?f

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1942

But PERFECTLY COLLECTED AND DIGNIFIED. — Pagf 3.

A Short History
OF
Our Own Times
FROM THE
ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA
TO THE
GENERAL ELECTION OF
1880 BY
Justin McCarthy, M.P.
AJiT/ST'S EDITION. WITH SIXTY-EIGHT
NEW ILLUSTRA TIONS
BY
Joseph M. Gleeson
IN TWO VOLUMES,— VOLUME I.

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1893, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER PAGE
I. A ne-w Reign opens, . . . . i
II. Some Troubles to the ne"w Reign, . 20
III. Decline and Fall of the Melbourne Min
istry, ..... 44
IV. The Afghan War, .... 54
V. Peel's Administration, . . 71
VI. The Anti-Corn La-w League, . . 84
VII. Mr. Disraeli, ... 98
YIII. Famine and Political Trouble, . . 107
IX. Athens, Rome, and London, . . .120
X. Palmerston, .... 138
XI. The Crimean War, . . . .164
XII. The Lorcha -'Arro-w." — Transpori'ation, 201
XIII. The Indian Mutiny, . . . .211
XIV. The End of "John Company," . . 240
XV. The Conspiracy Bill, ... 246
"XVI. Disraeli's first Reform Enterprise, . 264

A SHORT HISTORY
OF
OUR OWN TIMES,

CHAPTER L

A NEW REIGN OPENS.

Before half-past two o'clock on the morning of June
20, 1837, William IV. was lying dead in Windsor Castle,
while the messengers were already hurrying off to Ken
sington Palace to bear to his successor her summons to
the throne. With William ended the reign of personal
government in England. King William had always
held to and exercised the right to dismiss ministers when
he pleased, and because he pleased. In our day we
should beheve that the constitutional freedom of England
was outraged, if a sovereign were to dismiss a ministry at
mere pleasure, or to retain it in despite of the expressed
wish of the House of Commons.
The manners of William IV. had been, like those of
most of his brothers, somewhat rough and overbearing.
He had been an unmanageable naval officer. He had
made himself unpopular while Duke of Clarence by his
strenuous opposition to some of the measures which
were especially desired by all the enlightenment of the
country. He was, for example, a determined opponent
of the measures for the abolition of the slave trade. But
William seems to have been one of the men whom in
creased responsibility improves. He was far better as a

2 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES. I
king than as a prince. He proved that he was able at
least to understand that first duty of a constitutional sov
ereign which, to the last day of his active life, his father,
George HI., never could be brought to comprehend — ¦
that the personal predilections and prejudices of the King
must sometimes give way to the public interest. We
must judge William by the reigns that went before, and
not the reign that came after him, and admit that on the
whole he was better than his education, his early oppor
tunities, and his early promise.
William IV. (third son of George HI.) had left no
children who could have succeeded to the throne, and the
crown passed therefore to the daughter of his brother
(fourth son of George), the Duke of Kent. This was the
Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was born at Ken
sington Palace on May 24, 181 9. The Princess was
therefore at this time little more than eighteen years of
gge. The Duke of Kent died' a few months after the
birth of his daughter, and the child was brought up
under the care of his widow. She was well brought up :
both as regards her intellect and her character — her train
ing was excellent. She was taught to be self-reliant,
brave, and systematical. Prudence and economy were
inculcated on her as though she had been born to be
poor. One is not generally inclined to attach much im
portance to what historians tell us of the education of
contemporary princes or princesses ; but it cannot be
doubted that tbe Princess Victoria was trained for intelli
gence and goodness.
There is a pretty description given by Miss Wynn of
the manner in which the young sovereign received the
news of her accession to a throne. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord Chamberlain, the
Marquis of Conyngham, left Windsor for Kensington
Palace, where the Princess Victoria had been residing, to
inform her of the King's death. It was two hours after
midnight when they started, and they did not reach
Kensington until five o'clock in the morning. " They
knocked, they rang, they thumped for a considerable
time before they could rouse the porter at the gate ; they
were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then turned

A NEW REIGN OPENS. 3
into one of the lower rooms, where they seemed forgot
ten by everybody. They rang the bell, and desired that
the attendant of the Princess Victoria might be .sent to
inform her Royal Highness that they requested an audi
ence on business of importance. After another delay,
and another ringing to inquire the cause, the attendant
was summoned, who stated that the Princess was in
such a sweet sleep that she could not venture to disturb
her. Then they said, ' We are come on business of
State to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to
that.' It did ; and to prove that she did not keep them
waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room in a
loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown
off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in
slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and
dignified." The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was
presently sent for, and a meeting of the Privy Council
summoned for eleven o'clock, when the Lord Chancel
lor administered the usual oaths to the Queen, and her
Majesty received in return the oaths of allegiance of the
Cabinet ministers and other privy councillors present.
The interest or curiosity with which the demeanor of
the young Queen was watched was all the keener be
cause the world in general knew so little about her.
Not merely was the world in general thus ignorant, but
even the statesmen and ofificials in closest communication
with court circles were in almost absolute ignorance.
The young Queen had been previously kept in such se
clusion by her mother, that " not one of her acquaintance,
none of the attendants at Kensington, not even the
Duchess of Northumberland, her governess, have any
idea what she is or what she promises to be." There
was enough in the court of the two sovereigns who went
before Queen Victoria to justify any strictness of seclusion
which the Duchess of Kent might desire for her daugh
ter. No one can read even the most favorable descrip
tions given by contemporaries of the manners of those
two courts without feeling grateful to the Duchess of
Kent for resolving that her daughter should see as little
as possible of their ways and their company.
ft is not necessary to go info any formal description of

4 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the proclamation of the Queen, her appearance for the
first time on the throne in the House of Lords when she
prorogued Parliament in person, and even the gorgeous
festival of her coronation, which took place on June 28,
in the following year, 1838. It is a fact, however, well
worthy of note, amid whatever records of court ceremo
nial and of political change, that a few days after the
accession of the Queen, Mr. Montefiore was elected
Sheriff of London, the first Jew who had ever been
chosen for that ofifice ; and that he received knighthood
at the hands of her Majesty when she visited the City on
the following Lord' Mayor's day. He was the first Jew
whom royalty had honored in this country since the good
old times when royalty was pleased to borrow the Jew's
money, or order instead the extraction of his teeth. The
expansion of the principle of religious liberty and equality
which has been one of the most remarkable character
istics of the reign of Queen Victoria, could hardly have
been raore becomingly inaugurated than by the compli
ment which sovereign and city paid to Sir Moses Monte
fiore. The first signature attached, to the Act of Allegiance
presented to the Queen at Kensington Palace was that
of her eldest surviving uncle, Ernest, Duke of Cumber
land. The fact may be taken as an excuse for introducing
a few words here to record the severance of the con
nection which had existed for some generations between
this country and Hanover. The connection was only
personal, the Hanoverian kings of England being also by
succession sovereigns of Hanover. The crown of Han
over was limited in its descent to the male line, and it
passed on the death of William IV. to his eldest surviv
ing brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland. The change
was in almost every way satisfactory to the English peo
ple. The indirect connection between England and
Hanover had at no time been a matter of gratification to
the public of this country, and Englishmen were not by
any means sorry to be rid of the Duke of Cumberland.
Not many of George HI.'s sons were popular ; the Duke
of Cumberland was probably the least popular of all.
His manners were rude, overbearing, and sometimes

A NEW REIGN OPENS. 5
even brutal. Rumor not unnaturally exaggerated his
defects, and in the mouths of many his name was the
symbol of the darkest and fiercest passions, and even
crimes. Some of the popular reports with regard to him

Lord Melbourne was the kfr.st Minister of the Crown when
THE Queen succeeded to -i'he throne.

had their foundation only in the common detestation of
his character and dread of his influence. But it is cer
tain that he was profligate, selfish, overbearing and quar
relsome. It was felt in England that the mere departure of the

b A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Duke of Cumberland from this country would have
made the severance of the connection with Hanover
desirable, even if it had not been in other ways an ad
vantage to us. Later times have shown how much we
have gained by the separation. It would have been ex
ceedingly inconvenient, to say the least, if the crown
worn by a sovereign of England had been hazarded in
the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866. Our
reigning family must have seemed to suffer in dignity if
that crown had been roughly knocked off the head of its
wearer who happened to be an English sovereign ; and
it would have been absurd to expect that the English
people could engage in. a quarrel with which their inter
ests and honor had absolutely nothing to do, for the sake
of a mere family possession of their ruling house.
Lord Melbourne was the first Minister of the Crown
when the Queen succeeded to the throne. He was a
man who then and always after made himself particu
larly dear to the Queen, and for whom she had the
strongest regard. He was of kindly, somewhat indolent
nature ; fair and even generous towards his political
opponents ; of the most genial disposition towards his
friends. He was emphatically not a strong man. He
was not a man to make good grow where it was not already
growing. He was a kindly counsellor to a young Queen ;
and happily for herself the young Queen in this case had
strong clear sense enough of her own not to be abso
lutely dependent on any council. Lord Melbourne was
not a statesman. His best qualities, personal kindness
and good nature apart, were purely negative. He was
unfortunately not content even with the reputation for a
sort of indolent good nature which he might have well
deserved. He strove to make himself appear hopelessly
idle, trivial, and careless. When he really was serious
and earnest he seemed to make it his business to look
like one in whom no human affairs could call up a gleam
of interest. We have amusing pictures of him as he
occupied himself in blowing a feather or nursing a sofa-
cushion while receiving an important and perhaps highly
sensitive deputation from this or that commercial " inter
est." Those who knew him insisted that he reallv was

A NEW REIGN OPENS. 7
listening- with all his might and main ; that he had sat
up the whole night before studying the question which he
seemed to think so unworthy of any attention ; and that.
so far from being wholly absorbed in his trifles, he was
at very good pains to keep up the appearance of a
trifler. Such a masquerading might perhaps have been ex
cusable, or even attractive, in the case of a man of really
brilliant and commanding talents. But in Lord Mel
bourne's case the affectation had no such excuse or happy
effect. He was a poor speaker, only fitted to rule in
the quietest times. Debates were then conducted with a
bitterness of personality unknown, or at all eveTits very
rarely known, in our days. Even in the House of Lords
language was often interchanged of the most virulent
hostility. Lord Melbourne's constant attendance on the young
Queen was regarded -with keen jealousy and dissatisfac
tion. According to some critics the Prime Minister was
endeavoring to inspire her with all his own gay heed
lessness of character and temperament. According to
others. Lord Melbourne's purpose was to make himself
agreeable and indispensable to the Queen ; to surround
her with his friends, relations, and creatures, and thus
to get a lifelong hold of power in England, in defiance
of political changes and parties. But he does not ap
pear to have been greedy of power, or to have used any
unfair means of getting or keeping it. The character of
the young Sovereign seems to have impressed him
deeply. His real or affected levity gave way to a gen
uine and lasting desire to make her life as happy and
her reign as successful as he could. The Queen always
felt the warmest affection and gratitude for him. Still, it
is certain that the Queen's Prime Minister was by no
means a popular man at the time of her accession.
When the new reign began, the Ministry had two
enemies or critics in the House of Lords of the most
formidable character. Either alone would have been a
trouble to a minister of far stronger mould than Lord
Melbourne ; but circumstances threw thera both for the
moment into a chance alliance against him.

8 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN I'lMES.
One of these was Lord Brougham. No character
stronger and stranger than his is described in the
modern history of England. He was gifted with the
most varied and striking talents, and with a capacity for
labor which sometimes seemed almost superhuman.
Not merely had he the capacity for labor, but he ap
peared to have a positive passion for work. His rest
less energy seemed as if it must stretch itself out on
every side seeking- new fields of conquest. The study
that was enough to occupy the whole tirae and wear out
the frarae of other men was only recreation to him. His
physical strength never gave way. His high spirits
never daserted him. His self-confidence was boundless.
He thought he knew everything and could do everything
better than any other man. His vanity was overween
ing, and made him ridiculous almost as. often and as
much as his genius made him admired. " If Brougham
knew a little of law," said O'Connell, when the former
became Lord Chancellor, " he would know a little of
everything." The anecdote is told in another way too,
which perhaps makes it even more piquant. " The new
Lord Chancellor knows a little of everything in the world
— even of law." He was beyond doubt a great Parlia
mentary orator, although not an orator of the highest
class. Brougham's action was wild, and sometiraes even
furious ; his gestures were singularly ungraceful ; his
manners were grotesque ; but of iiis power over his hear
ers there could be no doubt. That power remained with
him until a far later date ; and long after the years when
men usually continue to take part in political debate. Lord
Brougham could be impassioned, irapressive, and even
overwhelming. If his talents were great, if his personal
vanity was immense, let it be said that his services lo the
cause of human freedom and education were simply in
estimable. As an opponent of slavery in the colonies, as
an advocate of political reform at home, of law reform,
of popular education, of religious equality, he had worked
with indomitable zeal, with resistless passion, and with
splendid success. He was left out of office on the recon
struction of the Whig Ministry in April. 1835, and he
passed for the remainder of his life into the position of an

A NEW REIGN OPENS. 9
independent or unattached critic of the measures and pol
icy of other men. It has never been clearly known why
the Whigs so suddenly threw over Brougham. The com
mon belief is that his eccentricities and his almost sav
age temper made him intolerable in a cabinet. It has
been darkly hinted that for a while his intellect was
actually under a cloud, as people said that of Chatham
was during a momentous season. Lord Brougham was
not a man likely to forget or forgive the wrong which he
must have believed that he had sustained at the hands
of the Whigs. He became the fiercest and most formid
able of Lord Melbourne's hostile critics.
The other great opponent was Lord Lyndhurst. He
was one of the most effective Parliamentary debaters of
his time. His style was singularly and even severely
clear, direct and pure ; his manner was easy and grace
ful ; his voice remarkably sweet and strong. Nothing
could have been in greater contrast than his clear, cor
rect, nervous argument, and the impassioned invectives
and overwhelming strength of Brougham, Lyndhurst
had an immense capacity for work, when the work had
to be done ; but his natural tendency was as distinctly
towards indolence as Brougham's was towards unresting
activity. Nor were Lyndhurst's political convictions
ever very clear. By the habitude of associating with the
Tories, and receiving office from them, and speaking for
them, and attacking their enemies with argument and
sarcasm, Lyndhurst finally settled down into all the ways
of Toryism. But nothing in his varied history showed
that he had any particular preference that way; and
there were many passages in his career when it would
seem as if a turn of chance decided what part of political
life he was to follow. As a keen debater he was per
haps hardly ever excelled in Parliament ; but he had
neither the pa.ssion nor the genius of the orator ; and
his capacity was narrow indeed in its range when com
pared with the astonishing versatility and omnivorous
mental activity of Brougham. As a speaker he was al
ways equal. He seemed to know no varying moods or
fits'of mental lassitude. Whenever he spoke he reached
at once the same high level as a debater. The very fact

IO A SHOiM HisiOKY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
may in itself perhaps be taken as conclusive evidence
that he was not an orator. The higher qualities of the
orator are no more to be summoned at will than those
of the poet.
These two men were without any com.parison the two
leading debaters in the House of Lords. Lord Mel
bourne had not at that time in the Upper House a single
man of first class or even of second class debating power
on the bench of the ministry. An able writer has well
remarked that the position of the Ministry in the House
of Lords might be compared to that of a water-logged
wreck into which enemies from all quarters are pouring
their broadsides.
The law at that time made it necessary that a new
Parliament should be summoned on the accession of the
new Sovereign. The result was not a very marked
alteration in the condition of parties ; but on the whole
the advantage was with the Tories. Somewhere about
this time, it may be remarked, the use of the word " Con
servative " to describe the latter political party first came
into fashion. During the elections for the new Parlia
ment, Lord John Russell, speaking at a public dinner at
Stroud, made allusion to the new name which his oppo
nents were beginning to affect for their party. " If that,"
he said, " is the name that pleases them, if they say that
the old distinction of Whig and Tory should no longer
be kept up, I am ready, in opposition to their name of
Conservative, to take the name of Reformer, and to
stand by that opposition."
The new Parliament on its assembling seems to have
gathered in the Commons an unusually large number of
gifted and promising raen. Mr. Grote, the historian of
Greece, sat for the City of London. The late Lord
Lytton, then Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer, had a seat, an
advanced Radical at that day. Mr. Disraeli came then
into Parliaraent for the first time. Charles Buller, full of
high spirits, brilliant humor, and the very inspiration of
keen good sense, seeraed on the sure way to that career
of renown which a premature death cut short. Sir
William Molesworth was an excellent type of the school
which in later days was called the Philosophical Radical.

A NEW REIGN OPENS. H
Another distinguished member of the same school, Mr.
Roebuck, had lost his seat, and was for the moment an
outsider. Mr. Gladstone had been already five years in
Parliament. The late Lord Carlisle, then Lord Morpeth,
was looked upon as a graceful specimen of the literary
and artistic young nobleman, who also cultivates a little
pohtics for his intellectual amusement. Lord John
Russell had but lately begun his career as leader of the
House of Commons. Lord Palmerston was Foreign
Secretary, but had not even then got the credit of the
great ability which he possessed. Only those who knew
him very well had any idea of the capacity for governing
Parliaraent and the country which he was soon after
wards to display. Sir Robert Peel was leader of the
Conservative party. Lord Stanley, the late Lord Derby,
was still in the House of Coraraons. He had not long
before broken definitely with the Whigs on the question
of the Irish ecclesiastical establishment, and had passed
over to that Conservative party of which he afterwards
became the most influential leader, and the most power
ful Parliamentary orator.
The ministry was not very strong in the House of
Commons. Its adherents were but loosely held together.
Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the Opposition, was by far
the most powerful man in the House. Added to his
great qualities as an administrator and a Parliamentary
debater, he had the virtue, then very rare among Con
servative statesmen, of being a sound and clear financier,
w-ith a good grasp of the fundamental principles of polit
ical economy. His high austere character raade him re
spected by opponents as well as by friends. He had not
perhaps many intimate friends. His temperament was
cold, or at least its heat was self-contained : he threw out
no genial glow to those around hira. He was by nature
a reserved and shy man, in whose manners shyness took
the form of porapousness and coldness. It is certain
that he had warm and generous feelings, but his very
sensitiveness only led him to disguise thera. The con
trast between his emotions and his lack of demonstrative-
ness created in him a constant artificiality which often
seemed mere awkwardness. It was in the House of

12 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Commons that his real genius and character displayed
themselves. Peel was a perfect master of the House of
Coraraons. He was as great an orator as any man
could be who addresses hiraself to the House of Com
mons, its ways and its purposes alone. Sir Robert Peel
had little imagination, and almost none of that passion
which in eloquence soraetimes supplies its place. His
style was clear, strong, and stately ; full of various argu
ment and apt illustration drawn from books and from
the world of politics and commerce. He followed a
difficult arguraent home to its utter conclusions ; and if
it had in it any lurking fallacy, he brought out the weak
ness into the clearest light, often with a happy touch
of huraor and quiet sarcasm. His speeches might be
described as the very perfection of good sense and high
principle clothed in the raost impressive language. But
they were something more peculiar than this, for they
were so constructed, in their argument and their style
alike, as to touch the very core of the House of Com
mons. They told of the feelings and the inspiration of
Parliament as the ballad-music of a country tells of its
scenery and its national sentiments.
Lord Stanley was a far more energetic and impassioned
speaker than Sir Robert Peel, and perhaps occasionally, in
his later career, came now and then nearer to the height
of genuine oratory. But Lord Stanley was little more
than a splendid Parliamentary partisan, even when, long
after, he was Prime Minister of England. He had very
little indeed of that class of inforraation which the modern
world requires of -its statesmen and leaders. Of political
economy, of finance, of the developraent and the dis
coveries of modern science, he knew alraost as little as it
is possible for an able and energetic man to know who
lives in the throng of active life and hears what people
are talking of around him. He once said good-humor-
edly of himself, that he was brought up in the pre-scien-
tific period. He had, in fact, what would have been
called in an earlier day an elegant scholarship ; he had a
considerable knowledge of the politics of his time in
raost European countries, an energetic, intrepid spirit,
and with hira the science of Parliamentary debate seemed

A NEW REIGN OPENS. 13
to be an instinct. There was no speaker on the ministerial
benches at that time who could for a moment be com
pared with him.
Lord John Russell, who had the leadership of the
party in the House of Commons, was really a much
stronger man than he seemed to be. He had a charac
ter for dauntless courage and confidence among his
friends; for boundless self-conceit araong hiseneraies.
He had in truth much less genius than his friends and
admirers believed, and a great deal more of practical
strength than either friends or foes gave him credit for.
He became, not indeed an orator, but a very keen de
bater, who was especially effective in a cold, irritating
sarcasm which penetrated the weakness of an opponent's
argument like sorae dissolving acid. The thin bright
stream of argument worked its way slowly out and con
trived to wear a path for itself through obstacles which
at first the looker-on might have felt assured it never
could penetrate.
Our English system of government by party makes the
history of Parliament seem like that of a succession of
great political duels. Two men stand constantly con
fronted during a series of years, one of whom is at the
head of the Government, while the other is at the head of
the Opposition. They change places with each victory.
The conqueror goes into office ; the conquered into oppo
sition. It has often happened that the two leading oppo
nents are men of intellectual and oratorical powers so
fairly balanced that their followers may well dispute
among themselves as to the superiority of their respec
tive chiefs, and that the public in general may become
divided into two schools not merely political but even
critical, according to their partiality for one or the other.
For many years Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel
stood thus opposed. Peel had by far the more original
mind, and Lord John Russell never obtained so great an
influence over the House of Coraraons as that which his
rival long enjoyed. Lord John Russell was a born re
former. He had sat at the feet of Fox. He was cradled
in the principles of Liberalism. He held faithfully to his
creed ; he was one of its boldest and keenest champions.

14 A SHORT tllblUKY UF UUK UWJM LIMKS.
He had great advantages over Peel, in the mere fact that
he had begun his education in a more enlightened school.
But he wanted passion quite as much as Peel did, and
remained still farther than Peel below the level of the
genuine orator.
After the chiefs of Ministry and of Opposition, the
most conspicuous figure in the House of Commons was
the colossal form of O'Connell, the great Irish agitator,
of whom we shall hear a good deal more. Among the
foremost orators of the House at that time was O'Con-
nell's impassioned lieutenant, Richard Lalor Shell.
A jeign which saw in its earliest years the application
of the electric current to the task of transmitting mes
sages, the first successful attem.pts to raake use of steam -
for the business of Transatlantic navigation, the general
development of the railway system all over these coun
tries, and the introduction of the penny post, must be
considered to have obtained for itself, had it secured no
other memorials, an abiding place in history. The
history of the past forty or fifty years is almost abso
lutely distinct from that of any preceding period. In all
that part of our social life which is affected by industrial
and mechanical appliances we see a complete revolution.
A rnan of the present day suddenly thrust back fifty
years in life, would find himself almost as awkwardly
unsuited to the ways of that time as if he were sent back
to the age when the Romans occupied Britain. He
would find himself harassed at every step he took. He
could do hardly anything as he does it to-day. Sir Rob
ert Peel travelled from Rome to London to assume office
as Prime Minister, exactly as Constantine travelled frora
York to Rome to become Emperor. Each traveller had
aU that sails and horses could do for him, and no raore.
A few years later Peel might have reached London from
Rorae in some forty-eight hours.
It is a somewhat curious coincidence, that in the year
when Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke took out their
first patent " for improvements in giving signals and
sounding alarms in distant places by means of electric
currents transmitted through metallic circuit," Professor
Morse, the American electrician, apphed to Congress for

A NEW REIGN OPENS.

IS

siffltr. H V -«

*

A locomotive had ItlLEN A[!1,E
TRAVEL AT A SILKED OF THIR-rV-
SEVEN MILES AN HOUR.

 — aid in the
construction and
carrying on
of a sraall
electric tel
egraph to
convey messages a short
distance, and made the
apphcation without suc
cess. In the following
year he came to this
country to obtain a pat
ent for his invention ;
but he was refused. He
had come too late. Our
own countrymen were beforehand with him. Very
soon after we find experiments made with the electric
telegraph between Euston Square and Camden Town.
The London and Birmingham Railway was opened
through its whole length in 1838. The Liverpool and
Preston line was opened in the same year. The Liver
pool and Birmingham had been opened in the year
before ; the London and Croydon was opened the year
after. Tbe Act for the transmission of the mails by rail
way was passed in 1838. In the same year it was noted
as an unparalleled, and to many an almost incredible, tri
umph of human energy and science over time and space,
that a locomotive had been able to travel at a speed of
thirty-seven railes an hour.
Steam communication was successfully established
between England and the United States. The Sirius,
the Great Western, and the Royal William accom
plished voyages between New York and this country in
the early part of 1838. The Great Western crossed the
ocean from Bristol to New York in fifteen days. She
was followed by the Sirius, which left Cork for New
York, and made the passage in seventeen days. The
controversy as to the possibility of such voyages had no
reference to the actual safety of such an experiment.
During seven years the mails for the Mediterranean had

l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
been despatched by means of steamers. Neither the
Sirius nor the Great Western was the first vessel to cross
the Atlantic by means of steam propulsion. Nearly twenty
years before, a vessel called the Savannah, built at New
York, crossed the ocean to Liverpool, and a voyage had
been made round the Cape of Good Hope more lately
still by a steamship. These expeditions, however, had
really little or nothing to do with the problem which was
solved by the voyages of the Sirius and the Great West
ern. In the former instances the vessel made as much
use of her steam propulsion as she could, but she had to
rely a good deal on her capacity as a sailer. This was
quite a different thing from the enterprise of the Sirius
and Great Western, which was to cross the ocean by
steam propulsion only. It is evident that so long as the
steam power was to be used only as an auxiliary, it
would be impossible to reckon on speed and certainty of
arrival. The doubt was whether a steamer could carry,
with her cargo and passengers, fuel enough to serve for
the whole of her voyage across the Atlantic. The expe
ditions of the Sirius and the Great Western settled the
whole question. Two years after the Great Western
went out from Bristol to New York the Cunard line of
steamers was established. The steam communication
between Liverpool and New York became thenceforth as
regular and as unvarying a part of the business of com
merce as the journeys of the trains on the Great Western
Railway between London and Bristol.
Up to this tirae the rates of postage were very high,
and varied both as to distance and as to the weight and
even the size or the shape of the letter. The average
postage on every chargeable letter throughout the United
Kingdora was sixpence farthing. A letter from London
to Brighton cost eightpence ; to Aberdeen one shilling
and threepence halfpenny ; to Belfast one shilling and
fourpence. Nor was this all ; for if the letter were writ
ten on more than one sheet of paper, it came under the
operation of a higher scale of charge. Members of Par
liament and members of the Government had, the privi
lege of franking letters. The franking privilege consisted
in the right of the privileged person to send his own or

A NEW REIGN OPENS.

17

any other person's letters through the post free of charge
by merely writing his name on the outside. This meant,
in plain words, that the letters of the class who could
best afford to pay for them went free of charge, and
that those who could least afford to pay had to pay
double — the expense, that is to say, of carrying their own
letters and the letters of the privileged and exempt.
Mr. (afterwards Sir Rowland) Hill is the man to whom
this country, and indeed all civilization, owes the
adoption of the cheap and uniform system. His plan
has been adopted by every State which professes to have

An earlv Cunarder.

a postal system at all. Mr. Hill belonged to a remark
able family. His father, Thomas Wright Hill, was a
teacher, a man of advanced and practical views in pop
ular education, a devoted lover of science, an ad-vocate
of civil and religious liberty, and a sort of celebrity in the
Birmingham of his day. He had five sons, every one of
whom made himself more or less conspicuous as a prac
tical reformer in one path or another. The eldest of the
sons was Matthew Davenport Hill, the philanthropic
Recorder of Birmingham, who did so much for prison

16 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
reform and for the reclamation of juvenile offenders.
The third son was Rowland Hill, the author of the cheap
postal system. Rowland Hill when a little weakly child
began to show some such precocious love for arithmetical
calculations as Pascal showed for mathematics. His
favorite amusement as a child was to lie on the hearth
rug and count up figures by the hour together. As he
grew up he became teacher of mathematics in his father's
school. Afterwards he was appointed secretary to the
South Australian Commission, and rendered much valu
able service in the organization of the colony of South
Australia. A picturesque and touching little illustration
of the veritable hardships of the existing system seems to
have quickened his interest in the Postal reform. Miss
Martineau thus tells the story : —
" Coleridge, when a young man, was walking through
the Lake district, when he one day saw the postman
deliver a letter to a woman at a cottage door. The
woman turned it over and examined it, and then returned
it, saying she could not pay the postage, which was a
shilling. Hearing that the letter was frora her brother,
Coleridge paid the postage in spite of the manifest
unwillingness of the woraan. As soon as the postraan
was out of sight she showed Coleridge how his money
had been wasted, as far as she was concerned. The
sheet was blank. There was an agreement between her
brother and herself that as long as all went well with him
he should send a blank sheet in this way once a quarter ;
and she thus had tidings of him wi,thout expense of pos
tage. Most persons would have remembered this in
cident as a curious story to tell ; but there was one mind
which wakened up at once to a sense of the significance
of the fact. It struck Mr. Rowland Hill that there must
be something wrong in a system which drove a brother
and sister to cheating, in order to gratify their desire to
hear of one another's welfare."
Mr. Hill gradually worked out for hiraself a corapre-
hensive scherae of reform. He put it before the world
early in 1837. The root of Mr. Hill's system lay in the
fact, made evident by him beyond dispute, that the actual
cost of the conveyance of letters through the post was

A INBiW KaiUN Of ENS. ig
very trifling, and was but little increased by the distance
over which they had to be carried. His proposal was
therefore that the rates of postage should be diminished
to a miniraura ; that at the same time the speed of con
veyance should be increased, and that there should be
much greater frequency of despatch. He recomraended
the uniform charge of one penny the half-ounce, without
reference to the distance within the limits of the United
Kingdom which the letter had to be carried.
The Post Office authorities were at first uncompromis
ing in their opposition to the scheme. They were con
vinced that it must involve an unbearable loss of revenue.
But the Government took up the scheme with sorae
spirit and liberality. Petitions from all the commercial
communities were pouring in to support the plan, and to
ask that at least it should have a fair trial. The Govern
ment at length determined in 1839 to bring in a bill
which should provide 'for the almost immediate introduc
tion of Mr. Hill's scheme, and for the abolition of the
franking system except in the case of official letters
actually sent on business directly belonging to her Maj
esty's service. The bill declared, as an introductory step,
that the charge for postage should be at the rate of four-
pence for each letter under half an ounce in weight,
irrespective of distance, within the limits of the United
Kingdom. This, however, was to be only a beginning ;
for on January 10, 1840, the postage was fixed at the
uniform rate of one penny per letter of not more than
half an ounce in weight. Some idea of the effect it has
produced upon the postal correspondence of the country
may be gathered from the fact that in 1839, the last year
of the heavy postage, the number of letters delivered in
Great Britain and Ireland was eighty-two millions, which
included some five millions and a half of franked letters re
turning nothing to the revenue of the country ; whereas,
in 1875, more than a thousand millions of letters were
delivered in the United Kingdom. The population dur
ing the same time had not nearly doubled itself.

20 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TlMtb.
CHAPTER II.
SOME TROUBLES TO THE NEW REIGN.
The new Queen's reign opened amid many grim and
unpromising conditions of our social affairs. The winter
of 1837-8 was one of unusual severity and distress.
There would have been tnuch discontent and grumbling
in any case among the working class, but the complaints
were aggravated by a common belief that the young
Queen was wholly under the influence of a frivolous and
selfish minister, who occupied her with amusements
while the poor were starving. It does not appear that
there was at any time the slightest justification for such
a belief ; but it prevailed among the working classes and
the poor very generally, and added to the sufferings of
genuine want the bitterness of imaginary wrong.
Only a few weeks after the coronation of the Queen a
great Radical meeting was held in Birmingham. A
manifesto was adopted there which afterwards came to
be known as the Chartist petition. With that moraent
Chartisra began to be one of the most disturbing influ
ences of the political life of the country. For ten years
it agitated England. It might have been a very serious
danger if the State had been involved in any external
difficulties. It was backed by much genuine enthusiasm,
passion and intelligence. It appealed strongly and nat
urally to whatever there was of discontent among the
working classes. Its fierce and fitful flame went out at
last under the influence of the clear, strong and steady
light of political reform and education. The one great
lesson it teaches is, that political agitation lives and is
formidable only by virtue of what is reasonable in its
demands. Thousands of ignorant and miserable men all
over the country joined the Chartist agitation who cared
nothing about the substantial value of its political claims.
They were poor, they were overworked, they were badly
paid, their lives were altogether wretched. They got
into their heads some wild idea that the People's Charter
would give them better food and wages and lighter work

^3
The coronation of the Queen.

