1767:
§ Prince Edward was born at Buckingham House, on the 2nd November, 1767.
1773:
§ December, 1773: Boston Tea Party.
1775:
§ April 19: Fighting erupts at Lexington and Concord.
1776:
§ July: Declaration of Independence made by the British North American Colonies.
1783:
§ September 3rd: The Paris Peace Treaty by which the hostilities between Great Britain and her colonies were brought to an end and which brought into being the independent nation of the United States of America.
1785:
§ At the age of eighteen years, Edward went into the army, starting out at Luneberg in Hanover.
1786:
§ May 30th, Edward gazetted Colonel in the army.
1787:
§ Edward was sent to Geneva.
1789:
§ At Paris, a political club or society meets in the old convent of the Jacobins (order of monks) to maintain and propagate the principles of extreme democracy and absolute equality; they became known as the Jacobins.
§ June: The French Revolution breaks out.
1790:
§ Prince Edward runs away from Geneva to return to England.
§ Considering that he absented himself from Geneva without leave, the King, his father sends Prince Edward to Gibraltar to serve as an army offcier at that place.
§ Prince Edward set sail for Gibraltar from Southampton on January 30th, 1790.
1791:
§ Having set sail on June 24th, on Aug 11th, a Fleet of His Majesty's ships, including the Ulysses and the Resolution arrived at Quebec with the 7th Royal Fusileers, commanded by His Royal Highness Prince Edward.
1792:
§ The Napoleonic wars (1792-1815).
§ May 14th: Sir John Wentworth sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia; he remained so for the next sixteen years, until 1808.
§ August 10th: A Parisian mob stormed the Tuileries and take the royal family as prisoners. The "September massacres" followed.
§ With a force launched from Halifax, the British capture Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
1793:
§ January 21st: Louis XVI is beheaded; George III sent the French ambassador packing; Diplomatic relations were severed; France invaded England's ally, Holland; and, on February 1st, France declared war on England.
1794:
§ January: Prince Edward, having been appointed a major general, was ordered to proceed from Quebec to the French West India Islands in order to assist Sir Charles Grey in his reduction of these French holdings.
§ May 10th: Julie takes a ship from Halifax to England.
§ May 11th: Edward arrives at Halifax from the West Indies.
§ June 14-28: Prince Edward does a tour of the province; by land to Annapolis Royal then over the Fundy to St. John.
§ Howe's victory of "The First of June" that arose as a result of the meeting of the English and French fleets off of Brest was to show to the world that England continued to hold on to her superiority at sea.
1796:
§ The French conquer Italy, and Austria deserts Britain in her struggle against France.
1797:
§ January: With Bonaparte having successfully invaded Italy and Spain both countries then coming in on the side of France; and Austria retiring from the war -- France was left without an enemy on the continent and England without an ally. England, fearing an invasion, withdrew her ships from the Mediterranean, which was thus to become a "French Lake" from January 1797 to May 1798.
§ Naval mutinies between April and June at Spithead and the Nore.
1798:
§ Nelson re-enters the Mediterranean in May, 1798; and, in August Nelson destroys the French fleet at The Battle of the Nile.
§ Frances Wentworth was ill through the winter, indeed there was fear that she might die; she recovered but spent a number of months in bed. Hearing that her son Charles Mary, who was then in England, was not well, Frances, in the spring of 1798, sails for England.
§ October 23rd: The Duke of Kent is in need of medical attention due to a fall from his horse, on Sunday morning, October 21st, embarks, "with his suite," in the H.M.S. Topaz. The Topaz with the royal standard flying and with guns blazing from the men-of-war in the harbour and from citadel hill, sails on October 23rd; she reaches Portsmouth on 13th of November.
1799:
§ May 17th: Made a duke, the Duke of Kent, Prince Edward was appointed the Commander in Chief of British forces in North America.
§ In Nova Scotia: The assembly meets on Friday, 7 June, 1799 (7th general assembly, 7th and last session). Governor Wentworth in his speech recommends quarantine laws to guard against "yellow fever"; he recommends the completion of the roads to Annapolis and Pictou.
§ September 6th: The Duke of Kent returns to Halifax in "the Arethusa, capt. Wooley, 43 days from England. As she came up the harbour, royal salutes were fired from the batteries and from the ships of war, whose yards were manned ..." In addition to Prince Edward, Julie and Lady Francis Wentworth were aboard the Arethusa.
§ October 30th: The Duke of Orleans, in the midst of a tortuous journey from the U.S. to France, calls over at Halifax. He and his two brothers, though prisoners, are entertained by Wentworth and the Duke of Kent, indeed, the Prince lends some money to the Duke of Orleans; afterwards, as King of France, Louis Philippe was to reminisce to the young Queen Victoria about her father and his kindness.
1800:
§ June 23rd: At Halifax: "For sale, for term of years, as may be agreed on, a likely stout Negro girl, aged 18 years, good natured, fond of children, and accustomed to both town and country work."
§ "The Duke of Kent imported four horses of value, to improve the breed in the province."
§ August 4th: Duke of Kent leaves Halifax for England for the last time, arriving at Portsmouth on August 31st.
§ September 11th: The corner stone for Governor Wentworth's new house, Government House, is laid by Wentworth.
1801:
§ "On the 4 February, the stables, coach houses and offices at Sir John Wentworth's villa, the 'Lodge,' were burned, and on the 8th a fire occurred in front of Government House, by which many houses and stores on Hollis Street were destroyed."
