CHAPTER I.
1799-1800.
Retrospect of Eighteenth Century—Napoleon’s letter to George III.—Lord Grenville’s reply—French prisoners of war in England—Scarcity of provisions—Gloomy financial outlook—Loan from the Bank of England—Settlement of the Union with Ireland.
THE old Eighteenth Century lay a-dying, after a comparatively calm and prosperous life.
In its infancy, William of Orange brought peace to the land, besides delivering it from popery, brass money, and wooden shoes; and, under the Georges, civil war was annihilated, and the prosperity, which we have afterwards enjoyed, was laid down on a broad, and solid basis.
But in its last years, it fell upon comparatively evil days, and, although it was saved from the flood of revolution which swept over France, yet, out of that revolution came a war which embittered its closing days, and was left as a legacy to the young Nineteenth Century, which, as we know, has grappled with and overcome all difficulties, and has shone pre-eminent over all its predecessors.
The poor old century had lost us America, whose chief son, General George Washington, died in 1799. In 1799 we were at war with France truly, but England itself had not been menaced—the war was being fought in Egypt. Napoleon had suddenly deserted his army there, and had returned to France post-haste, for affairs were happening in Paris which needed his presence, if his ambitious schemes were ever to ripen and bear fruit. He arrived, dissolved the Council of Five Hundred, and the Triumvirate consisting of himself, Cambacérès, and Le Brun was formed. Then, whether in sober earnest, or as a bit of political by-play, he wrote on Christmas day, 1799, the following message of goodwill and peace:
“Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland.