ntermitted their immitigable war--now at last fall
by the hand of each other. The same spectacle of horror greets us from
both ships. On their decks, reddened with blood, the murderers of St.
Bartholomew and of the Sicilian Vespers, with the fires of Smithfield,
seem to break forth anew, and to concentrate their rage. Each has now
become a swimming Golgotha. At length, these vessels--such pageants of
the sea--once so stately--so proudly built--but now rudely shattered by
cannon balls--with shivered mast's and ragged sails--exist only as
unmanageable wrecks, weltering on the uncertain waves, whose temporary
lull of peace is now their only safety. In amazement at this strange,
unnatural contest--away from country and home--where there is no country
or home to defend--we ask again, wherefore this dismal duel? Again the
melancholy but truthful answer promptly comes, that this is the
established method of determining justice between nations.

NOTES.--Austerlitz, a small town in Austria, seventy miles north from
Vienna. It is noted as the site of a battle, in December, 1805, between
the allied Austrian and Russian armies, and the French under Napoleon. The
latter were victorious. Buena Vista, a small hamlet in eastern Mexico,
where, in 1847, five thousand Americans, under Gen. Taylor, defeated
twenty thousand Mexicans, under Gen. Santa Anna.

Dreadful touch.--Quoted from Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene II.

St. Bartholomew.--A terrible massacre took place in France, on St.
Bartholomew's day, August 24, 1572. It has been estimated that twenty
thousand persons perished.

Sicilian Vespers, a revolt and uprising against the French in Sicily,
March 30, 1282, at the hour of vespers.

Smithfield, a portion of London noted as a place for execution during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

XXXI. SPEECH OF WALPOLE IN REPROOF OF MR. PITT. (151)

Sir Robert Walpole, 1676-1745, was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He
entered Parliament in 1700, and soon became a good debater and skillful
tactician. He was prime minister of Great Britain from 1721 to 1742, in
the reigns of George I. and George II. He was an able statesman; but has
been accused of employing corruption or bribery on a large scale, to
control Parliament and accomplish his purposes.
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I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate, while it was
carried on with calmness and decency, by men who do not suffer the ardor
of opposition to cloud t