SOME TROUBLES TO THE NEW REIGN. 21
if it were obtained, and that for that very reason the aris
tocrats and the officials would not grant it.
The Reform Bill of 1832 had done great things for the
constitutional system of England. It abolished fifty-six
nomination or rotten boroughs, and took away half the
representation from thirty others ; it disposed of the seats
thus obtained by giving sixty-five additional representa
tives to the counties, and, conferred the right of returning
members on Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and some
thirty-nine large and prosperous towns which had pre
viously had no representation. The bill introduced a
10/. household qualification for boroughs, and extended
the county franchise to leaseholders and copy-holders.
But it left the working classes almost altogether out of
the franchise. It broke down the monopoly which the
aristocracy and landed classes had enjoyed, and admitted
the middle classes to a share of the law-making power,
but the working class, in the opinion of many of their
ablest and most influential representatives, were not
merely left out, but shouldered ~out. This was all the
more exasperating, because the excitement and agita
tion by the strength of which the Reform Bill was car
ried in the teeth of so rauch resistance were kept up
by the working men. Rightly or wrongly they believed
that their strength had been kept in reserve to secure the
carrying of the Reform Bill, and that when it was carried
they were immediately thrown over by those whom they
had thus helped to pass it. Therefore at the time when
the young Sovereign ascended the throne, the working
classes in all the large towns were in a Ft.-itc of profound
disappointment and discontent, almost indeed of dis
affection. Chartisra was beginning to succeed to the
Reform agitation.
Chartism raay be said to have sprung definitively into
existence in consequence of the formal declarations of the
leaders of the Liberal party in Parliament that they did
not intend to push Reform any farther. At the opening of
the first Parliament of Queen Victoria's reign the question
was brought to a test. A Radical member of the House
of Commons moved as an amendment to the address a
resolution declaring in favor of the ballot and of shorter

22 A SHORT HIS-PORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
duration of Parliaments. Only twenty raembers voted
for it : and Lord John Russell declared that to push
Reform any farther then would be a breach of faith
towards those who helped him to carry it. A great
many outside Parliament not unnaturally regarded the
refusal to go any farther as a breach of faith towards
them on the part of the Liberal leaders. A conference
was held almost immediately between a few of the
Liberal members of Parliaraent who professed Radical
opinions and some of the leaders of the working men.
At this conference the programme, or what was after
wards known as " the Charter," was agreed upon and
drawn up. The name of Charter was given by Mr.
O'Connell. Quietly studied now, the People's Charter does not
seem a very formidable document. Its " points," as they
were called, were . six. Manhood Suffrage came first.
The second was Annual Parliaments. Vote by Ballot
was the third. Abolition of the Property Qualification
(then and for many years after required for the election
of a member to Parliament) was the fourth. The Parlia
ment of Members was the fifth ; and the Division of the
Country into Equal Electoral Districts, the sixth of the
famous points. Three of the points — half, that is to say
of the whole number — have already been made part of
our constitutional system. The existing franchise may
be virtually regarded as manhood suffrage. We have
for years been voting by means of a written paper dropped
in a ballot-box. The property qualification for members
of Parliament could hardly be said to have been abol
ished. Such a word seems far too grand and dignified to
describe the fate that befell it. We should rather say
that it was extinguished by its own absurdity and vi
ciousness. The proposal to divide the country into equal
electoral districts is one which can hardly yet be re
garded as having come to any test. But it is alraost
certain that sooner or later some alteration of our pres
ent system in that direction will be adopted. Of the
two other points of the Charter, the payment of merabers
raay be regarded as decidedly objectionable ; and that
for yearly Parliaments as embodying a proposition which

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 23
would make public life an almost insufferable nuisance
to those actively concerned in it.
The Chartists might be roughly divided into three
classes— the political Chartists, the social Chartists, and
the Chartists of vague discontent who joined the move
ment because they were wretched and felt angry. The
first were the regular political agitators who wanted a
wider popular representation : the second were chiefly led
to the movement by their hatred of the "bread-tax."
These two classes were perfectly clear as to what they
wanted : some of their demands were just and reasonable ;
none of them were without the sphere of rational and
peaceful controversy. The disciples of mere discontent
naturally swerved alternately to the side of those leaders
or sections who talked loudest and fiercest against the
lawmakers and the constituted authorities. Chartism
soon split itself into two general divisions — the moral force
and the physical force Chartism. A whole literature of
Chartist newspapers sprang up to advocate the cause.
The Northern Star was the most popular and influential
of them ; but every great town had its Chartist press.
Meetings were held at which sometimes the most violent
language was employed. It began to be the practice to
hold torchlight meetings at night, and many raen went
arraed to these, and open clamor was raade by the
wilder of the Chartists for an appeal to arras. A formid
able riot took place in Birmingham, where the authori
ties endeavored to put down a Chartist meeting. The
Government began to prosecute some of the orators and
leaders of the Charter movement ; and some of these were
convicted, imprisoned, and treated with great severity.
Wide and almost universal discontent among the
working classes in town and country still helped to swell
the Chartist ranks. The weavers and stockingers in
some of the manufacturing towns were miserably poor.
Wages were low everywhere. In the agricultural districts
the complaints against the operation of the new Poor
Law were vehement and passionate ; and although they
were unjust in principle and sustained by monstrous ex
aggerations of statement, they were not the less potent as
recruiting agents for Chartism. There was a profound

2 4 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
distrust of the middle class and their leaders. It is clear
that at that time the Chartists, who represented the bulk
of the artisan class in most of the large towns, did in their
very hearts believe that England was ruled for the bene
fit of aristocrats and millionaires who were absolutely in
different to the sufferings of the poor. It is equally clear
that most of what are called the ruling class did really
believe the English working men who joined the Chartist
movement to be a race of fierce, unmanageable and sel
fish communists who, if they were allowed their own
way for a moment, would prove themselves -determined
to overthrow throne, altar, and all established securities
of society. An ignorant panic prevailed on both sides.
The first foreign disturbance to the quiet and good
promise of the new reign came frora Canada. The con
dition of Canada was very peculiar. By an Act called
the Constitution of 1791, Canada was divided into two
provinces, the Upper and the Lower. Each province
had a separate system of governraent, consisting of a gov
ernor, an executive council appointed by the Crown, and
supposed in some way to resemble the Privy Council of
this country ; a legislative council, the members of
which were appointed by the Crow-n for life ; and a Rep
resentative Assembly, the members of which were elected
for four years. At the same tirae the clergy reserves
were established by Parliament. One-seventh of the
waste lands of the colony was set aside for the main
tenance of the Protestant clergy, a fruitful source of dis
turbance and ill-feeling. Lower or Eastern Canada was
inhabited for the raost part by men of French descent,
who still kept up in the midst of an active and moving
civilization rao.st of the principles and usages which be
longed to medieval France. Lower Canada would have
dozed away in its sleepy picturesqueness, held fast to its
ancient ways, and allowed a bustling, giddy world, all
alive with commerce and ambition, and desire for novelty
and the terribly disturbing thing which unresting people
called progress, to rush on its wild path unheeded. But
in the large towns there were active traders from Eng
land and other countries, who were by no means content
to put up with old-world ways, and to let the magnificent

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 25.
resources of the place run to waste. Upper Canada, on
the other hand, was all new as to its population, and was
full of the raodern desire for coramercial activity. Upper
Canada was peopled almost exclusively by inhabitants
from Great Britain.
It is easy to see on the very face of things some of the
difficulties which must arise in the development of such
a system. The French of Lower Canada would regard
with almost morbid jealousy any legislation which ap
peared hkely to interfere with their ancient ways and to
give any advantage or favor to the populations of British
descent. The latter would see injustice or feebleness in
every measure which did not assist thera in developing
their more energetic ideas.
It was in Lower Canada that the greatest difficulties
arose. A constant antagonism grew up between the
majority of the Representative Assembly, who were
elected by the population of the province. At last the
Representative Assembly refused to vote any further
supplies or to carry on any further business. They for
mulated their grievances against the Home Governraent.
Their complaints were of arbitrary conduct on the part
of the governors ; intolerable composition of the legis
lative council, which they insisted ought to be elective ;
illegal appropriation of the public money ; and violent
prorogation of the provincial Parliament.
One of the leading men in the movement was Mr.
Louis Joseph Papineau. This raan had risen to high
position by his talents, his energy, and his undoubtedly
honorable character. He had represented Montreal in
the Representative Asserably of Lower Canada, and he
afterwards became Speaker of the House. He made
himself leader of the movement to protest against the
policy of the governors, and that of the Government at
horae by whom they were sustained. He held a series
of meetings, at some of which undoubtedly rather strong
language was used, and too frequent arid significant
appeals were made to the example held out to the
population of Lower Canada by the successful revolt of
the United States. Mr. Papineau also planned the calling
together of a great convention to discuss and proclaim

26 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the grievances of the colonies. Lord Gosford, the
governor, began by dismissing several militia officers who
had taken part in some of these demonstrations ; Mr.
Papineau himself was an officer of this force. Then the
governor issued warrants. for the apprehension of raany
raembers of the popular Assembly on the charge of high
treason. Some of these at once left the country ; others
against whom warrants were issued were arrested, and a
sudden resistance was made by their friends and sup
porters. Then, in the manner familiar to all who have
read anything of the history of revolutionary movements,
the resistance to a capture of prisoners suddenly trans
formed itself into open rebellion.
The rebellion was not in a military sense a very great
thing. At its first outbreak the military authorities were
for a moment surprised, and the rebels obtained one or
two trifling advantages. But the commander-in-chief
at once showed' energy adequate to the occasion, and
used, as it was his duty to do, a strong hand in putting
the movement down. The rebels fought with something-
like desperation in one or two instances, and there was,
it must be said, a good deal of blood shed. The dis
turbance, however, after a while extended to the upper
province. Upper Canada too had its complaints against
its governors and the Home Government.
The news of the outbreaks in Canada created a
natural excitement in this country. There was a very
strong feeling of sympathy araong raany classes here —
not, indeed, with the rebellion, but with the colony which
complained of what seemed to be genuine and serious
grievances. Public meetings were held at which resolu
tions were passed a.scribing the disturbances in the first
place to the refusal by the Government of any redress
sought for by the colonists. Lord John Russell on the
part of the Government introduced a bill to deal with
the rebellious province. The bill proposed in brief to
suspend for a tirae the constitution of Low-er Canada,
and to send out from this country a governor-general
and high commissioner; with full powers to deal with the
rebellion, and to remodel the constitution of both prov
inces. There was an almost universal admission that

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN.

27

the Government had found the right raan when Lord
John Russell mentioned the name of Lord Durhara.
Lord Durhara was a man of remarkable character.
He belonged to one of the oldest families in England.
The Lambtons had lived on their estate in the north, in
uninterrupted succession, since the Conquest. The male
succession, it is stated, never was interrupted since the
twelfth century. They were not, however, a family of

-f <

Lord John Russell.

aristocrats. Their wealth was derived chiefly from coal
mines, and grew up in later days ; the property at first,
and for a long time, was of inconsiderable value. Lord
Durham w-as born at Lambton Castle in April, 1792.
Before he was quite twenty years of age, he made a
romantic marriage at Gretna Green with a lady who
died three years after. About a year after the death of
his first wife, he married the eldest daughter of Lord
Grey. He was then only twenty-four years of age. He
had before this been returned to Parliament for the

25 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
county of Durham, and he soon distinguished himself as
a very advanced and energetic reformer. While in the
Commons he seldom addressed the House, but when he
did speak, it was in support of some raeasure of reforra,
or against what he conceived to be antiquated and il
liberal legislation. He brought out a plan of his own
for Parliaraentary reform in 1821. In 1828 he was
raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Durham.
When the Ministry of Lord Grey was formed, in Novem
ber, 1830, Lord Durhara became Lord Privy Seal. He is
said to have had an almost complete control over Lord
Grey. He had an impassioned and energetic na:ture,
which sometimes drove him into outbreaks of feeling
which most of his colleagues dreaded. He was thorough
in his reforming purposes, and would have rushed at
radical changes with scanty consideration for the time
or for the temper of his opponents. He had very little
reverence indeed for the majesty of custom. Whatever
he wished he strongly wished. He had no idea of ret
icence, and cared not much for the decorum of office.
He was one of the men who, even when they are thor
oughly in the right, have often the unhappy art of seem
ing to put themselves completely in the wrong. None
of his opponents, however, denied his great ability. He
was never deterred by conventional beliefs and habits
from looking boldly into the very heart of a great political
difficulty. He was never afraid to propose what in times
later than his have been called heroic remedies. There
was a general impression, perhaps even among those
who liked him least, that he was a sort of " unemployed
Cae.sar," a man who only required a field large enough to
develop great qualities in the ruling of men. The diffi
culties in Canada seemed to have come as if expressly to
give hira an opportunity of provin.g himself all that his
friends declared him to be, or of justifying for ever the
distrust of his enemies. He went out to Canada with
the assurance of everyone that his expedition would
either make or mar a career, if not a country. Lord
Durhara found out a new alternative. He made a ,
country and he marred a career. The mission of Lord
Durham saved Canada. It ruined Lord Durham.

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 29
Lord Durham arrived in Quebec at the end of May,
1838. He at once issued a proclamation, in style like
that of a dictator. It was not in any way unworthy of
the occasion, which especially called for the intervention
of a brave and enlightened dictatorship. He declared
that he would unsparingly punish any who violated the
laws, but he frankly invited the co-operation of the
colonies to form a new system of government really
suited to their wants and to the altering conditions of
civilization. Unfortunately he had hardly entered on his
work of dictatorship when he found that he was no
longer a dictator. In the passing of the Canada Bill
through Parliament the powers which he understood
were to be conferred upon him had been considerably
reduced. Lord Durham went to work, however, as if he
were still invested with absolute authority over all the
laws and conditions of the colony. A very Cassar laying
down the lines for the future government of a province
could hardly have been raore boldly arbitrary. I.et it be
said also that Lord Durham's arbitrariness was for the
most part healthy in effect and just in spirit. But it gave
an immense opportunity of attack on hiraself and on the
Government to the enemies of both at home. Lord
Durham had hardly begun his work of reconstruction
when his recall was .clamored for by vehement voices in
Parliament. Lord Durham did not wait for the formal recall. He
returned to England a disgraced raan. Yet even then
there was public spirit enough araong the English people
to refuse to ratify any sentence of disgrace upon him.
When he landed at Plymouth, he was received with
acclamations by the population, although the Govern
ment had prevented any of the official honor usually
shown to returning governors from being offered to him.
Lord Durham's report was acknowledged by enemies
as well as by the most impartial critics to be a masterly
document. It laid the foundation of the political success
and social prosperity not only of Canada but of all the
other important colonies. After having explained in the
most exhaustive manner the causes of discontent and
backwardness in Canada, it went on to recommend that

30 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the government of the colony should be put as much as
possible into the hands of the colonists themselves, that
they theraselves should execute as well as make the
laws, the limit of the Imperial Government's interference
being in such raatters as affect the relations of the
colony with the mother country, such as the constitution
and form of government, the regulation of foreign rela
tions and trade, and the disposal of the public lands.
Lord Durham proposed to establish a thoroughly good
system of municipal institutions ; to secure the indepen
dence of the judges ; to make all provincial officers,
except the governor and his secretary, responsible to the
Colonial Legislature ; and to repeal all former legislation
with respect to the reserves of land for the clergy.
Finally, he proposed that the provinces of Canada should
be reunited politically and should become one legislature,
containing the representatives of both races and of all
districts. It is significant that the report also recom
mended that in any Act to be introduced for this pur
pose, a provision should be made by which all or any
of the other North American colonies should on the ap
plication of their legislatures and with the consent of
Canada be admitted into the Canadian Union. In brief.
Lord Durham proposed to make the Canadas self-
governing as regards their internal affairs, and the gerra
of a federal union.
It is not necessary to describe in detail the steps by
which the Governraent gradually introduced the recom
mendations of Lord Durhara to Parliaraent and carried
thera to success. In 1840, however, the Act was passed
which reunited Upper and Lower Canada on the basis
proposed by Lord Durhara. Lord Durhara did not live
to see the success of the policy he had recommended.
Within a few days after the passing of the Canada
Government Bill he died at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight,
on July 28, 1840. He was then little more than forty-
eight years of age. He had for some time been in fail
ing health, and it cannot be doubted that the mortifica
tion attending his Canadian mission had worn away his
strength. His proud and .sensitive spirit could ill bear
the contradictions and humiliations that had been forced

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 31
upon him. He wanted to the success of his political
career that proud patience which the gods are said to
love, and by virtue of which great men live down mis-
appreciation, and hold out until they see themselves
justified and hear the reproaches turn into cheers. But
if Lord Durham's personal career was in any way a
failure, his policy for the Canadas was a splendid suc
cess. It established the principles of colonial govern
ment. There were defects in the construction of Lord
Durham's scheme, but the success of his policy lay in the
broad principles it laid down, and to which other colo
nial systems as well as that of the Dominion of Canada
owe their strength and security to-day. One may say,
with little help from the merely fanciful, that the rejoic
ings of emancipated colonies might have been in his dying
ears as he sank into his early grave.
The Opium dispute with China was going on when
the Queen came to the throne. The Opium War broke
out soon after. Reduced to plain words, the principle
for which we fought in the China War was the right of
Great Britain to force a peculiar trade upon a foreign
people in spite of the protestations of the Government
and all such public opinion as there was of the nation.
The whole principle of Chinese civilization, at the
time when the Opium War broke out, was based on con
ditions which to any modern nation must seera erroneous
and unreasonable. The Chinese Governments and people
desired to have no political relations or dealings what
ever with any other State. They were not so obstinately
set against private and commercial dealings ; but they
would have no political intercourse with foreigners, and
they would not even recognize the existence of foreign
peoples as StatCs. They w-ere perfectly satisfied with
themselves and their own systems. The one thing which
China asked of European civilization and the movement
called Modern Progress was to be let alone. The Chinese
would much rather have lived without ever seeing the
face of a foreigner. But they had put up with the private
intrusion of foreigners and trade, and had had dealings
with American tradeVs and with the East India Company.
The charter and the exclusive rights of the East India

32 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Company expired in April, 1834; the charter was renewed
under different conditions, and the trade with China was
thrown open. One of the great branches of the East
India Company's business with China was the opium
trade. When- the trading privileges ceased this traffic
was taken up briskly by private merchants, who bought
of the Company the opium which they grew in India
and sold it to the Chinese. The Chinese Governments,
and all teachers, moralists, and persons of education in
China, had long desired to get rid of or put down, this
trade in opium. They considered it highly detrimental
to the morals, the health, and the prosperity of the people.
All traffic in opium was strictly forbidden by the Govern
ments and laws of China. Yet our English traders car
ried on a brisk and profitable trade in the forbidden
article. Nor was this raerely an ordinary smuggling, or
a business akin to that of the blockade running during
the American civil war. The arrangements with the
Chinese Government allowed the existence of all establish
ments and machinery for carrying on a general trade at
Canton and Macao ; and under cover of these arrange
ments the opium traders set up their regular headquarters
in these towns.
The English Government appointed superintendents
to manage our coramercial dealings with China. Mis
understandings occurred at every new step of negotiation.
These misunderstandings were natural. Our people knew
hardly anything about the Chinese. The limitation of
our means of communication with them made this igno
rance inevitable, but certainly did not excuse our acting as
if we were in possession of the fullest and most accurate
information. The Chinese believed from the first that the superin
tendents were there merely to protect the opium trade,
and to force on China political relations with 'the West.
Practically this was the effect of their presence. The
superintendents took no steps to aid the Chinese author
ities in stopping the hated trade. The British traders
naturally enough thought that the British Government
were determined to protect them in" carrying it on. At
length the English Government announced that " her

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 33
Majesty's Government could not interfere for the pur
pose of enabling British subjects to violate the laws of the
country with which they trade ; " and that " any loss
therefore which such persons raay suffer in consequence
of the more effectual execution of the Chinese laws on
this subject must be borne by the parties who have
brought that loss on themselves by their own acts."
This very wise and proper resolve carae, however, too
late. The British traders had been allowed to go on for
a long time under the full conviction that the protection
of the English Government was behind them and wholly
at their service.
When the Chinese authorities actually proceeded to
insist on the forfeiture of an immense quantity of opium
in the hand of British traders, and took other harsh, but
certainly not unnatural measures to extinguish the traffic,
Captain Elliott, the chief superinteiident, sent to the
Governor of India a request for as many ships of war as
could be spared for the protection of the life and prop
erty of Englishmen in China. Before long British ships
arrived ; and the two countries were at war.
It was easy work enough so far as England was con
cerned. It was on our side nothing but a succession of
cheap victories. The Chinese fought very bravely in a
great many instances ; and they showed still more often
a Spartan-like resolve not to survive defeat. When one
of the Chinese cities was taken by Sir Hugh Gough, the
Tartar general went into his house as soon as he saw
that all was lost, made his servants set fire to the build
ing, and calmly sat in his chair until he was burned to
death. We quickly captured the island of Chusan, on
the east coast of China ; a part of our squadron went up
the Peiho river to threaten the capital ; negotiations were
opened, and the preliminaries of a treaty were made out,
to which, however, neither the English Government nor
the Chinese would agree, and the war was reopened.
Chusan was again taken by us ; Ningpo, a large city a
few miles in on the mainland, fell into our hands; Amoy,
farther south, was captured ; our troops were before
Nankin, when the Chinese Government at last saw how
futile was the idea of resisting our arms. They made

34 A SHORT HIS'IORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
peace at last on any terras we chose to ask. We asked
in the first in.stance the cession in perpetuity to us of the
island of Hong Kong. Of course we got it. Then we
asked that five ports, Canton, Araoy, Foo-Chow-Foo,
Ningpo, and Shanghai should be thrown open to British
traders, and that consuls should be established there.
Needless to say that this too was conceded. Then it
was agreed that the indemnity already mentioned should
be paid by the Chinese Government — some four millions
and a half sterling, in addition to one million and a
quarter as compensation for the destroyed opium. The
Chinese war then was over for the time. But as the
children say that snow brings more snow, so did that
war with China bring other wars to follow it.
The Melbourne Ministry kept going from bad to
worse. There w-as a great stirring in the country all
around them, which made their feebleness the more con
spicuous. Indeed the history of that time seems full of
Reform projects. The Parliamentary annals contain the
names of various measures of social and political im
provement 'which might in themselves, it would seem,,
bear witness to the most unsleeping activity on the part
of any Ministry. The appointment of the Committee of
Council to deal with the elementary education of tke
poor; measures for general registration, for the reduction
of the stamp duty on newspapers, and of the duty on
paper ; for the improvement of the gaol system ; for the
spread of vaccination ; for the regulation of the labor of
children ; for the prohibition of the employment of any
child or young person under twenty-one in the cleaning
of chimneys by climbing ; for the suppression of the
punishment of the pillory ; efforts to relieve the Jews
from civil disabilities — these are but a few of the many
projects of social and political reform that occupied the
attention of that busy period which somehow appears
nevertheless to have been so sleepy and do-nothing. How
does it come about that we can regard the Ministry in
whose tirae all these things were done or attempted as
exhausted and worthless ?
One answer is plain. The reforming .energy was in
the time, and not in the Ministry. There was a just and

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 35
general conviction that if the Government were left to
themselves they would do nothing. Whatever they
undei"took they seemed to undertake reluctantly, and as
if only with the object of preventing other people from
having anything to do with it. Naturally, therefore, they
got little or no thanks for any good they might have
done. When they brought in a measure to abolish in
various cases the punishment of death, they fell so far
behind public opinion and the inclinations of the Com
mission that had for eight years been inquiring into the
state of our criminal law, that their bill only passed by
very narrow majorities, and impressed many ardent re
formers as if it were meant rather to withhold than to
advance a genuine reform. In truth it was a period of
enthusiasm and of growth, and the Ministry did not
understand this. Lord Melbourne had apparently got
into his raind the conviction that the only sensible thing
the people of England could do was to keep up the Mel
bourne Ministry, and that being a sensible people they
would naturally do this. He had grown into something
like the condition of a pampered old hall porter, who,
dozing in his chair, begins to look on it as an act of
rudeness if any visitor to his master presumes to knock
at the door and so disturb him from his comfortable rest.
The operations which took place about this tirae in
Syria had an iraportant bearing on the relations between
this country and France. Mohammed Ali, Pasha of
Egypt, the most powerful of all the Sultan's feudatories,
had raade himself for a time master of Syria. By the aid
of his adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, he had defeated the
armies of the Porte wherever he had encountered thera.
Mohammed's victories had for the time compelled the
Porte to allow him to remain in power in Syria ; but in
1839 the Sultan again declared- war against Mohammed
Ali. Ibrahim Pasha again obtained an overwheltoing
victory over the Turkish army. The energetic Sultan
Mahmoud died suddenly ; and immediately after his
death the Capitan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral of the
Ottoman fleet, went over to the Egyptians with all his
vessels; an act of almost unexampled treachery even in
the history of the Ottoman Empire. It was evident that

36 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Turkey was not able to hold her own against the for
midable Mohamraed and his successful son ; and the
policy of the Western Powers of Europe, and of England
especially, had long been to maintain the Ottoman Em
pire as a necessary part of the common State system.
The policy of Russia was to keep up that empire as long
as it suited her own purposes ; to take care that no other
Power got anything out of Turkey ; and to prepare the
way for such a partition of the spoils of Turkey as would
satisfy Russian interests. Russia therefore was to be
found now defending Turkey, and now assailing her. The
course taken by Russia was seemingly inconsistent ; but
it was only inconsistent as the course of a sailing ship
may be which now tacks to this side and now to that,
but has a clear object in view and a port to reach all
the while. England was then and for a long tirae after
steadily bent on preserving the Turkish Empire, and in
a great raeasure as a rampart against the schemes and
ambitions imputed to Russia herself. France was less
firmly set on the maintenance- of Turkey; and France,
moreover, had got into her mind that England had de
signs of her own on Egypt. Austria was disposed to go
generally with England ; Prussia was little more than a
nominal sharer in the alliance that was now patched up.
It is evident that such an alliance could not be very
harmonious or direct in its action. It was, however,
effective enough to prove too strong for the Pasha of
Egypt. A fleet made up of English, Austrian- and
Turkish vessels bombarded Acre ; an allied array drove
the Egyptians frora several of their strongholds. Ibrahira
Pasha, with all his courage and genius, was not equal to
the odds against which he now saw himself forced to
contend. He had to succumb. Mohammed Ali was
deprived of all his Asiatic po.sse.ssions ; but was secured
in his government of Egypt by a convention signed at
London on July 15, 1840, by the representatives of Great
Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, on the one part, and
of the Ottoman Porte on the other. The name of France
was not found there. France had drawn back frora the
alliance, and for some time seemed as if she were likely
to take arms against it. M. Thiers was then her Prime

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 37
Minister ; he was a raan of quick fancy ; restless and
ambitious temperament. Thiers persuaded hiraself and
the great majority of his countrymen that England was
bent upon driving Mohammed Ali out of Egypt as well
as out of Syria, and that her object was to obtain pos
session of Egypt for herself. For sorae months it seemed
as if war were inevitable between England and France.
Fortunately, the French King, Louis Philippe and the
eminent statesman. M. Guizot, were both strongly in
favor of peace ; M. Thiers resigned ; M. Guizot became
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and virtually head of the
Government, and on July 13, 1841, the Treaty of London
was signed,, which provided for the settlement of the
affairs of Egypt on the basis of the arrangement already
made, and which contained moreover a stipulation, by
which the Sultan declared hiraself firmly resolved to
maintain the ancient principle of his empire — that no
foreign ship of war was to be admitted into the Dar
danelles and the Bosphorus, with the exception of light
vessels for which a firman was granted.
Steadily meanwhile did the Ministry go from bad to
worse. They were remarkably bad administrators ; their
finances were wretchedly managed. The budget of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Baring, showed a de
ficiency of nearly two millions. This deficiency he pro
posed to meet in part by alteration in the sugar duties ;
but the House of Coraraons, after a long debate, rejected
his proposals by a majority of thirty-six. It was then
expected, of course, that ministers would resign ; but
they were not yet willing to accept the consequences of
defeat. People began to ask, " Will nothing then turn
thera out of office ? Will they never have done with try
ing new tricks to keep in place ? "
Sir Robert Peel took, in horaely phrase, the bull by
the horns. He proposed a direct vote of want of con
fidence — a resolution declaring that rainisters did not
possess the confidence of the house sufficiently to enable
thera to carry through the measures, which they deemed
of essential iraportance to the pubhc welfare, and that
their continuance in office under such circurastances was
at variance with the spirit of the constitution. On June

38 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
4, 1841, the division was taken ; and the vote of no-con
fidence was carried by a majority of one. Even the
Whigs' could not stand this. Parliament was dissolved,
and the result of the general election was that the
Tories were found to have a majority even greater than
they themselves had anticipated. The moment the new
Parliament was assembled araendraents to the address
were carried in both Houses in a sense hostile to the
Governraent. Lord Melbourne and his colleagues had to
resign, and Sir Robert Peel was entrusted with the task
of forming an administration.
We have no raore to do with Lord Melbourne in this
history. He raerely drops out of it. Between his expul
sion frora office and his death, which took place in
1848, he did little or nothing to call for the notice of
anyone. It was said at one time that his closing years
were lonesome and melancholy ; but this has lately been
denied, and indeed it is not likely that one who had
such a genial temper and so many friends could have
been left to the dreariness of a not self-sufficing solitude
and to the bitterness of neglect. He was a generous
and kindly man ; his personal character, although often
assailed, was free of any serious reproach ; he was a failure
in office, not so much from want of ability, as because he
was a politician without conviction.
The Peel Ministry carae into power with" great hopes.
It had Lord Lyndhurst for Lord Chancellor ; Sir James
Graham for Home Secretary , Lord Aberdeen at the
Foreign Office ; Lord Stanley was Colonial Secretary.
The raost remarkable man not in the Cabinet, soon to
be one of the foremost statesmen in the country, was
Mr. W. E. Gladstone. It is a fact of some significance
in the history of the Peel administration, that the elec
tions which brought the new Ministry into power brought
Mr. Cobden for the first tirae into the House of Com
mons. While Lord Melboiirne and his Whig colleagues, still
in office, were fribbling away their popularity on the
pleasant assumption that nobody was particularly in
earnest about anything, the Vice-Chancellor and heads
of bouses held a meeting at Oxford, and passed a cen-

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 39
sure on the celebrated " No. 90 " of " Tracts for the
Times." The author of the tract was Dr. John Henry
Newman, and the principal ground for its censure by
voices claiming authority was the principle it seemed to
put forward — that a man might honestly subscribe all
the articles and formularies of the English Church, while
yet holding many of the doctrines of the Church of
Rome, against which those articles were regarded as a
necessary protest. The great movement which was thus
brought into sudden question and publicity sprang from
the desire to revive the authority of the Church ; to
quicken her with a new vitality ; to give her once again
that place as guide and inspirer of the national life
Which her ardent votaries believed to be hers by right,
and to have been forfeited only by the carelessness of her
authorities and their failure to fulfil the duties of her
Heaven-assigned mission.
No movement could have had a purer source. None
could haye had more disinterested and high-minded pro
moters. It was borne in upon some earnest unresting
souls, like that of the sweet and saintly Keble, that the
Church of England had higher duties and nobler claims
than the business of preaching harmless sermons and the
power of enriching bishops. Keble urged on some of
the more vigorous and thoughtful minds around him by
his influence and his example, that they should reclaim
for the Church the place which ought to be hers, as the
true successor of the Apostles. Among those who shared
the spirit and purpose of Keble were Richard Hurrell
Froude, the historian's elder brother, who gave rich
promise of a splendid career, but who died while still in
comparative youth ; Dr. Pusey, afterwards leader of the
school of ecclesiasticism which bears his name ; and,
most eminent of all. Dr. Newman. Newman had started
the publication of a series of treatises called " Tracts for
the Times," -to vindicate the real mission of the Church
of England, and wrote the most remarkable of them.
This waS the Tractarian movement, which had such
various and memorable results. Newman had up to this
time been distinguished as one of the most unsparing
enemies of Rome. He had never had any manner of

40

A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.

association with Roman Catholics ; had in fact known
singularly little of them. At this time the idea of leav
ing the Church never. Dr. Newman himself assures us,
had crossed his imagination.
The abilities of l3r. Newman were hardly surpassed
by any contemporary in any department of thought.
His position and influence in Oxford were almost unique.
There was in his intellectual temperament a curious
combination of the mystic and the logical. England in

Most eminent of all, Dr. Newman.
our time has hardly had a greater master of arguraent
and of English prose than Newman. He is one of the
keenest of dialecticians. His words dispel mists; and
whether they who listen agree or not, they cannot fail to
understand. A penetrating, poignant, satirical humor is
found in most of his writings ; an irony sometimes pierc
ing suddenly through it like a darting pain. On the
other hand, a generous vein of poetry and of pathos

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 41
informs his style and there are many passages of his
works in which he rises to the height of a genuine and
aoble eloquence.
In all the arts that make a great preacher or orator,
Newman was strikingly deficient. His manner was con
strained, ungraceful and even awkward ; his voice was
thin and weak. His bearing was not at first impressive
in any way. A gaunt, emaciated figure, a sharp and
eagle face, a cold meditative eye rather repelled than
attracted those who saw him for the first time. Sin
gularly devoid of affectation, Newman did not always
conceal his intellectual scorn of raen who made loud
.pretence with inferior gifts, and the men must have been
few indeed whose gifts were not inferior to his. New
man had no scorn for intellectual inferiority in itself ; he
despised it only when it gave itself airs. His influence
while he was the vicar of St. Mary's at Oxford was pro
found. No opponent ever spoke of Newman but with
admiration for his intellect and respect for his character.
Dr. Newman had a younger brother, Francis W. New
man, who also possessed remarkable ability and earnest
ness. He too was distinguished at Oxford, and seemed
to have a great career there before him. But he was
drawn one way by the wave of thought before his more
famous brother had been drawn the other way. In
1830, the younger Newman found himself prevented by
religious scruples from subscribing the Thirty-nine Arti
cles for his master's degree. He left the university, and
wandered for years in the East, endeavoring, not very
successfully perhaps, to teach Christianity on its broadest
base to Mahometans ; and then he came back to England
to take his place araong the leaders of a certain school
of free thought.
When Dr. Newraan wrote the famous Tract " No. 90,''
for which he was censured, he bowed to the authority of
his bishop. But he did not admit any change of opinion ;
and indeed soon after the gradual working of Newman's
mind became evident to all the world. The brightest
and most penetrating intellect in the Church of England
was withdrawn from her service, and Newman went over
to the church of Rorae. To this result had the inquiry

42 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
conducted hira which had led his friend Dr. Pusey raerely
to endeavor to incorporate some of the mysticism and
the symbols of Rome with the ritual of the English
Protestant Church ; which had brought Keble only to
seek a raore liberal and truly Christian temper for the
faith of the Protestant ; and which had sent Francis New
man into Radicalism and Rationalism.
Still greater was the practical importance, at least in
defined results, of the movement which went on in Scot
land about the same time.
The case was briefly this. During the reign of Queen
Anne an Act was passed which took from the Church
courts in Scotland the free choice as to the appointment
of pastors by subjecting the power of the presbytery to
the control and interference of the law courts. In an im
mense number of Scotch parishes the minister was nom
inated by a lay patron ; and if the presbytery found noth
ing to condemn in hira as to " life, literature and doc
trine," they were corapelled to appoint him, however
unwelcome he raight be to the parishioners. Now it is
obvious that a raan might have a blameless character,
sound religious views, and an excellent education, and
nevertheless be totally unfitted to undertake the charge
of a Scottish parish. The effect of the power conferred
on the law courts and the patron was simply in a great
number of cases to send farailies away from the Church
of Scotland and into voluntaryism.
Dr. Chalmers became the leader of the movement
which was destined within two years from the tirae 'we
are now surveying to cause the disruption of the ancient
Kirk of Scotland. No raan could be better fitted for
the task of leadership in such a raovement. He was be
yond comparison the foremost man in the Scottish
Church. He was the greatest pulpit orator in Scotland.
or, indeed, in Great Britain. As a writer on political
economy he had made a distinct mark. Frora having
been in his earlier days the minister of an obscure Scot
tish village congregation, he had suddenly sprung into
fame. He was the lion of any city which he happened
to visit. If he preached in London, the church was
crowded with the leaders of politics, science and fashion,

SOME TROUBLES OF THE NEW REIGN. 43
eager to hear him. Chalmers spoke with a massive elo
quence in keeping with his powerful frame and his broad
brow and his commanding presence. His speeches were
a strenuous blending of arguraent and eraotion. They
appealed at once to the strong common sense and to the
deep religious convictions of his Scottish audiences.
His whole soul was in his work as a leader of religious
movements. He cared little or nothing for any popular
ity or fame that he might have won. The Free Church
of Scotland is his monument. He did not make that
Church. It was not the work of one man, or, strictly
speaking of one generation. It grew naturally out of the
inevitable struggle between Church and State. But
Chalmers did more than any other man to decide the
moment and the manner of its coming into existence,
and its success is its best raonuraent.
On May 18, 1843, sorae five hundred rainisters of the
Church of Scotland, under the leadership of Dr. Chal
mers, seceded frora the old Kirk and set about to forra
the Free Church. The Governraent of Sir Robert Peel
_had made a weak effort at compromise by legislative en
actment, but had declined to introduce any legislation
which should free the Kirk of Scotland from the control
of the civil courts, and there was no course for those
who held the views of Dr. Chalmers but to withdraw
from the Church which admitted that claira of State con
trol. The history of Scotland is illustrated by many
great national deeds. No deed it tells of surpasses in
dignity and in moral grandeur that secession — to cite the
words of the protest — " from an Establishment which we
loved and prized, through interference with conscience,
the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and the rejection of
his sole and supreme authority as King in his Church."

CHAPTER III.
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY.
Meanwhile things were looking ill with the Mel
bourne Ministry. The Jamaica Bill put them in great
perplexity. This -was a measure brought in on April 9,
1839, to make temporary provision for the government
of the island of Jamaica, by setting aside the House of
Asserably for five years, and during that tirae erapower-
ing the governor and council with three salaried cora-
missioners to manage the affairs of the colony. In other
words, the Melbourne Ministry proposed to suspend fof
five years the constitution of Jamaica. No body of per
sons can be raore awkwardly placed than a Whig Min
istry proposing to set aside a constitutional government
anywhere. Such a proposal may be a necessary measure ;
it may be unavoidable ; but it always comes with a bad
grace frora Whigs or Liberals, and gives their eneraies a
handle against thera which they cannot fail to use to
sorae purpose.
In the case of the Jaraaica Bill there was sorae ex
cuse for the harsh policy. After the abolition of slavery,
the former masters in the island found it very hard to
reconcile themselves to the new condition of things.
They could not all at once understand that their former
slaves were to be their equals before the law. On the
other hand, some of the Jamaica negroes were too igno
rant to understand that they had acquired any rights ;
others were a little too clamorous in their assertion.
The Imperial governors and officials were generally and
justly eager to protect the negroes ; and the result was a

FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY. 45
constant quarrel between the Jamaica House of Assembly
and the representatives of the Home Governraent. A
bill, very necessary in itself, was passed by the Imperial
Parliament for the better regulation of prisons in Jamaica,
and the House of Asserably refused to submit to any
such legislation. Under these circumstances the Mel
bourne Ministry proposed the suspension of the constitu
tion of the island. The measure was opposed not only
by Peel and the Conservatives, but by many Radicals.
The Ministry only had a majority of five in favor of
their measure. 'This, of course, was a virtual defeat.
The Ministry acknowledged it and resigned. Their de
feat was a humiliation ; their resignation an inevitable
submission ; but they carae back to office almost irarae
diately under conditions that raade the hurailiation more
humbling, and rendered their subsequent career more
difficult by far than their past struggle for existence had
been. The famous controversy known as the " Bedchamber
Question " raade a way back for the Whigs into place.
Gulliver ought to have had an opportunity of telling such
a story to the king of the Brobdingnagians, in order the
better to impress him with a clear idea of tbe logical
beauty of constitutional governraent. When Lord Mel
bourne resigned, the Queen sent for Peel, and told him
with a simple and girlish frankness that she was sorry to
have to part with her late ministers, of whose conduct she
entirely approved, but that she bowed to constitutional
usage. This must have been rather an astonishing be
ginning to the grave and formal Peel ; but he was not a
man to think any worse of the candid young Sovereign
for her outspoken ways. The negotiations went on very
smoothly as to the colleagues Peel meant to recommend
to her Majesty, until he happened to notice the composi
tion of the royal household as regarded the ladies niost
closely in attendance on the Queen. For example, he
found that the wife of Lord Normanby and the sister of
Lord Morpeth were the two ladies in closest attendance
on her Majesty. Now it has to be borne in mind — it
was proclaimed again and again during the negotiations
Ttrthat the chief difficulty- of the Conservatives would

46 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
necessarily be in Ireland, where their policy would be
altogether opposed to that of the Whigs. Lord Normanby
had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under the Whigs,
and Lord Morpeth, the amiable and accomplished Lord
Carlisle of later time, Irish Secretary. It certainly could
not be satisfactory for Peel to try to work a new Irish
policy while the closest household companions of the
Queen were the wife and sister of the displaced states
men who directly represented the policy he had to super
sede. Had this point of view been made clear to the
Sovereign at first, it is hardly possible that any serious
difficulty could have arisen. The Queen raust have seen
¦ the obvious reasonableness of Peel's request ; nor is it to
be supposed that the two ladies in question could have
desired to hold their places under such circumstances.
But unluckily some misunderstanding took place at the
very beginning of the conversations on this point. Peel
only desired to press for the retirement of the ladies
holding the higher offices ; he did not intend to ask for
any change affecting a place lower in official rank than
that of lady of the bedchamber. But somehow, or other
he conveyed to the mind of the Queen a different idea.
She thought he raeant to insist, as a matter of principle,
upon the removal of her familiar attendants and house
hold associates. Under this impression she consulted
Lord John Russell, who advised her on what he under
stood to be the state of the facts. On his advice the
Queen stated in reply that she could not " consent to a
course which she conceives to be contrary to usage and is
repugnant to her feelings." Sir Robert Peel held firm to
his stipulation ; and the chance of his then forming a
Ministry was at an end. Lord Melbourne and his col
leagues had to be recalled ; and at a Cabinet meeting
thay adopted a minute declaring it reasonable " that the
great offices of the Court and situations in the hou.se-
hold held by members of Parliament should be included
in the political arrangements made on a change in the
Administration ; but they are not of opinion that a similar
principle should be applied or extended to the offices
held by ladies in her Majesty's household."
In the country the incident created great excitement.

FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY. 47
Some Liberals bluntly insisted that it was not right in
such a raatter to consult the feelings of the Sovereign at
all, and that the advice of the minister, and his idea of
what was for the good of the country, ought alone to be
considered. Nothing could be more undesirable than the
position in which Lord Melbourne and his colleagues
had allowed the Sovereign to place herself. The raore
people in general carae to think over the matter, the
more clearly it was seen that Peel was in the right,
although he had not raade himself understood at first,
and had, perhaps, not shown all through enough of con
sideration for the novelty of the young Sovereign's posi
tion. But no one could deliberately maintain the position
at first taken up by the Whigs ; and in point of fact they
were soon glad to drop it as quickly and quietly as pos
sible. The whole question, it may be said at once, was
afterwards settled by a sensible comproraise. It was
agreed that on a change of Ministry the Queen would
listen to any representation frora the incoraing Prirae
Minister as to the composition of her household, and
would arrange for the retirement " of their own accord "
of any ladies who were so closely related to the leaders
of Opposition as to render their presence inconvenient.
The Whigs came back to office utterly discredited. They
had to tinker up somehow a new Jaraaica Bill. They
had declared that they could not reraain in office unless
they were allowed to deal in a certain way with Jamaica ;
and now that they were back again in ofiice, they could
not avoid trying to do something with the Jaraaica busi
ness. They therefore introduced a new bill which was a
mere compromise put together in the hope of its being
allowed to pass. It was allowed to pass, after a fashion ;
that is, when the Opposition in the House of Lords had
tinkered it and amended it at their pleasure. The bed
chamber question in fact had thrown Jamaica out of per
spective. The unfortunate island must do the best it
could now ; in this country statesmen had grave matters
to think of. Sir Robert Peel could not govern with
Lady Normanby ; the Whigs would not govern without
her. The Melbourne Government were prejudiced in the

48 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
public raind by these events, and by the attacks for which
they gave so large an opportunity. The feeling in sorae
parts of the country was still sentiraentally with the
Queen. At many a dinner-table it becarae the fashion
to drink the health of her Majesty with a punning addi
tion, not belonging to an order of wit any higher than
that which in other days toasted the King " over the
water ; " or prayed of heaven to " send this crurab well
down." The Queen was toasted as the sovereign of
spirit who " would not let her belles be peeled." But
the Ministry wei-e alraost universally believed to have
placed themselves in a ridiculous light, and to have crept
again into office " behind the petticoats of the ladies in
waiting.'' On January i6, 1840, the Queen, opening Parliament
in person, announced her intention to marry her cousin.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — a step which she
trusted would be " conducive to the interests of ray
people as well as to ray own doraestic happiness." In
the discussion which followed in the House of Cora
raons, Sir Robert Peel observed that her Majesty had
" the singular good fortune to be able to gratify her
private feelings, while she performs her public duty, and
to obtain the best guarantee for happiness by contracting
an alliance founded on affection." Peel spoke the simple
truth ; it was indeed a marriage founded on affection.
No raarriage contracted- in the humblest class could have
been more entirely a union of love, and more free from
what might be called selfish and worldly considerations.
The Queen had for a long time loved her cousin. He
was nearly her own age, the Queen being the elder by
three months and two or three days. Francis Charles
Augustus Albert Eraraanuel was the full name of the
young Prince. He was the second son of Ernest, Duke
of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and of his wife Louisa, daughter
of Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Prince
Albert was born at the Rosenau, one of his father's resi
dences, near Coburg, on August 26, 18 19.
Prince Albert was a young raan to win the heart of
any girl. He was singularly handsorae, graceful and
gifted. In princes, as we know, a sraall raeasure of

FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY. 49
beauty and accomplishment suffices to throw courtiers
and court ladies into transports of admiration ; but had
Prince Albert been the son of a farmer or a butler, he
must have been admired for his singular personal attrac
tions. He had had a sound and a varied education.
He had been brought up as if he were to be a profes
sional musician, a professional chemist or botanist, and
a professor of history and belles lettres and the fine arts.
The scientific and the literary were remarkably blended
in his bringing-up. He had begun to study the con
stitutional history of States, and was preparing himself to
take an interest in politics. There was much of the
practical and business-like about hira, as he showed in
after-life ; he loved farming, and took a deep interest in
machinei-y.and in the growth of industrial science. His
tastes 'were f?)r a quiet, doraestic and unostentatious life
— a life of refined culture, of happy calra evenings, of art
and poetry and genial comraunion with Nature. He was
raade happy by the songs of birds, and delighted in
sitting alone and playing the organ. But there was in
him too a great deal of the political philosopher. He
loved to hear political and other questions well argued
out, and once observed that a false argument jarred on
his nerves as much as a false note in music. He seems
to have had frora his youth an all-pervading sense of
duty. So far as we can guess, he was almost absolutely
free from the ordinary follies, not to say sins, of youth.
Young as he was when he married the Queen, he devoted
hiraself at once to what he conscientiously believed to be
the duties of his station with a self-control and self-
devotion rare even among the aged, and alraost unknown
in youth. He gave up every habit, however familiar and
dear, every predilection, no matter how sweet, every in
dulgence of sentiment or amusement, that in any way
threatened to interfere with the steadfast performance of
the part he had assigned to himself. No man ever
devoted himself more faithfully to the difficult duties of
a high and new situation, or kept more strictly to his
resolve. It was no task to him to be a tender husband
and a loving father. This . was a part of his sweet, pure
and affectionate nature. It may well be doubted whether

50 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
any other queen ever had a raarried life so happy as
that of Queen Victoria.
The marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place
on February lo, 1840. The reception given by the
people in general to the Prince on his landing in England
a few days before the ceremony, and on the day of the
marriage, was cordial and even enthusiastic. But it is
not certain whether there was a very cordial feeling to
the Prince araong all classes of politicians. A ruraor of
the most absurd kind had got abroad in certain circles
that Prince Albert was not a Protestant — that he was in
fact a member of the Church of Rome. Somewhat un
fortunately, the declaration of the intended marriage to
the Privy Council did not raention the fact that Albert
was a Protestant Prince. The result was that in the
debate on the address in the House of Lords, an un
seemly altercation took place, an altercation the raore to
be regretted because it might have been so easily spared.
The question was bluntly raised by no less a person than
the Duke of Wellington whether the future husband of
the Queen was or was not a Protestant. The Duke
actually charged the Ministry with having purposely left
out the word " Protestant " in the announceraents in order
that they raight not offend their Irish and Catholic sup
porters, and raoved that the word " Protestant " be inserted
in the congratulatory address to the Queen, and he
carried his point, although Lord Melbourne held to the
opinion that the word was unnecessary in describing a
Prince who was not only a Protestant but descended from
the most Protestant family in Europe. The lack of judg
ment and tact on the part of the Ministry was never
more clearly shown than in the original omission of the
word. A few months after the raarriage, a bill was passed
naming Prince Albert Regent in the possible event of
the death of the Queen, leaving issue. The passing of
this bill was naturally regarded as of much importance
to Prince Albert. It gave him to some extent the status
in the country which he had not had before. No one
could have started with a more resolute determination to
stand clear of party politics than Prince Albert. He ac-

Queen Victoria and her husband.

FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY. 51
cepted at once his position as the husband of the Queen of
a constitutional country. His own idea of his duty was
that he should be the private secretary and unofficial coun
sellor of the Queen. To this purpose he devoted himself
unswervingly. Outside that part of his duties, he con
stituted himself a sort of minister without portfolio of art
and education. He took an interest, and often a leading
part, in all projects and movements relating to the
spread of education, the culture of art, and the promotion
of industrial science. Yet it was long before he was
thoroughly understood by the country. It was long
before he becarae in any degree popular, and it raay be
doubted whether he ever was thoroughly and generally
popular. Not perhaps until his untiraely death did the
country find out how entirely disinterested and faithful
his life had been, and how he had raade the discharge of
duty his business and his task. Prince Albert had not
the ways of an Englishman, and the tendency of English
men, then as now, was to assurae that to have raanners
other than those of an Englishman was to be so far un
worthy of confidence. He was not raade to shine in
commonplace society. He could talk admirably about
soraething, but he had not the gift of talking about noth
ing, and probably would not have cared rauch to culti
vate such a faculty. He was fond of suggesting sraall
innovations and improvements in established systems, to
the annoyance of men with set ideas, who liked their own
ways best. Thus it happened that he reraained for raany
years, if not exactly unappreciated, yet not thoroughly
appreciated, and that a considerable and very influential
section of society was always ready to cavil at what he
said, and find raotive for suspicion in most things that he
did. Perhaps he was best understood and most cor
dially appreciated araong the poorer classes of his wife's
subjects. He found also more cordial approval generally
among the Radicals than among the Tories, or even the
Whigs. One reforra which Prince Albert worked earnestly to
bring about, was the abolition of duelling in the array.
Nothing can testify raore strikingly to the rapid growth
of a genuine civilization in Queen Victoria's reign than

52 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the utter discontinuance of the duelling system. When
the Queen came to the throne, and for years after, it was
still in full force. The duel plays a conspicuous part in
the fiction and the drama of the Sovereign's earlier years.
It was a common incident of all political controversies.
It was an episode of most contested elections. It was
often resorted to for the purpose of deciding the right or
wrong of a half-drunken quarrel over a card table. It
formed as common a theme of gossip as an elopement
or a bankruptcy. Most of the eminent statesmen who
were prominent in the earlier part of the Queen's reign
had fought duels. At the present hour a duel in Eng
land would seera as absurd and barbarous an anachro-
nisra as an ordeal by touch or a witch-burning.
This is perhaps as suitable a place as any other to in
troduce sorae notice of the attempts that were made
frora tirae to time upon the life of the Queen. It is
proper to say something of them, although not one pos
sessed the slightest political importance, or could be said
to illustrate anything raore than sheer lunacy, or that mor
bid vanity and thirst for notoriety that is neariy akin to
genuine madness. The first attempt was made on June
lo, 1840, by Edward Oxford, a potboy of seventeen, who
fired two shots at the Queen as she was driving up Con
stitution Hill with Prince Albert, but happily missed in
each case. The jury pronounced him insane, and he
was ordered to be kept in a lunatic asylum during her
Majesty's pleasure. On May 30, 1842, a man named
John Francis, son of a machinist in Drury Lane, fired a
pistol at the Queen as she was driving down Constitution
Hill on the very spot where Oxford's attempt was raade.
Francis was sentenced to death, but her Majesty herself
was anxious that the death-sentence should not be
carried into effect, and it was finally commuted to one of
transportation for life. The very day after this mitiga
tion of punishment became publicly known another
atterapt was raade by a hunch-backed lad naraed Bean,
as the Queen was passing frora Buckinghara Palace to
the Chapel Royal. The arabition which fired raost or
all of the raiscreants who thus disturbed the Queen and
the country was that of the mountebank rather than of

FALL OF THE MELBOURNE MINISTRY. 53
the assassin. A bill was introduced by Sir Robert Peel
raaking such attempts punishable by transportation for
seven years, or by imprisonment for a term not exceed
ing three years, " the culprit to be publicly or privately
whipped as often and in such manner as the court shall
direct, not exceeding thrice." Bean was convicted under
this act and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment
in Millbank Penitentiary. This did not, however, con
clude the attacks on the Queen. An Irish bricklayer,
named Hamilton, fired a pistol, charged only with
powder, at her Majesty, on Constitution Hill, on May
19, 1849, and was sentenced to seven years' transpor
tation. A man named Robert Pate, once a lieutenant of
hussars, struck her Majesty on the face with a stick, as
she was leaving the Duke of Cambridge's residence in
her carriage on May 27, 1850. This man was sentenced
to seven years' transportation, but the judge paid so
much attention to the plea of insanity set up on his be
half, as to omit from his punishment the whipping which
mighthave been ordered. On February 29, 1872, a lad
of seventeen, named Arthur O'Connor, presented a pistol
at the Queen as she was entering Buckinghara Palace
after a drive. The pistol, however, proved to be un
loaded — an antique and useless or harraless weapon,
with a flint lock which was broken, and in the barrel a
piece of greasy red rag. The wretched lad held a paper
in one hand which was found to be some sort of petition
on behalf of the Fenian prisoners. He was sentenced to
twelve months' imprisonment and a whipping. Ten
years later, on March 2, 1882, a man named Roderick
Maclean fired at and missed the Queen as she was driv
ing from the railway station at Windsor. Maclean was
found to be a person of weak intellect who had at one
time been positively insane, and the atterapt had no po
litical significance whatever.

CHAPTER IV.
THE AFGHAN WAR.
The earliest days of the Peel Ministry fell upon
trouble, not indeed at horae, but abroad. At home the
prospect still seeraed bright. The birth of the Queen's
eldest son was an event welcoraed by national congratu
lation. There was still great distress in the agricultural
districts ; but there was a general confidence that the
financial genius of Peel would quickly find sorae way to
make burdens light, and that the condition of things all
over the country would begin to mend. It was a region
far removed from the knowledge and the thoughts of
most Englishmen that supplied the news now beginning
to come into England day after day, and to thrill the
country with the tale of one of the greatest disasters to
English policy and English arms to be found in all the
record of our dealings with the East.
News travelled slowly then ; and it was quite in the
ordinary course of 1 things that some part of the erapire
mi,ght be torn with convulsions for raonths before London
knew that the even and ordinary condition of things had
been disturbed. In this instance, the rejoicings at the
accession of the young Queen was still going on, when
a series of events had begun in Central Asia destined to
excite the profoundest eraotion in England, and to exer
cise the most powerful influence upon our foreign policy
down to the present hour. On Septeraber 20, 1837,
Captain Alexander Burnes arrived at Cabul, the capital of
the state of Cabul, in the north of Afghanistan. Burnes
was a famous Orientalist and traveller ; he had conducted

THE AFGHAN WAR. 55
an expedition into Central Asia ; had published his travels
in Bokhara, and had been sent on a mission by the Indian
Government, in whose service he was, to study the navi
gation of the Indus. The object of his journey to Cabul
in 1837 was to enter into comraercial relations with Dost
Mahomed, then ruler of Cabul, and with other chiefs of
the western regions.
The great region of Afghanistan has been called the
land of transition between Eastern and Western Asia.
All the great ways that lead from Persia to India pass
through that region. There is a proverb which declares
that no one can be king of Hindostan without first be-
coraing lord of Cabul. The Afghans are the ruling nation,
but among them had long been settled Hindoos, Arabs,
Armenians, Abyssinians, and men of other races and
religions. The founder of the Afghan erapire, Ahraed
Shah, died in 1773. He had raade an empire which
stretched from Herat on the west to Sirhind on the east,
and from the Oxus and Cashmere on the north to the
Arabian Sea and the mouths of the Indus on the south.
The death of his son, Timur Shah, delivered the kingdora
up to the hostile factions, intrigues and quarrels of his
sons ; the leaders of a powerful tribe, the Barukzyes, took
advantage of the events that arose out of this condition of
things to dethrone the descendants of Ahmed Shah.
When Captain Burnes visited Afghanistan in 1832, the
only part of all their great inheritance which yet remained
with the descendants of Ahmed Shah was the principality
of Herat. The remainder of Afghanistan was parcelled
out between Dost Mahomed and his brothers. Dost
Mahomed was a man of extraordinary ability and energy.
Although he was a usurper he was a sincere lover of his
country, and on the whole a wise and just ruler. When
Captain Burnes visited Dost Mahomed, Dost Mahomed
professed to be a sincere friend of the English Govern
ment and people. There was, however, at that time a
quarrel going on between the Shah of Persia and the
Prince of Herat, the last enthroned representative, as has
been already said, of the great family on whose fall Dost
Mahomed and his brothers had mounted into power. The
strong impression at the time in England, and among the

S6 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
authorities in India, was that Persia herself was but a
puppet in the hands of Russia, and that the attack on
Herat was the first step of a great movement of Russia
towards our Indian dominion.
Undoubtedly Russia did set herself for sorae reason
to win the friendship and alliance of Dost Mahomed ;
and Captain Burnes was for his part engaged in the
same endeavor. Burnes always insisted that Dost Ma
homed hiraself was sincerely anxious to become an ally
of England, and that he offered more than once on his
own free part to dismiss the Russian agents even without
seeing them, if Burnes desired him to do so. But for
some reason Burnes's superiors had the profoundest dis
trust of Dost Mahomed. It was again and again im
pressed on Burnes that he must regard Dost Mahoraed
as a treacherous enemy and as a raan playing the part
of Persia and of Russia.
Captain Burnes then was placed in the painful dif
ficulty of having to carry out a policy of which he entirely
disapproved. He believed in Dost Mahomed as a friend,
and he was ordered to regard hira as an eneray. On
the other hand. Dost Mahoraed was placed in a position
of great difficulty and danger. If England would not
support him, he must for his own safety, find alliances
elsewhere ; in Russian statecraft for example. Runjeet
Singh, the daring and successful adventurer who had
annexed the whole province of Cashmere to his domin
ions, was the enemy of Dost Mahomed and the faithful
ally of England. Dost Mahomed thought the British
Governraent could assist him in coming to terras with
Runjeet Singh, and Burnes had assured him that the
British Governraent would do all it could, to establLsH
satisfactory terms of peace between Afghanistan and the
Punjaub, over which Runjeet Singh ruled. Burnes, how
ever, was unable to impress his superiors with any belief
either in Dost Mahomed or in the policy which he hira
self advocated. The English Government had presented
¦ to the House of Commons his despatches in so mutilated
and altered a forra, that Burnes was made to seem as if
he actually approved and recomraended the policy which
he especially warned us to avoid. The result was. that

THE AFGHAN WAR. 57
Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India, at length
resolved to treat Dost Mahomed as an eneray, and to
drive him frora Cabul. Lord Auckland, therefore, entered
into a treaty with Runjeet Singh and Shah Soojah-ool-
Moolk, the exiled representative of what we raay call the
legitimist rulers ol Afghanistan, for the restoration of the
latter to the throne of his ancestors, and for the destruc
tion of the power of Dost Mahoraed.
Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk was at the time living in exile,
without the faintest hope of ever again being restored to
his dominions. We pulled the poor man out of his
obscurity, told him that his people were yearning for
him, and that we would set him on his throne once
more. We conquered Dost Mahomed and dethroned him.
He made a bold and brilliant, sometimes even a splendid
resistance. As we approached Cabul, Dost Mahoraed
abandoned his capital and fled with a few horsemen
across the Indus. Shah Soojah entered Cabul accom
panied by the British officers. It was to have been a
triumphal entry. The hearts of those who believed in
his cause must have sunk within them when they saw
how the Shah was received by the people. The city
received him in sullen silence. Few of its people con
descended even to turn out to see hira as he passed. The
vast majority stayed away and disdained even to look at
him. One would have thought that the least observant
eye must have seen that his throne could not last a mo
ment longer than the time during which the strength of
Britain was willing to support it. The British army,
however, withdrew, leaving only a contingent of some
eight thousand men, besides the Shah's own hirelings, to
rnaintain him for the present. Sir W. Macnaghten seems
to have really believed that the work was done, and that
Shah Soojah was as safe on his throne as Queen Victoria.
He was destined to be very soon and very cruelly un
deceived. Dost Mahomed made more than one effort to regain
his place. He invaded Shah Soojah's dominions, and on
Noveraber 2, 1840, he won the admiration of the Eng
lish themselves by the brilliant stand he made against

58 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
them. In this battle of Purwandurrah victory might not
unreasonably have been claimed for Dost Mahomed.
But Dost Mahomed had the wisdom of a statesman as
well as the genius of a soldier. He knew well that he
could not hold out against the strength of England. , The
evening after his brilliant exploit in the field Dost Ma
homed rode quietly up to the quarters of Sir W. Mac
naghten, announced himself as Dost Mahomed, tendered
to the envoy the sword that had flashed so splendidly
across the field of the previous day's fight, and surren
dered himself a prisoner. His sword was returned ; he
was treated with all honor ; and a few days afterwards
he was sent to India, where a residence and a revenue
were assigned, to him.
But the withdrawal of Dost Mahomed from the scene
did nothing to secure the reign of the unfortunate Shah
Soojah. Sir W. Macnaghten was warned of danger, but
seemed to take no heed. Some fatal blindness appears
to have suddenly fallen on the eyes of our people in
Cabul. On Noveraber 2, 1841, an insurrection broke
out. Sir Alexander Burnes lived in the city itself ; Sir
W. Macnaghten and the railitary coraraanderj Major-
General Elphinstone, were with the troops iri cantonraents
at some little distance outside the city. The insurrec
tion raight have been put down in the first instance easily,
but it was allowed to grow up without atterapt at control.
Sir Alexander Bu'rnes could not be got to believe that it
was anything serious even when a fanatical and furious
mob were besieging his own house. The fanatics were
especially bitter against Burnes, because they believed
that he had been guilty of treachery. They accused hira
of having pretended to be the friend of Dost Mahomed,
deceived him, and brought the English into the country.
To the last Burnes refused to believe that he was in
danger. He harangued the raging mob, and endeavored
to bring thera to reason. He was raurdered in the
turault. He and his brother and all those with them
were hacked to pieces with Afghan knives. He was
only in his thirty-seventh year when he was mut-dered.
Fate seldom showed with more strange and bitter malice
her proverbial irony than when she raade hira the first

THE AFGHAN WAR. 59
victim of the policy adopted in despite of his best advice
and his strongest warnings.
The murder of Burnes was only a beginning. The
whole country threw itself into insurrection. ' The
Afghans attacked the cantonments and actually corapelled
the English to abandon the forts in which all our commis
sariat was stored. We were thus threatened with famine

Akbar Khan.
even if we could resist the eneray in arras. We were
strangely unfortunate in our civil and railitary leaders.
Sir W. Macnaghten was a man of high character and
good purpose, but he was weak and credulous. The
commander. General Elphinstone. was old, infirm, tor
tured by disease, broken down both in mind and body,
incapable of forming a purpose of his own, or of holding
to one suggested by anybody else. His second in com-

66 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
mand was a far stronger and abler raan, but unhappily
the two could never agree.
: A new figure appeared on the scene, a dark and a
fierce appiirition. This was Akbar Khan, the favorite
son of Dost Mahomed. He was a darmg, a clever, an
unscrupulous young man. From the moment when he
entered Cabul-he became the real leader of the insurrec
tion against Shah Soojah and us. Macnaghten, persuaded
by the military commander that the position of things
was hopeless, consented to enter into negotiations with
Akbar Khan. Akbar Khan 'received him at first with
contemptuous insolence — as a haughty conqueror receives
some ignoble and humiliated adversary. It was agreed
that the British troops should quit Afghanistan at once ;
that Dost Mahomed and his family should be sent back
to Afghanistan ; that on his return the unfortunate Shah
Soojah should be allowed to take himself off to India or
where he would ; and that some British officers should
be left at Cabul as hostages for the fulfilment of the
conditions. The evacuation did not take place at once, although
the fierce winter was setting in, and the snow was falling
heavily, ominously. On both sides there were dallyings
and delays. At last Akbar Khan raade a new and start
ling proposition to our envoy. It was that they two should
enter into a secret treaty, should unite their arms against
the other chiefs, and should keep Shah Soojah on the
throne as nominal king, with Akbar Khan as his vizier.
Macnaghten caught at the proposals. He had entered
into terms of negotiation with the Afghan chiefs together ;
he now consented to enter into a secret treaty with one
of the chiefs to turn their joint arms against the others.
It would be idle and shameful to attempt to defend such
a policy. When every excuse has been thought of, we
mtist still be glad to believe that there are not raany
t'nglishmen who would, under any circurastances, have
Consented eyen to give a hearing to the proposals of
A'kfcaf Khan.
Macnaghten's error was dearly expiated. He went
out alt' noon next day to confer with Akbar Khan on the
banks of the neighboring river. Three of his officers were

THE AFGHAN WAR. 6 1
with him. Akbar Khan was ominously surrounded by
friends and retainers. Not many words were spoken ; the
expected conference had hardly begun when a signal was
given or an order issued by Akbar Khan, and the envoy
and the officers were suddenly seized from behind. A
scene of wild confusion followed, in which hardly any
thing is clear and certain but the one raost horrible in
cident. The envoy struggled with Akbar Khan, who had
hiraself seized Macnaghten ; Akbar Khan drew from his
belt one of a pair of pistols which Macnaghten had pre
sented to him a short time before, and shot him through
the body. The fanatics who were crowding round hacked
the body to pieces with their knives. Of the three
officers one was killed on the spot ; the other two were
forced to mount Afghan horses and carried away as
prisoners. It seems certain that the treachery of Akbar, base as
it was, did not contemplate more than the seizure of the
envoy and his officers. On the fatal day the latter re
sisted and struggled ; Akbar Khan heard a cry of alarm
that the English soldiers were coming out of canton
raents to rescue the envoy ; and, wild with passion, he
suddenly drew his pistol and fired. This was the state
raent raade again and again by Akbar Khan himself.
The explanation does not much relieve the darkness of
Akbar Khan's character. There is not the slightest
reason to suppose that he would have shrunk frora any
treachery or any cruelty which served his purpose. But
it is well to bear in mind that poor Macnaghten would
not have been murdered had he not consented to meet
Akbar Khan and treat with him on a proposition to
which an English official should never have listened.
The little English force in the cantonments did not
know until the following day that any calamity had be
fallen the envoy. On December 24, 1841, came a letter
from one of the officers seized by Akbar Khan, accom
panying- proposals for a treaty from' the Afghan chiefs. It
is hard now to understand how any English officers could
have consented to enter into terms with the murderers
of Macnaghten before his mangled body could well have
ceased to bleed. We can all see the difficulty of their

62 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
position. General Elphinstone and his second in com
raand. Brigadier Shelton, were convinced that it would be
equally impossible to stay where they were or to cut
their way through the Afghans. But it might have oc
curred to many that they were nevertheless not bound to
treat with the Afghans ; that they were not ordered by fate
to accept whatever the conquerors chose to offer. One
English officer of mark did counsel his superiors in this
spirit. This was Major Eldred Pottinger. Pottinger
was for cutting their way through all enemies and diffi
culties as far as they could, and then occupying the
ground with their dead bodies. But his advice was
hardly taken into consideration. It was determined to
treat with the Afghans ; and treating with the Afghans
now raeant accepting any terms the Afghans chose to
impose on their fallen enemies. In the negotiations that
went on some written documents were exchanged. One
of these, drawn up by the English negotiators, contains
an appeal to the Afghan conquerors which we believe to
be absolutely unique in the history of British dealings
with armed enemies. " In friendship, kindness and con
sideration are necessary, not overpowering the weak
with sufferings ! " .In friendship ! we appealed to the
friendship of Macnaghten's murderers ; to the friendship,
in any case, of the man whose father we had dethroned
and driven into exile. Not overpowering the weak with
sufferings! The weak were the English! One might
fancy he was reading the plaintive and piteous appeal of
sorae forlorn and feeble tribe of helpless half-breeds for
the mercy of arrogant and mastering rulers. Only the
other day, it would seem, these men had received in sur
render the bright sword of Dost Mahomed. Now they
could only plead for a little gentleness of consideration,
and had no thought of resistance, and did not any longer
seem to know how to die.
We accepted the terras of treaty offered to us. The
English were at once to take themselves off out of
Afghanistan, giving up all their guns except six, which
they were allowed to retain for their necessary defence in
their mournful journey home ; they were to leave behind
all the treasure, and to guarantee the payment of some-

THE AFGHAN WAR. 63
thing additional for the
safe conduct of the poor
little army to Peshawur or
to Jellalabad ; and they
were to hand over six
officers as hostages for
the due fulfilment of the
conditions. The condi
tions included the imme
diate release of Dost
Mahomed and his faraily
and their return to
fl Afghanistan. When the
treaty was signed, the
officers who had been
seized when Macnaghten
was murdered were re
leased. The withdrawal from
Cabul began. It was the
heart of a cruel winter.
The English had to
make their way through
the awful Pass of Koord
Cabul. This stupendous
gorge runs for some five
miles between mountain
ranges so narrow, lofty
and grim, that in the win
ter season the rays of the
sun can hardly pierce its
darkness even at the
noontide. Down the centre dashed a precipitous
mountain torrent so fiercely that the stern frost of
that terrible time could not stay its course. The snow
lay in masses on the ground ; the rocks and stones that
raised their heads above the snow in the way of the un
fortunate travellers were slippery with frost. Soon the
white snow began to be stained and splashed with blood.
Fearful as this Koord Cabul Pass was, it was only a
degree worse than the road which for two whole days

The Awful Pass of Koord Cabul.

64 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the English had to traverse to reach it. The army
which set out from Cabul numbered more than four thou
sand fighting men, of whom Europeans, it should be
said, formed but a sraall proportion ; and sorae twelve
thousand carap followers of all kinds. There were also
many women and children. Lady Macnaghten, widow
of the murdered envoy ; Lady Sale, whose gallant hus
band was holding Jellalabad at the near end of the Khy-
ber Pass towards the Indian frontier ; Mrs. Sturt, her
daughter, soon to be widowed by the death of her young
husband ; Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, and many
other pitiable fugitives. The winter journey would have
been cruel and dangerous enough in time of peace ; but
this journey had to be accomplished in the midst of
something far worse than common war. At every step
of the road, every opening of the rocks, the unhappy
crowd of confused and heterogeneous fugitives were be
set by bands of savage fanatics, who with their long guns
and long knives were murdering all they could reach.
The English soldiers, weary, week and crippled by frost;
could make but a poor fight against the savage Afgans.
Men, women and children, horses, ponies, camels, the
wounded, the dying, the dead, all crowded together in
almost inextricable confusion araong the snow and amid
the relentless enemies.
Akbar Khan constantly appeared onthe scene during
this journey of terror. At every opening or break of the
long straggling flight he and his little band of followers
showed themselves on the horizon, trying still to protect
the English from utter ruin, as he declared ; come to
gloat over their misery and to see that it was surely ac
complished, some of the unhappy English were ready to
believe. Yet his presence was something that seeraed to
give a hope of protection. Akbar Khan at length
startled the English by a proposal that the women and
children who were with the array should be handed over
to his custody to be conveyed by him in safety to Pe.sha-
wur. There was, nothing better to be done. The
women and children and the married men whose wives
were among this party were taken from the unfortunate
array and placed under- the care of Akbar Khan, and

THE AFGHAN WAR. 65
Lady Macnaghten had to undergo the agony of a per
sonal interview with the man whose own hand had killed
her husband. Akbar Khan was kindly in his language,
and declared to the unhappy widow that he would give
his right arm to undo, if it were possible, the deed that
he had done.
The raarch was resuraed ; new horrors set in ; new
heaps of corpses stained the snow ; and then Akbar Khan
presented himself with a fresh proposition. He demanded
that general Elphinstone, the commander, with his second
in coramand, and also one other officer, should hand
themselves over to him as hostages. He promised if this
were done to exert himself more than before to restrain
the fanatical tribes, and also to provide the army in the
Koord Cabul Pass with provisions. There was nothing
for it but to submit ; and the English general hiraself be
carae, with the woraen and children, a captive in the
hands of the inexorable eneray.
Then the march of the army, without a general, went
on again. Soon it became the story of a general without
an army ; before very long there was neither general nor
army. It is idle to lengthen a tale of mere horrors.
The straggling remnant of an array entered the JugduUuk
Pass — a dark, steep, narrow, ascending path between
crags. The raiserable toilers found that the fanatical,
implacable tribes had barricaded the pass. All was over.
The army of Cabul was finally extinguished in that bar
ricaded pass. It was a trap ; the British were taken in
it. A few raere fugitives escaped frora the scene of
actual slaughter, and were on the road to Jellalabad,
where Sale and his little army were holding their own.
When they were within sixteen miles of Jellalabad the
nuraber was reduced to six. Of these six, five were
killed by straggHng marauders on the way. One raan
alone reached Jellalabad to tell the tale. Literally one
raan, Dr. Brydon, came to Jellalabad out of a moving
host which had numbered in all some sixteen thousand
when it' set out on its raarch. The curious eye will
search through history or fiction in vain for any picture
more thrilling with the suggestions of an awful catas
trophe than that of this solitary survivor, faint and reel-

66 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
ing on his jaded horse, as he appeared under the walls
of Jellalabad, to bear the tidings of our Thermopylae of
pain, and shame.
This is the crisis of the story. The rest is all re
covery. The garrison at Jellalabad had received before
Dr. Brydon's arrival an intimation that they were to go
out and march towards India in accordance with the
terms of the treaty extorted from Elphinstone at Cabul.
They very properly declined to be bound by a treaty
which, as General Sale rightly conjectured, had been
" forced from our envoy and military coraraander with
the knives at their throats." General Sale's deterralna
tion was clear and siraple. " I propose to hold this place
on the part of Governraent until I receive its order to
the contrary." This resolve of Sale's was really the turn
ing point of the history. Akbar Khan besieged Jellalabad.
The garrison held out fearlessly; they resisted every at
tempt of Akbar Khan to advance upon their works, and
at length, when it became certain that General Pollock
was forcing the Khyber Pass to corae to their relief, they
issued boldly out of their forts, forced a battle on the
Afghan chief, and completely defeated him. Before
Pollock, having gallantly fought his way through the
Khyber Pass, had reached Jellalabad the beleaguering
army had been entirely defeated and dispersed. General
Nott at Candahar was ready now to cooperate with
General Sale and General Pollock for any raoveraent on
Cabul which the authorities raight advise or sanction.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Shah Soojah, whom we had
restored with so rauch porap of announcement to the
throne of his ancestors, was dead. He was assassinated
in Cabul, soon after the departure of the British, by the
orders of some of the chiefs who detested hira ; and his
body, stripped of its royal robes and its many jewels, was
flung into a ditch. All Shah Soojah owed to us was a
few weeks of idle porap and absurd dreams, a bitter
awakening and a shameful death.
During this tirae a new Governor-General had arrived
in India. Lord Auckland's time had run out, and dur
ing its latter months he had become nerveless and de-.
spondent because of the utter failure of the policy which

THE AFGHAN WAR. 67
in an evil hour for himself and his country he had been
induced to undertake. He was an honorable, kindly
gentleman, and the news of all the successive calamities
fell upon hira with a crushing, an overwhelraing weight.
He seemed to have no other idea than that of getting all
our troops as quickly as might be out of Afghanistan,
and shaking the dust of the place off our feet for ever.
He was, in fact, a broken man.
His successor was Lord Ellenborough. He was well
acquainted with the affairs of India. He had come into
office under Sir Robert Peel on the resignation of the
Melbourne Ministry. He was looked upon as a man of
great ability and energy. It was known that his personal
predilections were for the career of a soldier. He was
fond of telling his hearers then and since that the life of
a camp was that which he should have loved to lead.
He was a man of great and, in certain lights, apparently
splendid abihties. There was a certain Orientalism
about his language, his aspirations and his policy. He
loved gorgeousness and dramatic — ill-natured persons
said theatric — effects. Life arranged itself in his eyes as
a superb and showy pageant of which it would have been
his ambition to form the central figure. His eloquence
was often of a lofty and noble order. But if Lord Ellen
borough was in some respects a man of genius, he was also
a man whose love of mere effects often made hira seera
like a quack. He was a man of great abilities and ear
nestness, who had in hira a strong dash of the play-actor,
who at the most serious moment of emergency always
thought of how to display himself effectively, and would
have met the peril of an empire with an over-mastering
desire to show to the best personal advantage.
Lord EUenborough's appointment was hailed by all
parties in India as the most auspicious that could be
raade. But those who thought in this way found thera
selves suddenly disappointed. Lord Ellenborough
uttered and wrote a few showy sentences about reveng
ing our losses and " re-establishing in all its original
.brilliancy our military character," and then at once he
announced that the only object of the Government was
to get the troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as raight

06 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
be, and almost on any terms. A general outcry was
raised in India and among the troops in Afghanistan
against the extraordinary policy which Lord Ellenborough
propounded. Englishmen, in fact, refused to believe in
it ; took it as something that must be put aside. The
Governor-General himself after a while quietly put it
aside. He allowed the military commanders in Afghan
istan to pull their resources together and prepare for
inflicting signal chastisement on the enemy. They were
not long in doing this. They encountered the enemy
wherever he showed- hiraself and defeated him. They
recaptured town after toWn, until at length, on Septem
ber 15, 1842, General Pollock's force entered Cabul. A
few days after, as a lasting mark of retribution for the
crimes which had been comraitted there, the British com
mander ordered the destruction of the great bazaar of
Cabul, where the mangled remains of the unfortunate
envoy Macnaghten had been exhibited in brutal triumph
and joy to the Afghan populace.
The captives, or hostages, who were hurried away that
terrible January night at the command of Akbar Khan
had yet to be recovered. There was a British general
who was disposed to leave thera to their fate and take
no trouble about thera, and who declared himself under
the conviction, from the tenor of all Lord EUenborough's
despatches, that the recovery of the prisoners was " a
matter of indifference to the Government." Better coun
sels however prevailed. General Pollock insisted on an
effort being made to recover the prisoners before the
troops began to return to India, and he appointed to this
noble duty the husband of one of the hostage ladies — Sir
Robert Sale. The prisoners were recovered with greater
ease than was expected — so many of them as were yet
alive. Poor General Elphinstone had long before suc
cumbed to disease and hardship. The ladies had gone
through strange privations. They suffered almost every
fierce alternation of cold and heat. They had to live on
the coarsest fare ; they w-ere lodged in a manner which
would have made the most wretched prison accommoda-.
tion of a civilized country seem luxurious by comparison ;
they were in constant uncertainty and fear, not knowing-

THE AFGHAN WAR. 69
what might befall. Yet they seenied to have held up their
courage and spirits wonderfully well, and to have kept
the hearts of the children alive with mirth and sport at
moments of the utmost peril. They were carried off to
the wild rugged regions of the Indian Caucasus, under
the charge of one of Akbar Khan's soldiers of fortune.
This man had begun to suspect that things were well-nigh
hopeless with Akbar Khan. He was induced to enter
into an agreement with the prisoners securing him a
large reward, and a pension for life, if he enabled them to
escape. He accordingly declared that he renounced his
allegiance to Akbar Khan : all the more readily, seeing
that news came in of the chief's total defeat and flight,
no one knew whither. The prisoners and their escort,
lately their gaoler and guards, set forth on their way
to General Pollock's camp. On their way they met the
English parties sent out to seek for them.
There is a very different ending to the episode of the
English captives in Bokhara. Colonel Stoddart, who
had been sent to the Persian camp in the beginning of
all these events to insist thatPersia must desist from the
siege of Herat, was sent subsequently on a mission to
the Ameer of Bokhara. The Ameer threw Stoddart into
prison. Captain Conolly undertook tp endeavor to effect
the liberation of Stoddart, but could only succeed in shar
ing his sufferings, and at last his fate. Nothing was
done to obtain their release beyond diplomatic efforts,
and appeals to the magnanimity of the Ameer which had
not any particular effect. Dr. Wolff, the celebrated trav
eller and missionary, afterwards undertookan expedition
of his own in the hope of saving the unfortunate captives ;
but he only reached Bokhara in time to hear that they
had been put to death. The moment and actual manner
of their death cannot be known to positive certainty, but
there is httle doubt they were executed on the same day
by the orders of the Ameer.
On October i, 1842, exactly four years since Lord Auck
land's proclamation announcing and justifying the inter
vention to restore Shah Soojah, Lord Ellenbordugh
issued another proclamation announcing the complete
failure and the revocation of the policy of his predeces-

7°

A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.

sor. Lord Ellenborough declared that " to force a sover
eign upon a reluctant people would be as inconsistent
with the policy as it is with the principles of the British
Government ; " that therefore they would recognize any
Government approved by the Afghans themselves ; that
the British arras would be withdrawn frora Afghanistan,
and that the Government of India would reraain "con
tent with the limit nature appears to have assigned to its
erapire." Dost Mahomed was released from his captiv
ity, and before long was ruler of Cabul once again.
Thus ended the story of our expedition to reorganize the
internal condition of Afghanistan.

Cabul.

CHAPTER V.
peel's ADMINISTRATION.
"The year 1843," said O'Connell, "is and shall be the
great Repeal year." In the year 1843, at all events,
O'Connell was by far the raost prorainent politician in
these countries who had never been in office. O'Connell
was a thorough Celt. He represented all the impulsive
ness, the quick-changing emotions, the passionate, exag
gerated loves and hatreds, the heedlessness of stateraent,
the tendency to confound impres.sions with facts, the
ebullient huraor — all the other quaUties that are espe
cially characteristic of the Celt. As the orator of a popu
lar assembly, as the orator of a monster meeting, he
probably never had an equal in these countries. He had
many of the physical endowments that are especially
favorable to success in such a sphere. He had a hercu
lean frame, a stately presence, a face capable of express
ing easily and effectively the raost rapid alternations of
raood, and a voice which all hearers admit to have been
alraost unrivalled for .strength and sweetness. Its power,
its pathos, its passion, its music have been described in
words of positive rapture by men who detested O'Connell,
and who would rather if they could have denied to him
any claira on public attention, even in the matter of
voice. He spoke without studied preparation, and of
course had all the defects of such a style. He fell into
repetition and into carelessness of construction ; he was
hurried away into exaggeration and soraetimes into
mere bombast. But he had all the peculiar success, too,
which rewards the orator who can speak without prepara-

72 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
tion. He always spoke right to the hearts of his hearers.
He entered the House of Coraraons when he was nearly
fifty-four years of age. Most persons supposed that the
style of speaking he had forraed, first in addressing
juries, and next in rousing Irish raobs, must cause his
¦failure when he carae to appeal to the unsympathetic and
fastidious House of Commons. But it is certain that
O'Connell became one of the most successful Parliamen
tary orators of his time.
He had borne the leading part in carrying Catholic
Emancipation. It must in a short tirae have been car
ried if O'Connell had never lived. But it was earned just
then by virtue of O'Connell's bold agitation. O'Connell
and the Irish people saw that Catholic Emancipation had
been yielded to pressure rather than to justice ; it is not
wonderful if they thought that pressure might prevail as
well in the matter of Repeal. Nor is there any reason to
doubt that O'Connell himself believed in the possibility
of accomplishing his purpose. We are apt now to think
ofthe Union between England and Ireland as of time-
honored endurance. It had been scarcely thirty years
in existence when O'Connell entered Parliaraent. To
O'Connell it appeared simply as a raodern innovation
which had nothing to be said for it except that a raajority
of Englishraen had by threats and bribery forced it on a
majority of Irishmen. He perceived the possibility of
forming a powerful party in Parliament, which would be
free to cooperate with all English parties without coales
cing with any, and raight thus turn the balance of factions
and decide the fate of Ministries. He believed that
under a constitutional Governraent the will of four-fifths
of a nation, if peacefully, perseveringly and energetically
expressed, raust sooner or later be triuraphant.
In raany respects O'Connell differed from more modern
Irish Nationalists. He was a thorough Liberal. He
was a devoted opponent of negro slavery ; he was a
staunch Free Trader ; he was a friend of popular educa
tion ; he was an enemy to all excess ; he was opposed to
strikes ; he was an advocate of religious equality every
where. He preached the doctrine of constitutional agita
tion strictly, and declared that no political Reform was

peel's ADMINISTRATION. 73
worth the shedding of one drop of blood. It may be
asked how it came about that with all these excellent
attributes, which all critics now allow to him, O'Connell
was so detested by the vast majority of the English peo
ple. One reason undoubtedly is that O'Connell deliber
ately revived and worked up for his political purposes
the almost extinct national hatreds of Celt and Saxon.
As a phrase of political controversy, he may be said to
have invented the word " Saxon." In the coraraon opin
ion of Englishmen, all the evils of Ireland, all the troubles
attaching to the connection between the two countries,
had arisen from this unmitigated, rankling hatred of Celt
for Saxon. Yet O'Connell was in no sense a revolution
ist. Of the Irish rebels of '98 he spoke with as savage an
intolerance as the narrowest English Tories could show
in speaking of himself. The Tones, and Emmets, and
Fitzgeralds, whom so many of the Irish people adored,
were in O'Connell's eyes, and in his words, only " a gang
of miscreants." His theory and his policy were that Ire
land was to be saved by a dictatorship entrusted to him
self. He had a Parliaraentary system by raeans of which he
proposed to approach raore directly the question of Re
peal of the Union. He got seats in the House of Cora
raons for a nuraber of his sons, his nephews, and his
sworn retainers. He had an alraost suprerae control
over the Irish constituencies, and whenever a vacancy
took place he sent down a Repeal candidate to contest
it. He always inculcated and insisted on the necessity
of order and peace. Indeed, as he proposed to carry on
his agitation altogether by the help of the bishops and
the priests, it was not possible for him, even were he so in
clined, to conduct it on any other than peaceful principles.
" The man who commits a crime gives strength to the
enemy,'' was a raaxira which he was never weary of
impressing upon his followers. The Temperance move
ment set on foot with such remarkable and sudden suc
cess by Father Mathew was at once turned to account
by O'Connell. He called upon his follo"wers to join it,
and was always boasting of his " noble army of Teetotal
ers." He started that system of agitation by monster

74

A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.

meetings which has since his time been regularly estab
lished among us as a principal part of all political organ
izations for a definite purpose. He founded in Dublin a
Repeal Association w-hich raet on Burgh Quay, in a place
which he styled Conciliation Hall. The faraous monster
meetings were usually held on a Sunday, on some open
spot, mostly selected for its historic fame, and with all
the picturesque surroundings of hill and stream. From
the dawn of the sumraer day the Repealers were throng
ing to the scene of the raeeting. "They came from all
parts of the neighboring country for miles and miles.
They were commonly
marshalled and guided by
their parish priests. They
all attended the services
of their Church before the
meeting began.
O'Connell hiraself, it is
needless to say, was al
ways the great orator of
the day. His magnificent
voice enabled him to do
what no genius and no
eloquence less aptly en
dowed could have done.
He could send his lightest
word thrilling to the ex
treme of the vast con
course of people whom he
desired to move. He
swayed them with the
magic of an absolute
control. He understood
all the moods of his people ; to address himself to them
came naturally to hira. He rnade thera roar with laugh
ter ; he made them weep ; he made thera thrill with indig
nation. As the shadow runs over a field, so the
irapression of his varying eloquence ran over the assem
blage. He commanded the emotions of his hearers as a
consuraraate conductor sways the energies of his orches
tra.

Father Mathew.

peel's ADMINISTRATION.

75

The crowds who attended the raonster raeetings carae
in a sort of military order and with a certain parade of
military discipline. At the raeeting held on the Hill of
Tara, where O'Connell stood beside the stone said to
have been used for the coronation of the ancient mon-

Where O'Connell Stood Be.sxde the Stone Used for the
Coronation of the Ancient Monarchs of Ireland.

archs of Ireland, it is declared on the authority of care
ful and unsympathetic witnesses that a quarter of a
million of people must have been present. "The Govern
ment naturally felt that there was a very considerable
danger in the massing together of such vast crowds of
men in something like military array and under the abso-

76 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
lute leadership of one man, who openly avowed that he
had called them together to show England what was the
strength her statesmen would have to,fear if they contin
ued to deny Repeal to his demand. The Governraent at
last resolved to interfere. A raeeting was announced to
be held at Clontarf on Sunday, October 8, 1843. Clon-
tarf is near Dublin, and is faraous in Irish history as the
scene of a great victory of the -Irish over their Danish
invaders. It was intended that this raeeting should sur
pass in numbers and in earnestness the assemblage at
Tara. On the very day before the 8th the Lord-Lieuten
ant issued a proclamation prohibiting the meeting as
"calculated to excite reasonable and well-grounded ap
prehension " in that its object was " to accomplish alter
ations in the laws and. constitution of the realm by
intimidation and the demonstration of physical force."
O'Connell's power over' the people was never shown
raore effectively than in the control which at that critical .
moment he was still able to exercise. O'Connell declared
that the orders of the Lord-Lieutenant must be obeyed ;
that the meeting must not take place ; and that the people
must return to their homes. The " uncrowned king," as
some of his admirers loved, to call hira, was obeyed, and
no raeeting was held..
From that moment, however, the great power of the
Repeal agitation was gone. It was now made clear that
he did not intend, to- have resort to force. The young
and fiery followers of the great agitator renounced all
faith in him. All the imposing demonstrations of physi
cal strength lost their value when it was made positively
known that, they were only demonstrations, and that
nothing was ever to corae of them.
The Government at once proceeded to the prosecution
of O'Connell and some of his principal associates. They
were charged with conspiring to raise and excite disaf
fection among her Majesty's subjects, to excite them to
hatred and contempt of the Government and Constitution
of the realm. The jury found O'Connell guilty along
with most of his associates, and he was sentenced to
twelve months' imprisonment and a fine of 2,000/. The
others received lighter sentences. O'Connell appealed to

PEELS ADMINISTRATION. 77
the House of Lords against the sentence. In the mean
time he issued a proclamation to the Irish people com
raanding them to keep perfectly quiet and not to commit
any offence against the law. " Every man," said one of
his proclamations, " who is guilty of the slightest breaqh
of the peace is an enemy of rae and of Ireland." The
Irish people took him at his word and reraained perfectly
quiet. O'Connell and his principal associates were comraitted
to Richmond Prison, in Dublin. The trial had been de
layed in various ways, and the sentence- was not pro
nounced until May 24, 1844. The appeal to the House
of Lords was heard in the following Septeraber, the
judgraent was reversed, and O'Connell and his associates
were set at liberty. There was all manner of national
rejoicing when the decision of the House of Lords set
O'Connell and his fellow-prisoners free. There were
illuminations and banquets and raeetings and triuraphal
processions, renewed declarations of allegiance to the
great leader, and renewed protestations on his part that
Repeal was coraing. But his reign was over. His
health broke down raore and more every day. He be
came seized with a profound melancholy. Only one
desire seeraed left to hira, the desire to close his storray
career in Rome. He longed to he down in the shadow
of the dome of St. Peter's and rest there, and there die.
His yo.uth had been wild in more ways than one, and he
had long been under the influence of a profpund peni
tence. He had killed a man in a duel, and was through
all his after life haunted by regret for the deed, although
it was really forced on him, and he had acted only as
any other raan of his time would have acted in such con
ditions. But now in his old and sinking days all the
errors of his youth and his strong manhood came back
upon him, and he longed to steep the painful memories
in the sacred influences of Rome. He hurried to Italy.
He reached Genoa. His strength wholly failed hira
there, and he died, still far from Rome, on May 15, 1847.
Some iraportant steps in the progress of what may be
described as social legislation are part of the history of
Peel's Government. The Act of Parliament which pro-

78 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
hibited absolutely the employment of woraen and girls in
mines and collieries was rendered unavoidable by the
fearful exposures made through the instrumentality of a
Commission appointed to inquire into the whole subject.
This Coraraission was appointed on the raotion of the
then Lord Ashley, since better known as the Earl of
Shaftesbury, a man who during the whole of a long
career has always devoted himself to the task of bright
ening the lives and lightening the burdens of the working
classes and the poor. In sorae of the coal mines woraen
were literally employed as beasts of burden. Lord Ash
ley had the happiness and the honor of putting a stop to
this infamous sort of labor for ever by the Act of 1842,
which declared that, after a certain limited period, no
woraan or girl whatever should be eraployed in raines
and collieries.
Lord Ashley was less completely successful in his
endeavor to secure a ten hours' limitation for the daily
labor of women and young persons in factories. By
a vigorous annual agitation on the general subject of
factory labor, he brought the Government up to the
point of undertaking legislation on the subject. They
first introduced a bill which corabined a limitation of the
labor of children in factories with a plan for compulsory
education among the children. Afterwards the Govern
ment brought in another bill, which becarae in the end
the Factories Act of 1844. It was during the passing of
this measure that Lord Ashley tried unsuccessfully to in
troduce his ten hours' limit. The bill diminished the
working hours of children under thirteen years of age,
and fixed them at six and a half hours each day ; ex
tended somewhat the tirae during which they were to be
under daily instruction, and did a good many other use
ful and wholesome things. The principle of legislative
interference to protect youthful workers in factories had
been already established by the Act of 1833 : and Lord
Ashley's agitation only obtained for it a somewhat ex
tended application. It has since that time again and
again received further extension.
Many other things done by Sir Robert Peel's Govern
ment aroused bitter controversy and agitation. There

PEEL S ADMINISTRATION. 79
was, for example, the grant to the Roman Catholic Col
lege of Maynooth, a college for the education specially of
young men who sought to enter the ranks of the priest
hood. The grant was not a new thing. Since before
the Act of Union a grant had been made for the college.
The Government of Sir Robert Peel only proposed to
make that which was insufficient sufficient ; to enable the
college to be kept in repair and to accomplish the pur
pose for which it was founded. Yet the Ministerial prop
osition called up a very tempest of clamorous bigotry all
over the country. Peel carried his raeasure, although
nearly half his own party in the House of Commons
voted against it on the second reading.
There was objection within the Ministry, as well as
without, to the Maynooth grant. Mr. Gladstone, who had
been doing admirable work, first as Vice-President, and
afterwards as President, of the Board of Trade, resigned
his office because of this proposal. He acted, perhaps,
with a too sensitive chivalry. He had written a work on
the relations of Church and State, and he did not think
the views expressed in that book left him free to co-oper
ate in the Ministerial measure. Sorae staid politicians
were shocked, many smiled, not a few sneered. The
public in general applauded the spirit of disinterestedness
which dictated the young statesman's act.
Mr. Gladstone, however, supported by voice and vote
the Queen's Colleges scheme, another of Peel's measures
which aroused much clamor. The proposal of the Gov
ernment was to establish in Ireland three colleges, one in
Cork, the second in Belfast, and the third in Galway, and
to affihate these to a new university to be called the
" Queen's University in Ireland." The teaching in these
colleges was to be purely secular. Nothing could be
raore admirable than the intentions of Peel and his col
leagues. Peel carried his measure ; but from both sides
of the House and frora the extrerae party in each Church
carae an equally vigorous denunciation of the proposal,
to separate secular frora religious education.
One small installment of justice to a much injured and
long suffering religious body was accomplished without
any trouble by Sir Robert Peel's Government. This

8o A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
was the bill for reraoving the test by which Jews were
excluded frora certain municipal offices. A Jew raight
be high sheriff of a county, or Sheriff of London, but,
with an inconsistency which was as ridiculous as it was
narrow-minded, he was prevented frora becoming a
mayor, an alderman, or even a member of. the Common
Council. The oath which had to be taken included the,
words, " on the true faith of a Christian." Lord Lynd
hurst, the Lord Chancellor, introduced a raeasure to get
rid of this absurb-anomaly ; and the House of Lords,
which had firmly rejected similar proposals of relief be
fore, passed it without any difficulty. It was of course
passed by the House of Coraraons, which had done its
best to introduce the reforra in previous sessions, and
without success.
The Bank Charter Act, separating the issue from the
banking department of the Bank of England, limiting the
issue of notes to a fixed amount of securities, requiring
the whole of the further circulation to be on a basis of
bullion, and prohibitin.g the formation of any new banks
of issue, is a characteristic and an important raeasure of
Peel's Governraent. To Peel, too, we owe the establish-
raent of the incorae tax on its present basis — a doubtful
boon. The copyright question was at least advanced a
stage. Railways were regulated. The railway mania
and railway panic also belong to this active period. The
country went wild with railway speculation. The vulgar
and flashy successes of one or two lucky adventurers
turned the heads of the whole community. For a time it
seemed to be a national article of faith that the capacity
of the country to absorb new railway schemes and raake
them profitable was unlimited, and that lo make a for
tune one had only to take shares in anything.
An odd feature of the tirae was the outbreak of what
were called the Rebecca riots in Wales. These riots
arose out of the anger and impatience of the people at
the great increase of toll-bars and tolls on the public
roads. Sorae one, it was supposed, had hit upon a pas
sage in Genesis which supplied a motto for their griev
ance and their coraplaint. " And they blessed Rebekah,
and said unto her ... let thy seed possess the gate of

peel's ADMINISTRATION. 8 1
those which hate thera." They set about accordingly to
possess very effectually the gates of those which hated
them. Mobs, led by men in women's clothes, assembled
every night, destroyed turnpikes, and dispersed. Blood
was shed in conflicts with police and soldiers. At last
the Government succeeded in putting down the riots, and
had the wisdom to appoint a Coraraissioner to inquire into
the cause of so much disturbance : and the commission,
as will readily be imagined, found that there were genu
ine grievances at the bottora of the popular excitement.
The farmers and the laborers were poor ; the tolls were
seriously oppressive.- The Government dealt lightly
with raost of the rioters who had been captured, and in
troduced raeasures which removed the raost serious
grievances. Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, brought him
self and the Government into some trouble by authoriz
ing the Post Office to open some of the letters of Joseph
Mazzini, the Italian exile. The public e.'ccitement was at
first very great ; but it soon subsided. The reports of
Parliaraentary committees appointed by the two Houses
showed that all Governments had exercised the right, but
naturally with decreasing frequency and greater caution
of late years ; and that there was no chance now of its
being seriously abused. One remark it is right to make.
An exile is sheltered in a country like England on the
assumption that he does not involve her in responsibility
and danger by using her protection as a shield behind
which to contrive plots and organize insurrections against
foreign Governments. It is certain that Mazzini did
raake use of the shelter England gave hini for such a
purpose. It would in the end be to the heavy injury of
all fugitives from despotic rule if to shelter thera brought
such consequences on the countries that offered them a
home. The Peel Administration had wars of its own. Scinde
was annexed by Lord Ellenborough in consequence of
the disputes which had arisen between us and the
Ameers, whom we accused of having broken faith with

82 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
US. Peel and his colleagues accepted the annexation.
None of them liked it ; but none saw how it could be un
done. Later on the Sikhs invaded our territory by cross
ing the Sutlej in great force. Sir Hugh Gough, after
wards Lord Gough, fought several fierce battles with
them before he could conquer them ; and even then they
were only conquered for the tirae.
We were at one raoraent apparently on the very verge
of what raust have proved a far more serious war much
nearer home, in consequence of the dispute that arose
between this country and France about Tahiti and Queen
Pomare. Queen Pomare was sovereign of the island of
Tahiti, in the South Pacific, the Otaheite of Captain
Cook. She had been induced or corapelled to put her
self and her dorainion under the protection of France ; a
step which was highly displeasing to her subjects. Sorae
ill-feeling towards the French residents of the island was
shown; and the French adrairal, who had induced or
compelled the queen to put herself under French protec
tion, now suddenly appeared off the coast, and called on
her to hoist the French flag above her own. She re
fused ; and he instantly effected a landing on the island,
pulled down her flag, raised that of France in its place,
and proclaimed that the island was French territory.
His act was at once disavowed by the French Govern
ment. But Queen Pomare had appealed to the Queen
of England for assistance. While the more hot-headed
on both sides of the English Qhannel were snarling at
each other, the difficulty was iraraensely coraplicated by
the French commandant's seizure of a missionary named
Pritchard, who had been our consul in the island up to
the deposition of Pomare. Pritchard was flung into
prison, and only released to be expelled from the island.
He carae horae to England with his story ; and his ar
rival was the signal for an outburst of indignation all
over the country. In the end the French Government
agreed to compensate Pritchard for his sufferings and
losses. Queen Pomare was nominally restored to
power, but the French protection proved as stringent as
if it were a sovereign rule. She might as well have
pulled down her flag for all the sovereign right it se-

peel's ADMINISTRATION. 83
cured to her. She died thirty-four years after, and her
death recalled to the memory of the English public the
long-forgotten fact she had once so nearly been the
cause of a war between England and France.
The Ashburton Treaty and the Oregon Treaty belong
alike to the history of Peel's Administration. The Ash
burton Treaty bears date August 9. 1842, and arranges
finally the north-western boundary between the British
Provinces of North America and the United States. More
than once the dispute about the boundary line inthe Ore
gon region had very nearly become an occasion for war be
tween England and the United States. On June 15,
1846, the Oregon Treaty settled the question for that
time at least. Vancouver's Island remained to Great
Britain, and the free navigation of the Colurnbia River
was secured. The question came up again for discus
sion in 1 87 1, and was finally settled by the arbitration of
the Emperor of Germany.
¦During Peel's tirae we catch a last glimpse of the
famous Arctic navigator. Sir John Franklin. He sailed
on the expedition which was doomed to be his last, on
May 26, 1845, with his two vessels, Erebus and Terror.
Not rauch raore is heard of him as araong the living.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE.
The famous Corn Law of 1815 was a copy of the
Corn Law of 1670. The former raeasure iraposed a
duty on the iraportation of foreign grain which araounted
to prohibition. Wheat raight be exported upon the pay
raent of one shilling per quarter Customs duty ; but im
portation was practically prohibited until the price of
wheat had reached eighty shillings a quarter. The Corn
Law of 181 5 was hurried through Parliaraent, absolutely
closing the ports against the iraportation of foreign
grain until the price of our horae-grown grain had
reached the raagic figure of eighty shillings a quarter.
It was, hurried through, despite the most earnest, peti
tions from the comraercial and manufacturing classes. A
great deal of popular disturbance attended the passing of
the raeasure. "There were riots in London, and in many
parts of the country. After the Corn Law of 1815, thus
ominously introduced, there were Sliding Scale Acts,
having for their business to establish a varying system of
duty, so that, according as the price of home-produced
wheat rose to a certain height, the duty on imported
wheat sank in proportion. The principle of all these
measures was the same. It was founded on the assump-

the ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 85
tion that the corn grew for the benefit of the grower first
of all ; and that until he had been secured in a handsorae
profit the public at large had no right to any reduction
in the cost of food. 'When the harvest Was a good one,
and the golden grain was plenty, then the soul of the
grower was afraid, and he called out to Parliaraent to
protect hini against the calamity of having to sell his
corn any cheaper than in years of famine. He did not
see all the tirae that if the prosperity of the country in
general was enhanced, he too must come to benefit by it.
A movement against the Corn Laws began in London.
An Anti-Corn Law Association on a small scale was
forraed. Its list of members bore the names of more than
twenty merabers of Parliament, and for a tirae the society
had a look of vigor about it. It carae to nothing, however.
London has never been found an effective nursery of agi
tation. It has hardly ever made or represented thor
oughly the public opinion of England during any great
crisis. A new centre of operations had to be sought, and
in the year 1838 a raeeting was held in Manchester to
consider raeasures necessary to be adopted for bringing
about the coraplete repeal of the obnoxious Laws. The
Manchester Chamber of Comraerce adopted a petition to
Parliament against the Corn Laws. The Anti-Corn Law
agitation had been fairly launched. Frora that tirae it
grew and grew in iraportance and strength. Meetings
were held in various towns of England and Scotland.
Associations were formed everywhere to co-operate
with the raoveraent which had its headquarters in Man
chester. The norainal leader of the Free Trade party in Parlia
ment was for raany years Mr. Charles Villiers, a man of
aristocratic family and surroundings, of remarkable
ability, and of the steadiest fidelity to the cause he had
undertaken. Mr. Villiers brought forward for several
successive sessions in the House of Coraraons a motion
in favor of the total repeal of the Corn Laws. His elo
quence and argumentative power served the great pur
pose of drawing the attention of the country to the whole
question, and making converts to the principle he advo
cated. But Mr. Villiers raight have gone on for all his

86 A short history of our own TIMES.
life dividing the House of Commons on the question of
Free Trade, without getting rauch nearer his object, if
it were not for the manner in which the cause was taken
up by the country, and more particularly by the great
raanufacturing towns of the North. Until the passing
of Lord Grey's Reform Bill these towns had no represen
tation in Parliament. They seemed destined after that
event to make up for their long exclusion frora represen
tative influence by taking the governraent of the country
into their own hands. Manchester, Birmingham, and
Leeds are no whit less important to the life of the nation
now than they were before Free Trade. But their su
premacy does not exist now as it did then. At that
time it was town against country ; Manchester represent
ing the town, and the whole Conservative (at one period
almost the whole landownin,g) body representing the
country. With the Manchester school, as it was called,
began a new kind of popular agitation. Up to that time
agitation raeant appeal to passion, and lived by provok
ing passion. The Manchester school introduced the
agitation which appealed to reason and arguraent only ;
which stirred men's hearts with figures of arithmetic
rather than figures of speech, and which converted mob
meetings to political economy.
The real leader of the movement was Mr. Richard
Cobden. Mr. Cobden was a man belonging to the yeo
man class. He had received but a moderate education.
His father dying while the great Free Trader was still
young, Richard Cobden was taken in charge by an uncle,
who had a wholesale warehouse in the City of London,
and who gave him employment there. Cobden afterwards
became a partner in a Manchester printed cotton factory ;
and he travelled occasionally on the comraercial business
of this establishment. He had a great liking for travel ;
but not by any raeans as the ordinary tourist travels ; the
interest of Cobden was not in scenery, or in art, or in
ruins, but in men. He studied the condition of countries
with a view to the manner in which it affected the men
and women of the present, and through thera was likely
to affect the future. On everything that he saw he turned
a quick and intelligent eye ; and he saw for himself and

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE.

87

thought for himself. Wherever he went, he wanted to
learn something. He had in abundance that peculiar
faculty which some gresit raen of widely different stamp

'SwJ^'

Mr. Richard Cobden.

from him and from each other have possessed, the faculty
which exacts from everyone with whora the owner comes
into contact sorae contribution to his stock" of inforraation
and to his advantage. Cobden could learn something

88 A short history of our own TIMES.
from everybody. He travelled very widely, for a time
when travelling was more difficult work than it is at pres
ent. He made himself familiar with most of the coun
tries of Europe, with many parts of the East, and what
¦was then a rarer accoraplishraent, with the United States
and Canada. He studied these countries and visited
; many of them again to compare early with later impres
sions. When he was about thirty years of age he began
to acquire a certain reputation as the author of pam
phlets directed against some of the pet doctrines of old-
fashioned statesmanship ; the balance of power in Europe;
the necessity of maintaining a State Church in Ireland;
the importance of allowing no European quarrel to go
on without England's intervention ; and similar dogmas.
The tongue, however, was his best weapon. If oratory
were a business and not an art — that is, if its test were
its success rather than its forra — then it raight be con
tended reasonably enough that Mr. Cobden was one of
the greatest orators England has ever known. Nothing
could exceed the persuasiveness of his style. His manner
was simple, sweet and earnest. It was transparently sin
cere. The light of its convictions shone all through it.
It aimed at the reason and the judgment of the listener,
and seemed to be convincing him to his own interest
against his prejudices. Cobden's .style was almost exclu
sively conversational, but he had a clear, well-toned voice,
with a quiet, unassuming power in it which enabled him
to make his words heard distinctly and without effort all
through the great meetings he had often to address.
His speeches were full of variety. He illustrated every
argument by something drawn from his personal ob
servation or from reading, and his illustrations were
always striking, appropriate and interesting. He had
a large amount of bright and winning huraor, and he
spoke the siraplest and' purest English. He never used
an unnecessary sentence or failed for a single moment
to raake his meaning clear. Many strong opponents
of Mr. Cobden's opinions confessed even during his life
time that they soraetimes found with dismay their raost
cherished convictions crurabling away beneath his flow
of easy argument. In the storray tiraes of national pas-

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 89
sion Mr. Cobden was less powerful. The apostle of com
mon sense and fair dealing, he had no sympathy with
the passions of men ; he did not understand them ; they
passed for nothing in his calculations. His judgment of
men and of nations was based far too much on his own
knowledge of his own motives and character. He knew
that in any given case he could always trust himself to act
the part of a just and prudent raan ; and he assumed that
all the world could be governed by the rules of prudence
and of equity. He cared little or nothing for mere senti
ments. Even where these had their root in some human
tendency that was noble in itself, he did not reverence
thera if they seeraed to stand in the way of raen's acting
peacefully and prudently. Thus he never represented
more than half the English character. He was always
out of sympathy with his countrymen on some great polit
ical question. But he seemed as if he were designed
by nature to conduct to such success an agitation as that
against the Corn Laws.
Mr. Cobden found sorae colleagues who were worthy
of hira. His chief companion in the campaign was Mr.
Bright. It is doubtful whether English public life has
ever produced a man who po.ssessed more of the quali
fications of a great orator than Mr. Bright. He had a
commanding presence, a massive figure, a large head, a
handsome and expressive face. His voice was powerful,
resonant, clear, with a peculiar vibration in it which lent
unspeakable effect to any passages of pathos or of scorn.
His style of speaking was pure to austerity; it was
stripped of all superfluous ornament. It never gushed
or foamed. It never allowed itseff to be mastered by
passion. The first peculiarity that struck the listener was
its superb self-restraint. The orator at his most power
ful passages appeared as if he were rather keeping in
his strength than taxing it with effort. His voice was
forthe most part calm and .measured ; he hardly ever
indulged in much gesticulation. He never, under the
pressure of whatever emotion, shouted or stormed. The
fire of his eloquence was a white heat, intense, consum
ing, but never sparkling or sputtering. He had an ad
mirable gift of humor and a keen ironical power. He

go A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
had read few books, but of those he read he was a
master. The English Bible and Milton were his chief
studies. Bright was a man of the middle class. His
family were Quakers of a somewhat austere mould. They
were manufacturers of carpets in Rochdale, Lancashire
and had made considerable money in their business.
There was something positively romantic about the
mutual attachment of these two men, who worked to
gether in the closest brotherhood, who lovad each other
as not all brothers do, who were associated so clo-sely in
the public raind that until Cobden's death the name of
one was scarcely ever raentioned without that of the
other. Each led a noble life ; each was in his own way
a raan of genius ; each was siraple and strong. Rivalry
between them would have been impossible, although
they were every day being compared and contrasted by
both friendly and unfriendly critics. Their gifts were
admirably suited to make them powerful allies. Each
had soraething that the other wanted. Bright had not
Cobden's winning persuasiveness nor his surprising ease
and force of argument. But Cobden had not anything
like his companion's oratorical power. He had not the
tones of scorn, of pathos, of huraor, and of passion. The
two together made a genuine pow-er in the House of
Coraraons and on the platforra.
These raen had raany assistants and lieutenants well
worthy to act with thera and under thera, such as Mr.
W. J. Fox, for instance, a Unitarian rainister of great
popularity and remarkable eloquence, and Mr. Milner
Gibson, who had been a Tory.
The League, however successful as it might be
throughout the country, had its great work to do in Par
liament. Even after the change made in favor of manu
facturing and raiddle class interests by the Reform Bill,
the House of Commons was still composed, as to nine-
tenths of its whole number, by representatives of the
landlords. The entire House of Lords then was con
stituted of the owners of land. All tradition, all prestige,
all the dignity of aristocratic institutions, seeraed to be
naturally arrayed against the new raovement, conducted
as it was by manufacturers and traders for the benefit

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 9 1
seemingly of trade and those whom it employed. The
artisan population who might have been formidable as a
disturbing element were on the whole rather against the
Free Traders than for them. Nearly all the great official
leaders had to be converted to the doctrines of Free
' Trade. The Anti-Corn Law agitation introduced a game of
politics into England which astonished and considerably
discomfited steady-going politicians. The League men
did not profess to be bound by any indefeasible bond of
allegiance to the Whig party. They were prepared to
co-operate with any party whatever which would under
take to abolish the Corn Laws.
It is a significant fact that the Anti-Corn Law League
were not in the least discouraged by the accession of Sir
Robert Peel to pow-er. Their hopes seem rather to have
gone up than gone down when the niinister carae into
power whose adherents, unlike those of Lord John Russell,
were absolutely against the very principle of Free Trade.
It is certain that the League always regarded Sir Robert
Peel as a Free Trader in heart ; as one who fully ad
mitted the principle of Free Trade, but who did not .see
his way just then to deprive the agricultural interest of
the protection on which they had for so many years been
allowed and encouraged to lean.
The country party did not understand Sir Robert
Peel as their opponents and his assuredly understood
him. They did not at this tirae believe in the possibility
of any change. Free Trade was to them little more
than an abstraction. They did not rauch care who
preached it out of Parliaraent. They were convinced
that the state of things they saw around thera when they
were boys would continue to the end. Both parties in
the House — that is to say, both of the parties from whom
ministers were taken — alike set theraselves against the
introduction of any Free Trade raeasure.
It would have been better if Sir Robert Peel had de
voted hiraself raore directly to preparing the rainds of
his followers for the fact that protection for grain having
ceased to be tenable as an economic principle would
possibly some day have to be given up as a practice.

