him. His wondrous energy led him, after he had placed Meer Jaffier on the throne of Bengal, never to rest until the ascendancy of the English Company in that province was supreme, undisturbed by French or Dutch rivalry. Exactly a year after the battle of Plassey, a Commission arrived at Bengal from London, remodelling the Presidency, and not including Clive in the nomination of officers. The news of the great victory had not reached the India House when the Court of Directors thus threw a slight upon the only man who could preserve their ascendancy. But the members of the Presidency at Bengal had the good sense to request Clive to take the government upon himself. By his exertions, and through his example, the French were gradually driven from every stronghold; and in six months after the accession of George III. not a vestige of the supremacy which Dupleix and Bussy and Lally had won for them, remained in the peninsula.

THE ADMINISTRATION.

33

CHAPTER II.

The Administration.-Pitt's sole conduct of the war and of foreign affairs.-Frederick's second campaign.-Victory of Prague.-Defeat at Kolin.-Failure at Rochefort.Convention of Closter-Seven.-Failure of expedition against Louisbourg.-Riots about the Militia Act. -Frederick's victory of Rosbach.-Subsidy to Prussia.-Cherbourg taken, and its works demolished.-St. Maloes.-Operations on the African coast.-Successful expedition against Louisbourg.--The turning point in Pitt's Administration.-Frederick's third campaign.-Zorndorf.-Hochkirchen.-Wolfe appointed to command an expedition to Quebec.-The battle of Minden.-Canada.— Operations in North America.-Wolfe in the St. Lawrence.-His desponding letter.— Heights of Abraham. -Death of Wolfe.-Quebec surrendered.-Hawke's victory in Quiberon Bay.-Death of George the Second.

THE appointments of several of Mr. Pitt's political friends to high offices, in the final arrangement of the Administration, excited no surprise. Earl Temple became Lord Privy Seal, and Mr. Legge, Chancellor of the Exchequer. But the re-appointment of lord Anson to the Admiralty-unpopular as he was, abused as he had been by those who were now to be his associates-was regarded as a most surprising phenomenon." * He had been himself a wretched administrator-" an incapable object," as Walpole terms him. It is stated that Pitt took effectual means to neutralize Anson's incapacity. He stipulated with the king that the correspondence with naval commanders should be in his own hands, and that the Board of Admiralty should sign the dispatches without reading them. Doubtful as this statement may appear, it is unquestionable that Pitt, from the hour of his triumphant return to that post which involved the whole conduct of foreign affairs and of the war, determined that no coadjutator should interfere with his plans. The prospect before him was not very brilliant. The nation was committed to its alliance with Frederick II.; and at the very moment when the new ministry had entered upon their duties, came the news of a great disaster-" the reversal of all the king of Prussia's triumphs." Frederick had commenced his second campaign at the end of April. Even in the days of Marlborough, Europe had not seen such a vast array of mighty armies moving in every direction Austrians, troops of the Empire, French, Swedes-four hundred and thirty thousand men gathering together to crush the prince of a small German state, who had only a hun•Waldegrave "Memoirs," p. 155.

↑ Thackeray-" Life of Chatham," vol. i. p. 293. Walpole to Mann, July 3. VOL. VI.-3

dred and fifty thousand men in the field to encounter this overwhelming allied force. The Russians in the campaign of 1757 were merely committing ravages in the provinces beyond the Vistula. The English and Hanoverian army, commanded by the duke of Cumberland, was relied upon to prevent the French attacking Prussia. There were vast odds against the success of Frederick, according to ordinary calculations. The great writer and statesman, Edmund Burke, who at this time influenced public opinion, not from his place in Parliament but from Messrs. Dodsley's shop in Pall-Mall, thus describes the one resource that enabled Frederick "to sustain the violence of so many shocks "-his vast powers of mind: "His astonishing economy, the incomparable order of his finances, the discipline of his armies beyond all praise, a sagacity that foresaw everything, a constancy that no labour could subduc, a courage that no danger could dismay, an intuitive glance that catches the decisive moment-all these seemed to form a sort of balance to the vast weight against him, turned the wishes of his friends into hopes, and made them depend upon resources that are not within the power of calculation."* At the opening of this campaign Frederick saw that he should first have to encounter Austria. He marched from Saxony into Bohemia by four different mountain passes; purposing to unite his detachments in the environs of Prague. Before this city the Austrian marshal, Browne, was encamped, in a position almost impregnable. Frederick waited for his gallant companion-in-arms, marshal Schwerin, to join him; and then, on the 6th of May, he fought one of the most sanguinary battles on record. The conflict lasted eleven hours; the Prussians losing eighteen thousand men, and the Austrians twenty-four thousand. The brave old marshal fell, leading his regiment, which had given way, to the thick of the battle, waving the national standard of the black eagle which he had snatched from an ensign. The Austrian commander, marshal Browne, was also mortally wounded. The king displayed that personal intrepidity which never failed him after his first battle of Molwitz. His victory was complete. Prague was then bombarded, and for three weeks did its unfortunate inhabitants endure the horrors of war, with more than its usual calamities. Twelve thousand famished victims, whose houses had been destroyed, were turned out of the gates of Prague, that more food might be left to its defenders. They were driven back again by the unpitying Prussians. The city resolutely held out.

