong Kong to England: opening of Chinese ports. Rising against the English at Cabul: murder of Burnes and McNaughton: massacre at the Cabul Pass. General Pollock forces the Khugher Pass, 5th April. Ashburton Treaty with the United States, August 9th. Great fire at Hamburg.

1843 Activity of the Anti-Corn Law League. John Bright returned for Durham. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visit the King of the French and the King of the Belgians. Repeal meetings in Ireland stopped by royal proclamation, and Mr. O’Connell and other repealers arrested and tried for conspiracy and sedition.

1844 French hostilities with Morocco: Mogadore bombarded: King of the French visits Queen Victoria at Windsor. Railway mania in England. Campbell the Poet died, 15th June.

1845 Continued activity of the Anti-Corn Law League. Great bazaar at London, where the receipts amount to £25,000. Railway mania in England attains its height: scrip issued to the nominal amount of several hundred millions sterling. Annexation of Texas to the United States. Steam established between Liverpool and New York. Sir John Franklin set sail 22nd May.

1846 The Spanish double marriages. Mexico annexed, 25th August. Coolness betwixt the courts of St. James and the Tuilleries. Abolition of the Corn Laws, followed by resignation of the Peel ministry. Austria, in violation of the treaties of Vienna, seizes on Cracow, and incorporates it with her own dominions. Louis Napoleon escapes from the Castle of Ham, in Normandy. Gregory XVI dies, and is succeeded by Cardinal Mastai Ferretti, who takes the title of Pius IX. Revolution of Geneva, October 7th.

1847 Pope Pius introduces some reforms into the Papal States: excitement in the rest of Italy. Civil war in Switzerland: Sonderbund suppressed. Abd-el-Kader taken prisoner. The Duchy of Lucca reverts to Tuscany. Failure of the potato crop in Ireland.

1848 Upper California and New Mexico ceded to the United States. February revolution in Paris: flight of Louis Philippe, 24th February: France a Republic: Cavaignac: Revolution at Vienna 6th October, and Berlin 12th November: Schleswig-Holstein insurrection. Arctic ships deserted, 22nd April. Peace Congress at Brussels, 20th September. Defeat of Sikhs at Mooltan, 7th November. Napoleon III first elected President, 20th December. Smith O’Brien defeated in his attempt to raise a resurrection in Ireland.

1849 Death of Queen Adelaide. Punjaub war. Revolutions in Rome and Tuscany: Mazzini: French invasion and occupation of Rome. Revolutionary movements in Germany and Hungary. Kossuth. Revolution in Baden suppressed by Prussia; in Hungary by Russia; and Hungarians defeated by Hayman.

1850 Battle of Idstedt and suppression of the Schleswig-Holstein insurrection. Peace between Denmark and Prussia. Louis Philippe died 26th August. Sir Robert Peel died.

1851 Great industrial exhibition in London in Crystal Palace. French coup d’état: National assembly broken up, and Napoleon declared President of the Republic for ten years. Discovery of gold fields in Australia.

1852 The Earl of Derby forms a protectionist ministry, dissolves parliament, but is soon forced to resign: Lord Aberdeen becomes Premier. On the 14th September, the illustrious Duke of Wellington, the Iron Duke, died at Walmar Castle near Dover, aged 83. Louis Napoleon proclaimed Emperor of the French, as Napoleon III. Amazon steamer burnt at sea, and 100 persons perished, 4th January. The steamer Birkenhead with troops on board for the Cape of Good Hope wrecked 26th February, and of 638 persons only 184 were saved; 454 of the crew and soldiers of the 12th Lancers, 2nd, 6th, 12th, 43rd, 45th, 60th Rifles, 73rd, 74th and 91st Regiments perished by drowning or swallowed by sharks which were seen swimming around.

1853 Marriage of Napoleon III to Eugenie de Montejo in January. Fire which broke out in Windsor Castle, extinguished March 19th. The Queen of Portugal died November 15th. The Porte formerly declared war against Russia, October 5th. Russia invades the Danubian principalities, crossing the Pruth in July, destroys the Turkish fleet at Sinopé, hence called the “Massacre of Sinopé.” Battle of Silistria. Death of Captain Butler.

1854 Great Britain and France declare war against Russia in March. The Allies land at Varna. Dreadful attack of Cholera in both armies--then the invasion of the Crimea. Battles of the Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann with all the minor sorties and engagements, and the scenes of camp life, so graphically described by military and civil correspondents. Bomarsund taken by the Baltic Expedition, August 16th.