92 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
He might have been able to show them, as the events
have shown them since, that the introduction of free corn
would be a blessing to the population of England in
general, and would do nothing but good for the landed
interest as well. The influence of Peel at that time, and
indeed all through his administration up to the introduc
tion of his Free Trade measures, was limitless, so far as
his party was concerned. He could have done anything
with them. But Peel, to begin with, was a reserved, cold,
somewhat awkward raan. He was not effusive ; he did
not pour out his emotions and reveal all his changes of
opinion in bursts of confidence even to his habitual as
sociates. He brooded over these things in his own mind ;
he gave such expression to them in open debate as any
passing occasion seemed strictly to call for ; and he as
sumed perhaps that the gradual changes operating in his
¦views when thus expressed were understood by his fol
lowers. Above all, it is probable that Peel himself did
not see until alraost the last raoraent that the time had
actually corae when the principle of Protection must give
way to other and more weighty claims.
We see how the two great parties of the State stood
with regard to this question of Free Trade. The Whigs
were steadily gravitating towards it. Their leaders did
not quite see their way to accept it as a principle of
practical statesmanship, but it was evident that their ac
ceptance of it was only a question of tirae, and of no
long tirae. The leader of the Tory party was being
drawn day by day raore in the same direction. Both
leaders, Russell and Peel, had gone so far as to admit
the general principle of Free Trade. Peel had contended
that grain was in England a necessary exception ; Russell
was not of opinion that the time had corae when it could
be treated otherwise than as an exception. The Free
Trade party was daily growing raore and more powerful
with the country. This must soon have ended in one or
other of the two great ruling parties forming an alliance
with the Free Traders. But in the case of the Anti-Corn
Law agitation, an event over which political parties had
no control intervened to spur the intent of the Prime
Minister. Mr. Bright, many years after, when pronouncing

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 93
the eulogy of his dead friend Cobden, described what
happened in a fine sentence : " Famine itself, against
which we had warred, joined us.'' In the auturan of 1845
the potato rot began in Ireland.
The vast raajority of the working population of Ire
land were known to depend absolutely on the potato for
subsistence. In the northern province, where the popula
tion were of Scotch extraction, the oatraeal, the brose of
their ancestors, still supplied the staple of their food ; but
in the southern and western provinces a large proportion
of the peasantry actually lived on the potato and the,
potato alone. In these districts whole generations grew
up, lived, married, and passed away, without having ever,
tasted flesh meat. It was evident then that a failure in
the potato crop would be equivalent to a famine. The
news came in the auturan of 1845 that the long con
tinuance of sunless wet and cold had imperiled, if not
already destroyed, the food of a people.
The Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel held hasty raeetings
closely following each other. People began to ask whether
Parliaraent was about to be called together, and whether
the Government had resolved on a bold policy. The
Anti-Corn Law League were claraoring for the opening
of the ports. The Prime Minister himself was strongly-
in favor of such a course. The Duke of Wellington and
Lord Stanley, however, opposed the idea of the opening
of the ports, and the proposal fell through. The Cabinet
merely resolved on appointing a Commission, consisting
of the heads of departments in Ireland, to take some
steps to guard against a sudden outbreak of famine, and
the thought of an autumnal session was abandoned.
The great cry all through Ireland was for the opening
of the ports. "The Mansion House Relief Committee of
Dublin issued a series of resolutions declaring that the
potato disease was daily expanding more and more, and
the docuraent concluded with a denunciation of the
Ministry for not opening the ports, or calling Parliament
together before the usual time for its assembling.
Two or three days after the issue of these resolutions
Lord John Russell wrote a letter from Edinburgh to his
constituents, the electors of the City of London, announc-

94 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
ing his unqualified conversion to the principles of the
Anti-Corn Law League. The failure of the potato crop
was of course the iraraediate occasion of this letter. As
Peel hiraself said, the letter " justified the conclusion that
the Whig party w-as prepared to unite with the Anti-Corn
Law League in demanding the total repeal of the Corn
Laws." Peel would not consent now to propose simply
an opening of the ports. It would seem, he thought, a
raere subraission to accept the rainiraum of the terms
ordered by the Whig leader. Sir Robert Peel therefore
recomraended to his Cabinet an early meeting of Parlia
raent with the view of bringing forward sorae measure
equivalent to a speedy Repeal of the Corn Laws.
The recomraendation was wise. It was, indeed, in
dispensable. Yet neither Whigs nor Tories appear to
have formed a judgraent because of facts or principles,*
but only in deference to the political necessities of the
hour. The potato rot inspired the writing of Lord John
Russell's letter ; and Lord John Russell's letter inspired
Sir Robert Peel with the conviction that soraething raust
be done. Most of Peel's colleagues were inclined to go
with him this tirae. A Cabinet Council was held on
November 25, almost immediately after the publication
of Lord John Russell's letter. At that council Sir Robert
Peel recommended the suraraoning of Parliaraent with a
view to instant raeasure to combat the famine in Ireland,
but with a view also to some announcement of legislation
intended to pave the way for the repeal of the Corn
Laws. Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch inti
mated to the Prime Minister that they could not be par
ties to any measure involving the ultimate repeal of the
Corn Laws. Sir Robert Peel did not believe that he
could carry out his project satisfactorily under such cir
cumstances, and he therefore hastened to tender his
resignation to the Queen.
Lord John Russell was sent for frora Edinburgh. His
letter had without any such purpose on his part written
hira up as the man to take Sir Robert Peel's place.
Lord John Russell came to London and did his best to
cope with the many difficulties of the situation. His
party were not very strong in the country, and they had

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 95
not a majority in the House of Commons. Lord John
Russell showed, even then, his characteristic courage.
He^ resolved to form a Ministry without a Pariianientary
raajority. He was not however fated to try the ordeal.
Lord Grey, who was a few months before Lord Howick,
and who had just succeeded to the title of his father
(tfie stately Charles Eari Grey, the pupil of Fox, and
chief of the Cabinet which passed the Reforra Bill and
abolished slavery)— Lord Grey felt a strong objection to
the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, and these two
could not get on in one Ministry as it was part of Lord
John Russell's plan that they should do.
Lord John Russell found it impossible to form a Min
istry. He signified his failure to the Queen. Probably,
having done the best he could, he was not particularly
distressed to find that his efforts were ineffectual. The
Queen had to send for Sir Robert Peel to Windsor and
tell him that she must require hira to withdraw his resig
nation and to remain in her service. Sir Robert of
course could only comply. The Duke of Buccleuch
withdrew his opposition to the policy which Peel was
now to carry out ; but Lord Stanley remained firm. The
place of the latter was taken, as Secretary of State for
the Colonies, by Mr. Gladstone, who however curiously
enough remained without a seat in Parliament during the
eventful session that was now to come. Mr. Gladstone
had sat for the borough of Newark, but that borough
being under the influence of the Duke of Newcastle, who
had withdrawn his support from the Ministry, he did not
invite re-election, but reraained without a seat in the
House of Coraraons for sorae raonths. Sir Robert Peel
then, to use his own words, resuraed power " with
greater raeans of rendering public service than 1 should
have had if I had not relinquished it." He felt, he said,
" like a man restored to life after his funeral sermon had
been preached."
Parliament was summoned to raeet in January. In
the meantime it was easily seen how the Protectionists
and the Tories of the extreme order generally would re
gard the proposals of Sir Robert Peel. Protectionist
meetings were held in various parts of the country, and

96 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
they were all but unanimous in condemning- by antici
pation the policy of the restored Premier. Resolutions
were passed at many of these meetings expressing an
equal disbelief in the Prirae Minister and in the faraine.
The utmost indignation was expressed at the idea of
there being any famine in prospect which could cause
any. departure frora the principles which secured to the
farmers a certain fixed price for their grain, or at least
prevented the price from falling below what they consid
ered a paying amount.
Parliament met. The opening day was January 22,
1846. There are few scenes more animated and exciting
than that presented by the House of Commons on sorae
night when a great debate is expected, or ¦ when sorae
momentous announcement is to be raade. A coraraon
thrill seems to tremble all through the assembly as a
breath of wind runs across the sea. The House appears
for the raoment to be one body pervaded by one expecta
tion. The Ministerial benches, the front benches of
opposition, are occupied by the men of political renown
and of historic name. The benches everywhere else are
crowded to their utmost capacity. Members who can
not get seats — on such an occasion a goodly number —
stand below the bar or have to dispose themselves along
the side galleries. The celebrities are not confined to the
Treasury benches or those of the leaders of opposition.
Here and there, among the independent merabers and
below the gangway on both sides, are seen men of influ
ence and renown. The strangers' gallery, the Speaker's
gallery on such a night are crowded to excess. The eye
surveys the whole House and sees no vacant place. In
the very hum of conversation that runs along the benches
there is a tone of profound anxiety.- The niinister who
has to face that House and make the announcement for
which all are waiting in a most feverish an.xiety is a raan
to be envied by the ambitious.
The Prime Minister went into long and labored expla
nations of the manner in which his mind had been brought
into a change on the subject of Free Trade and Protec
tion, and he gave exhaustive calculations to show that
the reduction of duty was constantly followed by expan-

THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. 97
sion of the revenue, and even a maintenance of high
prices. The duties on glass, the duties on flax, the
prices of salt pork and doraestic lard, the contract price
of salt beef for the navy — these and many other such
topics were discussed at great length, and with elaborate
fulness of detail, in the hearing of an eager House anx
ious only for that night to know whether or not the min
ister meant to introduce the principle of Free Trade.
Peel, however, made it clear enough that he had become
a complete convert to the doctrines .of the Manchester
school, and that in his opinion the tirae had come when
that protection he had taken office to maintain raust for
ever be abandoned.
The explanation was over. The House of Commons
were left rather to infer than to understand what the
Government proposed to do. There appeared therefore
nothing for it but to wait until the time should come for
the formal announcement and the full discussion of the
Government measures. Suddenly, however, a new and
striking figure intervened in the languishing debate, and
filled the House of Commons with a fresh life. There is
not often to. be found in our Parliaraentary history an
example like this of a sudden turn given to a whole
career by a timely speech. The member who rose to
comment on the explanation of Sir Robert Peel had been
for many years in the House of, Coraraons. This was
his tenth s.ession. He had spoken often in each session.
He had made raany bold atterapts to win a name in Par
liament, and hitherto his political career had been simply
a failure. Frona the hour when he spoke this speech, it
was one long, unbroken, brilliant success.

CHAPTER VII.
MR. DISRAELI.
The speaker who rose into such sudden prominence
and something like the position of a party leader was
one of the raost remarkable men the politics of the reign
have produced. Mr. Disraeli entered the House of Com
mons as Conservative member for Maidstone in 1837.
He was then about thirty-two years of age. He had
previously made repeated and unsuccessful atterapts to
get a seat in Parliaraent. He began his political career
as an advanced Liberal, and had described himself as
one who desired to fight the battle of the people, and
who was supported by neither of the aristocratic parties.
He failed again and again, and apparently he began to
think that it would be a wiser thing to look for the sup
port of one or other of the aristocratic parties. He had
before this given indications of remarkable literary capac
ity. His novel, " Vivian Grey," published when he was
in his twenty-third year, was suffused with extravagance,
affectation and raere animal spirits ; but it was full of the
evidences of a fresh and brilliant ability. The son of a
distinguished literary raan, Mr. Disraeli had probably at
that time only a young literary man's notions of politics.
It is not necessary to charge him with deliberate incon
sistency because from having been a Radical of the raost
advanced views he became by an easy leap a romantic
Tory. It is not likely that at the beginning of his career
he had any very clear ideas in connection with the words
Tory or Radical. When young Disraeli found that ad
vanced Radicalism did not do much to get him into Par-

MR. DISRAELI. 99
liament, he probably began to ask himself whether his
Liberal convictions were so deeply rooted as to call for
the sacrifice of a career. He thought the question over,
and doubtless found himself crystalizing fast into an ad
vocate of the established order of things.
No trace of the progress of conversion can be found in
his speeches or his writings. It is not unreasonable to
infer that he took up Radicalism at the beginning because
it looked the raost picturesque and romantic thing to do,
and that only as he found it fail to answer his personal
object did it occur to him that he had after all more affin
ity with the cause of the country gentlemen. The rep
utation he had iiiade for himself before his going into
Parliament was of a nature rather calculated to retard
than to advance a political career. He was looked upon
almost universally as an eccentric and audacious adven
turer, who was kept from being dangerous by the affecta
tions and absurdities of his conduct. He dressed in the
extremest style of preposterous foppery ; he talked a
blending of cynicism and sentiraent ; he made the most
reckless statements ; his boasting was almost outrageous ;
his rhetoric of abuse was, even in that free-spoken time,
astonishingly vigorous and unrestrained. Even then his
literary efforts did not receive anything like the appreci
ation they have obtained since. At that time they were
regarded rather as audacious whimsicalities, the fantas
tic freaks of a clever youth, than as genuine works of a
certain kind of art. Even when he did get into the
House of Commons, his first experience there was little
calculated to give him rauch hope of success. Reading
over his first speech now, it seems hard to understand
why it should have excited so much laughter and deri
sion ; why it should have called forth nothing but laughter
and derision. It is a clever speech, full of point and odd
conceits ; very like in style and structure many of the
speeches which in later years won for the same orator
the applause of the House of Commons. But Mr. Dis
raeli's reputation had preceded hira into the House.
The House was probably in a humor to find the speech
ridiculous because the general impression was that the
man himself was ridiculous. Mr. Disraeli's appearance.

lOO A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
too, no doubt contributed something to the contemptu
ous opinion which was formed of hira on his first
atterapt to address the assembly which he afterwards
carae to rule. He is described by an observer as having

Mr. Disraeli made not merely a Failure, but even a
Ludicrous Failure.

been "attired in a bottle-green frock coat and a waist
coat of white, of the Dick Swiveller pattern, the front of

MR. DISRAELI. IOI
which exhibited a network of glittering chains ; large
fancy pattern pantaloons, and a black tie, above which
no shirt collar was visible, completed the outward man.
A countenance lividly pale, set out by a pair of intensely
black eyes, and a broad but not very high forehead, over
hung by clustering ringlets of coal-black hair, which,
combed away from the temple, fell in bunches of well-
oiled sraall ringlets over his left cheek." His manner
was intensely theatric ; his gestures were wild and extrav
agant. Mr. Disraeli made not merely a failure, but
even a ludicrous failure. One who heard the debate
thus describes the manner in which, baffled by the per
sistent laughter and other interruptions of the noisy
House, the orator withdrew frora the discussion defeated
but not discouraged. " At last, losing his teraper, which
until now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he
paused in the midst of a sentence, and looking the Liber
als indignantly in the face, raised his hands, and opening
his mouth as widely as its dimensions would admit, said
in a remarkably loud and almost terrific tone, ' I have
begun several tiraes raany things, and I have often suc
ceeded at last ; ay, sir, and though I sit down now, the
time will corae when you will hear me. ' "
Disraeli was not in the least discouraged by his first
failure. A few days after it he spoke again, and he
spoke three or four tiraes more during his first session.
But he had earned sorae wisdom by rough experience,
and he did not make his oratorical flights so long or so
arabitious as that first attempt. Then he seemed after a
while, as he grew more farailiar with the House, to go
in for being paradoxical ; for making himself always con
spicuous ; for taking up positions and expounding politi
cal creeds which other raen would have avoided. It is
very difficult to get any clear idea of what his opinions
were about this period of his career, if he had any
political opinions at all. He spoke on subjects of which
it was evident that he knew nothingoand sometimes he
managed by the sheer force of a strong intelligence to
discern the absurdity of economic sophistries which had
baffled men of far greater experience, and which indeed,
to judge from his personal declarations and political con-

102 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
duct afterwards, he allowed before long to baffle and
bewilder himself. More often, however, he talked with
a grandiose and oracular vagueness which seemed to
imply that he alone of all men saw into the very heart
of the question, but that he, of all men, must not yet
reveal what he saw. Mr. Disraeli was at one period of
his career so affected that he positively affected affecta
tion. Yet he was a man of undoubted genius ; he had
a spirit that never quailed under stress of any circum
stances, however disheartening.
For some tirae Mr. Disraeli then seeraed resolved to
make himself reraarkable — to be talked about. He suc
ceeded admirably. He was talked about. All the politi
cal and satirical journals of the day had a great deal to
say about him. He is not spoken of in terms of praise
as a rule. Neither has he much praise to shower about
hira. Any one who looks back to the political contro
versies of that time will be astounded at the language
which Mr. Disraeli addresses to his opponents of the
press, and which his opponents address to him. The
duelling system survived then and for long after, and
Mr. Disraeli always professed himself ready to sustain
with his pistol anything that his lips might have given
. utterance to, even in the reckless heat of controversy.
He kept hiraself well up to the level of his time in the
calling of naraes and the swaggering. But he was mak
ing himself remarkable in political controversy as well.
In the House of Commons he began to be re,garded as a
dangerous adversary in debate. He was wonderfully
ready with retort and sarcasm. But during all the earlier
part of his career he was thought of only as a free lance.
He had praised Peel when Peel said something that
suited him, or when to praise Peel seemed likely to
wound someone else. But it was during the discussions
on the abolition of the Corn Laws that he first rose to
the fame of a great debater and a powerful Parliamentary
orator. •
Hitherto he had wanted a cause to inspire and justify
audacity, and on which to employ with effect his re
markable resources of sarcasm and rhetoric. Hitherto
he had addressed an audience for the most part out of

MR. DISRAELI. 103
sympathy with him. Now he was about to become the
spokesman of a large body of raen who, chafing and al
raost choking with wratji, were not capable of speaking
effectively for thera.selves. Mr. Disraeli did therefore
the very wisest thing he could do when he launched at
once into a savage personal attack upon Sir Robert Peel.
From that hour Mr. Disraeli was the real leader of
the Tory squires ; frora that moment his voice gave the
word of command to the Tory party. Disraeli made his
own career by the course he took on that meraorable
night, and he also made a new career for the Tory party.
One immediate effect of the turn thus given by Dis
raeli's timely intervention in the debate was the forma
tion of a Protection party in the House of Commons.
The leadership of this perilous adventure was entrusted
to Lord George Bentlnck, a sporting nobleman of en
ergetic character, great tenacity of purpose and convic
tion, and a not inconsiderable aptitude for politics which
had hitherto had no opportunity for either exercising or
displaying itself. Lord George Bentlnck had sat in eight
Parliaments without taking part in any great debate.
When he was suddenly drawn into the leadership of the
Protection party in the House of Coraraons, he gave
himself up to it entirely. He had at first only joined the
party as one of its organizers ; but he showed hiraself in
raany respects well fitted for the leadership, and the
choice of leaders was in any case very liraited. When
once he had accepted the position he was unwearying in
his attention to its duties ; and indeed up to the moment
of his sudden and premature death he never allowed
himself any relaxation frora the cares it imposed on him.
Bentinck's abilities were hardly even of the second class ;
and the amount of knowledge which he brought to bear
on the questions he discussed with so much earnestness
and energy w-as often and of necessity little better than
raere cram. But in Parliaraent the essential qualities of
a leader are not great powers of intellect. A raan of
cool head, good temper, firm will, and capacity for ap
preciating the serviceable qualities of other men, may,
always provided that he has high birth and great social
influence, raake a very successful leader, even though he

104 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
be wanting altogether in the higher attributes of elo
quence and statesraanship. Bentlnck had patience, en
ergy, good huraor, and considey-able appreciation of the
characters of men. If he had a bad voice, and was a
poor speaker, he at least always spoke in full faith, and
was only the raore necessary to his party because he
could honestly continue to believe in the old doctrines,
no raatter what political economy and hard facts might
say to, the contrary.
The secession was, therefore, in full course of organi
zation. On January 27, Sir Robert Peel came forward to
explain his financial policy. His object was to abandon
the sliding scale altogether ; but for the present he in
tended to impose a duty of ten shillings a quarter on
corn when the price of it was under forty-eight shillings
a quarter; to reduce that duty by one shilling for every
shilling of rise in price until it reached fifty-three shil
lings a quarter, when the duty should fall to four shil
lings. 'This arrangement was, however, only to hold
good for three years, at the end of which time protecti-ve
duties on grain were to be wholly abandoned. Peel
explained that he intended gradually to apply the prin
ciple of Free Trade to manufactures and every descrip
tion of produce, bearing in mind the necessity of provid
ing for the expenditure of the country, and of sraoothing
away sorae of the difficulties which a sudden withdrawal
of protection might cause. The differential duties on
sugar, which were professedly intended to protect the
growers of free sugars against the competition of those
who cultivated sugar by the use of slave labor, were to
be diminished but not abolished. The duties on the im
portation of foreign cattle were to be at once removed.
The proposals of the Ministry did not wholly satisfy
the professed Free Traders. "These latter would have
enforced, if they could, an immediate application of the
principle without the interval of three years, and the
devices and shifts which were to be put in operation dur
ing that middle tirae. But, of course, they had no idea
of not taking what they could get.
The third reading of the bill passed the House of
Commons on May 15, by a majority of 98 votes. The

MR. DISRAELI. I05
bill was at once sent up to the House of Lords, and by
means chiefly of the earnest advice of the Duke of Wel
lington, was carried through fhat House without much
serious opposition. But June 25, the day when the bill
was read for a third time in the House of Lords, was a
meraorable day in the Parliamentary annals of England.
It saw the fall of the Ministry who had carried to success
the greatest piece of legislation that had been introduced
since Lord Grey's Reform Bill.
A Coercion Bill for Ireland was the measure which
brought this catastrophe on the Government of Sir
Robert Peel. While the Corn Bill was yet passing
through the House of Commons the Government felt
called upon, in consequence of the condition of crirae
and outrage in Ireland, to introduce a Coercion Bill.
This. placed them in a serious difficulty. All'the Irish
followers of O'Connell would of course oppose the coer
cion measure. The Whigs when out of office have usu
ally made it a rule to oppose coercion bills if they do not
come accampanied with some promises of legislative re
forra and concession. The English Radical members,
Mr. Cobden and his followers, were almost sure to op
pose it. Under these circumstances, it seemed probable
enough that if the Protectionists joined with the other op
ponents of the Coercion Bill, the Government must be
defeated. The temptation was too great. The fiercer
Protectionists voted with the Free Traders, the Whigs,
and the Irish Catholic and Liberal members, and after a
debate of much bitterness and passion, the division on
the second reading of the Coercion Bill took place on
Thursday, June 25, and the Ministry were left in a mi
nority of 73. Sorae eighty of the Protectionists followed
Lord George Bentlnck into the lobby to vote against the
bill, and their votes settled the question. Chance had
put within their grasp the means of vengeance, and they
had seized it, and made successful use of it. The Peel
Ministry had fallen in its very hour of triumph.
Three days after. Sir Robert Peel announced his resig
nation of office. So great a success followed by so sud
den and coraplete a fall is hardly recorded in the Parlia
mentary history of our modern tiraes. Peel had crushed

IOt> A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
O'Connell and carried Free Trade, and O'Connell and
the Protectionists had life enough yet to pull him down.
He is as a conqueror who, having won the great victory
of his life, is struck by a hostile hand in some by-way as
he passes home to enjoy his triumph.

CHAPTER VIII.
FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE.
Lord John Russell succeeded Sir Robert Peel as
First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Palmerston becarae
Foreign Secretary ; Sir Charles Wood was Chancellor of
the Exchequer ; Lord Grey took charge of the Colonies ;
and Sir George Grey was Home Secretary. Mr. Macau-
lay accepted the office of Paymaster-General, with a seat
in the Cabinet, a distinction not usually given to the oc
cupant of that office. The Ministry was not particularly
strong in administrative talent. The Preraier and the
Foreign Secretary were the only members of the Cabinet
who could be called statesmen of the first class ; and
even Lord Palraerston had not as yet won more than a
somewhat doubtful kind of fame, and was looked upon
as a man quite as likely to do mischief as good to any
Ministry of which he might happen to form a part.
Lord Grey then and since only succeeded somehow in
missing the career of a leading statesman. He had
great talents and some originality ; he was independent
and bold. But his independence degenerated too often
into impracticability and even eccentricity ; and he was
in fact, a politician with whom ordinary raen could not
work. Sir Charles Wood, the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had solid sense and excellent administrative
capacity, but he was about as bad a public speaker as
ever addressed the House of Coraraons. His budget
speeches were often raade so unintelligible by defective
manner and delivery that they raight almost as well have
been spoken in a foreign language. Sir George Grey

I08 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
was a speaker of fearful fluency, and a respectable ad
ministrator of the second or third class. He was as plod
ding in administration as he was precipitate of speech.
The position of the Government of Lord John Russell
was not one to be envied. The Irish faraine occupied all
attention, and soon seemed to be an evil too great for any
Ministry to deal with. The failure of the potato was an
overwhelming disaster for a people alraost wholly agri
cultural and a peasantry long accustoraed to live upon
that root alone. Ireland contains very few large towns ;
when the names of four or five are raentioned the list is
done with, and we have to come to mere villages. The
country has hardly any manufactures except that of
linen in the northern province. In the south and west
the people live by agriculture alone. The cottier system
which prevailed alraost universally in three of the four
provinces, was an arrangement by which a man obtained
in return for his labor a right to cultivate a little patch
of ground, just enough to supply hira with food for the
scanty maintenance of his family. The great landlords
were for the raost part absentees ; the smaller landlords
were often deeply in debt, and were therefore compelled
to screw every possible penny of rent out of their tenants-
at-will. Underlying all the relations of landlord and tenant in
Ireland were two great facts. The occupation of land
was virtually a necessity of life to the Irish tenant. That
is the first fact. The second is, that the land system
under which Ireland was placed was one entirely foreign
to the traditions, the ideas, one might say the very genius,
of the Irish people. The Irish peasant regarded the
tight to have a bit of land, his share, exactly as other
peoples regard the right to live. It was in his mind
something elementary and self-evident. He could not
be loyal to, he could not even understand, any system
which did not secure that to hini.
The Irish peasant with his wife and his family lived
on the potato. Not a county in Ireland wholly escaped
the potato ' disease, and many of the southern and west
ern counties were soon in actual faraine. A peculiar

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE.

109

form of fever— famine-fever it was called — began to show
itself everywhere. A terrible dysentery set in as well.
In some districts the people died in hundreds daily from
fever, dysentery, or sheer starvation. It would have been
impossible that in such a country as Ireland a famine of
that gigantic kind should set in without bringing crimes
of violence along with it. Unfortunately the Government
had to show an immense activity in the introduction of
Coercion Bills and other repressive raeasures.

Many of the Southern and Western Coun-fies were soon in
Actual Famine.

Whatever raight be said of the Government, no one
could doubt the goodwill of the English people. Na
tional Relief Associations were especially formed in Eng
land. Relief indeed began to be poured in from all
countries. The misery went on deepening and broaden
ing. It was far too great to be effectually encountered
by subscriptions, however generous ; and the Gov
ernment, meaning to do the best they could, were
practically at their wits' end. The starving peasants
streamed into the nearest considerable town hoping for

no A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
relief there, and found too often that there the very
sources of charity were dried up. Many, very raany,
thus disappointed, raerely lay down on the pavement
and died there. Along the country roads one raet
everywhere groups of gaunt, dim-eyed wretches clad in
miserable old sacking, and wandering aimlessly with
some vague idea of finding food, as the boy in the fable
hoped to find the gold where the rainbow touched tbe
earth. Many remained in their empty hovels and- took
Death there when he came. In soine regions the coun
try seeraed unpeopled for miles.
When the famine was over and its results came to be
estimated, it was found that Ireland had lost about two
millions of her population. She had come down from
eight millions to six. This was the combined effect of
starvation, of the various diseases that followed in its
path gleaning where it had failed to gather, and of emi
gration. Long after all the direct effects of the failure
of the potato had ceased, the population still continued
steadily to decrease. The Irish peasant had in fact had
his eyes turned, as Mr. Bright afterwards expressed it,
towards the setting sun, and for long years the stream of
emigration westward never abated in its volume. A
new Ireland began to grow up across the Atlantic. In
every great city of the United States the Irish element
began to forra a considerable constituent of the popula
tion. The Governnient had hard work to do all this time.
Lord George Bentlnck was able to worry the Ministry
soraew-hat effectively when they introduced a raeasure to
reduce gradually the differential duties on sugar for a
few years, and then replace these duties by a fixed and
uniform rate. This was in short a proposal to apply
the principle of Free Trade, instead of Protection, to
sugar. Lord George Bentlnck therefore proposed an
araendraent to the resolutions of the Governraent, de
claring it unjust and impolitic to reduce the duty on for
eign slave-grown sugar, as tending to check the advance
of production by British free labor, and to give a great
additional stimulus to slave labor. Many sincere and
independent opponents of slavery. Lord Brougham in

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE. Ill
the House of Lords among them, were caught by this
view of the question. Lord George and his brilliant
lieutenant at one time appeared as if they were likely to
carry their point in the Commons. But it was announced
that if the resolutions of the Governnient were defeated
ministers would resign, and there was no one to take
their place. Peel could not return to power; and the
time was far distant yet when Mr. Disraeli could form a
Ministry. The opposition crumbled away therefore, and
the Governraent measures were carried.
There were troubles abroad as well as at home for
the Government. Almost immediately on their coming
into office, the project of the Spanish Marriages, con
cocted between King Louis Philippe and his minister,
M. Guizot, disturbed for a time and very seriously the
good understanding between England and France. In
an evil hour for theraselves and their farae, Louis Philippe
and his minister believed that they could obtain a virtual
ownership of Spain by an ingenious marriage scheme.
There was at one time a project talked of rather than
actually entertained, of marrying the young Queen of Spain
and her sister to the Due d 'Aumale and the Due de Mont-
pensier, both sons of Louis Philippe, But this would have
been too daring a venture on the part of the King of the
French. Apart from any objections to be entertained by
other States, it was certain that England could not " view
with indifference," as the diplomatic phrase goes, the
prospect of a son of the French King occupying the
throne of .Spain.
Louis Philippe knew very well that he could not ven
ture to marry one, of his sons to the young Isabella.
But he and his minister devised a scherae for securing
to themselves and their policy the sarae effect in another
way. They contrived that the Queen and her sister
should be raarried at the same tirae — the Queen to her
cousin, Don Francisco d' Assis, Duke of Cadiz ; and her
sister to the Duke de Montpensier, Louis Philippe's son.
There was reason to expect that the Queen, if raarried
to Don Francisco, would have no children, and that the
wife of Louis Philippe's son, or .some one of her children,
would come to the throne of Spain.

112 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
This' scheme proved a failure, so far as the objects
of Louis Philippe and his minister were concerned. Queen
Isabella had children; Mpntpensier's wife did not come,
tb the throne ; arid the dynasty of Louise Philippe fell be
fore long. But , the friendship between England and
France, from which so many happy results seeraed likely
to come to Europe, and the cause of free governmerit,
was necessarily interrupted for a tirae.
, The year 1848 was an era in the modern history of
Europe. It was the year of unfulfilled revolutions. 'The
fall of the dynasty of Louis Philippe raay be said to have
set the revolutionary tide flowing.
Louis Philippe fled to England, and his flight was the
signal for long pent-up fires to break out all over Europe.
Revolution soon was aflarae in nearly all the capitals of
the continent. Revolution is like an epideraic : it finds
out the weak places in systems. The two European
countries which being tried by ft stood it best, were
England and Belgium. In the latter country the King
made frank appeal to his people, and told thera that if '
they Wished to be rid. of him he was quite willing to go.
Language- of .this kind, was new in the mouths of sover
eigns ; and the Belgians were a people well able to ap
preciate it. They declared for their King and the shock
of the revolution passed harmlessly away. In England
and Ireland the effect of the events in. France was in
stantly raade raanifest. The Chartist agitation, which
had been rauch encouraged by, the triumphant return of
Feargus O'Connor for Nottingham at the general election
of 1847, at once came to a head.
, It was deterrained to present a raonster petition to the
House of Coraraons deraanding the Charter, and in fact
offering a' last chance to Parliament to yield quietly to
the demand. The petition was to, be presented by a
deputation who were lo be conducted by a vast pro
cession up to the doors of the House. 'The procession
was to be forraed on Kennington Coraraon, the space
then unenclosed which is now Kennington Park, on the
south side of London. There the Chartists were to be
addressed by their still trusted leader^ Feargus O'Connor,
and they were to raarch in military order to, present their

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE. II3
petition. The object undoubtedly was to make such a
parade of physical force as should overawe the Legis
lature and the Government, and demonstrate the impos
sibility of refusing a demand backed by such a reserve
of power. The proposed procession was declared illegal,
and all peaceful and loyal subjects were warned not to
take any part in it. But this was exactly what the raore
ardent araong the Chartists expected and desired to see.
At a meeting of the Chartist Convention held the
night before the demonstration, a considerable number
were for going armed to Kennington Common. Feargus
O'Connor had, however, sense enough still left to throw
the weight of his influence against such an insane pro
ceeding, and to insist that the demonstration must show
itself to be, as it was from the first proclaimed to be, a
strictly pacific proceeding. The more ardent spirits at
once withdrew from the organization. Those who might
even at the very last have done mischief if they had
remained part of the raoveraent, withdrew from it ; and
Chartisra was left to be represented by an open air meet
ing and a petition to Parliaraent, like all the other dem
onstrations that the metropolis had seen to pass, hardly
heeded, across the field of politics. But the public at
large was not aware that the fangs of Chartisra had been
drawn before it was let loose to play on Kennington
Common that memorable tenth of April. London awoke
in great alarm that day. The wildest rumors were
spread abroad in raany parts of the metropolis. Long
before the Chartists had got together on Kennington
Common at all, various remote quarters of London were
filled with horrifying reports of encounters between the
insurgents and the police or the military, in which the
Chartists invariably had the better, and as a result Of
which they were marching in full force to the particular
district where the momentary panic prevailed. London
is worse off than most cities in such a. time of alarm.
It is too large for true accounts of things rapidly to dif
fuse themselves. In April, 1848, the street telegraph was
not in use for carrying news through cities, and the
rapidly succeeding editions, of the cheap papers were as
yet unknown. In various quarters of London, therefore.

1 14 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES,
the citizen was left through the greater part of the day
to all the agonies of doubt and un.certainty.
There was no lack, however, of public precautions
against an outbreak of armed Chartism. The Duke of
'Wellington took charge of all the arrangements for guard
ing the public buildings and defending the metropolis
generally. He acted with extreme caution, and told
several influential persons that troops were in readiness
everywhere, but that they would not be seen unless an
occasion actually rose for calling on their services. The
coolness and presence of raind of the stern old soldier
are well illustrated in the fact that to several persons of
influence and authority who came to him with sugges
tions for the defence of this place or that, his almost in
variable answer was " Done already," or " Done two hours
ago," or something of the kind. A va.st number of Lon
doners enrolled theraselves as special constables for the
maintenance of law and order. Nearly two hundred
thousand persons, it is said, were sworn in for this pur
pose ; and it will always be told as an odd incident of
that faraous scare, that the Prince Louis Napoleon, then
living in London, was one of those who volunteered to
bear arms in the preservation of order. Not a long tirae
was to pass away before the most lawless outrage on the
order and life of a peaceful city was to be perpetrated
by the special comraand of the man who was so ready
to lend the saving aid of his constable's staff to protect
English society against some poor hundreds or thousands
of English working-men.
The crisis, however, luckily proved not to stand in
need of such saviors of society. The Chartist demonstra
tion was a wretched failure. The raeeting on Kenning
ton Coraraon, so far frora being a gathering of half a
railliori of men, was not a larger concourse than a tem
perance demonstration had often drawn together on the
same spot. The procession was not formed, O'Connor
himself strongly insisting on obedience to the orders of
the authorities. The great Chartist petition itself, which
was to have made so profound an impression on the
House of Commons, proved as utter a failure as the
deraonstration on Kennington Common. It was made

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE. I15
certain that the number of genuine signatures was ridic
ulously below the estimate formed by the Chartist
leaders ; and the agitation, after terrifying respectability
for a long time, suddenly showed itself a thing only to be
laughed at.
Here comes nol inappropriately to an end the history
of English Chartism. It died of publicity ; of exposure
to the air ; of the Anti-Corn Law League ; of the evident
tendency of the time to settle all questions by reason,
argument, and majorities ; of growing education ; of a
strengthening- sense of duty among all the more influen
tial classes. All that was sound in its claims asserted
itself and was in time conceded. But its active or aggres
sive influence ceased with 1848. Not since that year
has there been any serious talk or thought of any agita
tion asserting its claims by the use or even display of
arraed force in England.
The spirit of the tirae had meanwhile made itself felt
in a different way in Ireland. For some raonths before
the beginning of the year the Young Ireland party had
been established as a rival association to the Repealers,
who still believed in the policy of O'Connell. The Na
tion newspaper was conducted and written for by sorae
rising young men of high culture and remarkable talent.
It was inspired in the beginning by at least one genuine
poet, Mr. Thomas Davis, who unfortunately died in his
youth. The Young Ireland party had received a new
support by the adhesion of Mr. 'William Sraith O'Brien
to their ranks. Mr. O'Brien was a man of considerable
influence in Ireland. He had a large property and high
rank. He was connected with or related to many aristo
cratic families. His brother was Lord Inchiquin ; the
title of the Marquisate of Thoraond was in the family.
He was undoubtedly descended from the famous Irish
hero and king Brian Boru, and was inordinately proud of
his claims of long descent. He had the highest personal
character and the finest sense of honor; but his capac
ity for leadership of any movement was very slender.
His adhesion to the cause of Young Ireland gave the
movement a decided impulse. His rank, his legendary
descent, his undoubted chivalry of character and purity of

Il6 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
purpose lent a roraantlc interest to his appearance as the
recognized leader, or at least the figure-head, of the Young
Irelanders. Smith O'Brien was a raan of raore mature years than
raost of his companions in the movement. He was some
forty-three or four years of age when he took the leader
ship of the raoveraent. Thoraas Francis Meagher, the
raost brilliant orator of the party, a man who under other
conditions might have risen to great distinction in public
life, was then only about two or three-and-twenty.
Mitchel and Duffy, who were regarded as elders among
the Young Irelanders, were perhaps each sorae thirty
¦years of age.
Before the death of O'Connell the formal secession of
the Young Ireland party from the regular Repealers had
taken .place. The Continental revolutions of the year
1848 suddenly converted the movement from a literary
and poetical organization into a rebellious conspiracy.
The fever of that wild epoch spread itself at once over
Ireland. In the raeantirae a fresh and a stronger influ
ence than that of O'Brien or Meagher had arisen in
Young Irelandisra. Young Ireland itself now split into
two sections, one for immediate action, the other for
caution and delay. The party of action acknowledged
the leadership of John Mitchel. The organ of this section
was the newspaper started by Mitchel in opposition to
the Nation, which had grown too slow for him. The
new journal was called the United Irishman, and in a
short time corapletely distanced the Nation in popularity
and in circulation. 'The deliberate policy of the United
Irishman was to force the hand first of the Government
and then of the Irish people. Mitchel had made up his
mind so to rouse the passion of the people as to compel
the Government to take steps for the prevention of re
bellion by the arrest of some of the leaders. Then Mitchel
calculated upon the populace rising to defend or rescue
their heroes — and then the game would be afoot ; Ire
land would be entered in rebellion ; and the rest would
be for fate to decide.
The Governraent brought in a bill for the better se
curity of the Crown and Government, making all written

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE. 117
inciteraent to insurrection or resistance to the law, felony
punishable with transportation. This measure was passed
rapidly through all its stages. It enabled the Govern
ment to suppress newspapers like the United Irishman,
and to keep in prison without bail, while awaiting trial,
any one charged with an offence under the new Act.
Mitchel soon gave the authorities an opportunity of test
ing the eflicacy of the Act in his person. He repeated his
incitements to insurrection, was arrested and thrown into
prison. The cllraax of the exciteraent in Ireland was
reached when Mitchel's trial came on. There can be
little doubt that he was filled with a strong hope that
his followers would attempt to rescue him. Had there
been another Mitchel out of doors, as fearless and reck
less as the Mitchel in the prison, a sanguinary outbreak
would probably have taken place. But the leaders of the
movement "outside were by no raeans clear in their owri
minds as to the course they ought to pursue. They dis
couraged any idea of an attempt to rescue Mitchel. His
trial carae on. He was found guilty. He made a short
but powerful and impassioned speech from the dock ; he
was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation ; he was
hurried under an escort of cavalry through the streets of
Dublin, put on board a ship of war, and in a few hours
was on his way to Bermuda. Dublin remained perfectly
quiet ; the country outside hardly knew what was happen
ing until Mitchel was well on his way, and far-seeing
persons smiled to themselves and said the dariger was
over. So indeed it proved to be. . The Government suspended
the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, and issued warrants
for the arrest of Sraith O'Brien, Meagher, and other con
federate leaders. Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and
others left Dublin and went down into the country. They
held a series of gatherings which might be described a&
meetings of agitators or marshallings of rebels, according
as one was pleased to interpret their purpose.' But this
sort of thing very soon drifted into rebellion. The prin
cipal body of the followers of Smith O'Brien canae into
collision with the police at a place called Ballingarry, in
Tipperary. The police fired a few volleys. The rebels

Il8 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
fired, with what wretched muskets and rifles they pos
sessed, but without harming a single policeman. After
a few of their number had been killed or wounded — it
never was perfectly certain that any were actually killed-^
the rebel band dispersed, and the rebellion was oyer.
Sraith O'Brien, Meagher, and some of their com
panions were arrested. The prisoners were brought for
trial before a special commission held at Clonmel, in
Tipperary, in the following Septeraber. Smith O'Brien
was the first put on trial, and was found guilty. He was
sentenced to death after the old forra in cases of high
treason — to be hanged, beheaded, and quartered. Mea
gher was afterwards found guilty, and sentenced to
death with the sarae hideous formalities. No one, how
ever, really believed for a moment that such a sentence
was likely to be carried out in the reign of Queen Victo
ria. The sentence of death was changed into one of
transportation for life. The convicts were all sent to
Australia, and a few years after Meagher contrived to
make his escape. He was soon followed by Mitchel.
Smith O'Brien himself afterwards received a pardon on
condition of his not returning to these islands ; but this
condition was withdrawn after a tirae, and he came back
to Ireland. He died quietly in Wales in 1864. Mitchel
settled for a while in Richmond, Virginia, and became an
ardent advocate of slavery and an impassioned champion
of the Southern rebellion. He returned to the North
after the rebellion, and raore lately carae to Ireland, where,
owing to sorae defect in the criminal law, he could not be
arrested, his tirae of penal servitude having expired
although he had not served it. He was still a hero with
many of the people ; he was put up as a candidate for an
Irish county and elected. He was not allowed to enter
the House of Commons, however ; the election was de
clared void, and a new writ was issued. He was elected
again, and some turmoil was expected, when suddenly
Mitchel, who had long been in sinking health, was with
drawn from the controversy by death. Mea.gher served
in the army of the Federal States when the war broke
out. and showed rauch of the soldier's spirit and capac
ity. His end was premature and inglorious. He fell

FAMINE AND POLITICAL TROUBLE. ng
from the deck of a steamer one night ; it was dark and
there was a strong current running ; help came too late.
A false step, a dark night, and the rauddy waters of the
Missouri closed the career that had opened with so rauch
proraise of brightness.
Many of the conspicuous Young Irelanders rose to
some distinction. Charles Gavan Duffy, the editor of the
Nation, who was twice put on his trial after the failure
of the insurrection, but whom a jury would not on either
occasion convict, became a member of the House of
Coraraons, and afterwards emigrated to the colony of
Victoria. He rose to be Prime Minister there, and re
ceived knighthood from the Crown, and a pensioi) from
the Colonial Parliaraent. Thoraas Darcy M'Gee, another
prominent rebel, went to the United States, and thence
to Canada, where he rose to be a rainister"of the Crown.
He was one of the most loyal supporters of the British
connection. His untimely death by the hand of an as
sassin was lamented in England as well as in the colony
he had served so well.

