A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year. Volume 2 (of 3)

"To be distributed among such proscribed persons as wander in foreign countries, whether they be French, Italians, Belgians, Dutch, Spanish, or inhabitants of the departments of the Rhine, under the directions of my executors, one hundred thousand francs. To be distributed among those who suffered amputation, or were severely wounded at Ligny or Waterloo, who may be still living, according to lists drawn up by my executors. The Guards shall be paid double, those of the Island of Elba quadruple, two hundred thousand francs."

"Cantillon had as much right to assassinate that oligarchist as the latter had to send me to perish upon the rock of St. Helena. Wellington, who proposed this outrage, attempted to justify it by pleading the interest of Great Britain. Cantillon, if he had really assassinated that lord, would have pleaded the same excuse, and been justified by the same motive--the interest of France--to get rid of this general, who, moreover, by violating the capitulation of Paris, had rendered himself responsible for the blood of the martyrs Ney, Labedoyere, etc., and for the crime of having pillaged the museums, contrary to the text of the treaties."

This last legacy was not paid until 1855, when Napoleon III. discharged it.

[Sidenote: Fall of Richelieu's Ministry]

Late in the year the Ministry of Duc de Richelieu succumbed to the machinations of Comte d'Artois. Before his resignation, Richelieu complained to the Count, reminding him of his promises of support at the first formation of the Cabinet. "The fact is, my dear Duke," replied Monsieur, "if you allow me to say so, you have taken my words too literally. And then the circumstances at that time were so different." The Prime Minister rose abruptly and sought out the King. "Monsieur has broken his word of honor," he said, "he has broken his word as a gentleman." "What would you have me do?" said Louis XVIII. "He conspired against Louis XVI.; he conspires against me; he will conspire against himself." The explosion of a barrel of gunpowder in the royal palace raised apprehensions of another painful scene, like that preceding the fall of the Ministry of Decazes. Richelieu resigned, and Villele took his place. Chateaubriand was sent to London as Ambassador. While Parliamentary government in France labored thus under the onslaughts of the Royalist plotters in the Chambers, the so-called Era of Good Feeling in America was continued under the second administration of President Monroe.

The 4th of March fell on a Sunday, and Monroe was the first President to be inaugurated on the 5th. Missouri was admitted conditionally, and, on August 10, the President proclaimed its admission as the twenty-fourth State amid a tempest of political excitement. The contest over the slavery question was now supposed to be forever settled. In the debates of 1821, the House stood firmly against Missouri's admission as a slave State, and the Senate was equally determined that the colored citizens of other States should be denied citizenship in Missouri if the people so desired. At last it came to a conference committee. It was decided that the State should be admitted, as soon as its Legislature would agree that the section of the Constitution in question should not be construed as authorizing a law excluding any citizens of other States from the immunities and privileges to which they were entitled under the Constitution. The Legislature of Missouri gave this pledge, but it remained open whether free negroes and mulattoes were citizens in other States, and whether they were to be made citizens in Missouri. In the admission of Missouri there was for the first time an unmixed issue on the question of a free government or a slave-holding government in the United States. Doubtful dealings on the part of the Senators from Indiana and Illinois were followed by an attempt to make these States both slave-holding States, in face of the binding law of the Ordinance of 1787. A popular movement led by Governor Edward Coles of Illinois defeated this project.

On May 5, the territory of Liberia was secured on the west coast of Africa, and a colony was founded for the repatriation of negro slaves, with Monrovia for a capital. During this same period Junius Brutus Booth made his first appearance in America, as Richard III., at Richmond. Late in the year the remains of Andre, the British officer who was shot as a spy during the American Revolution, were placed on a British ship for interment in Westminster Abbey.

Greek independence was declared on January 27. After the fall of Ali Pasha in February, the Sultan was able to turn his undivided attention to the Greek revolt. In March, a body of Samian revolutionists landed in Chios and incited the islanders to rise against the Turk. They laid siege to the citadel held by a Turkish garrison. Had the fleet of the Hydriotes helped them, they might have prevailed. As it was they rendered themselves a prey to the Turkish troops on the mainland. An army of nearly 10,000 Turks landed in Chios, and relieved the besieged garrison. Then the fanatical Moslems were let loose on the gentle inhabitants of the little island. Thousands were put to the sword. The slave markets of Northern Africa were glutted with Chian women and children. Within a month the once lovely island was a ruined waste. All Greece and Europe was filled with horror. Maurokordatos, now at the head of Greek affairs, was bitterly blamed for not sending over a fleet to save Chios. One single Greek took it into his hands to avenge his countrymen. The Turks were celebrating their sacred month of Ramazan. On the night of June 18, the festival of Biram, the Turkish fleet, under command of Kara Ali, was illuminated with colored lanterns. On that night Constantine Kanaris, a sea-captain from Psara, drove a fire-ship into the midst of the Turkish fleet. Sailing close up to the admiral's flagship he thrust his bowsprit into one of the portholes. Then setting fire to the pitch and resin on board his ship, he dropped into his small boat and pulled away. A breeze fanned the flames, and in a moment the big Turkish man-of-war was afire. The powder magazine blew up and the lifeboats went up in flames. The burning rigging fell down upon the doomed crew, and the admiral was struck down on his poop-deck. The ship was burned to the water's edge. The Turkish fleet scattered before the shower of blazing sparks, and was only brought together under the guns of the Dardanelles. This exploit made Kanaris the hero of Greece. Within the same year he repeated the feat.

The Sultan had thrown his whole land force into the Greek mainland. Khurshid, after his defeat of Ali Pasha, marched to Larissa, in Thessaly. Thence two armies, 50,000 strong, under Bramali and Homer Brionis converged upon the Morea. In the face of so formidable an invasion, Maurokordatos took the field himself. He mismanaged things badly. At Arta he sacrificed his choicest regiment, the famous corps of Philhellenes, composed of foreign officers and commanded by men who had won distinction in Napoleon's campaigns. They were cut down almost to a man. Maurokordatos fell back to Missolonghi. In the meanwhile Dramalis with 25,000 foot and 6,000 horse penetrated into the Morea. The Greek Government at Argos dispersed. All would have been lost for the Greeks had Dramalis not neglected to cover the mountain passes behind him. While he marched on to Nauplia, the Greek mountaineers rose behind him. Demetrios Ypsilanti, the acting-president of Greece, with a few hundred followers threw himself into Argos. There he held the Acropolis against the Turkish rearguard. Kolokotrones, calling out the last men from Tripolitza, relieved Ypsilanti at Argos. The mountain passage was seized. Dramalis had to give up his conquest of the Morea, and fight his way back to the Isthmus of Corinth. Without supplies and harassed by hostile peasant forces the Turkish army became badly demoralized. Thousands were lost on the way. Dramalis himself died from over-exposure. The remainder of his army melted away at Corinth under the combined effects of sickness and drought.

A decisive turn in the Greek war for independence was reached. Europe realized that the revolt had grown to the proportions of a national war. Popular sympathy in Russia became more clamorous. Capodistrias, the Russian Prime Minister, rightly measured the force of this long pent-up feeling. Unable to move the Czar, who still floundered in the toils of the Holy Alliance, Capodistrias withdrew from public affairs and retired to Geneva.