1855 Sardinia joins the Allies. South side of Sebastopol taken. Battle of Tchernaya. Taking of Kertch and Kinburn. Battle of the Heights of Kars. Fall of Sebastopol and Kars. Russia proposes peace. Napoleon visited England, April 17th. Crimean medals distributed, May 18th. Sebastopol evacuated by the Russians, September 9th. Dreadful storm in the Black Sea, during which the Prince, Resolute, &c., foundered. Insurrection at Madrid. Flight of the Queen Mother Christina and dismissal of her favourites.

1856 Peace of Paris signed, March 31st. Victoria cross instituted, January 29th. Lord Dalhousie ceased to be Governor General of India, and was succeeded by Viscount Canning. War in Persia, and capture by the British of Bushire; Persian King, obliged thereafter to sue for peace. Great Britain involved in a war with China. Commissioner Yeh made prisoner. Lord Elgin made Ambassador to negotiate a settlement of difficulties. Seizure of Lorch, October 8th. English Cathedral, Montreal, burnt.

1857 Shakspeare’s house bought. Kensington Museum opened. Victoria cross distributed, and Victoria Asylum commenced. Indian Mutiny begun, February 28th. Massacre of Cawnpore, July 16th. Relief of Lucknow, November 17th.

1858 Close of the Mutiny and re-organization of the country. Attempt on the life of Napoleon III by Orsini and others. Orsini beheaded, March 13th. Princess Royal married to the Prince of Prussia.

1859 Revolution in Tuscany. Victoria Bridge opened, 19th December. Earthquake at Quito, 29th March. A Southern Convention at Vicksburg, Miss., at which eight States are represented, passes resolutions in favor of opening the slave trade. John Brown and fifteen white men and five negroes seize the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and kill four of the inhabitants. The militia and Federal troops arrive at Harper’s Ferry and besiege Brown and his men in the armory buildings. The armory captured by Colonel Lee (now General). One marine and twelve of Brown’s men killed, Brown and four men taken prisoners, and two escape, but are re-captured. The people of Charlestown, Va., excited by the rumors of an attempt to rescue John Brown; and Governor Wise calms their fears by guarding the place with a Richmond regiment. In the House of Representatives of South Carolina a resolution is offered that “South Carolina is ready to enter, together with other slave-holding States, or such as desire present action, into the formation of a Southern Confederacy.” John Brown and two negroes hung. The medical students from Southern States in Philadelphia colleges resolve to secede and join colleges in their own States.

The following is a chronological table of the war in Italy. It is taken from the Journal of Education and compiled by the esteemed Superintendent of Education for Lower Canada, and will be found valuable for History students.