CHAPTER IX.
ATHENS, ROME, AND LONDON.
The name of Don Pacifico was familiar to the world
some quarter of a century ago as that of the man whose
quarrel had nearly brought on a European war, had
caused a temporary disturbance of good relations be
tween England and France, split up political parties in
England in a raanner hardly ever known before, and es
tablished the reputation of Lord Palmerston as one of the
greatest Parliamentary debaters of his tirae.
Don Pacifico was a Jew, a Portuguese by extraction,
but a native of Gibraltar and a British subject living in
Athens. It had been custoraary in Greek towns to cele
brate Easter by burning an effigy of Judas Iscariot. In
1847 the police of Athens were ordered to prevent this
perforraance, and the mob, disappointed of their favorite
amusement, ascribed the new orders to the influence of
the Jews. Don Pacifico's house happened to stand near
the spot where the Judas was annually burnt ; Don Paci
fico was known to be a Jew ; and the anger of the mob
was wreaked upon him accordingly. Don Pacifico made
a claira against the Greek Governraent for compensation
for nearly thirty-two thousand pounds sterling. Another
claira was raade at the same time by another British
subject, a man of a very different stamp from Don Paci
fico. This was Mr. Finlay, the historian of Greece. Mr
Finlay had settled in Athens when the independence of '
Greece had been established. Some of his land had
been taken for the purpose of rounding off the new palace
gardens of King Otho ; and Mr. Finlay had declined to

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 121
accept the terms offered by the Greek Government, to
which other landowners in the sarae position as himself
had assented.
None of these questions would seem at first sight to
wear a very grave international character. Unluckily
Lord Palmerston becarae possessed with the idea that
the French minister in Greece was secretly setting the
Greek Government on to resist our clairas. For the
Foreign Office had made the claim ours, and insisted
that Greece must pay up within a given tirae or take
the consequences. Greece hesitated, and accordingly
the British fleet was sent to the Pirasus,'and seized all the
Greek vessels belonging to the Government and to pri
vate merchants that were found within the waters.
The Greek Government appealed to France and
Russia as powers joined with us in the treaty to protect
the independence of Greece. France and Russia were
both disposed to raake bitter complaint of not having
been consulted in the first instance by the British Govern
ment ; nor was their feeling greatly softened by Lord
Palraerston's pereraptory reply that It was all a question
between England and Greece, with which no other power
had any business to interfere. At last soraething like a
friendly arbitration was accepted frora France, and the
French Government sent a special representative to
Athens to try to come to terms with our minister there.
The difficulties appeared likely to be adjusted. But some
spirit of mischief seemed to have this unlucky affair in
charge from the first. A new quarrel threatened at one
time to break out between England and France. The
French Government actually withdrew their arabassador,
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, frora London ; and there was for a
short time a general alarm over Europe. But after a
while our Government gave way, and agreed to an ar
rangement which was in the raain all that France desired.
When, after a long lapse of tirae, the arbitrators came to
settle the claims of Don Pacifico, itwas found that he was
entitled to about one-thirtieth of the sum he had origi
nally demanded, Don Pacifico, it seems, charged in his

122 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
bill one hundred and fifty pounds sterling for a bedstead,
thirty pounds for the sheets of the bed, twenty-five pounds
for two coverlets, and ten pounds for a pillow-case. The
jewelry of his wife and daughters he estimated at tv.'o
thousand pounds. It seems, too, that he had always
lived in a humble sort of way, and was never supposed
by his neighbors to possess such splendor of ornament
and household goods.
While the controversy between the English and French
Governments was yet unfinished. Lord Stanley proposed
in the House of Lords a resolution which was practically
a vote of censure on the Government. The resolution
was carried, after a debate of great spirit and energy,
by a majority of thirty-seven. Lord Palmerston was not
dismayed. A Ministry is seldom greatly troubled by an
adverse vote in the House of Lords. Still it was neces
sary that something should be done in the Commons to
counterbalance the stroke of the Lords, and accordingly
Mr. Roebuck, acting as an independent member, although
on this occasion in harmony with the Government,
brought forward on June 24, 1850, a resolution which
boldly affirmed that the principles on which the foreign
policy of the Government had been regulated were " such
as were calculated to raaintain the honor and dignity
of this country ; and in tiraes of unexampled difficulty to
preserve peace between England and the various nations
of the world."
Araong those who condemned the policy of Lord
Palmerston were Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cobden, Sir Robert
Peel, Sir William Molesworth, and Mr. Sidney Herbert in
the Commons. In the House of Lords, Lord Brougham,
Lord Canning, and Lord Aberdeen had supported the
resolution of Lord Stanley. The principal interest of the
debate now rests in the manner of Lord Palmerston's
defence. That speech was indeed a masterpiece of
Parliaraentary arguraent and address. Lord Palmerston
really made it appear as if the question between hira
and his opponents was that of the protection of English
raen abroad ; as if he were anxious to look after their
lives and safety, while his opponents were urging the
odious principle that when once an Englishman put his

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 1 23
foot on a foreign shore his own Government renounced
all intent to concern themselves with any fate that might
befall him. In a peroration of thrilling power Lord
Palmerston asked for the verdict of the House to decide
" whether, as the Roman in days of old held hiraself
free frora indignity when he could say ' I ara a Roraan
citizen,' so also a British subject, in whatever land he
raay be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and
the strong arm of England will protect him against in
justice and wrong." 'When Lord Palraerston closed his
speech the overwhelraing plaudits of the House foretold
the victory he had won. It was indeed a raasterpiece of
telling defence. The speech occupied sorae five hours
in delivery. It was spoken, as Mr. Gladstone afterwards
said, from the dusk of one day to the dawn of the next.
It was spoken without the help of a single note.
After a debate of four nights, a raajority of forty-six
was given for the resolution. The Ministry came out not
only absolved but triumphant. The odd thing about the
whole proceeding is that the ministers in general heartily
disapproved of the sort of policy which Palmerston de
fended so eloquently and put so energetically into action
— at least they disapproved, if not his principles, yet
certainly his way of enforcing thera. Of many fine
speeches made during this brilliant debate we raust
notice one in particular. It was that of Mr. Cockburn,
then member for Southampton. Never in our time has
a reputation been raore suddenly, corapletely, and de
servedly made than Mr. Cockburn won by his brilliant
display of ingenious argument and stirring words. The
raanner of the speaker lent additional effect to his
clever and captivating eloquence. He had a clear, sweet,
penetrating voice, a fluency that seemed so easy as to
make Hsteners soraetimes fancy that it ought to cost no
effort, and a grace of gesture such as it raust be owned
the courts of law where he had his training do not often
teach. Mr. Cockburn defended the policy of Palmerston
with an effect only inferior to that produced by Pal
merston's own speech, and with a rhetorical grace and
finish to which Palmerston made no pretension. Mr.
Cockburn's career was safe from that hour. It is need-

124 A SHORT HIS-rORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
less to say that he well upheld in after years the reputa
tion he won in a night. The brilliant and sudden success
of the member for Southampton was but the fitting
prelude to the abiding distinction won by the Lord Chief
Justice of England.
One association of profound melancholy clings to
that great debate. The speech delivered by Sir Robert
Peel was the last that was destined to corae from his lips.
The debate closed on the raorning of Saturday, June 29.
It was nearly four o'clock when the division was taken,
and Peel left the House as the sunlight was already be
ginning to stream into corridors and lobbies. He went
home to rest ; but his sleep could not be long. He had
to attend a raeeting of the Royal Commissioners of the
Great Industrial Exhibition at twelve. He returned
home fof a short time after the meeting, and then set
out for a ride in the Park. He called at Buckinghara
Palace and wrote his narae in the Queen's visiting-book.
Then as he was riding up Constitution Hill he stopped
to talk to a young lady, a friend of his, who was also
riding. His horse suddenly shied and flung him off ; and
Peel clinging to the bridle, the animal fell with its knees
on his shoulders. The injuries which he received proved
beyond all skill of surgery. He lingered, now conscious,
now delirious with pain, for two or three days ; and he
died about eleven o'clock on the night of July 2. Most
of the members of his family and some of his dearest
old friends and companions in political arms were
beside him when he died. The tears of the Duke of
Wellington in one House of Parliaraent, and the elo
quence of Mr. Gladstone in the other, were expressions
as fitting and adequate as raight be of the universal feel
ing of the nation.
Peel seemed destined for great things yet when he
died. He was but in his sixty-third year ; he was sorae
years younger than Lord Palraerston, who raay be said
without exaggeration to have just achieved his first great
success. Many circurastances were pointing to Peel as
likely before long to be suraraoned again to the leader
ship in the governraent of the country. It is superfluous
to say that his faculties as Parliamentary orator or states-

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 125
man w-ere not showing any signs of decay. An English
public man is not supposed to show signs of decaying
faculties at sixty-two. The shying horse and perhajjs
the bad ridership settled the question of Peel's career
between them.
To the same year belongs the close of another re
markable career. On August 26, 1850, Louis Philippe,
lately King of the French, died at Claremont, the guest
of England. Few men in history had gone through
greater reverses. He had been soldier, exile, college
teacher, wanderer among American-Indian tribes, resident
of Philadelphia, and of
Bloomingdalcin the New
York suburbs, and King
of the French. He died
in exile among us, a clever,
unwise, grand, mean old
man. There was a great
deal about him
which made hira
respected in pri
vate life, and when
he had nothing to
do with state in
trigues and the for
eign policy of courts. He
was rauch liked in England,
where his sons lived for raany
years after. But there were
Englishmen who did not like Loois Philipfe.
him and did not readily for
give hira. One of these was Lord Palraerston. Louis
Philippe always detested Lord Palmerston. Lord Pal
merston wrote to his brother a few days after the death of
Louis Philippe, expressing his sentiments thereupon with
the utmost directness. "The death of Louis Philippe,"
he said, " delivers me from my most artful and inveterate
enemy, whose position gave hira in many ways the power
to injure me."
The autumn of 1850 and the greater part of 1851
were disturbed by a sharp and embittered struggle with

126 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the Papal court. The movement among some scholarly,
mystical raen in England towards the Roraan Church
had raade a profound irapression in Rorae. To the eyes
of Papal enthusiasm the whole English nation was only
waiting for sorae word in season to return to the spiritual
jurisdiction of Rome. A Papal bull, " given at St. Peter's,
Rome, under the seal of the fisherman," directed the
establishment in England " of a hierarchy of bishops
deriving their titles from their own sees, which we con
stitute by the present letter in the various apostolic dis
tricts." There always were Catholic bishops in England.
There were Catholic archbishops. They were free to go
and corae, to preach and teach as they liked ; to dress as
they liked ; for all that nineteen out of every twenty
Enghshraen cared, they might have. been also free to
call themselves what they liked. The anger was not
against the giving of the new titles, but against the
assumption of a new right to give titles representing
territori'al distinctions in the country ; against tho Pope's
evident assumption that the change he was making was
the natural result of an actual change in the national
feeling of England. The Pope had divided England into
various dioceses, which he placed undei the control of
an archbishop and twelve suffragans ; and the new arch
bishop was Cardinal Wiseman. Under the title of Arch
bishop of Westminster and Administrator Apostolic of
the Diocese Southwark, Cardinal Wiseman was now to
reside In London. Cardinal Wiseman was already well
known in England. He was of English descent on his
father's side and of Irish on his mother's ; he was a
Spaniard by birth, and a Roman by education. His
family on .both sides was of good position ; his father
came of a long line of Essex gentry. Wiseman had held
the professorship of Oriental languages in the English
College at Rome, and afterwards becarae rector of the
college. In 1840 he was appointed by the Pope one of
the 'Vicars Apostolic in England, and held his position
here as Bishop of Melipotaraus in ;partibus infideliuin.
He was well known to be a fine scholar, an accoraplished
linguist, and a powerful preacher and controversialist.
But he was believed also to be a raan of great ecclesias

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 127
tical ambition — ambition for his Church, that is to say
— of singular boldness, and of rauch political ability.
The Pope's action was set down as in a great raeasure
the work of Wiseman. The Cardinal himself was ac
cepted in the minds of raost Englishmen as a type of
the regular Italian ecclesiastic— bold, clever, ambitious,
and unscrupulous. The very fact of his English extrac
tion only militated the more against him in the public
feeling. He was regarded as in some sense one who had
gone over to the enemy, and who was the more to be
dreaded because of the knowledge he carried with him.
The first step taken by Cardinal Wiseman did not tend
to charm away this feeling. He issued a pastoral letter,
addressed to England, on October 7, 1850, which was
set forth as "given out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome."
This description of the letter was afterwards stated to
be in accordance with one of the necessary formularies
of the Church of Rome ; but it w-as then assumed in
England to be an expression of insolence and audacity
intended to remind the English people that from out of
Rorae Itself carae the assertion of supreraacy over them.
This letter was to be read publicly in all the Roman
Catholic churches in London. It addressed itself di
rectly to the English people, and it announced that
" your beloved country has received a place among the
fair churches which normally constituted form the splendid
aggregate of Catholic comraunion ; Catholic England
has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firma
ment from which its light had long vanished ; and begins
now anew its course of regularly-adjusted action round
the centre of unity, the source of jurisdiction, of light,
and of vigor."
The letter had hardly reached England when the
country was aroused by another letter coming from a
very different quarter, and intended as a counterblast to
the Papal assumption of authority. This was Lord John
Russell's famous Durham letter. The letter was In reply
to one frora the Bishop of Durhara, and was dated
" Downing .Street, November 4." L-ord John Russell con
deraned in the raost unraeasured terras the assumption
of the Pope as " a pretension of supremacy over the

128 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided
sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy,
with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the
spiritual independence of the nation as asserted even
in the Roman Catholic tiraes." But Lord John Russell
went further than all this. He declared that there was
a danger that alarmed him more than any aggression
frora a foreign sovereign, and that was " the danger
within the gates from the unworthy sons of the Church
of England herself." The Catholics looked upon the
letter as a declaration of war against Catholicism ; the
fanatical of the other side welcoraed it as a trumpet-call
to a new " No Popery" agitation.
The very day after the letter appeared was the Guy
Faux anniversary. All over the country the effigies of
the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman took the place of the
regulation " Guy," and were paraded and burnt amid
tumultuous demonstrations. Mr. Disraeli endeavored at
once to foment the, prevailing heat of public teraper and
at the sarae tirae to direct its fervor against the Ministry
themselves, by declaring in a published letter that he
could hardly blame the Pope for supposing hiraself at
liberty to divide England into bishoprics, seeing the en-
courageraent he had got frora the rainisters themselves
by the recognition they had offered to the Roraan Catho
lic hierarchy of Ireland. As a raatter of fact it was not
the existing Government that had recognized the rank of
the Irish Catholic prelates. The recognition had been
formally arranged in January, 1845, by a royal warrant
or coraraission for carrying out the Charitable Bequests
Act, which gave the Irish Catholic prelates rank im
mediately after the prelates of the Established Church of
the same degree. But the letter of Mr. Disraeli, like
that of John Russell, served to inflame passions on both
sides, and to put the country in the worst possible raood
for any raanner of wholesome legislation. Never during
the same generation had there been such an outburst of
anger on both sides of the religious controversy. It was
a curious incident iii political history that Lord John
Russell, who had more than any. Englishman then living
been identified with the principles of religious liberty.

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 1 29
who had sat at the feet of Fox, and had for his closest
friend the Catholic poet Thomas Moore, came to be re
garded by Roman Catholics as the bitterest eneray of
their creed and their rights of worship.
The opening of Parliament came on February 4, 1851.
The Ministry had to do something. No Ministry that
ever held power in England could have attempted to
meet the House of Commons without some project of a
measure to allay the intense excitement which prevailed
throughout the country. Tvvo or three days after the
meeting of Parliament Lord John Russell introduced his
bill to prevent the assuraption by Roraan Catholics of
titles taken frora any territory or place within the United
Kingdora. The measure proposed to prohibit the use of
all such titles under penalty, and to render void all acts
done by or bequests made to persons under such titles.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act imposed a penalty of
one hundred pounds for every assumption of a title taken
from ah existing see. Lord John Russell proposed now
to extend the penalty to the assumption of any title what
ever from any place in the United Kingdom. The re
ception which was given to Lord John Russell's raotion
for leave to bring in this bill was not encouraging.
Usually leave to bring in a bill is granted as a matter of
course. Sorae few general observations of exterapora-
neous and guarded criticism are often made ; but the
common practice is to offer no opposition. On this
occasion, however, the debate on the motion for leave to
bring in the bill was renewed for night after night, and
the fullest promise of an angry and prolonged resistance
was given. The opponents of the raeasure had on their
side not only all the prorainent champions of religious
liberty like Sir Jaraes Graham, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cob
den, and Mr. Bright ; but also Protestant politicians of
such devotion to the interests of the Church as Mr.
Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Selborne, and Mr.
Beresford Hope ; and of course they had with them all
the Irish Catholic merabers. Mr. Roebuck described the
bill as " one of the meanest, pettiest, and most futile
measures that ever disgraced even bigotry itself." Mr.
Bright called it " Httle, paltry, and miserable — a raere

130 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
shara to bolster up Church ascendency." Mr. Disraeli
declared that he would not oppose the introduction of
the bill ; but he spoke of it in language of as rauch con-
terapt as Mr. Roebuck and Mr. Bright had used, calling
it a raere piece of petty persecution. Sir Robert Inglis,
on the part of the raore extreme Protestants, objected to
the bill on the ground that it did not go far enough.
Yet so strong was the feeling in favor of sorae legislation,
that when the division was taken, three hundred and
ninety-five votes were given for the motion, and only
sixty-three against it.
It was interrupted at one stage by events which had
nothing to do with its history. The Governraent got into
trouble of another kind. Mr. Locke King, member for
East Surrey, asked for leave to bring in a bill to as
similate the county franchise to that existing in boroughs.
Lord John Russell opposed the raotion, and the Govern
raent were defeated by 100 votes against 52. It was
evident that this was only what is called a " snap " vote ;
that the House was taken by surprise, and that the re
sult in no wise represented the general feeling of Parlia
ment. But still it was a vexatious occurrence for the
Ministry. Their budget had already been received with
very general raarks of dissatisfaction. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer only proposed a partial and qualified re
peal of the window tax, an ira'post which was justly de
tested, and he continued the incorae tax. Under these
circumstances Lord John Russell felt that he had no
alternative but to tender his resignation to the Queen.
Leaving his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill suspended in air,
he announced that he could no longer think of carrying
on the government of the country.
The question was who should succeed him. The
Queen sent for Lord Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby.
Lord Stanley offered to do his best to form a Govern
raent, but he tried without hope, and of course he was
unsuccessful. The position of parties was very peculiar.
It was impossible to form any combination which could
really agree upon anything. There were three parties
out of which a Ministry might be formed. These were
the Whigs, the Conservatives, and the Peelites. The

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. I31
Peelites were a very rising and promising body of men.
Among thera were Sir James Graham, Lord Canning,
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cardwell, arid
some others almost equally well known. Only these
three groups were fairiy in the competition for office; for
the idea of a Ministry of Radicals and Manchester raen
was not then likely to present itself to any official mind.
But how could anyone put together a Ministry formed
from a combination of these three ? The Peelites would
not coalesce with the Tories because of 'the Protection
¦ question, and because of Lord Stanley's own declaration
that he still regarded the policy of Free Trade as only
an experiment. The Peelites would not combine with
the Whigs because of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. The
Conservatives would not disavow protective ideas ; the
Whigs would not give up the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
No statesman, therefore, could form a Government with
out having to count on two great parties being against
him on one question or the other. There was nothing
better to be done than to ask the ministers who had
resigned to resume their places and muddle on as they
best could. It is not enough to say that there was noth
ing better to be done ; there was nothing else to be
done. They were at all events still administering the
affairs of the country, and no one would relieve them of
the task. So the ministers returned to their places and
resumed the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
The Government at first, as we have seen, resolved to
impose a penalty on the assumption of ecclesiastical titles
by Roman Catholic prelates frora places in the United
Kingdom, and to make null and void all acts done or
bequests made in virtue of such titles. But they found
that it would be absolutely impossible to apply such legis
lation in Ireland. In that country a Catholic hierarchy
had long been tolerated, and all the functions of a regu
lar hierarchy had been in full and formal operation. To
apply the new measure to Ireland would have been
virtually to repeal the Roman Catholic Relief Act and
restore the penal laws. On the other hand, the minis
ters w-ere not willing to make one law against titles for
England and another for Ireland. They were driven.

132 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
therefore, to the course of withdrawing two of the strin
gent clauses of the bill, and leaving it little more than a
mere declaration against the assumption of unlawful
titles. But by doing this they furnished stronger reasons
for opposition to both of the two very different parties
who had hitherto denounced their way of dealing with
the crisis. Those who thought the bill did not go far
enough before were of course indignant at the proposal
to shear it of whatever little force it had originally
possessed. They, on the other hand, who had opposed it
as a breach of the principle of religious Uberty could now
ridicule it with all the greater effect on the ground that it
violated a principle without even the pretext of doing any
practical good as a compensation.
The debates were long, fierce, and often passionate.
The bill was wrangled over until the end of June, and
then a large number, some seventy, of the Irish Catholic
merabers publicly seceded from the discussion and
announced that they would take no further part in the
divisions. On this sorae of the strongest opponents of
the Papal aggression, led by Sir Frederick Thesiger,
afterwards Lord Chelmsford, brought in and carried a
series of resolutions intended to make the bill more
stringent than it had been even as originally introduced.
The object of the resolutions was principally to give the
power of prosecuting and claiming a penalty to anybody,
provided he obtained the consent of the law officers of
the Crown, and to make penal the introduction of bulls.
When the raeasure came on for a third reading. Lord
John Russell moved the oraissionof the added clauses,
but he was defeated by large majorities. The bill was
done with so far as the House of Commons was con
cerned. After an eloquent and powerful protest frora
Mr. Gladstone against the measure, as one disparaging
to the great principle of religious freedom, the bill was
read a third time. It went up to the House of Lords,
was passed there without alteration although not without
opposition, and soon after received the Royal assent.
This was practically the last the world heard about it.
In the Roman Church everything went on as before.
The new Cardinal Archbishop still called himself Arch-

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 133
bishop of Westminster ; some of the Irish prelates made
a point of ostentatiously using their territorial titles in
letters addressed to the ministers themselves. The bit
terness of feeling which the Papal aggression and the
legislation against it had called up did not indeed pass
away very soon. It broke out again and again, sorae
times in the form of very serious riot. But England was
not restored to the comraunion of the Roraan Catholic
Church. On the other hand, the Ecclesiastical Titles
Act was never put in force. Nobody troubled about it.
Many years after, in 1871,11 was quietly repealed. It
died in such ob.scurity that the outer public hardly knew
whether it was above ground or below.
The first of May, 1851, will always be memorable as
the day on which the Great Exhibition was opened in
Hyde Park. Golden indeed were the expectations with
which hopeful people welcomed that historic Exhibition.
It was the first organized to gather all the representatives
of the world's industry into one great fair ; and there
were those who seriously expected that men who had
once been prevailed upon to meet together in friendly
and peaceful rivalry would never again be persuaded to
meet in rivalry of a fiercer kind. The Hyde Park Exhi
bition was often described as the festival to open the
long reign of Peace. It raight as a raere rnatter of
chronology be called without any impropriety the festival
to celebrate the close of the short reign of Peace. From
that year, 185 1, it may be sajd fairly enough that the
world has hardly known a week of peace. The coup
d'itat in France closed the year. The Crimeari War
began almost immediately after and was followed by the
Indian Mutiny, and that by the war between France and
Austria, the long civil war in the United States, the
Neapolitan enterprises of Garibaldi, and the Mexican
intervention, until we come to the war between Austria,
Prussia, and Denmark ; the short sharp struggle for
German supremacy between Austria and Prussia, the war
between France and Germany, the war between Russia
and Turkey, and our own Asiatic and African wars.
Such were, in brief suraraary, the events that quickly
followed the great inaugurating Festival of Peace in 185 1.

134 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
The first idea of the Exhibition was conceived by
Prince Albert ; and it was his energy and influence which
succeeded in carrying the idea into practical execution.
Prince Albert was President of the Society of Arts, and
this position secured hira a platforra for the effective
proraulgation of his ideas. On June 30, 1849, he called
a meeting of the Society of Arts at Buckinghara Palace.
He proposed that the Society should undertake the
initiative in the promotion of an exhibition of the works
of all nations. The idea was at once taken up by the
Society of Arts, and by their agency spread abroad. .In
the first few days of 1850 a formal Coraraission was
appointed " for the proraotion of the Exhibition of the
'Works of All Nations, to be holden in the year .1851."
Prince Albert was appointed President of the Corarais
sion. On March 21 in the sarae year the Lord Mayor of Lon
don gave a banquet at the Mansion House to the chief
magistrates of the cities, towns, and boroughs of the
United Kingdom, for the purpose of inviting their co-op
eration in support of the undertaking. Prince Albert
was present and spoke. He had cultivated the art of
speaking with rauch success, and had almost entirely
overcome whatever difficulty stood in his way from his
foreign birth and education. He never quite lost his
foteign accent. But his style of speaking was clear,
thoughtful, stately, and sometimes even noble. It exactly
suited its purpose. It was that of a man who did not
set up for an orator ; and who, when he spoke, wished
that his ideas rather than his words should impress his
hearers. At the dinner in the Mansion House he spoke
with great clearness and grace of the purposes of the
Great Exhibition. It was, he said, to " give the world a
true test, a living picture, of the point of industrial devel
opraent at which the whole of raankind has arrived, and
a new starting-point from which all nations will be able
to direct their further exertions."
It must not be supposed, however, that the project of
the Great Exhibition advanced wholly without opposition.
Many persons were disposed to sneer at it altogether;

ATHENS, ROME AND LONDON. 135
many were skeptical about its doing any particular good ;
not a few still regarded Prince Albert as a foreigner and
a pedant, and were exceedingly slow to believe that any
thing really practical was likely to be developed under
his impulse and protection. After some consideration
the Royal Commissioners had fixed upon Hyde Park as
the best site for the great building, and many energetic
and some influential voices were raised in fierce outcry
against what was called the profanation of the park. It
was argued that the public use of Hyde Park would be
destroyed by the Exhibition ; that the Park would be
utterly spoiled ; that its beauty could never be restored.
A petition was presented by Lord Campbell to the
House of Lords against the occupation of any part of
Hyde Park with the Exhibition building. Lord Brou.gham
supported the petition with his characteristic irapetuosity
and vehemence, and denounced the House of Lords for
what he considered its servile deference to royalty in the
matter of the Exhibition and its site. It is probably true
enough that only the influence of a prince could have
carried the scheme to success against the storms of
opposition -that began to blow at various periods and
from different points. Many tiraes during its progress
the Prince hiraself trembled for the success of his scherae.
Many a time he must have felt inclined to renounce it, or
at least to regret that he had ever taken it up.
Absurd as the opposition to the scheme raay now
seem, it is certain that a great many sensible persons
thought the raoment singularly inopportune for the gath
ering of large crowds, and were satisfied that some incon
venient, if not dangerous, public deraonstrations must be
provoked. The smouldering embers of Chartisra, they
said, were everywhere under society's feet. The crowds
of foreigners would, some people said, naturally include
large numbers of the " Reds " of all Continental nations,
who would be only too glad to coalesce with Char
tism and discontent of all kinds, for the purpose of
disturbing the peace of London. The agitation caused
by the Papal aggression was still in full force and flame.
Most of the Continental sovereigns looked coldly on the
undertaking. The King of Prussia took such alarm at

136 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the thought of the Red Republicans whom the Exhibi
tion would draw together, that at first he positively pro
hibited his brother, then Prince of Prussia, now German
Emperor, from attending the opening ceremonial ; and
though he afterwards withdrew the prohibition, he re
mained full of doubts and fears as to the personal safety
of any royal or princely personage found in Hyde Park
on the opening day. The Duke of Cambridge being ap
pealed to on the subject, acknowledged himself also full
of apprehensions. The objections to the site continued
to grow up to a certain tirae, but public opinion gradu
ally underwent a change, and the opposition to the site
was defeated in the House of Commons by a large raa
jority. Even, however, when the question of the site had been
disposed of, there remained imraense difficulties in the
way. The press was not on the whole very favorable to
the project. As the tirae for the opening drew near,
some of the foreign diplomatists in London began to
sulk at the whole project. There were small points . of
objection made about the position and functions -of for
eign ambassadors at the opening ceremonial, and up to
the last moment it was not quite certain whether an ab
surd diplomatic quarrel might not have been part of the
inaugural ceremonies of the opening day.
The Prince did not despair, however, and the project
went on. There was a great deal of difficulty in select
ing a plan for the building. Huge structures of brick
work, looking like enormous railway sheds, costly and
hideous at once, were proposed ; it seeraed almost cer
tain that some one of them raust he chosen. Happily, a
sudden inspiration struck Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph)
Paxton. 'Why not try glass and iron ? he asked hiraself.
Why not build a palace of glass and iron large enough
to cover all the intended contents of the Exhibition, and
which should be at once light, beautiful, and cheap ?
Mr. Paxton sketched out his plan hastily ; the idea was
eagerly accepted by the Royal Coraraissioners, and the
palace of glass and iron arose within the specified time
on the green turf of Hyde Park. The idea so happily
hit upon was serviceable in raore ways than one to the

ATHENS, ROME AND L-ONDON. 137
success of the Exhibition. It made the building itself as
much an object of curiosity and wonder as the collec
tions under its crystal roof. Of the hundreds of thou
sands who came to the Exhibition a goodly proportion
were drawn to Hyde Park rather by a wish to see Pax-
ton's palace of glass than all the wonders of industrial
and plastic art that it enclosed.
The success of the opening day was indeed undoubted.
There were nearly thirty thousand people gathered to
gether within the building, and nearly three-quarters of a
million of persons lined the way between the Exhibition
and Buckingham Palace , and yet no accident whatever
occurred, nor had the police any trouble iraposed on
them by the conduct of anybody in the crowd. It is
needless to say that there were no hostile deraonstrations
by Red Republicans or malignant Chartists or infuriated
Irish Catholics. The one thing which especially struck
foreign observers, and to which many eloquent pens and
tongues bore witness, was the orderly conduct of the
people. Nor did the subsequent history of the Exhibi
tion in any way belie the proraise of its opening day.
It continued to attract delighted crowds to the last, and
more than once held within its precincts at one moraent
nearly a hundred thousand persons, a concourse large
enough to have raade the population of a respectable
Continental capital. The Hyde Park enterprise be
queathed nothing very tangible or distinct to the world,
except indeed the palace which, built out of its fabric,
not its ruins, so gracefully ornaraents one of the soft hills
of Sydenhara. But in a year made memorable by many
political events of the greatest importance, of disturbed
and tempestuous politics abroad and at home, of the
deaths of many illustrious men, and the failure of many
splendid hopes, the Exhibition in Hyde Park still holds
its place in raemory — not for what it brought or accom- .
plished, but simply for itself, its surroundings, and its
house of glass.