“Annual Register" for 1758—the first of the series. There is no more spirited, or, in the main, more correct narrative of this eventful period, than in the annual miscellany which the genius of Burke at once raised to a high reputation.

FAILURE AT ROCHEFORT.

35

A great division of the Austrian army under marshal Daun was advancing for its relief. On the 17th of June, Frederick fought the battle of Kolin, with an inadequate force; and he was defeated with the loss of thirteen thousand men. Six times did he lead his cavalry to the charge against the Austrian position. He was advancing the seventh time, with only forty men, when an English officer said to him, "Is your majesty going to storm the battery by yourself?" He at last ordered the retreat; and riding off alone, he was found seated by the side of a well, drawing figures in the sand with his stick. The siege of Prague was raised; and the Prussians hastily marched out of Bohemia.

Under this great reverse of their one ally, the English government turned its attention to naval enterprises. Something, indeed, might be expected from the army under the duke of Cumberland; and a great success on the coast of France would raise the spirits of the people, who were lamenting over the fatal day of Kolin. Such an enterprise would operate as an important diversion of the French from the war in Germany. An expedition was sent out, in September, under the command of sir Edward Hawke and sir John Mordaunt. Sixteen ships of the line and ten regiments of foot were destined for an attack on the great arsenal of Rochefort. The French coast was without many troops for its defence. Louis XV., when he heard of the arrival of an English armament at the mouth of the Charente, was fully convinced that Rochefort would fall. The fortified island of Aix was attacked by captain Howe, who anchored his ship within fifty yards of the fort, and after an hour silenced the French batteries. General Conway took possession of the citadel.* After a week spent in councils of war, it was agreed that the expedition should return home. Mordaunt and Hawke were at issue. The general required to be assured by the admiral, that if any mishap occurred in the attack upon Rochefort, such arrangements could be made as would allow the troops to reembark. Hawke said, that must depend upon wind and weather.' We have a letter of general Conway, in which he writes to his brother about "resolutions and irresolutions." . . "I am sorry to say that I think, on the whole, we make a pitiful figure in not attempting anything. For the only time of my life I dread to come back to England." Colonel Wolfe, when these miserable discussions were going on between the commanders, said, that if they would give him three ships and five hundred men he would take Rochefort. Pitt, when he wanted such a soldier, Captain Rodney's Letter of Sept. 23, in "Grenville Papers."

† MS. collection of "Conway's Letters."

did not forget Wolfe. Mordaunt was acquitted by a court-martial. Other evil tidings had travelled to England, thick and fast. The news had come that the duke de Richelieu had compelled the duke of Cumberland, after a series of retreats, to leave Hanover to the mercy of the French; and being pursued to Stade, he had agreed to a capitulation, known as the Convention of Closter-Seven; under which all his Hessians and Brunswickers were to be disbanded, and all his Hanoverians were to be sent into various cantonments. The duke was insulted by his father when he came home, and resigned his post as commander-in-chief. George had turned his back upon his favourite son when they first met, and said aloud, "He has ruined me and disgraced himself." The indignation of the English people was extreme. They associated in their minds the retreat from Rochefort, and the surrender at Stade, as the result of some treachery or court intrigue. "The people will not be persuaded that this pacific disposition [at Rochefort] was not a preliminary for the convention of Stade."* The public discontent was at its height when the intelligence arrived that lord Loudoun, having the command of a force of twelve thousand men, furnished by large reinforcements from home, had shrunk from attacking Louisbourg; and that admiral Holbourne, the naval commander, hesitated about imperilling his squadron of eighteen ships of the line in an attack upon the French squadron of nineteen ships of the line. When this account came, Horace Walpole might well write, "It is time for England to slip her cables, and float away into some unknown ocean." To crown the misfortunes of the first three months of Pitt's administration, there were serious disturbances in various parts of the country about the Militia Act, which came into operation at that time. The people were persuaded that, when enrolled, they were liable to be draughted into the king's forces and be sent abroad. It was in vain to urge the precise words of the Statute. Yeomen, farmers, and labourers were obstinately incredulous; and in some places the timid magistrates were obliged to postpone their meetings for enrolling men, to prevent the violence which the ignorant multitudes threatened. Such were the blessings produced by the want of publicity for parliamentary proceedings; and by the utter deficiency of ability in the conductors of provincial newspapers to treat any social question as a matter for elucidation." Their local "Accidents and Offences," Potter to Pitt-" Chatham Correspondence," vol. i. p. 277.

† Letter to Mann, Sept. 3.

Mr. Edward Baines in the Life of his father, says-speaking of the Leeds paper which for half a century has held so distinguished a place amongst Journals-" Up to the year 1801, the Mercury,' like almost every other provincial paper, had no editorial comments whatever."