“First body of French troops leaves Toulon; Austrian ultimatum dispatched from Vienna to Turin. It is received at Turin. The limit fixed by the ultimatum (of three days) expires; Count Cavour declines the Austrian conditions; statement of the war question addressed to the Corps Legislatif by Count Walewski; French troops first cross Mont Cenis. Revolution in Tuscany; the Grand Duke retires: address of Victor Emmanuel to his army. The Austrian declaration of war posted in Vienna; the Austrians, under Count Gyulai, pass the Ticino; Marshal Canrobert and General Niel reach Turin and assume command of their respective corps d’armée; General McMahon arrives at Genoa; death of General Bouat; appeal of Victor Emmanuel to the Italian people. The Austrians occupy Novara; the French ambassador quits Vienna; revolt of Massa and Carrara. King Victor Emmanuel leaves Turin to take command of his army; the Austrians occupy Mortara; their steamers seize the Sardinian ports on Lake Maggiore; three Austrian vessels repulsed on the lake; the Duchess of Parma withdraws from the Duchy. Manifesto of Napoleon III, addressed to the Corps Legislatif; the Austrians pass the Po at Cambio; they are repulsed in an attempted crossing at Frassinetto; they burn the bridge over the Scrivia at Piacenza; the Austrian vanguard reaches Tronzano. The conflict at Frassinetto continues; the Austrians, passing the Po at Vacarizza, advance to Sale; a cannonade at Valenza. The Duchess of Parma returns to her capital. General Cialdini, issuing from Casale, seizes a convoy of the enemy. The Austrians repass the Po at Gerola. Imperial decree establishing the Regency in France. The Emperor Napoleon III, and the Prince Napoleon Jerome leave Paris for the seat of war; the Austrians complete a retrograde movement to the left of the Sesia. The Emperor embarks at Marseilles; the Austrians pause at Vercelli, and return reconnoitering parties to the right bank of the river; they occupy Rivergaro. The Emperor lands at Genoa; issues an order of the day to the army. The English declaration of neutrality published. The Austrians occupy Bobbio, and push their advanced post to Casteggio. The French Emperor arrives at Alessandria. The French squadron of Admiral Jurieu-Gravier anchors before Venice; the Emperor visits the outposts at Valenza. The Austrians threaten the bridge at Stella; the Emperor visits the head-quarters of the King at Occimiano; the Austrians vainly attempt to take the bridge at Valenza. The head-quarters of Count Gyulai transferred in retreat to Gariasco. Speech of M. Kossuth on the war, delivered at London Tavern; battle of Montebello; the Allies, numbering 6,300, under General Forey, defeat 25,000 Austrians under General Count Stadion; the Emperor visits Casale. The Piedmontese, under General Cialdini, force the passage of the Sesia at Vercelli, routing the Austrians; Garibaldi with his corps, leaves Biella, and marches for Northwestern Lombardy; the blockade of Venice established. Death of the King of Naples. Garibaldi, passing the Ticino at Sesto Calende, defeats the enemy and captures Varese. Garibaldi, attacked by the Austrians, beats them; Colonel Christoforis, with a portion of Garibaldi’s force, beats the Austrians near Sesto Calende; the Emperor at Voghera. The Emperor arrives at Vercelli; Garibaldi again beats the Austrians at Malmate. Garibaldi marches upon Como; rapid movement of the French army from the south to the north of the Po; Montebello and Custeggio, evacuated by them, occupied by the Austrians. Garibaldi, beating the Austrians at San Fermo, occupies Como, Camerlata, and Lecco; Austrian vessels bombard Canobbio, on Lake Maggiore; the Valtelline rises in insurrection. Battle of Palestro; the Allies, commanded by Victor Emmanuel, attack the Austrians; the Emperor of Austria, attended by Field-Marshal Baron Hess, arrive at Verona. The Allies defeat the Austrians at Palestro; General Niel occupies Novara; proclamation of the Emperor Francis Joseph to the Tyrolese. Garibaldi retiring before a powerful body of the enemy, attacks Laveno unsuccessfully; the Austrians attack the allied outposts at Robbio, but speedily retreat; the advance of the Allies, under McMahon, enters Lombardy by the bridge of Turbigo. The Austrians hastily evacuate Sardinia; severe

## action at Buffalora; Garibaldi again marches upon Varese, beats

the Austrians, and re-occupies it. The conflict at Buffalora concludes in a splendid victory of the Allies at Magenta. Milan rises upon the Austrians; the garrison retires; Victor Emmanuel proclaimed King; Lombardy annexed to Sardinia; Grand _Te Deum_ at Paris for the victory at Magenta. The Emperor and King enter Milan; the Austrian’s custom-houses on Lake Maggiore seized by Garibaldi’s corps. Garibaldi pursues the Austrians, who retreat towards Monza; proclamation of Napoleon III to the Italians. Marshal Baraguay d’Hilliers attacks the Austrians at Malegnano, and after a severe contest carries that post; on the same day the Austrian Count d’Urban is beaten by Marshal Canrobert at Canonica; the Austrians evacuate Laverno on Lago Maggiore. Garibaldi enters Bergamo; the Austrians evacuate Pavia and Piacenza; the Duchess of Parma arrives at Verona. The Austrians evacuate Lodi; they also evacuate Bologna and Ancona; resignation of the Derby Ministry in England; Lord Palmerston invited to form a cabinet; head-quarters of the French advanced to Gorgouzola. The vanguard of the French army passes the Adda at Cassano; the Sardinian army passes the Adda at Vaprio; the Austrians complete the evacuation of the Papal territory, and also withdraw from Modena; death of Prince Metternich. The Austrians abandon Pizzigbettone; Garibaldi at Brescia; Cremona and Brescia declare for the King of Sardinia; the Allied army passes the Sesia; General d’Urban retires from Coccaglia. The Duke of Modena arrives at Mantua; d’Urban occupies Cavriana, but evacuates it the same night; revolt at Venice. Garibaldi repulsed by an overwhelming force of the Austrians at Castenedolo; he retreats towards Lonato. General Count Schlick takes command of the second Austrian army, replacing Gyulai; the head quarters of Napoleon III removed to Covo; the Austrian Emperor at Travigliato. The Austrians occupy Montechiaro and Castiglione; Kossuth leaves London for Italy. The Emperor and King enter Brescia; the Austrians occupy the pass of the Stelvio; the Emperor Francis Joseph reviews a portion of his army at Lonato; he assumes supreme command of the army. The third division of the Adriatic fleet sails from Toulon. The Austrians abandon Montechiaro, Castiglione, and Lonato. The Emperor and King leave Brescia for the camp; the Austrians re-occupy Montechiaro and Castiglione; Francis Joseph Axes his head-quarters at Villafranca. The French pass the Chinese at Montechiaro, and push a reconnaissance as far as Goito; the head-quarters of Francis Joseph at Vallegio; Kossuth arrives at Genoa. The French Emperor and the King urge a reconnaissance as far as Desenzano; the Austrians in full force repass the Mincio, and occupy Pozzolengo, Solferino and Cavriana. Great battle of Solferino: 250,000 Austrians defeated by the Allies, numbering 150,000; the Austrians repass the Mincio; the allied head-quarters at Cavriana. Prussia proposes in the Diet the mobilization of the Federal army; retreat of the French troops at Brescia. Kossuth arrives at Parma, and after conferring with Prince Napoleon, proceeds to the Imperial head-quarters. A portion of Garibaldi’s troops, under Major Medidi, occupy the pass of Tonal, between Val Canonica and the Tyrol. The Allies, crossing the Mincio, enter the Venitian States. The vanguard of the Allies advances to Villafranca. The Imperial head-quarters removed to Volta; the corps of Prince Napoleon joins the main body of the allied army at Vallegio; the Sardinians commence the siege of Peschiera; the new British ministry declares in Parliament its determination to maintain an inviolable neutrality. The Emperor removes his head-quarters from Volta, and, crossing the Mincio, fixes them at Vallegio. Ten thousand French troops landed at Lussin-Piccolo, in the Adriatic; Grand _Te Deum_ for the victory of Solferino at Notre-Dame. The Austrians retire from Bormio, after a sharp action, in which they are defeated by Garibaldi. Armistice concluded between the two emperors at VillaFranca; Zara bombarded by the French frigate _Impetueuse_. Interview between Napoleon III and Francis Joseph; the war terminated by the peace of VillaFranca.” Militia Volunteer Association of England established 17th November.