//

CHAPTER X.
PALMERSTON.
The death of Sir Robert Peel had left Lord Palraer
ston the raost prominent, if not actually the most influ
ential, among the statesmen of England. Palraerston's
was a strenuous self-asserting character. He had given
hiraself up to the study of foreign affairs as no rainister
of his tirae had done. He had a peculiar capacity for
understanding foreign politics and people as well as for
eign languages ; and he had corae somewhat to pique
himself upon his knowledge. His sympathies were
markedly liberal. In all the popular movements going
on throughout the Continent Palmerston's sympathies
were generally with the peoples and against the Govern
ments ; while he had, on the other hand, a very strong
contempt, which he took no pains to conceal, even for
the very best class of the Continental demagogue. Pal-
merstori seized a conclusion at once, and hardly ever de
parted from it. He never seeraed to care who knew
what he thought on any subject. He had a contempt
for men of raore deliberate teraper, and often spoke and
wrote as if he thought a raan slow in forming an opinion
must needs be a dull man, not to say a fool. All opin
ions not his own he held in good-humored scorn. In
some of his letters we find him writing of raen of the
raost undoubted genius and wisdom, whose views have
since stood all the test of time and trial, as if they were
mere blockheads for whora no practical man could feel
the slightest respect. It would be almost superfluous to
say, in describing a man of such a nature, that Lord Pal-

palmerston. 139
merston sometimes fancied he saw great wisdom and
force of character in men for whom neither then nor
since did the world in general show rauch regard. As
with a man, so with a cause. Lord Palmerston was to all
appearance capricious in his sympathies. Calmer and
more earnest minds were sometimes offended at what
seemed a lack of deep-seated principle in his mind and
his policy, even when it happened that he and they were
in accord as to the course that ought to be pursued.
His levity often shocked thera ; his blunt, brusque ways
of speaking and writing soraetiraes gave downright of
fence. Lord Palraerston was unsparing in his lectures to
foreign states. He was always adraonishing them that
they ought to lose no time in at once adopting the prin
ciples of government which prevailed in England. 'While
therefore he was a Conservative in home politics, and
never even professed the slightest personal interest in
any projects of political reform in England, he got the
credit all over the Continent of being a supporter, pro
moter, and patron of all manner of revolutionary move
ments, and a disturber of the relations between subjects
and their sovereigns. Palmerston, therefore, had many
enemies among European statesmen. It is now certain
that the Queen frequently winced under the expressions
of ill-feeling which were brought to her ears as affecting
England, and, as she supposed, herself, and which she
believed to have been drawn on her by the inconsiderate
and impulsive conduct of Palraerston. The Prince Con
sort, on whose advice the Queen very naturally relied,
was a man of singularly calm and earnest nature. He
liked to form his opinions deliberately and slowly, and
disliked expressing any opinion until his mind was well
made up. Lord Palmerston, when Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, was rauch in the habit of writing and answering
despatches on the spur of the moraent, and without con
sulting either the Queen or his colleagues. Palmerston
complained of the long delays which took place on several
occasions when, in matters of urgent importance, he
waited to submit despatches to the Queen before sending
them off. He contended too that where the general

140 A short HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
policy of state was clearly marked out and well known,
it would have been idle to insist that a Foreign Secretary
capable of performing the duties of his office should wait
to submit for the inspection and approval of the Sovereign
and his colleagues every scrap of paper he wrote on be
fore it was allowed to leave England. But the Queen
complained that on matters concerning the actual policy
of the State Palraerston was in the habit of acting on his
own independent judgment and authority ; that she found
herself more than once thus pledged to a course of
policy which she had not had an opportunity of con
sidering, and would not have approved if she had had
such an opportunity; and that she hardly ever found any
question absolutely intact and uncompromised when it
was subraitted to her judgraent.
The Queen and the Prince had long chafed under
Lord Palmerston's cavalier way of doing business. So
far back as 1849 her Majesty had felt obliged to draw
the attention of the Foreign Secretary to the fact that his
office was constitutionally under the control of the Prirae
Minister, and the despatches to be submitted for her
approval should, therefore, pass through the hands of
Lord John Russell. Lord John Russell approved of this
arrangement, only suggesting — and the suggestion is of
some raoment in considering Lord Palmerston's defence
of his conduct afterwards — that every facility should be
given for the transaction of business by the Queen's at
tending to the draft despatches as soon as possible after
their arrival. The Queen accepted the suggestion good-
huraoredly, only pleading that she should ''not be
pressed for an answer within a few minutes, as is done
now sometimes." One can see a part of the difficulty at
least even from these slight hints. Lord Palraerston was
rapid in forraing his judgments as in all his proceedings,
and when once he had made up his mind was impatient
of any delay which seemed to hira superfluous. Prince
Albert was slow, deliberate, reflective, and raethodical.
Lord Palraerston was always sure he was right in every
judgment he forraed, even if it were adopted on the spur
of the moment ; Prince Albert loved reconsideration and
was open to new argument and late conviction. However,

PALMERSlON. 141
the difficulty was got over in 1849. Lord Palmerston
agreed to every suggestion, and for the time all seemed
likely to go smoothly. It was only for the time. The
Queen soon believed she had reason to complain that
the new arrangement was not carried out. Things were
going on, she thought, in just the old way. Lord Pal
merston dealt as befpre with foreign courts according to
what seeraed best to him at the moment ; and his Sovereign
and his colleagues often only knew of some important
despatch or instruction when the thing was done and
could not be conveniently or becomingly undone. The
Prince, at her Majesty's request, wrote to Lord John
Russell, complaining strongly of the conduct of Lord
Palmerston. An iraportant raeraorandum was addressed
by her Majesty to the Prime Minister, laying down in
clear and severe language the exact rules by which the
Foreign Secretary must be bound in his dealings with
her. The memorandum was a severe and a galling re
buke for the Foreign Secretary. We can imagine with
what emotions Lord Palraerston must have received it.
He was a proud, seff-confident man ; and it carae on hira
just in the raoraent of his Pacifico triumph. But he kept
down his feelings. It is impossible not to feel a high
respect for the manner in which Lord Palmerston acted.
He took his rebuke in the most perfect good temper.
He wrote a friendly and good-humored letter to Lord
John Russell, saying, " I have taken a copy of this memo
randum of the Queen, and will not fail to attend to the
directions which it contains." Lord Palmerston went a
step farther in the way of conciliation. He asked for an
interview with Prince Albert, and he explained to the
Prince in the most emphatic and indignant terms that
the accusation against him of being purposely wanting
in respect to the Sovereign was absolutely unfounded.
But he does not seem in the course of the interview to
have done much raore than argue the point as to the
propriety and convenience ol the system he had lately
been adopting in the business of the Foreign Office. St)
for the hour the matter dropped. But it was destined
to come up again in more serious form than before.
About this time the Hungarians had been raaking a

142 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
desperate attempt to throw off the domination of Austria
and assert their independence. The struggle had begun
over some questions of constitutional rights involved in
the connection between Hungary and Austria, but it
grew into a regular rebellion, having for its aim the
complete freedom of Hungary. For a tirae it carried
all befpre it, but it was finally crushed by the interven
tion of Russia. This intervention of Russia called up a
wide and deep feeling of regret and indignation in this
country. Louis' Kossuth, who had been dictaltor of Hun
gary during the greater part of the insurrection, and who
represented, in the English raind at least, the cause of
Hungary and her national independence, came to Eng
land, and the English public welcomed him with especial
cordiality. There was much in Kossuth himself as well
as in his cause to attract the enthusiasm of popular
assemblages. He had a strikingly handsorae face and a
stately presence. He was picturesque and perhaps even
theatric in his dress and his bearing. He looked like a
picture ; all his attitudes and gestures seeraed as if they
were meant to be reproduced by a painter, He was
undoubtedly one of the raost eloquent men who ever ad
dressed an English popular audience. In one of his im
prisonments Kossuth had studied the English language
chiefly from the pages of Shakespe&re. The English he
spoke was the noblest in its style from which a student
could supply his eloquence : Kossuth spoke the English
of Shakespeare. Through all his speeches there ran the
thread of one distinct principle of international policy to
which Kossuth endeavored to obtain the assent of the
English people. This was the principle that if one State
intervenes in the domestic affairs of another for the pur
pose of putting down revolution, it then becomes the
right, and may even be the duty, of any third State to
throw in the weight of her sword against the unjustifiable
intervention. As a principle this is nothing raore than
sorae of the ablest and raost thoughtful Englishmen had
advocated before and have advocated since. But in
Kossuth's raind, and in the understanding of those who
heard hira, it raeant that England ought to declare war
against Russia or Austria, or both ; the former for having

PALMERSTON. 143
intervened between the Emperor of Austria and the
Hungarians, and the latter for having invited and profited
by the intervention.
The presence of Kossuth and the reception he got ex
cited a wild anger and alarm among Austrian statesmen.
The Austrian Ambassador in England was all sensitive
ness and remonstrance. The relations between this coun
try and Austria seemed to become every day more and
raore strained. Lord Palmerston regarded the anger
and the fears of Austria with a contempt which he took
no pains to conceal. Lord Palmerston knew tfiat the
English public never had any serious notion of going to
war with Austria in obedience to Kossuth's appeal.
There came a time when Kossuth lived in England for
gotten and unnoticed ; when his passing away from Eng
land was unobserved as his presence there long had
been. The English crowds who applauded Kossuth at
first raeant nothing raore than general sympathy with
any hero of Continental revolution, and personal admira
tion for the eloquence of the man who addressed them.
But Kossuth did not thus accept the homage paid to
him. No foreigner could have understood it in his place.
Lord Palmerston understood it thoroughly, and knew
what it meant, and how long it would last.
Some of Lord Palmerston's colleagues, however, be
came greatly alarraed when it was reported that the
Foreign Ministry was about to receive a visit frora Kos
suth in person to thank him for the sympathy and pro
tection which England had accorded to the Hungarian
refugees while they were still in Turkey, and without
which it was only too likely that they would have been
handed over to Austria or Russia. If Kossuth were re
ceived by Lord Palraerston, the Austrian Ambassador,
it was confidently reported, would leave England. Lord
John Rus.sell took alarm and called a meeting of the
Cabinet to consider the momentous question. Lord Pal
merston reluctantly consented to appease the alarms of
his colleagues by promising to avoid an interview with
Kossuth. The hoped-for result, that of sparing the sen
sibilities of the Austrian Government, was not attained.
In fact, things turned out a great deal worse than they

144 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
might have done if the interview betw-een Lord Palraer
ston and Kossuth had been quietly allowed to come off.
Meetings were held to express sympathy with Kossuth,
and addresses were voted to Lord Palraerston thanking
him for the influence he had exerted in preventing the
surrender of Kossuth to Austria. Lord Palmerston con
sented to receive these addresses from, the hands of dep
utations at the Foreign Office. The whole proceedings
considerably alarraed some of Lord Palmerston's col
leagues, and was regarded with distinct displeasure by
the Queen and Prince Albert. But the possible indis
cretion of Lord Palmerston's dealings with a deputation
or two frora Finsbury and Islington becarae' a raatter of
little interest when the country .was called upon to con
sider the propriety of the Foreign Secretary's dealings
with the new ruler of a new state system, with the au
thor of the coup d'tat.
Things had been going on rather strangely in France.
After the fall of Louis Philippe a republic had been set
up, and it had received the support of a young man whom
we last saw playing the part of special constable against
the Chartists, the Prince Louis Napoleon. Louis Napo
leon was a nephew of the great Emperor. He had raade
attempts to get on the throne of France before, and
been Imprisoned and escaped, and taken refuge in Eng
land. Louis Napoleon had lived raany years in England.
He was as well known there as any prominent member
of the English aristocracy. He went a good deal into
very various society, literary, artistic, merely fashionable,
purely rowdy, as well as into that political society which
raight have seemed- natural to him. In all circles the
same opinion appears to have been forraed of him.
Frora the astute Lord Palmerston to the most ignorant
of the horse-jockeys with whora he occasionall-y con
sorted, all who met him seemed to think of the Prince in
much the sarae way. It was agreed on all hands that
he was a fatuous, dreamy, moony, impracticable, stupid
young man. A sort of stolid amiability, not enlightened
enough to keep him out of low company and question
able conduct, appeared to be his principal characteristic.
He constantly talked of his expected accession somehow

PALMERSTON. 145
and some time to the throne of France, and people only
smiled pityingly at him. When the republic was fairly
estabhshed he went over to France, gave it his support,
and succeeded in being elected its president. Then he
plotted to overthrow it. He won the army to his side.
On the second of December, 1851, he seized and impris
oned all his political opponents ; the next day he bore
down with the raost savage violence all possible opposi
tion. Paris was in the hands of his soldiers ; hundreds
of helpless people were slaughtered, the streets of Paris
ran with blood ; Louis Napoleon proclaimed himself
Prince President. This was the coup d'Hat.
The news of the coup d'etat took England by surprise.
A shock went through the whole country. The almost
universal voice of popular opinion condemned it as
strongly as nearly all men of genuine enlightenment and
feeling condemned it then and since. The Queen was
particularly anxious that nothing should be said by the
British arabassador to commit us to any approval of
what had been done. On December 4 the Queen wrote
to Lord John Russell from Osborne, expressing her de
sire that Lord Normanby, our ambassador at Paris,
should be instructed to remain entirely passive, and say
no word that might be misconstrued into approval of the
action of the Prince President. Lord Normanby's reply
to this despatch created a startling sensation. Our am
bassador wrote to say that when he called on the French
Minister for Foreign Affairs to inform him that he had
been instructed by her Majesty's Government not to
make any change in his relations with the French Govern
ment, the Minister, M. Turgot, told him that he had
heard two days before from Count Walewski, the French
arabassador in London, that Lord Palmerston had ex
pressed to him his entire approval of what Louis Napo
leon had done, and his conviction that the Prince Presi
dent could not have acted otherwise. It would not be
easy to exaggerate the sensation produced araong Lord
Palraerston's colleagues by this astounding piece of
news. The Queen wrote at once to Lord John Russell,
asking hira if he knew anything about the approval
which " the French Government pretend to have re-

146 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
ceived ; " declaring that she could not " believe in the
truth of the assertion, as such an approval given by Lord
Palmerston would have been in complete contradiction
to the line of strict neutrality and passiveness which the
Queen had expressed her desire to see followed with re
gard to the late convulsions at Paris." Lord John Rus
sell replied that he had written to Lord Palmerston,
" saying that he presumed there was no truth in the re
port." The reply of Lord Palmerston left no doubt that
Lord Palmerston had expressed to Count Walewski his
approval of the coup d'etat.
Lord Palmerston endeavored to draw a distinction be
tween the expressions of a Foreign Secretary in conver
sation with an arabassador, and a formal declaration of
opinion. But it is clear that the French arabassador did
not understand Lord Palraerston to be raerely indulging
in the irresponsible gossip of private life, and that Lord
Palraerston never said a word to impress him with the
belief that their conversation had that colorless and un
meaning character. In any case it was surely a piece of
singular indiscretion on the part of a Foreign Minister to
give the French ambassador, even in private conversa
tion, an unqualified opinion in favor of a stroke of policy
-of which the British Government as a whole, and indeed
with the one exception of Lord Palmerston, entirely dis
approved. Lord John Russell made up his mind. He
carae to the conclusion that he could no longer go on
with Lord Palmerston as a colleague in the Foreign Of
fice. The quarrel was coraplete ; Lord Palmerston
ceased from that time to be foreign Secretary, and his
place was taken by Lord Granville. Seldom has a
greater sensation been produced by the removal of a
rainister. The effect which was created all over Europe
was probably just what Lord Palraerston would have de
sired ; the belief prevailed everywhere that he had been
sacrificed to the raonarchical and reactionary influences
all over the Continent. The statesmen of Europe were
under the irapression that Lord Palraerston was put
out of office as an evidence that England was about to
withdraw frora her forraer attitude of syrapathy w-ith the
popular movements of the Continent.

PALMERSTON. I47
The meeting of Parliament took place on February 3
following, 1852. It would be superfluous to say the
keenest anxiety was felt to know the full reason of the
sudden dismissal. The House of Commons was not
long left to wait for an explanation. Lord John Russell
made a long speech, in which he went into the whole
history of the differences between Lord Palraerston and
his colleagues ; and, what was more surprising to the
House, into a history of the late Foreign Secretary's dif
ferences with his Sovereign and the threat of dismissal
which had so long been hanging over his head. The
Prime Minister read to the House the Queen's memoran-
dum. Lord John Russell's speech was a great success.
Lord Palmerston's was, even in the estimation of his
closest friends, a failure. Palmerston seemed to have
practically no defence. He only went over again the
points put by hira in the correspondence already noticed ;
contended that on the whole he had judged rightly of the
French crisis, and that he could not help forraing an
opinion on it, and so forth. Of the Queen's raeraoran
dum he said nothing. He raade up his raind that a
dispute between a sovereign and a subject would be un
becoming of both ; and he passed over the meraorandura
in deliberate silence. The almost universal opinion of
the House of Commons and of the clubs was that Lord
Palmerston's career was closed. " Palraerston . is
sraashed ! " was the coraraon saying of the clubs. A
night or two after the debate Lord Dalllng met Mr. Dis
raeli on the staircase of the Russian Embassy, and Dis
raeli remarked to hira that " there was a Palmerston."
Lord Palraerston evidently did not think so. The let
ters he wrote to friends immediately after his fall show
him as jaunty and full of confidence as ever. He was
quite satisfied with the way things had gone. He waited
calmly for what he called, a few days afterwards, " My
tit-for-tat with John Russell," which carae about indeed
sooner than even he hiraself could well have expected.
All through the year 1852 the national raind of Eng
land was disturbed. The country was stirring itself in
quite an unusual manner, in order that it raight be ready
for a possible and even an . anticipated invasion from

148 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
France. The Volunteer raovement sprang into sudden
existence. All over the country corps of young volunteers
-were being formed. An imraense araount of national
enthusiasm accorapanied and acclaimed the formation of
the volunteer army, which received the sanction of the
Crown early in the year, and thus becarae a national
; institution. The raeaning of all this movement was ex
plained, by the steady progress of the Prince President of
France to an imperial throne. The previous year had
closed upon his coup d'etat. He had arrested, impris
oned, banished, or shot his principal enemies, and had
demanded from the French people a Presidency for ten
years, a Ministry responsible to the executive power —
himself alone — and two political Chambers to be elected
by universal suffrage. Nearly five hundred prisoners,
untried before any tribunal, even that of a drum-head,
had been shipped off to Cayenne. The streets of Paris
had been soaked in blood. The President instituted a
plebiscite, or vote of the whole people, and of course he
got all he asked for. There was no arguing with the
commander of twenty legions, and of such legions as
those that had operated with terrible efficiency on the
Boulevards. The Bonapartist Erapire was restored.
The President becarae Eraperor, and Prince Louis Na
poleon was Napoleon the Third.
It would have been irapossible that the English people
could view all this without eraotion and alarm. They
could not see with indifference the rise of a new Napo
leon to power. The one special characteristic of the
Napoleonic principle was its hostility to England. The
life of the great Napoleon in its greatest days had been
devoted to the one purpose of humiliating England. His
plans had been foiled by England. He owed his fall
principally to England. He died a prisoner of England,
and with his hatred of her embittered rather than ap
peased. It did not seera possible that a new Emperor
Napoleon could arise without bringing a restoration of
that hatred along with hira. An invasion of England
was not a likely event. But it was not by any means an
irapossible event. The more composedly one looks back
to it now, the more he will be compelled to admit that

PALMERSTON. 1 49
it was at least on the cards. The feeling of national un
easiness and alarm was not a raere panic. There were
five projects with which public opinion all over Europe
.specially credited Louis Napoleon when he began his
imperial reign. One was a war with Russia. Another
was a war with Austria. A third was a war with Prussia.
A fourth was the annexation of Belgium. The fifth was
the invasion of England. Three of these projects were
carried out. The fourth we know was in contemplation.
Our combination with France in the first project probably
put all serious thought of the fifth out of the head of the
French Emperor. He got far raore prestige out of an
alliance witfi us than he could ever have got out of any
quarrel with us ; and he had little or no risk. But we
need not look upon the raood of England in 1852 as one
of idle and baseless panic. The sarae feeling broke into
life again in 1859, when the Eraperor of the French
suddenly announced his determination to go to war with-
Austria. It was in this latter period indeed that the
Volunteer movement became a great national organiza
tion. But in 1852 the beginning of an array of volun
teers was made ; and what is of more iraportance to the
immediate business of our history, the Government de
terrained to bring in a bill for the reorganization of the
national militia.
Our militia was not in any case a body to be par
ticularly proud of at that time. It had fallen into decay,
and almost into disorganization. Nothing could have
been a more proper work for any Governraent than its
restoration to efficiency and respectability. We had on
our hands at the time one of our little wars — a Caffre
war, which was protracted to a vexatious length, and
which was not without serious railitary difficulty. It be
gan in the December of 1850, and was not completely
disposed of before the early part of 1853. We could not
afford to have our defences in any defective condition.
But itwas an unfortunate characteristic of Lord John Rus
sell's Government that it atterapted so much legislation,
not because some particular scherae coraraended itself to
the mature wisdom of the Ministry, but because sorae
thing had to be done in a hurry to satisfy public opinion ;

150 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
and the Governraent could not think of anything better
at the raoraent than the first scherae that carae to hand.
Lord John Russell accordingly introduced a Militia Bill,
which was in the highest degree inadequate and un
satisfactory. The principal peculiarity of it was that it
proposed to substitute a local militia for the regular
force that had been in existence. Lord Palmerston saw
great objections to this alteration, and urged them with
rauch briskness and skill on the night when Lord John
Russell explained his measure. 'When Palmerston be
gan his speech, he probably intended to be merely.
critical as regarded points in the measure which were
susceptible of amendment; but as he went on he found
more and raore that he had the House with him. Every
objection he made, every criticism he urged, alraost
every sentence he spoke, drew down increasing cheers.
Lord Palraerston saw that the House was not only
thoroughly with hira on this ground, but thoroughly
against the Government on various grounds. A few
nights after he followed up his first success by proposing
a resolution to substitute the word " regular " for the
word " local " in the bill ; thus, in fact, to reconstruct the
bill on an entirely different principle from that adopted
by its franier. The effort was successful. The Peelites
went with Palmerston ; the Protectionists followed him as
well ; and the result was that 136 votes were given for
the amendment, and only 125 against it. The Govern
ment were defeated by a raajority of eleven. Lord John
Russell instantly announced that he could no longer con
tinue in office, as he did not possess the confidence of
the country. The announcement took the House by sur
prise. Palmerston did not expect any such result, he
declared ; but the revenge was doubtless sweet for all
that. This was in February, 1852 ; and it was only in
the December of the previous year that Lord Palmerston
was compelled to leave the Foreign Office by Lord John
Russell. The Russell Ministry had done little and initiated
less.. It had carried on Peel's system by throwing open
the markets to foreign as well as colonial sugar, and by
the repeal of the Navigation Laws enabled merchants '

PALMERSTON. 151
to employ foreign ships and seamen in the conveyance
of their goods. It had made a mild and ineffectual effort
at a Reform Bill, and had feebly favored attempts to
admit jews to Parliament. It sank from power with an
unexpected collapse in which the nation felt small con
cern. Lord Palraerston did not corae to power again at
that moment. He raight have gohe in with Lord Derby
if he had been so inclined. But Lord Derby, who, it
may be said, had succeeded to that title on the death
of his father in the preceding year, still talked of testing
the policy of Free Trade at a general election, and of
course Palmerston w-as not disposed to have anything to
do with such a proposition. Lord Derby tried various
combinations in vain, and at last had to experiment with
a Cabinet of undiluted Protectionists. He had to take
office, not because he wanted it, or because anyone in
particular wanted him ; but simply and solely because
there was no one else w-ho could undertake the task.
The Ministry which Lord Derby vv'as able to form was
not a strong one. Lord Palmerston described it as con
taining two men of mark, Derby and Disraeli, and a
number of ciphers. It had not, except for these two, a
single raan of any political ability, and had hardly one
of any political experience. It had an able lawyer for
Lord Chancellor, Lord St. Leonards, but he was nothing
of a politician. The rest of the raerabers of the Govern
ment were respectable country gentlemen. The head
of the Governraent was reraarkable for his dashing blun
ders as a politician quite as rauch as for his dashing elo
quence. Concerning Mr. Disraeli hiraself it is not too much
to say that many of his own party were rather more
afraid of his genius than of the dulness of any of his
colleagues. It is not a pleasant task in the best of cir
cumstances to be at the head of a tolerated Ministry in
the House of Commons : a Ministry which is in a minor
ity, and only holds its place because there is no one ready
to relieve it of the responsibility of office. Rarely indeed
is the leadership of the House of Comnions undertaken
by anyone w-ho has not previously held office ; and Mr.
Disraeli entered upon leadership and office at the same

152 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
moment for the first time. He became Chancel'or of the
Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons.
Among the many gifts with which he was accredited by
fame, not a single admirer had hitherto dreamed of in
cluding a capacity for the mastery of P.gures. In addition
to all the ordinary difficulties of the Ministry of a minor
ity there was, in this instance, the difficulty arising frora
the obscurity and inexperience of nearly all its merabers.
Facetious persons dubbed the new Adrainistration the
" Who ? Who ? Ministry." The explanation of this odd
nickname was found in a story then in circulation about
the Duke of Wellington. The Duke, it was said, was
anxious to hear from Lord Derby at the earliest moment
all about the composition of his Cabinet. He was over
heard asking the new Prime Minister in the House of
Lords the names of his intended colleagues. The Duke
was rather deaf, and, like most deaf persons, spoke in
very loud tones, and of course had to be answered in
tones also rather elevated. That which was meant for a
whispered conversation became audible to the whole
Hou.se. As Lord Derby raentioned each narae, the
Duke asked in wonder and eagerness, " Who ? Who?"
After each new name came the same inquiry. The Duke
of Wellington had clearly never heard of most of the
new Ministers before. The story went about ; and Lord
Derby's Governraent was farailiarly known as the " Who ?
Who? Ministry."
Lord Derby entered office with the avowed intention
of testing the Protection question all over again. But he
was no sooner in office than he found that the bare sug
gestion had immensely increased his difficulties. The
Free Traders began to stand together again the moment
Lord Derby gave his unlucky hint. Every week that
passed over his head did soraething to show hira the
mistake he had made when he hampered himself with
any such undertaking as the revival of the Protection
question. Any chance the Government might otherwise
have had of making effective head against their very try
ing difficulties was completely cut away from thera. The
Free Trade League was reorganized. A conference of
Liberal members of the House of Commons was held at

PALMERSTON. 1 53
the residence of Lord John Russell in Chesham Place, at
which it was resolved to extract or e.-vtort from the Gov
ernment a full avowal of their policy w-ilh regard to Pro
tection and Free Trade. The feat would have been
rather difficult of accomplishment, seeing that the Gov
ernment had absolutely no policy to offer on the subject,
and were only hoping to be able to consult the country
as one raight consult an oracle. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer, when he made his financial statement, ac
cepted the increased prosperity of the few years preced
ing with an unction which showed that he at least had
no particular notion of attempting to reverse the policy
which had so greatly contributed to its progress. Mr.
Disraeli pleased the Peelites and the Liberals rauch more
by his statement than he pleased his chief or many of his
followers. His speech indeed was very skilful. People
were glad that one who had proved himself so clever
with many things should have shown himself equal to
the uncongenial and unwonted task of dealing with dry
facts and.figures.
Mr. Disraeli merely proposed in his financial state
raent to leave things as he found thera ; to continue the
income tax for another year, as a provisional arrangement
pending that complete re-examination of the financial
affairs of the country to v^-hich he intimated that he found
himself quite equal at the proper time. No one could
suggest a better course ; and the new Chancellor carae
off on the whole with flying colors. The Governraent
on the whole did not do badly during this period of their
probation. They introduced and carried a Militia Bill,
for which they obtained the cordial support of Lord Pal
merston , and they gave a Constitution to New Zealand ;
and then, in the beginning of July, the Parliament was
prorogued and the dissolution took place. The elections
w-ere signalized by very serious riots in many parts of the
country. In Ireland particularly party passions ran hi'gh.
The landlords and the police were on one side ; the
priests and the popular party on the other ; and in sev
eral places there was some bloodshed. It was not in
Ireland, however, a question about Free Trade or Pro
tection. The question which agitated the Irish constitu-

1-54 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
encies was that of Tenant Right in the first instance ;
and there was also much bitterness of feeling remaining
from the discussions on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
Frora the tirae of the elections nothing more was
heard about Protection or about the possibility of getting
a new trial for its principles. Mr. Disraeli not only
threw Protection overboard, but boldly declared that no
one could have supposed the Ministry had the slightest
intention of proposing to bring back the laws that were
repealed in 1846. In fact the time, he declared, had
gone by when such exploded politics could even interest
the people ot this country. The elections did little or
nothing for the Government. They gained a little, but
they were still to be the Ministry of a minority ; a Minis
try on sufferance. It was plain to every one that their
existence as a Ministry was only a question of days.
Speculation was already busy as to their successors ; and
It was evident that a new Government could only be
formed by some sort of coalition between the Whigs and
the Peelites.
Among the noteworthy events of the general election
was the return of Macaulay to the House of Coraraons.
Edinburgh elected hira in a manner particularly compli
mentary to him and honorable to herself. He had for
some years been absent from Parliament. Differences
had arisen between hira and his constituents, and the
result of it was that at the general election of 1847
Macaulay was left third on the poll at Edinburgh. He
felt this deeply. He might have easily found some other
constituency ; but his wounded pride hastened a resolu
tion he had for some time been forming to retire to a
life of private literary labor. He therefore remained out
of Parliament. In 1852 the raoveraent of Edinburgh
towards hira was entirely spontaneous. Edinburgh was
anxious to atone for the error of which she had been
guilty. Macaulay would go no further than to say that
if Edinburgh spontaneously elected him, he should deem
it a very high honor, but he would not do anything what
ever to court favor. He did not want to be elected to
Parliaraent, he said ; he was very happy in his retirement.
Edinburgh elected him on those terms. He was not

PALMERSTON.

ISS

long allowed by his health to serve her ; but so long as
he remained in the House of Commons it was as mera
ber for Edinburgh.
On September 14, 1852, the Duke of Wellington died.
His end was singularly peaceful. He fell quietly asleep
about a quarter-past three in the afternoon in Walmer
Castle, and he did not wake any more. He was a very

Duke of Wellington.

old man — in his eighty-fourth year — and his death had
naturally been looked for as an event certain to come
soon. Yet when it did come thus naturally and peace
fully, it created a profound public emotion. No other
man in our time ever held the position in England which
the Duke of Wellington had occupied for more than a
whole generation. The place he had won for himself
was absolutely unique. His great deeds belonged to a

156 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
past time. He was hardly anything of a statesman ; he
knew little and cared less about what may be called
statecraft ; and as an administrator he had made many
mistakes. But the trust which the nation had in him as
a counsellor was absolutely unlimited. It never entered
into the mind of anyone to suppose that the Duke of
Wellington was actuated in every step he took, or advice
he gave, by any feeling but a desire for the good of the
State. His loyalty to the Sovereign had something
antique and touching in it. There was a blending of
personal affection with the devotion of a state servant
which lent a certain romantic dignity to the demeanor
and character of one who otherwise had but little of the
poetics or the sentimental in his nature. In the business
of politics he had but ohe prevailing anxiety, and that
was that the Queen's Government should be satisfactorily
carried on. He gave up again and again his own most
cherished convictions, most ingrained prejudices, in order
that he might not stand in the way of the Queen's
Government and the proper carrying of it on. This
siraple fidelity, sometiraes i-ather whimsically displayed,
stood him often in stead of an exalted statesmanship, and
enabled him to extricate the Governraent and the nation
frora difficulties in which a political insight far raore
keen than his might have failed to prove a guide.
It was for this simple and unswerving devotion to the
national good that the people of England admired and
revered him. He had not what would be called a love-
able temperament, and yet the nation loved him. He
was cold and brusque in manner, and seemed in general
to have hardly a gleam of the emotional in him. This
was not because he lacked affections. On the contrary,
his affections and his friendships were warm and endur
ing ; and even in public he had more than once given
way to outbursts of eraotion such as a stranger would
never have expected from one of that cold and rigid
demeanor. When Sir Robert Peel died, Wellington
spoke of him in the House of Lords with the tears which
he did not even try to control running down his cheeks.
But in his ordinary bearing there was little of the man
ner that makes a raan a popular idol. He was not brill-

PALMERSTON. 1 57
iant or dashing, or emotional or graceful. He was dry,
cold, self-contained. Yet the people loved hira and
trusted in him ; loved him perhaps especially because
they so trusted in hira. The nation was not ungrateful.
It heaped honors on Wellington ; it would have heaped
more on him if it knew how. It gave him its almost
unqualified admiration. On his death it tried to give
him such a public funeral as hero never had.
The new Parliament was called together in November.
It brought into public life in England a man who after
wards made sorae mark in our politics, and whose
intellect and debating power seeraed at one tirae to prora
ise him a position inferior to that of hardly anyone in
the House of Commons. This was Mr. Robert Lowe,
who had returned from one of the Australian colonies to
enter political life in his native country. Mr. Lowe was
a scholar of a highly cultured order; and, despite some
serious defects of delivery, he proved to be a debater of
the very highest class, especially gifted with the weapons
of sarcasm, scorn, and invective. He was a Liberal in
the intellectual sense ; he was opposed to all restraints
on education and on the progress of a career ; but he
had a detestation for democratic doctrines which almost
amounted to a mania. With the whole force of a tem
perament very favorable to intellectual scorn he despised
alike the rural Tory and the town Radical. His opinions
were generally rather negative than positive. He did not
seera to have any very positive opinions of any kind
where politics were concerned. He was governed by a
detestation of abstractions and sentimentalities, and
" views " of all sorts. If contempt for the intellectual
weaknesses of an opposing party or doctrine could
have made a great politician, Mr. Lowe would have won
that name. In politics, however, criticism is not enough.
One must be able to originate, to mould the will of
others, to compromise, to lead while seeming to follow,
often to follow while seeming to lead. Of gifts like these
Mr. L,owe had no share. He never became more than a
great Parliamentary critic of the acrid and vitriolic style.
Almost iraraediately on the asserabling of the new Par
liaraent,. Mr. Villiers brought forward a resolution not

158 A SHORT HISI'ORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
merely pledging the House of Commons to a Free Trade
policy, but pouring out a sort of censure on all who had
hitherto failed to recognize its worth. This . step was
thought necessary, and was indeed made necessary by
the errors of which Lord Derby had been guilty, and the
preposterous vaporings of some of his less responsible
followers.- If the resolution had been passed, the Gov
ernment raust have resigned. But Lord Palraerston
devised an araendraent which afforded thera the means
of a more or less honorable retreat. This resolution
pledged the House to the " policy of unrestricted com
petition firmly maintained and prudently extended ; " but
recorded no panegyric of the legislation of 1846, and con
sequent condemnation of those who opposed that legisla
tion. The amendment was accepted by all but the small
band of irreconcilable Protectionists - 468 voted for it ;
only 53 against it ; and the moan of Protection was made.
Still the government existed only on sufferance. There
was a general expectation that the moment Mr. Disraeli
came to set out a genuine financial scheme the fate of
the Adrainistration would be decided. So the event
proved. -Mr. Disraeli made a financial statement which
showed reraarkable capacity for dealing with figures.
The skill with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer
explained his measures and tossed his figures about con
vinced raany even of his strongest opponents that he had
the capacity to raake a good budget if he only were
allowed to do so by the conditions of his party's exist
ence. But his Cabinet had corae into office under special
obligations to the country party and the farmers. They
could not avoid making some experiment in the way of
special legislation for the farmers. They had at the very
least to put on an appearance of doing something for
them. 'When Mr. Disraeli undertook to favor the country
interest and the farmers, he must have known only too
well that he was setting all the Free Traders and Peelites
against him ; and he knew at the same time that if he
neglected the country party he was cutting the ground
from beneath his feet. The principle of his budget was
the reduction of the malt duties and the increase of the
inhabited house duty. The reduction created a deficit.

PALMERSTON. 1 59
in order to supply which the inhabited house duty had
to be doubled. The scheme was a complete failure.
The farmers did not care much about the concession
which had been made in their favor ; those who would
have had to pay for it in double taxation were bitterly
indignant. The Whigs, the Free Traders, the Peelites,
and such independent merabers or unattached members
as Mr. Lowe and Mr. Bernal Osborne all fell on Mr.
Disraeli. Ithecame a combat a outrance. It well suited
Mr. Disraeli's peculiar teraperament. During the whole
of his Parliamentary career he never fought so well as
when he was free to indulge to the full the courage of
despair. The debate was one of the finest of its kind ever heard
in Parliament during our time. The exciteraent on both
sides was intense. The rivalry was hot .-md eager. Mr.
Disraeli was animated by all the power of desperation,
and was evidently in a mood neither to give nor to take
quarter. The House had hardly heard the concluding
word of Disraeli's bitter and lmpa.ssioned speech, when
at tw-o o'clock in the morning Mr. Gladstone leaped to his
feet to answer hira. Then began that long Parliaraen
tary duel which only knew a truce when, at the close of
the session of 1876, Mr. Disraeli crossed the threshold
of the House of Coraraons for the last tirae, thence
forward to take his place araon.g the peers as Lord
Beaconsfield. The rivalry of this first heated and event
ful night was a splendid display. Those who had
thought it impossible that any impression could be raade
upon the House after the speech of Mr. Disraeli, had to
acknowledge that a yet greater impression was produced
by the unprepared reply of Mr. Gladstone. The House
divided about four o'clock in the raorning, and the
Government were left in a minority of nineteen. That
day the resignation of the Ministry was formally placed
in the hands of the Queen. In a few days after, the
Coalition Ministry was formed. Lord Aberdeen was
Prime Minister ; Lord John Russell took the Foreign
Office ; Lord Palmerston became Home Secretary; Mr.
Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The public
were a good deal surprised that Lord Palraerston had

l6o A SHORT HIS'IORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
taken such a place as that of Home Secretary. His
name had been identified with the foreign policy of Eng
land, and it was not supposed that he felt the slightest
interest in the ordinary business of the Home Depart
ment. But Palmerston would not consent to be Foreign
Secretary on any terras but his own, and these terras
were then out of the question.
The principal interest felt in the new Government was
centred in the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr.
Gladstone was still a young man, in the Parliamentary
sense at least. He was but forty-three. His career had
been in every way remarkable. He had entered public
life at a very early age. He had been a distinguished
debater in the House of Commons ever since he was
one-and-twenty. Mr. Gladstone was born in Liverpool,
and was the son of Sir John Gladstone, a Scotchman,
who founded a great house in the seaport of the
Mersey. He entered Parliament when very young as a
protege of the Newcastle family, and he soon faithfully
attached hiraself to Sir Robert Peel. His knowledge of
finance, his thorough appreciation of the various needs of
a nation's commerce and business, his middle-class ori
gin, all brought him into natural affinity with his great
leader. He becarae a Free Trader with Peel. He was
not in the House of Commons, oddly enough, during
the session when the Free Trade battle was fought and
won. Ashe had changed his opinions with his leader,
he felt a reluctance to ask the support of the Newcastle
family for the borough which he had previously repre
sented by virtue of their influence. But except for that
short interval his whole career may be pronounced one
long Parliamentary success. He was frora the very out
set recognized as a brilliant debater, and as one who
promised, to be an orator ; but the first really great speech
made by Mr. Gladstone was the. reply to Mr. Disraeli on
the memorable December raorning which we have just de
scribed. That speech put him in the very foremost rank
of English orators. Then perhaps he first showed to the
full the one great quality in which as a Parliamentary
orator he ha? never had a rival in our time : the readiness
which seems to require no preparation, but can marshal

PALMERSTON. l6l
all its arguments as if by instinct at a given moment,
and the fluency which can pour out the most eloquent
language as freely as though it were but the breath of
the nostrils. When, shortly after the formation of the
Coalition Ministry, Mr. Gladstone delivered his first
budget, it was regarded as a positive curiosity of financial
exposition. It was a performance that belonged to the
departraent of the fine arts. The speech occupied several
hours, and assuredly no listener wished it the shorter by
a single sentence. Each time that he essayed the sarae
task subsequently he accomplished just the sarae success.
Mr. Gladstone's first oratorical qualification was his ex
quisite voice. Such a voice would raake comraon-place
seem interesting and lend something of fascination to
dulness itself. It was singularly pure, clear, resonant,
and sweet. The orator never seemed to use the slightest
effort or strain in filling any hall and reaching the ear of
the farthest araong the audience. It was not a loud
voice or of great volurae ; but strong, vibrating, and
silvery. The words were always aided by energetic
action and by the deep glearaing eyes of the orator. It
is not to be denied that his wonderful gift of words some
times led him astray. It was often such a fluency as
that of a torrent on which the orator was carried away.
Gladstone had to pay for his fluency by being too fluent.
Sometimes he involved his sentence in parenthesis within
parenthesis until the ordinary listener began to think ex
trication an impossibility ; but the orator never failed to
unravel all the entanglements and to bring the passage
out to a clear and legitimate conclusion.
Often, however, this superb exuberant rush of words
added indescribable strength to the eloquence of the
speaker. In passages of indignant remonstrance or de
nunciation, when word followed word, and stroke came
down upon stroke, with a wealth of resource that seemed
inexhaustible, the very fluency and variety of the speaker
everwhelmed his audience. Interruption only gave him
a new stimulus, and appeared to supply him with fresh
resources of argument and illustration. His retorts
leaped to his hps. Mr. Gladstone had not much huraor
of the playful kind, but he had a certain force of sarcas-

l62 A SHOR-r lll.Sl-ORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
tic and .scornful rhetoric. He was always terribly in
earnest. Whether the subject were great or small, he
threw his whole soul into it. Once, in addressing a
school-boy gathering, he told his young listeners that if a
boy ran he ought always to run as fast as he could ; if he
jumped, he ought always to jump as far as he could.
He illustrated his rnaxim in his own career. He had no
idea apparently of running or jumping in such measure as
happened to please the fancy of the moment. He always
exercised his splendid powers to the uttermost strain.
Probably no one, past or present, had in combination so
many gifts of voice, raanner, fluency and arguraent, style,
reason and passion,, as Mr. Gladstone.
. Mr. Gladstone grew slowly into Liberal convictions.
At the tirae when he joined the Coalition Ministry he
was still regarded as one who had scarcely left the carap
of Toryism, and wfio liad only joined that Ministry be
cause it was a coalition. Years after he was applied to
by the late Lord Derby to join a Ministry formed by
him ; and it was not supposed that there was anything
unreasonable in the proposition. The first irapulse tow
ards Liberal principles was given to his mind probably
by his change with his leader from Protection to' Free
Trade. When a man like Gladstone saw that his tradi
tional principles and those of his party had broken down
in any one direction it was but natural that he should
begin to question their endurance in other directions.
When Mr. Gladstone came to be convinced that there
was no such law as the Protection principle at all ; that
it was a mere sham ; that to believe in it was to be
guilty of an economic heresy — then it was irapossible for
him not to begin questioning the genuineness of the
whole system of political thought of which it forraed but
a part. Perhaps, too, he was irapelled towards Liberal-
principles at home by seeing what the effects of opposite
doctrines had been abroad. He rendered memorable
service to the Liberal cause of Europe by his eloquent
protest against the brutal treatment of Baron Poerio and
other Liberals of Naples who were Imprisoned by the
Neapolitan king — a protest which Garibaldi declared to
have sounded the first trumpet-call of Italian liberty. In

PALMERSTON. 163
rendering service to Liberalism and to Europe he rendered
service also to his own intelligence. He helped to set
free his own spirit as well as the Neapolitan people.
The common taunts addressed to public men who have
changed their opinions were hardly ever applied to hira.
Even his enemies felt that the one idea always inspired
him — a conscientious anxiety to do the right thing. The
worst thing that was said of him was that he was too
impulsive, and that his intelligence was too restless. He
was an essayist, a critic, a Homeric scholar ; a dilettante
in art, music and old china ; he was a theological con
troversialist ; he was a political economist, a financier, a
practical administrator whose gift of mastering details
has hardly ever been equalled ; he was a statesman and
an orator. No man could attempt so many things and
not occasionally make himself the subject of a sneer.
The intense gravity and earnestness of Gladstone's mind
-always, however, saved him from the special penalty of
such versatility.
As yet, however, he is only the young statesman who
was the other day the hope of the more solemn and
solid Conservatives, and in whom they have not even yet
entirely ceased to put sorae faith. The Coalition Minis
try was so formed that it was not supposed a man neces
sarily nailed his colors to any raast when he joined it.
More than one of Gladstone's earliest friends and politi
cal associates had a part in it. The Ministry .raight
undoubtedly be called an Administration of All the Tal
ents. Except the late Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, it
included almost every man of real ability who belonged
to either of the two great parties of the State. "The
Manchester School had, of course, no place there ; but
they were not likely just yet to be recognized as consti
tuting one of the elements out of which even a Coalition
Ministry raight be composed.

