"It appears that her name is Mary Davis, and that she is the wife of a private in the 2nd Regiment of Foot-guards, now serving in the Peninsula; her husband quitted her to embark for foreign service on the 20th of last January, and on the 28th of the same month she left her son in the care of a woman who occupied the front rooms of her house, while she went to wash for a family in the neighbourhood: on her return in the evening, the woman had decamped with her son, and, notwithstanding every effort was made to discover their retreat, they had not since been heard of: but having lately been informed that the woman was a native of Leeds, she had come to the resolution of going there in search of her child, and with this view had walked from London to Folkingham (106 miles) with an infant not more than six weeks old in her arms.
"The boy's master stated, that about the latter end of last January, he met a woman and boy in the vicinity of Sleaford, where he resides. She appeared very ragged, and otherwise much distressed, and was, at that time, beating the boy most severely; she then accosted him (the master) saying she was in great distress, and a long way from home; and after some further preliminary conversation, said, if he would give her two guineas to enable her to get home, she would bind her son apprentice to him; this proposal was agreed to, and the boy was regularly indentured, the woman having previously made affidavit as to being his mother. This testimony was corroborated by the boy himself, but, as no doubt remained in the mind of any one respecting the boy's real mother, his master, without further ceremony, resigned him to her. The inhabitants interested themselves very humanely in the poor woman's behalf, by not only paying her coach fare back to London, but also collecting for her the sum of £2 5s."
Among the home news of 1811, I mentioned Bartholomew Fair; but, for rowdyism, the fair of 1812 seems to have borne the palm:—
"The scene of riot, confusion, and horror exhibited at this motley festival, on this night, has seldom, if ever, been exceeded. The influx of all classes of labourers who had received their week's wages, and had come to the spot, was immense. At ten o'clock every avenue leading through the conspicuous parts of the fair was crammed, with an impenetrable mass of human creatures. Those who were in the interior of the crowd, howsoever distressed, could not be extricated; while those who were on the outside, were exposed to the most imminent danger of being crushed to death against the booths. The females, hundreds of whom there were, who happened to be intermixed with the mob, were treated with the greatest indignity, in defiance of the exertions of husbands, relatives, or friends. This weaker part of the crowd, in fact, seemed to be, on this occasion, the principal object of persecution, or, as the savages who attacked them, were pleased to call it, of fun. Some fainted, and were trodden under foot, while others, by an exertion, almost supernatural, produced by an agony of despair, forced their way to the top of the mass, and crept on the heads of the people, until they reached the booths, where they were received and treated with the greatest kindness. We lament to state that many serious accidents in consequence occurred; legs and arms innumerable were broken, some lives were lost, and the surgeons of St. Bartholomew's Hospital were occupied the whole of the night in administering assistance to the unfortunate objects who were continually brought in to them.
"The most distressing scene that we observed arose from the suffocation of a child about a twelvemonth old, in the arms of its mother; who, with others, had been involved in the crowd. The wretched mother did not discover the state of her infant until she reached Giltspur Street, when she rent the air with her shrieks of self-reproach: while her husband, who accompanied her, and who had the appearance of a decent tradesman, stood mute with the dead body of his child in his arms, which he regarded with a look of indescribable agony. Such are the heartrending and melancholy scenes which were exhibited, and yet this forms but a faint picture of the enormities and miseries attendant upon this disgraceful festival."
Duelling was dying out, and if anything would help its decline in public opinion, it would be something like the following remarks of Lord Ellenborough. They arose from an application to the Court of King's Bench, for a criminal information against two persons, for posting a Merchant at Lloyd's as a coward for refusing a Challenge. These are the learned judge's remarks on the case:—
"Really it is high time to put a stop to this spurious chivalry of the counting-house, and the counter. The Court has been for these two days occupied with cases of this sort: yesterday it was an angry linendraper of Bristol, who had been a little time in the local militia, long enough to imbibe all the worst prejudices of the army, that thought proper to post a practising surgeon for not accepting a challenge; and, to-day, we have a mercantile man in the same predicament; instead of posting their books, these tradesmen are posting one another. The Court desires it to be understood, that it is not necessary for the party applying for a remedy against such an outrage as this, to come perfectly unblemished before them: and that if it shall be shown to be necessary for public quiet and justice, they will interpose the remedy sought for. If the challenge in this case had been sent eo instanti upon the defendant's quitting the Coffee-house, the Court would have contemplated it as emanating from the venial irritation of the moment; but it appears that he at first applied to the prosecutor for an apology, upon the refusal of which, his friend, the other defendant, was sent upon this mischievous and malignant mission to the prosecutor, in the country; and then, because a man refuses to be hunted down when dining out at a friend's house, and challenged at six o'clock in the evening, he is to be posted for a Coward at Lloyd's Coffee-house the next morning! Rule Absolute."
Abroad we were humbling the power of Napoleon. Ciudad Rodrigos and Badajos had been captured. Marmont had had a crushing defeat at Salamanca. Madrid had been occupied, and Wellington had been made Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Army. The Russian Campaign had proved more than disastrous to Napoleon, it was his ruin. France could scarcely get over her awful losses, which Buturlin estimates as follows:—"Slain in battle, one hundred and twenty-five thousand; died from fatigue, hunger, and cold, one hundred and thirty-two thousand; prisoners (comprehending forty-eight generals, three thousand officers, and upwards of one hundred and ninety thousand men), one hundred and ninety three thousand; total, four hundred and fifty thousand, and this does not include the thousands of non-combatants who perished.
Our relations with America had been strained for a long time; in fact, it was evident at the end of 1811 that war was not only imminent, but all but present. The quarrel arose out of the Orders in Council, which Napoleon's decrees of Berlin and Milan had brought forth, and which the Americans asserted interfered unjustly with their trade. Of course both sides thought they were right, and the Americans, knowing we had a big war on our hands, probably imagined that here was their opportunity. They provided money, and began hostilities, almost even before declaring war, which was formally done in June. The following is the Act of Congress:—
"An Act declaring War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their Territories.