1860 The principal events of this year are: General rising of the Sicilians, March 16th. Annexation of Savoy and Nice to France, March 24th. War in China and capture of Pekin. Insurrection at Palermo, April 4th. Great Eastern sailed for America, June 16th. Prince of Wales at Quebec, August 18th. King of Naples, Francis II, retired to Gaeta, September 6th. Garibaldi entered Naples, September 8th. Ancona taken, September 30th. Battle of Volturno, October 2nd. Victor Emmanuel at Naples, November 7th. Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States. A Secession Convention assembles in Columbia, S.C., but adjourns to Charleston, in consequence of the small pox. The Convention at Charleston passes the ordinance carrying South Carolina out of the Union. Attempted removal of ordnance from the Arsenal at Pittsburg, Pa., prevented by the citizens. Fort Moultrie evacuated by Major Robert Anderson, who retires with his troops to Fort Sumter. Seizure by the citizens of the Arsenal at Charleston, S.C.

1861 Duchess of Kent died, March 16th. Attack on Japanese Nussier, September 23rd. The fearful colliery explosion at Hartley took place on the 16th January of this year. King of Russia died, January 2nd. Taltian gallery destroyed, February 5th. The principal events of the Great Rebellion this year are given under in the order of occurrence:--The Postmaster at Charleston refuses to make returns to the United States Government. The _Star of the West_ chartered and sent to Fort Sumter to reinforce Major Anderson. Mississippi secedes. The first gun of the rebellion fired; the forts on Morris Island fire on the _Star of the West_, and she puts to sea. Major Anderson leaves Fort Sumter in the _Baltic_, after having formally surrendered the fort and saluting his flag with the honors of war; several men killed by the explosion of a gun while saluting; no lives lost in the bombardment. The Army and Navy Appropriation Bills pass Congress. Battle at Rich Mountain, Va., in which General McClellan defeats Pegram. The rebels evacuate Laurel Hill, Va. General McClellan occupies Beverly, Va.; Garnett defeated and killed at Carrick’s Ford, Va.; Pegram surrenders. Battle of Bull Run, Va.; the Union army defeated, and falls back on Washington in confusion; Union loss, 481 killed, 1011 wounded, and 700 prisoners; Rebel lose, 269 killed, and 1483 wounded. General Dix takes command in Baltimore. General Scott’s resignation accepted by the President, who appoints General McClellan to the chief command of the armies. General Dix issues an order regulating the Maryland elections. Floyd defeated by Rosecrans at Gauley Bridge. Battle at Belmont, Mo.; the rebels under Sidney A. Johnston defeated by Grant. Naval engagement in Port Royal Harbour; the rebel forts Beauregard and Walker captured. General Buell assigned to the Department of Kentucky. James M. Mason and John Slidell, rebel Ministers to England and France, seized on board the _Trent_, by Commodore Wilkes, of the _San Jacinto_. Rebels defeated at Piketon, Ky., by General Nelson. A general bombardment of Pensacola and the navy-yard by Colonel Brown at Fort Pickens; the town and navy-yard destroyed. The gunboat _Cœur de Lion_ runs the blockade of the Potomac, and arrives at Fortress Munro. The _Constitution_ leaves Hampton Roads with General Phelps, first part of the Butler expedition to New Orleans. General Scott returns to New York from Europe. Mr. Seward agrees to surrender Mason and Slidell.

