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The Waverers were made up of the men who held that their best and most patriotic policy was to regard each portion of the Bill brought before them on its own merits, and not to resist out of hand any proposition which seemed harmless in itself simply because it formed part of the whole odious policy of reform.
Brougham was thrilling, impetuous, overwhelming, often extravagant, scorning conventionality of phrase or manner, revelling in his own exuberant strength and plunging at opponents as a bull might do in a Spanish arena. Lyndhurst's amendment was one especially suited to bring to his side the majority of the Waverers.
The man who had twice steered the ship of state under Napoleon's guns might do it again; and both England and Russia waited to see some irrevocable step taken before they again risked an army for that prince of waverers. Grenville rather tardily sent Lord Morpeth to arrange an alliance, but only after he should receive a solemn pledge that Hanover would be restored.
Thenceforth Napoleon was not troubled by Bourbon plotters; and doubtless the skill with which his agents had nursed this silly plot and sought to entangle all waverers did far more than the strokes of the guillotine to procure his future immunity. Men trembled before a union of immeasurable power with unfathomable craft such as recalled the days of the Emperor Tiberius.
"Amidst a wild tumult of joy the young prince ascended from the dais and took the royal seat, showing in his every movement the natural grace and dignity that might almost in themselves have proved his right of heritage, and that certainly won to his cause the last waverers among the onlooking multitude. Even the bodyguard of the slain sirdar were now joining in the universal acclaim.
This news, however, seems, for mysterious reasons, to have been kept from the general public, for it was not till the Monday evening, at 10.23, that this announcement was made, and, reaching Ireland on the morrow of the announcement of the triumph of the Republic in the capital, must have shown the waverers that the rising was bound to end in a fiasco a fact which they possibly realized better than the men in Dublin, who to the very end seem to have expected something to turn up.
When at last he was drawn into the controversy he constructed for his own satisfaction and that of other waverers who looked up to him for support and guidance an argument founded on the Butlerian principle of probability as the guide of life.
A mounted force 1,800 strong under French was indeed sent eastward to show the flag, detach the waverers, and if possible, intercept the retreat; but the information at Head Quarters was imperfect and the strength of the commandos was greatly underestimated.
On Wagon Hill also the struggle was renewed, and here also the defence was strengthened by some dismounted cavalry which had been waiting in support in rear of Caesar's Camp. It was evident that if the enemy were not dislodged from Wagon Hill during daylight, he would be able to establish himself irremovably after dark, when all the waverers would come up under the protection of the night.
He printed a letter to Muggleton which should reassure the waverers. It thundered out defiance.
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