§ For a few months during the winter of 1800-01 there was formed a league against England; the league consisted of Prussia, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. This "was caused partly by the whim of the Czar Paul [and] partly by two feelings then prevalent in the Courts of Europe, fear of France and jealousy of English naval power." With Nelson's capture of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in April, 1801, this league against England shortly came to an end.
1802:
§ The Treaty of Amiens is signed and the war between France and England is ended leaving France supreme in Western Europe, and England supreme on the oceans of the world.
§ March: The Duke of Kent received his appointment as the Governor of Gibraltar; within a month departed Falmouth and reached Gibraltar on the 10th of May.
1803:
§ Mutiny at Gibraltar. Prince Edward overseas the Court Martial. Eleven mutineers were sentenced to be shot, three were actually executed on January 4th.
§ War again: the Peace of Amiens comes to an end. A circular letter, dated 16 May, 1803, from Downing Street: "Unfavorable termination of the discussion lately depending between his majesty and the French government ... his majesty's ambassador left Paris on the 13th."
§ Green: "Amid all the triumphs of the revolutionary war, the growth of the British empire had been steady and ceaseless. She was more than ever mistress of the sea. ... She was turning her command of the seas to a practical account. Not only was she monopolizing the carrying trade of the European nations, but the sudden uprush of her industries was making her the workshop as well as the market of the world."
§ May 2nd: Prince Edward and his "large suite" went aboard the Amazon at Gibraltar and left Falmouth arriving on the 27th. Prince Edward was then to begin "the journey into a limbo of official rejection in which he would never be given an opportunity to clear his name."
1804:
§ "On the 11th of April 1804, a treaty was concluded at St. Petersburg. Five hundred thousand men were to be arrayed against France. Great Britain was to contribute ships and men and money. On the 9th of August, Austria signified her adherence. This was the Third Coalition."
§ War between Britain and Bonaparte-dominated Spain breaks out on December 12th, 1804.
1805:
§ Charles, Wentworth's son moves to England.
§ October 21st, Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, by it both the French and Spanish navies were annihilated, and, the the danger of any invasion of England rolled away like a dream.
§ In December of 1805 the Battle of Austerlitz took place (Austerlitz is a place located in modern day Czechoslovakia). Napoleon decisively defeated the armies of Russia and Austria, each with its emperor at its head.
1806:
§ On January 23rd Pitt dies.
§ Grenville, the British foreign secretary since 1791, forms the government of "All the Talents" which was dissolved in 1807.
§ In September Fox dies in office.
§ In 1806 England abolishes the slave-trade (in 1833 slavery itself).
1808:
§ In support of a Spanish rising, in July, Arthur Wellesley (later to become known as the Duke of Wellington) leads the first small British force of 9,000 men into the peninsula of Spain; a gate into the hostile fortress of Napoleonic Europe.
1809:
§ Perceval becomes the English Prime Minister and Liverpool Secretary for War and the Colonies.
1810:
§ George III is ill; his son, the Duke of Wales (1762-1830) takes over as the Prince Regent; in 1820, on his father's death, he becomes George IV.
§ The Wentworths move to England taking up residence at London.
1812:
§ May, the British Prime Minister, Perceval, assassinated.
§ Wentworth flees his creditors. Leaving behind his wife and child which he was not to see again, he takes refuge at Halifax.
§ On 18 June: President Madison and the American Congress declare war on Britain. There then follows: The War of 1812.
§ Byron Donkin builds (tin plate having been invented in 1810) the first canning factory in England, his principal orders coming from the Royal Navy for canned soups and meats used in the war against America.
§ Liverpool becomes the British Prime Minister.
1813:
§ February 14th: Lady Wentworth (1745-1813), in her 68th year of age, died at England.
§ During forty days in May and June, the British troops drove the French armies over the Pyrenees and out of Spain; Napoleon's back was broken by the military and diplomatic actions of Wellington and Castlereagh.
§ Napoleon retreats from Moscow and struggles to retain hold of central Europe.
1814:
§ April: Paris is captured and Bonaparte abdicates.
§ December 24th: Treaty of Ghent signed.
1815:
§ March 1st: Napoleon returns from Elba and the "Hundred Days" begin.
§ June 18th, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo.
§ Unemployed ex-servicemen walk the streets.
1816:
§ In England, gold was declared to be the sole standard and full legal tender, and a new coin, known as the sovereign was put into circulation.
§ Men were put to death for serious crimes; and for certain of the less serious crimes the court would order that one of the convict's ears be cut off, -- one eared men were to be avoided.
§ Robert Owen publishes A New View of Society or Essays on the Formation of the Human Character Preparatory to the Development of a Plan for Gradually Ameliorating the Condition of Mankind.
1817:
§ Civil wars (Simón Bolívar and the Latin American revolution) sweep over the Spanish New World in waves from 1812 to the early 1820s; driven by both the political theories of Rousseau and the disruptions of civil order in Spain on account of Bonaparte and the resulting peninsular wars.
§ November 5th, 1817, Princess Charlotte died.
1818:
§ Unrest in England, with the Northern and Midland radicals causing sporadic violence and attacks on mills.
§ March, 19th: Edward and Julie separate.
§ May 29th: The Duke of Kent married Her Serene Highness, Mary Louisa Victoria, widow of the late Prince of Leiningen.
1819:
§ May 24th: Queen Victoria was born.
1820:
§ January, 23rd, Edward, Duke of Kent, aged 53, died.
§ January 29th: George III died, George IV (1762-1830) tooke the throne. Due to his father's derangement he had been the Prince Regent since 1810.
§ April 8th: Sir John Wentworth, aged 84, died at Halifax.