1862 French army in Mexico, January 7th. Mausoleum at Frogmore commenced, March 15th. French Victories in Cochin-China, March 29th. Garibaldi at Catania, August 20th. Battle of Aspromonte, August 29th. Mason and Slidell surrendered. Engagements at Port Royal Ferry, S.C., and Pensacola, Fla. General Mitchell occupies Huntsville, Ala. Fort Puluski surrenders. The siege of Fort Macon, N.C., commenced. Pocahantos, Ark., occupied by General Curtis. New Orleans surrenders to Commodore Farragut. Battle at Warwick Creek, Va. General Banks evacuates Strasburg, Va., in consequence of the advance of Jackson. Commodore Farragut shells Grand Gulf, Miss. Battle at Lewisburg, Va. The President calls for 300,000 men. Battle of Malvern Hills; end of the seven days’ fight. Battle of Catlett’s Station, Va., and retreat of Pope. General McDowell evacuates Fredericksburg, Va. General W. T. Sherman commences a movement upon Vicksburg in the rear of Haine’s Bluff. Stuart makes an unsuccessful foray on Burnside’s army at Falmouth, Va.

1863 Captain Speke discovered the source of the Nile, February 23rd. Prince of Wales married, March 10th. The President issues his Emancipation Proclamation. The rebels estimate their losses thus far at 20,898 killed, 59,615 wounded, and 21,169 prisoners. Total, 209,116. Battles of Hunt’s Cross Roads, Tenn., and Galveston, Texas. Naval engagement in Charleston Harbour; the rebel rams attack the fleet. National fast observed by order of President Lincoln. Porter’s squadron passes the batteries at Grand Gulf, Miss., and General Grant fights the battle of Branlinsburg, and lands his troops. Battle of Chancellorsville, Va., commenced. Stonewall Jackson mortally wounded. The tracks diverging from Gordonsville destroyed by General Buford. General Stoneman destroys the railroad at Columbia, Va. Second day of the battle of Chancellorsville, Va. Battle of Nansemond, Va.; Longstreet reinforces Lee. Fredericksburg, Va., captured by General Sedgwick. Battle at Gettysburg, Pa., commenced. General Rosecrans occupies Tullahoma, Tenn., and Winchester the next day. Negotiations for the surrender of Vicksburg, Miss., opened. Vicksburg surrenders to General Grant. Lee defeated at Gettysburg, Pa. Battle at Helena, Ark. Chattanooga, Tenn., evacuated by the rebels. Naval engagement in Charleston Harbour; a naval attack on Fort Sumter repulsed. Union forces defeated at Sabine Pass, Texas. Chattanooga occupied by General Crittenden. Cumberland Gap surrendered to General Burnside--Union forces defeated at Tipton, Tenn. Culpepper, Va., occupied by General Meade’s advance. Engagements near Culpepper, Va., and at Bird’s Gap, Ga. General Hooker’s “battle in the clouds” at Lookout Mountain. Engagement at Wauhatchie, Ala. General Blair occupies Tuscumbia, Ala. 181 Federal prisoners arrive at Fortress Monroe from Libby Prison, in a starving condition. The exchange of prisoners stopped. General Butler takes command of the Department of Virginia at Fortress Monroe. A furious bombardment of Fort Sumter. General Foster announces Longstreet in full retreat from Tennessee, whereupon the President orders a Thanksgiving. General Grant’s captures during the war announced as 472 cannon and 90,000 prisoners.

