37. The most celebrated of our generals in the war against Bonaparte, were Abercrombie, Sir John Moore, and the Duke of Wellington, the last of whom won a great many battles in Spain, and at last, with the assistance of the Prussians, gained the great victory at Waterloo, near Brussels, on the 18th of June, 1815, after which, Bonaparte surrendered to the English, and was banished to a small island, called St. Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he died in a few years. The fall of Bonaparte was followed by a general peace.
38. George the Third was still living, but he had been out of his mind, and blind, for some time, so that his son George, prince of Wales, had been made regent in the year 1810, and conducted the government with that title, till his father’s death, which happened in the year 1820, he having reigned above fifty-nine years, when George the Fourth became king, instead of regent.
39. But I must now go back some years to tell you of something that was done at the beginning of this century. You have been told that Ireland had been subject to England, ever since the time of Henry the Second; but there had constantly been quarrels and warfare between the native Irish, and the new Irish, who were the descendants of the English, who had settled there, after the conquest.
40. Then the new Irish were just as ready to quarrel with new English settlers, as the old Irish were with them; and, till the last fifty years, little had been done to make the people of Ireland a better or a happier race. They had a parliament of their own, but it did not encourage the people to be industrious, so they were, of course, very poor.
41. A few years after the war with France began, there was a great rebellion in Ireland, and soldiers were sent from England, to put a stop to it, which I am afraid was not done without a great deal of cruelty; but it was in consequence of this rebellion that the English government resolved that the parliament and country of Ireland should be united to that of England; as the parliament and country of Scotland had been, and this union took place on the first of January, 1801, which you will easily remember, because it was the first day of the nineteenth century.
42. Many good laws have been made since then, for the benefit of Ireland, and much been done to improve the country; but numbers of the Irish people still remain in a very distressed condition, and some of them wanted to have a separate Parliament again; and this is what is meant by Repeal of the Union; but this feeling is now fast dying away.
43. In the reign of George the Third, there were National and Sunday schools established in almost every part of England, so that the poor people might be able to have their children taught to read and write, which was a great blessing to them; for although there had long been charity schools in London, there were few in the country, and many of the shopkeepers in country towns, who had become quite respectable people by their industry, were so ignorant that they could not even make out their own bills, or keep their own accounts.
44. There were two more great improvements before the death of George the Third; the one was the invention of gas lights, which make the streets much lighter at night than the dim oil lamps that were formerly used; and the other was the introduction of steam boats, which had lately been invented in America.
QUESTIONS.
1. Who succeeded queen Anne?