1864 Tercentenary of Shakspeare, April 10th. Great storm at Calcutta, October 5th. General Sherman returns to Vicksburg from a successful raiding expedition into Albania and Mississippi, having destroyed over $2,000,000 worth of property, and captured 8000 negroes and 4000 prisoners. The rebels under General Forrest enter Paducah, Ky.; the rebels were repulsed and driven from the city. Severe gale; several vessels driven ashore along the coast. An expedition of Union troops under Colonel Clayton to Mount Elba and Longview, Ark., captured 320 prisoners, 300 horses, about 40 wagons laden with camp and garrison equipments, beside 300 contrabands, and killing and wounding about 200 rebels. United States steamer _Maple Leaf_ blown up in St. John’s River, Florida, by a rebel torpedo; four of the crew killed. Fight between rebels and Union gunboats at New Falls City, near Shreveport, La.; defeat of the rebels; from 500 to 600 of them killed or wounded. Fight with rebels at Grand Ecore, La.; capture of 2000 rebels and twenty cannon by Union troops. The rebels attempt to blow up the United States frigate _Minnesota_, lying in Hampton Roads, with a torpedo, but fail. Capture of Fort Pillow by the rebels under General Forrest; all found in the garrison, except about 200, massacred after they had surrendered--men, women, and children. Steamer _Golden Gate_, laden with United States Government stores, captured by rebels near Memphis. Maximilian invested with his new honours as Emperor of Mexico at his Castle of Meramar. Battle at Mine Run between the rebels, under General Lee, and the army of the Potomac, under General Grant; the rebels defeated and driven back; Brigadier General Jas. S. Wadsworth and Brigadier Alex. Hays among the killed. Dalton, Ga., occupied by Union troops under General Thomas. Severe battle between the Union army under General Grant and the rebels under General Lee, near Spottsylvania Court-house; Major General John Sedgwick killed. The gunboats of General Banks and Admiral Porter’s expedition up Red River succeed in getting down over the Falls near Alexandria, through the engineering skill of Lieutenant Colonel Bailey. Fight between Union troops under General Butler and the rebels under the General Hill near Petersburg, Va.; the latter defeated. Another terrible battle near Spottsylvania Court-house, between the Union and rebel armies. General Sheridan completes a successful raid in the rear of Lee’s rebel army in Virginia, recapturing 500 Union soldiers, and destroying eight miles of railroad, two locomotives and three trains. Fight between General Butler’s troops and those of General Beauregard, without definite results. The rebel army in Georgia driven by General Sherman to Buzzard’s Roost Mountain. Major General Hancock captures 7000 rebels and thirty guns in a battle near Spottsylvania, Va. Union troops evacuate Little Washington, N.C., when rebels enter and burn all the houses in the place except about twenty; women robbed and turned adrift without food or shelter. The outer line of works of Fort Darling carried by Union troops under Generals Gillmore and Smith. General Sheridan captures the outer line of fortifications in front of Richmond. Dalton, Ga., evacuated by the rebels under General Joe Johnston and occupied by Union troops under General Sherman. Bombardment of Charleston and Fort Sumter, S.C., renewed with vigour. Resaca, Ga., captured by General Sherman’s army, with 1200 prisoners, ten guns and six trains going South for supplies; Union loss in killed and wounded 2700. General Sigel defeated at Rood’s Hill, in the Shenandoah Valley. Successful advance of General Grant’s army to Cold Harbour, Va. General Fitz Hugh Lee and 500 rebel cavalry captured by General Butler’s troops near White House, Va. General Hunter defeats the rebels at Staunton, Va.; captures 1500 prisoners, 3000 stand of arms and 3 cannon, beside a large amount of stores, &c.; the rebel General W. E. Jones, killed. The rebels attack the Union troops under General Burnside, and are repulsed. General Kautz, with his Union cavalry troops, charges the rebel works in front of Petersburg, Va., and enters the place, but not being supported by General Gillmore, is compelled to retire. Fight between Union cavalry under General Sheridan and the rebels under General J. E. B. Stewart; defeat of the rebel troops and death of General Stewart; General Hunter burns the Virginia Military institute, Governor Letcher’s house, and captures 6 cannon and 600 horses, and a large amount of stores. Maximilian makes a triumphant entry into the City of Mexico; John Morgan, rebel General, captures Cynthiana, Ky., and two Ohio regiments; General Burbridge, with Union troops, subsequently arrives, defeats the rebels, captures 400 prisoners and 1000 horses. Expedition of 8000 Union troops under General Sturgis defeated by 10,000 rebels under Generals Forrest, Lee and Roddy; wagon and ammunition trains lost. Desperate fight between rebel and Union troops on the line of the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad; the Union troops driven from their position, but afterward regain it; a Union brigade gobbled up. Artillery fight in front of Petersburg, Va.; the town set on fire by shells from Union guns. Frederick, Md., evacuated by Union troops under General Wallace, and occupied by rebels, who levy $200,000 on the citizens. Severe fight between the armies of General Sherman and General Hood in front of Atlanta; severe assaults of Hood successfully repulsed. Peace Conference at Niagara Falls; Horace Greeley acts as President Lincoln’s agent, and offers the rebel Commissioners a safe conduct to Washington and back. A mine exploded under the rebel fortifications at Petersburg, Va., which are blown up with the troops in them; a terrific battle ensues; the Union storming column is repulsed with fearful slaughter; Union loss, 6000. Severe fight between the rebels and Union troops under General Warren; the rebels repulsed; Union loss 2800. Martinsburg, Va., reoccupied by rebel troops. Another battle on the line of the Weldon and Petersburg Road, between Union troops under General Warren and the rebels; the latter repulsed, with fearful slaughter; Union loss about 3000. Forrest, with three brigades of cavalry, attacks Memphis, and endeavours to capture Generals Washburne and Hurlbut; they fail in their object, and are driven out by Union troops. Fight between rebel and Union troops near Charlestown, Va., without decisive results. The rebels make another desperate effort to drive General Warren from the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, but are again repulsed, with heavy loss. General Kilpatrick returns from a successful raiding expedition; tears up 14 miles of railroad, captures 4 cannon and 200 prisoners. Atlanta, Ga., captured by Union troops, under Major General Sherman; 27 guns and 1000 rebel prisoners taken. Fight in the Shenandoah valley, near Berryville, Va.; defeat of the rebels; 20 wagons, 2 battle flags and many prisoners captured. Fight with rebels at Greenville, Tenn.; John Morgan, the notorious guerilla, killed, and his force dispersed. Desperate fight with rebels at Opequan Creek, Shenandoah valley; the Union troops, under General Sheridan, capture 3000 prisoners, 15 battle flags and 5 guns. Some rebels capture the steamers _Parsons_ and _Island Queen_, on Lake Erie, and convert them into pirates. The British Government order that no vessel belonging to the Confederates or United States shall enter British ports for the purpose of being dismantled or sold. General Sheridan gains a great victory at Fisher’s Hill, Shenandoah Valley; captures 20 guns, beside caissons, horses and 1100 prisoners; Union General Russell killed. Great battle in the Shenandoah Valley, between Union forces, under General Sheridan, and the rebels, under General Early; defeat of the latter, and capture of 43 guns, beside caissons, horses and prisoners. General Blunt defeated by the rebels under General Price, at Lexington, Mo. The rebel ram _Albemarle_ blown up in Roanoke River by a United States torpedo boat, under the command of Lieutenant Cushing. Fight between General Pleasanton’s Union army and General Price’s rebel army at Newton, Mo.; defeat of the latter; 2000 rebels and 7100 stand of arms captured. Fight between the Union forces under General Sherman and the rebels under General Hood; defeat of the latter. Armed bands of rebels appear on the Lakes and occasion great excitement and alarm along the Northern frontier. Rebel troops under General Price attack Fayetteville, Ark., and are repulsed with a loss of about 1000 in killed and wounded. The rebels under General Breckinridge attack the Union troops under General Gillem at Bull Gap, and capture 400 Union troops. Severe fight between rebel and Union troops at Strawberry Plains, Tenn., without decisive results. Forty-five Union scouts captured by the rebel General Mosby, near Charlestown, Va. The Senate authorizes the construction of six revenue cutters for the lakes. A bill authorizing the President to terminate the Reciprocity Treaty, passes the House. The Canadian Courts decide that they have no jurisdiction in the case of the St. Albans and Lake Erie pirates, and release them. General Sherman investing Savannah; Admiral Porter’s expedition leaves Fortress Monroe for Wilmington. Re-arrest of one of the St. Albans’ raiders in Canada; re-action of sentiment.

1865 American Rebellion still continuing--Principal events in order of succession:--Columbia, S.C., captured by General Sherman; Fort Anderson, Cape Fear River, shelled by our forces; General Schofield advancing from Smithfield, N.C. Rebel dollar estimated by the rebels as worth two cents in specie. Charleston evacuated. Sheridan pursuing Early and his body guard, all that is left of his army. General Sherman leaves Fayetteville, N.C., destroys the arsenal, and moves on Goldsboro. General Sheridan’s entire command arrives at White House, Va. Johnston defeated at Bentonville, N.C. Goldsboro evacuated, and the rebel forces fall back on Smithfield. General Steele leaves Pensacola, Fla., to attack Mobile. Captain Kennedy, the spy and incendiary, hung at Fort Lafayette. The rebels attack and carry Fort Steadman, but the fort is retaken by a vigorous charge of the Ninth Corps; the President witnesses the action. General Granger commences a co-operating movement against Mobile. General Sherman arrives at General Grant’s head-quarters. General Stoneham captures Boone, N.C. General Wilson moves on Greenville, Ala. A general advance made on Spanish Fort, Mobile Bay. The _Stonewall_ arrives at Lisbon, Portugal, having escaped from Ferrol, Spain, and is ordered to leave the harbour. Battle of Five Forks, Va.; the rebel right doubled up on the centre, and a portion of the wing cut off. General Grant orders an attack on the whole line, and, after desperate fighting, both wings are rested on the Appomattox; the South Side Road is cut, and during the day and night Richmond and Petersburg are evacuated, and Lee’s army is in full retreat for Danville; the rebel General A. P. Hill killed. Selma, Ala., captured by General Wilson’s cavalry, together with the greater portion of Forrest’s and Roddy’s commands. General Sheridan attacks Lee, West of Burkesville and routs him, capturing Ewell and a number of other generals. The news of the capture of Richmond announced to Sherman’s army. General Grant urges Lee to surrender to save the further effusion of blood; Lee asks for terms. General Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant. The President and Mrs. Lincoln return to Washington. Mobile captured; 300 guns and 3000 prisoners. General rejoicing all over the country. All the St. Albans raiders, except Young, released. The President issues a proclamation closing certain Southern ports. The President makes a speech in which he defines the States of the rebellion and hints at plans for restoration. He issues a proclamation respecting treatment of our national vessels in foreign ports, and threatens retaliation for discourtesy. A _Te Deum_ chanted in Trinity Church. Lynchburg, Va., surrenders to a Union scouting party, Practical end of the War:--General Grant arrives in Washington and advises that the draft be stopped, that recruiting cease, and that the military establishment be reduced. Lee reported to have advised Johnston to surrender to Sherman. The _Europa_ arrives with the news that the American Minister at Lisbon has demanded satisfaction for the outrage on the American flag. The President assassinated in Ford’s Theatre, Washington, by J. Wilkes Booth, who escapes; another assassin proceeds to Mr. Seward’s residence and seriously stabs him in the throat, also assaulting Mr. Frederick W. Seward. The President dies about half past seven o’clock; Andrew Johnson becomes President of the United States.

1866 Death of Lord Palmerston. The Fenian raid into Canada with the affairs of Ridgeway and Pigeon Hill. The war in Europe, of which the following is a complete table of principal events:--Federal execution decreed by the Germanic Diet. Entry of the Prussians into Leipsic, Gleasen and Cassel. Occupation of Loban. Entry of the Prussian General Vogel into the Hanoverian capital. Occupation of Marenthal, Ostritz and Lauban, in Bohemia, by two Prussian regiments, and occupation of Bernstadt by Prussian cavalry. Occupation of Dresden by the Prussians. Evacuation of Fort Wilhelm by the Hanoverian troops. Prince William of Hanau made prisoner. Cavalry encounter between the Austrians and Prussians upon the Rumburg road. Nixdorf occupied by 7000 Prussians. Occupation of Rumburg by the Prussians. Armistice between the Prussian and Hanoverian troops. Action near Jungbunzlau between the Austrians and the Prussians. The Prussian troops occupied Reichenberg, Trautenau and Aicha (Bohemia). Engagement near Turnau. The army of the Crown Prince of Prussia fought the battle of Nachod. Engagement at Oswiecim. Fight between the Prussians and Hanoverians near Langeusalza. General Steinmetz throws back the Austrian corps d’armée (Ramming) upon Josephstadt. Engagement of the same corps with the 6th and 8th Austrian corps under the Archduke Leopold. Action near Trautenau. The troops of Prince Frederick Charles engaged near Munchengratz. The Hanoverian army surrendered at discretion. Capture of Gitschin by the Prussian army. Actions at Kort, near Turnau, and at Chwalkowitz, between Kalitz and Konigshof. An Austrian army corps under General Clam-Gallus compelled to retire upon Koniggratz. Action at Gitschin. Arrival of King William at Gitschin. Junction of the Crown Prince’s army with that of Prince Frederick Charles. The battle of Sadowa. The laying of the Atlantic Cable and the raising of the old one nearly two years in water and successfully spliced and working, uniting the two continents--the Old and New World--let it be hoped, in the bonds of _eternal_ fraternity.

GLORY TO GOD ON HIGH, AND IN EARTH PEACE.--GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

FINIS.

APPENDIX.