CHAPTER XI.
THE CRIMEAN WAR.
For forty years England had been at peace. There
had indeed been little wars here and there with some of
her Asiatic and African neighbors, but frora Waterioo
downward England knew no real war. The new gener
ation were growing up in a happy belief that wars were
things of the past for us, like the wearing of armor.
During all the convulsions of the Continent, England had
remained undisturbed. A new school as well as. a new
generation had sprung up. This school, full of faith, but
full of practical shrewd logic as well, was teaching with
great eloquence and -effect that the practice of settling
international controversy by the sword was costly, bar
barous, and blundering as well as wicked. The practice
of the duel in England had utterly gone out. Why then
should it be unreasonable to believe that war among
nations might soon become obsolete ?
Such certainly was the faith of a great many intelli
gent persons at the time when the Coalition Ministry
was formed. The majority tacitly acquiesced in the be
lief without thinking much about it. They had never in
their time seen England engaged in European war ; and
it was natural to assurae that what they had never seen
they were never likely to see. Suddenly all this happy
quiet faith was disturbed bythe Eastern "question" —
the question of what to do with the East of Europe. It
was certain that things could not reraain as they then
were, and nothing else was certain. The Ottoman
power had been settled during many centuries in the

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 165
south-east of Europe. The Turk had raany of the strong
qualities and even the virtues of a great warlike con
queror ; but he had no capacity or care for the arts of
peace. He never thought of assimilating hiraself to those
whora he had conquered, or thera to hira. The Turks
were not, as a rule, oppressive to the races that lived
under them. They were not habitual persecutors of the
faiths they deeraed heretical. Every now and then, in
deed, some sudden fierce outburst of fanatical cruelty
towards some of the subject sects horrified Europe, and
reminded her that the conqueror who had settled hiraself
down in her south-eastern corner was still a barbarian
who had no right or place in civilized life. But as a rule
the Turk was disposed to look with disdainful coraposure
on what he considered the religious follies of the hereti
cal races who did not believe in the Prophet. They were
objects of his scornful pity rather than of his anger.
At one time there is no doubt that all the powers of
civilized Europe would gladly have seen the Turk driven
out of our Continent. But the Turk was powerful for a
long series of generations, and it seeraed for a while
rather a question whether he would not send the Euro
peans out of their own grounds. When he began to
decay, and w-hen his aggressive strength was practically
all gone, it might have been thought that the Western
Powers would then have managed somehow to get rid of
him. But in the meantime the condition of Europe had
greatly changed. No one not actually subject to the
Turk was afraid of hira any more ; and other States had
arisen strong for aggression. The uncertainties of these
States as to the intentions of their neighbors and each
other proved a better bulwark for the Turks than any
warlike strength of their own could any longer have
furnished. The growth of the Russian erapire was of
itself enough to change the whole conditions of the
problera. Nothing in our times has been more reraarkable than
the sudden growth of Russia. A few generations ago
Russia was literally an inland State. She was shut up
in the heart of Eastern Europe as if in a prison. The
. genius, the craft and the audacity of Peter the Great first

1 66 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
broke the narrow bounds set to the Russia of his day, and
extended her frontier to the sea. He was followed after
a reign or two by the greatest woman probably whoever
sat on a throne, Elizabeth of England not even excepted.
Catherine the Second so ably followed the example of
Peter the Great, that she extended the Russian frontiers
in directions which he had not had opportunity to stretch
to. By the time her reign was done, Russia was one of
the great powers of Europe, entitled to enter into negoti
ations on a footing of equality with the proudest .States
of the Continent. Unlike Turkey, Russia had always
shown a yearning after the latest developments of science
and of civilization. A nation that tries to appear more
civilized than it really is ends very often by becoming
more civilized than its neighbors ever thought it likely to
be. The wars against Napoleon brought Russia into close
alliance with England, Austria, Prussia, and other Euro
pean States of old and advanced civilization. She was
recognized as a valuable friend and a most formidable
enemy. Gradually it became evident that she -could be
aggressive as well as conservative. After a while it
grew to be a fixed conviction in the mind of the Liberal
ism of Western Europe that Russia was the greatest
obstacle then existing in civilization to the spread of pop
ular ideas. The Turk was comparatively harmless in
that sense. He was well content now, so much had his
ancient ambition shrunk and his ancient war spirit gone
out, if his strong and restless neighbor would only let
him alone. But he was brought at more than one point
into especial collision with Russia. Many of the prov
inces he ruled over in European Turkey were of Sclavo-
nian race,- and of the religion of the Greek Church. They
were thus affined by a double tie to the Russian people,
and therefore the raanner in which Turkey dealt with
those provinces was a constant source of dispute between
Russia and her. The Russians are a profoundly relig
ious people. A Russian eraperor could not be loved- if
he did not declare his undying resolve to be the protec
tor of the Christian populations of Turkey. Much of
this was probably sincere and single-minded on the part

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 167
of the Russian people and most of the Russian politi
cians. But the other States of Europe began to suspect
that mingled up with benign ideas of protecting the
Christian populations of Turkey might be a desire to ex
tend the frontier of Russia to the southward in a new
direction. Europe had seen by what craft and what au
dacious enterprises Russia had raanaged to extend her
empire to the sea in other quarters ; it began to be com
monly believed that her next object of ambition would be
the possession of Constantinople and the Bosphorus.
It was reported that a will of Peter the Great had left it
as an injunction to his successors to turn all the efforts
of their policy towards that object. The particular docu
ment which was believed to be a will of Peter the Great
enjoined on all succeeding Russian sovereigns never to
relax in the extension of their territory northward on the
Baltic and southward on the Black Sea shores, and to
encroach as far as possible in the direction of Constanti
nople and the Indies. It therefore seemed to be the nat
ural business of other European powers to see that the
defects of the Ottoman Government, such as they were,
should not be made an excuse for helping Russia to se
cure the objects of her special ambition. England of
course, above all the rest, had an interest in watching over
every movement that threatened in any way to interfere
with the highway to India ; still raore her peaceful
and secure possession of India itself. England, Rus
sia and Turkey were alike in one respect : they were all
Asiatic as well as European powers. But the days of
Turkey's interfering with any great State were long over.
On the contrary, there seemed soraething like a natural
antagonism between England and Russia in the East.
The Russians were extending their frontier towards that
of our Indian empire. Our officers and diplomatic emis
saries reported that they were continually confronted by
the evidences of Russian intrigue in Central Asia. We
have already seen how much influence the real or sup
posed intrigues of Russia had in directing our policy in
Afghanistan. It was in great raeasure out of these
alarms that there grew up among certain statesmen and
classes in this country the conviction that the mainte-

l68 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
nance of the integrity of the Turkish empire was part of
the national duty of England.
Sharply defined, the condition of things was this ; Rus
sia, by reason of her sympathy of religion or race with
Turkey's Christian populations, was brought into chronic
antagonism with "Turkey ; England, by reason of her
Asiatic possessions, was kept in just the sarae state of
antagonism to Russia. A crisis at last arose that threw
England into direct hostility with Russia.
That crisis came about during the later years of the
reign of the Eraperor Nicholas. He saw its opening,
but not its close. Nicholas was a man of remarkable
character. He had raany of the ways of an Asiatic des
pot. He had a stron;.; ambition, a fierce and fitful tern--
per, a daring but sometimes too a vacillating will. He
had many magnanimous and noble qualities, and moods
of sweetness and gentleness. A certain excitability ran
through the temperament of all his house, which, in sorae
of its raembers, broke into actual raadness. The Em
peror at one time was very popular in England. He
had visited the Queen, and he had impressed every one
by his noble presence, his lofty stature, his singular per
sonal beauty, his blended dignity and familiarity of raan
ner. He talked as if he had no higher arabition than to
be in friendly alliance with England. When he wished
to convey his impression of the highest degree of per
sonal loyalty and honor, he always spoke of " the word
of an English gentleman." There can, indeed, be little
doubt that the Eraperor was sincerely anxious to keep on
terms of cordial friendship with England ; and, what is
more, had no idea until the very last that the way he was
walking was one which England could not consent to
tread. His brother and predecessor had been in close
alliance with England ; his own ideal hero was the Duke
of Wellington ; he had raade up his raind that when the
division of the spoils of Turkey carae about, England
and he could best consult for their own interests and the
peace of the world by making the appropriation a mat
ter of joint arrangeraent.
When he visited England in 1844, for the second
time, Nicholas had several conversations with the Duke

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 1 69
of Wellington and with Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign
Secretary, about Turkey and her prospects, and what
would, be likely to happen in the case of her dissolution,
which he believed to be irarainent. When he returned
to Russia he had a meraorandura drawn up by Count
Nesselrode, his Chancellor, embodying the views which,
according to Nicholas's impressions, were entertained
alike by him and bythe British statesmen with whora he
had been conversing. The raeniorandura spoke of the
imperative necessity of Turkey being made to keep her
engagements and to treat her Christian subjects with
toleration and mildness. On such conditions it was laid
down that England and Russia must alike desire her
preservation ; but the document proceeded to say that
nevertheless these States could not conceal from them
selves the fact that the Ottoman erapire contained within
itself many elements of dissolution, and that unfore
seen events raight at any tirae hasten its fall. " In the
uncertainty which hovers over the fjiture a single fun
damental idea seems to adrait of a really practical
application ; that is, that the danger which raay result
frora a catastrophe in Turkey will be rauch diminished if
in the event of its occurring Russia and England have
come to an understanding as to the course to be taken
by them in common. That understanding will be the more
beneficial inasmuch as it will have the full assent of Austria,
between whora and Russia there already exists an entire
accord." This docuraent was sent to London and kept
in the archives of the Foreign Office. The Emperor of
Russia evidently believed that his views were shared by
English statesmen. Therefore, it is to be regretted that
the English statesmen should have listened to Nicholas
without saying something very distinct to show that they
were not admitting or accepting any corabination of pur
pose; or that they should have received his memoran
dum without some clear disclaimer of their being in any
way bound by its terms. We could scarcely have been
too emphatic or too precise in conveying to the Eraperor
of Russia our deterraination to have nothing to do with
any such conspiracy.
Tirae went on, and the Eraperor thought he saw an

I70 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES,
occasion for still more clearly explaining his plans and
for reviving the supposed understanding with England.
Lord Aberdeen came into office as Prime Minister of
this country ; Lord Aberdeen, who was Foreign Secre
tary when Nicholas was in England in 1844. In Janu
ary, 1853, the Eraperor had several conversations with
our rainister. Sir G. Harailton Seymour, about the future
of Turkey and the arrangements it raight be necessary
for England and Russia to make regarding it. The con
versations were renewed again and again afterwards.
They all tended towards the one purpose. The Em
peror urged that England and Russia ought to raake ar
rangements beforehand as to the inheritance of the
Ottoman in Europe — before what he regarded as the ap
proaching and inevitable day when the " sick man " — so
the Eraperor called Turkey — raust come to die. If only
England and Russia could arrive at an understanding on
the subject, he declared that it was a matter of indiffer
ence to him what other powers might think or say. He
spoke of the several millions of Christians, in Turkey
whose rights he was called upon to watch over, and he
remarked — the remark is of significance — that the right
of watching over thera was secured to hira by treaty.
The Emperor was evidently under the irapression that
the interests of England and of Russia were united in
this proposed transaction. He had no idea of anything
but the most perfect frankness so far as we were con
cerned. But the English Government never, after the
disclosures of Sir Hamilton Seymour, put any faith in
Nicholas. They regarded him as nothing better than a
plotter. The English Minister and the English Govern
ment could only answer the Emperor's overtures by say
ing that they did not think it quite usual to enter into
arrangements for the spoliation of a friendly power, and
that England had no desire to succeed to any of the pos
sessions of Turkey.
The conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour formed
but an episode in the history of the events that were
then going on. There had long been going on a dispute
about the Holy Places in Palestine. The claims of the
Greek Church and those of the Latin Church were in

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 171
antagonism there. The Eraperor of Russia was the pro
tector of the Greek Church ; the Kings of France had
long had the Latin Church under their protection.. The
Holy Places to which the Latins raised a claim were
the great Church in Bethlehem ; the Sanctuary of the
Nativity ; the tomb of the Virgin ; the Stone of Anointing ;
the Seven Arches of the Virgin in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. In the reign of Francis the First of
France, a treaty was raade with the Sultan by which
France was acknowledged the protector of the Holy
Places in Palestine, and of the raonks of the Latin Church
who took on theraselves the care of the sacred monu
ments and memorials. But the Greek Church afterwards
obtained firmans frora the Sultan ; and the Greeks
claimed on the strength of these concessions that they
had as good a right as the Latins to take care of the
Holy Places. Disputes were always arising, and of course
these were aggravated by the fact that France was sup
posed to be concerned in the protection of one set of
disputants and Russia in that of another. The claims
at length came to be identified with the States which re
spectively protected them. An advantage of the smallest
kind gained by the Latins was viewed as an insult to
Russia ; a concession to the Greeks was a snub to France.
It was France which first stirred the controversy in
the time just before the Crimean War. The French am
bassador, M. de Lavalette, is said to have threatened
that a French fleet should appear off Jaffa and even
hinted at a French occupation of Jerusalem, "when,"
as he significantly put it, " we should have all the
sanctuaries." The cause of all this energy is not. far to
seek. The Prince President had only just succeeded- in
procuring hiraself to be installed as Emperor ; and he
was very anxious to distract the attention of Frenchmen
from domestic politics to some showy and startling policy
abroad. This controversy between the Church of the
East and the Church of the West tempted him into
activity as one that seeraed likely to give him an op
portunity of displaying the power of France and of the
new system without any very great danger or responsi
bility.

172 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
The key of the whole controversy out of which the
Eastern war arose, and out of which indeed all subse
quent complications in the East came as well, was said
to be found in a clause of the Treaty of Kutchuk-
Kainardji. The Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji was made
on July 10, 1774, between the Ottoman Porte and Cath
erine II. of Russia, after a war in which the arms of
the great Empress had been corapletely victorious. The
seventh clause declared that the Sublime Porte promised
" to protect constantly the Christian religion and its
churches ; and also to allow the rainister of the Imperial
Court of Russia to make on all occasions representations
as well in favor of the new church in Constantinople, of
which mention will be made in the fourteenth article, as
in favor of those who officiate therein, promising to take
such representations into due consideration as being raade
by a confidential functionary of a neighboring and sin
cerely friendly power." Not rauch possibility of rais-
understanding about these words, one raight feel inclined
to say. We turn then to the fourteenth article alluded
to, in order to discover if in its wording lies the per
plexity of raeaning which led to such moraentous ahd
calaraitous results. We find that by this article it is
siraply perraitted to the Court of Russia to build a public
church of the Greek rite in the Galata quarter of Con
stantinople, in addition to the chapel built in the house
of the minister ; and it is declared that the new church
" shall be always under the protection of the rainisters of
the (Russian) empire, and shielded from all obstruction
and all damage." Here, then, we seera to have two
clauses of the simplest meaning and by no means of first-
class iraportance. The latter clause allows Russia to
build a new church in Constantinople ; the forraer allows
the Russian minister to make representations to the Porte
on behalf of the church and of those who officiate in it. ,
What difference of opinion, it may be asked, could pos
sibly arise ? The difference was this : Russia clairaed a
¦ right of protectorate over all the Christians of the Greek
Church in Turkey as the consequence of the seventh
clause of the treaty. She insisted that when Turkey gave
her a right to interfere on behalf of the worshippers ii:

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 1 73
one particular church, the sarae right extended so far as
to cover all the worshippers of the sarae denpraination in
every part of the Ottoman dominions. The great object
of Russia throughout all the negotiations that preceded
the Crimean War was to obtain from the Porte an ad
mission of the existence of such a protectorate. Such an
acknowledgment would, in fact, have made the Eraperor
of Russia the patron and all but the ruler of by far the
larger proportion of the populations of European Turkey.
The Sultan would no longer have been raaster in his own
dominions. The Greek Christians would naturally have
regarded the Russian Emperor's right of intervention on
their behalf as constituting a protectorate far raore power
ful than the norainal rule of the Sultan. They would
have known that the ultimate decision of any dispute in
which they were concerned rested with the Emperor, and
not with the Sultan ; and they would soon have come to
look upon the Emperor, and not the Sultan, as their
actual sovereign.
Now it does not seem likely on the face of things
that any ruler of a state would have consented to hand
over to a more powerful foreign monarch such a right
over the great majority of his subjects. Still, if Turkey,
driven to her last defences, had no alternative but to
make such a concession, the Emperors of Russia could
not be blamed for Insisting that it should be carried out.
The terms of the article in the treaty itself certainly do
not seem to admit of such a construction. Whenever we
find Russia putting a claim into plain words, we find
England, through her ministers, refusing to give it their
acknowledgment. Diplomacy, therefore, was powerless
to do good during all the protracted negotiations that set
in before the Crimean War, for the plain reason that the
only object of the Emperor of Russia in entering upon
negotiation at all was one which the other European
powers regarded as absolutely inadmissible.
The dispute about the Holy Places was easily settled.
The Porte cared very little about the matter, and was
willing enough to come to any fair terras by which the
whole controversy could be got rid of. But the demands
of Russia went on just as before.. Prince Mentschikoff.

174 A SHORT HISIORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
a fierce, rough man, unable or unwilling to control his
teraper, was sent with demands to Constantinople.
-Mentschikoff brought his proposals with hira cut and dry
in the form of a convention which he called upon Turkey
to accept without more ado. Turkey refused, and Prince
Mentschikoff withdrew in real or affected rage, and pres
ently the Emperor Nicholas sent two divisions of his
army across the Pruth to take possession of the Danubian
principalities. Diplomacy, however, did not give in even then. A
note was concocted at Vienna, which Russia at once
offered to accept. The four great Powers who were
carrying on the business of mediation were at first quite
charmed with the note, with the readiness of Russia-to
accept it, and with theraselves; and but for the interpo
sition of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, our arabassador
at Constantinople, who showed great acuteness and force
of character through all these negotiations* it seeras
highly probable that it would have been agreed to by
all the parties concerned. Lord Stratford, however, saw
plainly that the note was a virtual concession to Russia
of all that she specially desired to have, and all that
Europe was unwilling to concede to her. It contained,
for instance, words which declared that the Government
.of his Majesty the. Sultan vvould reraain " faithful to the
letter and the spirit, of the stipulations of the Treaties of
Kainardji and of Adrianople, relative to the protection of
the Christian religion." These words, in a note drawn
up for the purpose of satisfying the Eraperor of Russia,
could not but be understood as recognizing the interpre
tation of the Treaty of Kainardji on which Russia had
always insisted. The Russian Governnient refused to ac
cept any modifications.
From that time all hopes of peace were over. Our
troops were moving towards Malta ; the streets of London,
of Liverpool, of Southampton ; and other towns, were
ringing with the cheers of enthusiastic crowds gathered
together to watch the marching of troops destined for
the East. Turkey had actually declared war against
Russia. We had known so little of war for nearly forty
years, that added to all the other emotions which the

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 1 75
coming of battle must bring was the mere feeling of cu
riosity as to the sensation produced by a state of war. It
was an abstraction to the living generation— a thing to
read of and discuss and make poetry and romance out
of ; but they could not yet realize what itself was like.
Meantime where was Lord Palraerston? He of all
men, one would think, must have been pleased with the
turn things were taking. He was really very busy all
this time in his new duties. Lord Palmerston was a re
markably efficient and successful Florae Secretary. His
unceasing activity loved to show itself in whatc-er de
partment he might be called upon to occupy. He brought
to the somewhat prosaic duties of his new office all the
energy which he had formerly shown in managing revo
lutions and dictating to foreign courts. The ticket-of
leave system dates from the time of his administration.
The measure to abate the smoke nuisance, by compelling
factories under penalties to consume their own smoke, is
also the offspring of Palmerston's activity in the Home
Office. The Factory Acts were extended by him. He
went energetically to work in the shutting up of grave
yards in the metropolis. He was acquiring a new and a
somewhat odd reputation in his way of answering depu
tations and letters. Lord Palmerston was always civil
and cordial ; he was full of a peculiar kind of fresh com
mon sense, and always ready to apply it to any subject
whatever. He could at any tirae say some racy thing
which set the public wondering and laughing. He had
not a poetic or philosophic mind. In clearing his' intel
ligence frora all that he would have called prejudice or
superstition, he had cleared out also much of the deeper
sympathetic faculty which enables one raan to understand
the feelings and get at the springs of conduct in the
breasts of other raen. No one can doubt that his jaunty
way of treating grave and disputed subjects offended
raany pure and siraple minds, "i'et it was a rai.stake to
suppose that raere levity dictated his way of dealing
with the prejudices of others. He had often given the
question his deepest attention, and come to a conclusion
with as rauch thought as his temperament would have
allowed to any subject. The difference between him and

176 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
graver men w'as that when he had corae to a conclusion
seriously, he loved to express his views huraorously. But
there can be no doubt that Palraerston often'niade ene
raies by his seeramg levity when another man could
easily have made friends by saying just the sarae thing
in grave words. The raajority of the House of Coraraons
liked him because he amused theni and made them
laugh ; and they thought no more of the matter.
But the war is now fairly launched ; and Palraerston
is to all appearance what would be vulgarly called " out
of the swira." Every eye was turned to him. One day
it was given out that Palmerston had actually resigned.
It was at once asserted that his resignation was caused
by difference of opinion between him and his colleagues
on the Eastern policy of the Government. But on the
other hand it was as stoutly affirmed that the difference
of opinion had only to do with the nevif Reform Bill
which Lord John Russell was preparing to introduce.
Few people in England who cared anything about the
whole question believed that at such a time Lord Pal
merston would have gone out of office because he did
not quite like the details of a Reform Bill, or that the
Cabinet would have obstinately clung to such a scheme
just' then in spite of his opposition. When Lord Palmer
ston resumed his place in the Ministry, the public at
large felt certain that the war spirit was now at last to
have its way, and that the dallyings of the peace-lovers
were over. Nor was England long left to guess at the
reason why Lord Palmerston had so suddenly resigned
his office, and so suddenly returned to it. A great dis
aster had fallen upon Turkey. Her fleet had been de
stroyed by the Russians at Sinope, a considerable
seaport town and naval station belonging to Turkey on
the southern shore of the Black Sea, on November 30,
1853. The attack was not treacherous, but openly made ;
not sudden, but clearly announced by previous acts.
Russia and Turkey were not only formally but actually at
war. The Turks were the first to begin the actual mili
tary operations. But at the tune, whet, the true state of
affairs was little known in England, the account of the
" massacre of Sinope " was received as if it had been the

Declaration of War Against Russia.

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 177
tale of sorae unparalleled act of treachery and savagery ;
and the eagerness of the country for war against Russia
became inflamed to actual passion.
It was at that moment that Palmerston resigned his
office. The Cabinet were still not prepared to go as far
as he would have gone. Lord Palmerston, supported by
the urgent pressure of the Eraperor of the French, suc
ceeded, however, in at last overcoming their deterraina
tion ; and Lord Palmerston resuraed his place, raaster of
the situation. France and England told Russia that they
were resolved to prevent any repetition of the Sinope
affair ; that their squadrons would enter the Black Sea
with orders to request, and if necessary to constrain,
every Russian ship raet in the Euxine to return to Se-
bastopol ; and to repel by force any act of aggression
afterwards atterapted against the Ottoman territory or
flag. This was, in fact, war. When the resolution of
the Western Cabinets was communicated to the Eraperor
of Russia he withdrew his representatives frora London
and Paris. On February 21, 1854, the diplomatic rela
tions between Russia and the two allied powers were
brought to a stop. Six weeks before this the English
and French fleets had entered the Black Sea. A few
days after a crowd assembled in front of the Royal Ex
change to watch the performance of a ceremonial that
had been little known to the living generation. The Ser-
geant-at-Arras, accorapanied by sorae of the officials of
the City, read from the steps of the Royal Exchange her
Majesty's declaration of war against Russia.
"The onncipal reason for the separation of the two
Western Powers of Europe from the other great States
was found in the condition of Prussia. The Prussian
sovereign was related to the Emperor of Russia, and his
kingdora was almost overshadowed by Russian influence.
Prussia had come to occupy a lower position in Europe
than she had ever before held during her existence as a
kingdom. The King of Prussia was a highly-cultured,
amiable, liteniry man. He loved letters and art in a sort
of dilettante way ; he had good irapulses and a weak
nature ; he was a dreamer ; a sort of philosopher manque.
He was unable to make up his mind to any moraentous

178 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
decision until the time for rendering it effective had
gone by. A man naturally truthful, he was often led by
very weakness into acts that seemed irreconcilable with
his previous promises and engagements. He could say
witty and sarcastic things, and when political affairs went
wrong with him, he could console himself with one or
two sharp sayings only heard of by those immediately
around him ; and then the world might go its way for
hira. He went so far with the allies as to lead them for
a while to believe that he was going all the way; but at
the last moment he broke off, declared that the interests
of Prussia did not require or allow him to engage in a
war, and left France and England to walk their own
road. Austria could not venture upon such a war with
out the co-operation of Prussia. Austria and Prussia
made an arrangeraent between theraselves for mutual
defence in case the progress of the war should directly
imperil the interests of either ; and England and France
undertook in alliance the task of chastising the presump
tion and restraining the ambitious designs of Russia. It
must be remembered that the controversy between Rus
sia and the West really involved several distinct questions,
in some of which Prussia had absolutely no direct interest
and Austria very little. Foremost among these was the
question of the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bos
phorus. Russia and Turkey between them surrounded the
whole of the Black Sea with their territory. The only
outlet of Russia on the southern side is the Black Sea.
The Black Sea is, save for one little outlet at its south
western extremity, a huge land-locked lake. That little
outlet is the narrow channel called the Bosphorus. The
Bosphorus is some seventeen miles in length, and in
some places it is hardly raore than half a mile in breadth.
But it is very deep all through, so that ships of war can
float close up to its very shores on either side. It passes
between the cityof Constantinople and its Asiatic suburb
of Scutari, and then opens into the little Sea of Marmora.
Out of the Sea of Marmora the way westward is through
the channel of the Dardanelles, which forms the passage
into the Archipelago, and thence into the Mediterranean.

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 1 79
The channel of the Dardanelles is, like the Bosphorus,
narrow -and very deep,, but it pursues its course for some
forty miles. Anyone who holds a map in his hand will
see at once how Turkey and Russia alike are affected by
the existence of the Straits on either extremity of the
Sea of Marmora. Close up these Straits against vessels
of war, and the capital of the Sultan is absolutely unas
sailable from the sea. Close them, on the other hand,
and the Russian fleet in the Black Sea is absolutely cut
off frora the Mediterranean and the Western world. But
then it has to be remembered that the same act of clos
ing would secure the Russian ports and shores on the
Black Sea from the approach of any of the great navies
of the West. The Dardanelles and the Bosphorus being
alike such narrow channels, and being edged alike by
Turkish Territory, were not regarded as high seas. The
Sultans always claimed the right to exclude foreign ships
of war from both the Straits. The closing of the Straits
had been the subject of a perfect succession of treaties.
As matters stood then, the Sultan was not only per
mitted but was bound to close the Straits in times of
peace, and no navy might enter thera without his con
sent even in times of war. By this treaty the Black Sea
fleet of Russia becarae literally a Black Sea fleet, wholly
cut off from the Mediterranean and Western Europe.
Naturally Russia chafed at this ; but at the sarae time
she was not willing to see the restriction withdrawn in
favor of an arrangement that would leave the Straits,
and consequently the Black Sea, open to the navies of
France and England. Therefore it was natural that the
ambition of Russia should tend towards the ultimate
possession of Constantinople and the Straits for herself;
but as this was an arabition the fulfilraent of which
seemed far off and beset with vast dangers, her object,
meanwhile, was to gain as rauch influenceand ascend
ency as possible over the Ottoman Government ; to make
it practically her vassal, and in any case to prevent any
other great Power from obtaining the influence and
ascendency which she coveted for herself. , Now the
tendency of this arabition and of all the interraediate
clairas and disputes with regard to the opening or clos-

l8o A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
ing of the Straits was of importance to Europe generally
as a part of Russian aggrandizement ; but of the great
Powers they concerned England most ; France as a Med
iterranean and a naval power ; Austria only in a third
and remoter degree ; and Prussia at the tirae of King
Frederick William least of all.
To the great majority of the English people this war
was popular, partly because of the natural and inevitable
reaction against the doctrines of peace and mere trading
prosperity, partly too because of its novelty. The doc
trines of the Peace Society had never taken any hold of
this country at all. Its votaries were in any case not
many at the time when the Crimean War broke out.
They had very little influence on the course of national
policy. They were assailed with a flippant and a some
what ignoble ridicule. The worst reproach that could
be given to men like Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright was to
accuse them of being members of the Peace Society. It
does not appear that either man was a member of the
actual organization. Mr. Bright's religious creed made
him necessarily a votary of peace ; Mr. Cobden had at
tended meetings called with the futile purpose of estab
lishing peace among nations by the operation of good
feeling and of common sense.
In the Cabinet itself there were men who disliked the idea
of a war quite as rauch as they did. Lord Aberdeen
detested war, and thought it so absurd a way of settling
national disputes, that alraost until the first cannon-
shot had been fired he could not bring hiraself to believe
in the possibility of the intelligent English people being
drawn into it. Mr. Gladstone had a conscientious and a
sensitive objection to war in general as a brutal and an
unchristian occupation, although his feelings would not
have carried him so far away as to prevent his recogni
tion of the fact that war might often be a just, a neces
sary, and a glorious undertaking on the part of a civilized
nation. The difficulties of the hour were considerably
enhanced by the differences of oj^inion that prevailed in
the Cabinet.
There were other differences there as well as those
that belonged to the raere abstract question of the glory

THE CRIMEAN WAR. l8l
or the guilt of war. It soon became clear that two
parties of the Cabinet looked on the war and its objects
with different eyes and interests. On one side there
were Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, who were con
cerned far raore for the welfare of Turkey's Christian
subjects than for the stability of Turkey or the humilia
tion of Russia. On the other side was Lord Palraerston,
gay, resolute, clear as to his own purpose, convinced to
the heart's core of everything which just then it was for
the advantage of his cause to believe. The brave Turk
had to be supported ; the wicked Russian had to be put
down. It was impossible to doubt on which side were
to be found the materials for the successful conduct of an
enterprise which was now so popular with the country.
The raost conscientious men raight differ about the
prudence or the moral propriety of the war ; but to those
who once accepted its necessity and wished our side to
win, there could be no possible doubt, even for members
of the Peace Society, as to the importance of having
Lord Palmerston either at the head of affairs or in charge
of the war itself. The moment the war actually broke
out it became evident to everyone that Palmerston's
interval of comparative inaction and obscurity was well-
nigh over.
England then and France entered the. war as allies.
Lord Raglan, forraerly Lord Fitzroy Soraerset, an old
pupil of the Great Duke in the Peninsular war, and vi-ho
had lost his right arra serving under Wellington at
Waterloo, was appointed to coraraand the English forces.
Marshal St. Arnaud, a bold, brilliant soldier of fortune,
was entrusted by the Emperor of the French with the
leadership of the soldiers of France. The allied forces
went out to the East and assembled at Varna, on the
Black Sea shore, from which they were to make their
descent on the Crimea. The invasion of the Crimea,
however, was not welcoraed by the English or the French
commander. It was undertaken by Lord Raglan out of
deference to the recoraraendatlons of the Governraent ;
and by Marshal St. Arnaud out of deference to the Em
peror of the French. The aUied forces were therefore
conveyed to the southwestern shore of the Crimea, and

l82 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
effected a landing in Kalaraita Bay, a short distance
north of the point at which the river Alraa runs into the
sea. Sebastopol itself lies about thirty miles to the
south ; and then more southward still, divided by the
bulk of a jutting promontory from Sebastopol is the
harbor of Balaklava. The disembarkation began on the
morning of September 14, 1854, and was effected without
any opposition frora the Russians. On September 19

Allied Commanders in the Crimea.

the allies marched out of their encampments and
reached the Alraa about noon on Septeraber 20. They
found that they had to cross the river in the face of the
Russian batteries arraed with heavy guns on the highest
points of the hills or bluffs, of scattered artillery, and of
dense masses of infantry which covered the hills. The
Russians were under the command of Prince Mentschit-
koff. The soldiers of the Czar fought stoutly and stub-

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 183
bornly as they have always done ; but they could not
stand up against the blended vehemence and obstinacy
of the English and French. The river was cros.sed, the
opposite heights were mounted. Prince Menschikoff's
great redoubt was carried, the Russians were driven
from the field, the allies occupied their ground ; the vic
tory was to the Western Powers. The first field was
fought, and we had won.
The Russians ought to have been pursued. But there
was no pursuit. Lord Raglan was eager to follow up
the victory ; but the French had as yet hardly any cav
alry, and Marshal St. Arnaud would not agree to any
further enterprise that day. Lord Raglan believed that
he ought not to persist ; and nothing was done. Except
for the bravery of those who fought, the battle was not
much to boast of. But it was the first great battle
which for nearly forty years our soldiers had fought with
a civilized enemy. The military authorities and the
country were w-ell disposed to make the most of it. The
gallant medley on the banks of the Alraa and the fruit
less interval of inaction that followed it were told of as if
raen were speaking of some battle of the gods. Very
soon, however, a different note came to be sounded.
The campaign had been opened under conditions differ
ing from those of most campaigns that went before it.
Science had added many new discoveries to the art of
war. Literature had added one remarkable contribution
of her own to the conditions amid which campaigns
were to be carried on. She had added the " special cor
respondent." The war correspondent now scrawls his
despatches as he sits in his saddle under the fire of the
enemy ; he scrawls them with a pencil, noting and de
scribing each incident of the fight, so far as he can see
it, as coolly as if he were describing a review of volun
teers in Hyde Park ; and he contrives to send off his nar
rative by telegraph before the victor in the fight has
begun to pursue, or has settled down to hold the ground
he won ; and the war correspondent's story is expected
to be as brilliant and picturesque in style as it ought to
be exact and faithful in its statements. In the days of
the Crimea things had not advanced quite so far as

IS4 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
that ; the war was well on before the submarine tele
graph between Varna and Crimea allowed of daily re
ports ; but the feats of the war correspondent then
filled men's minds with wonder. When the expedition
was leaving England it was accompanied by a special
correspondent from each of the great daily papers of
London. The Times sent out a representative whose
name almost iraraediately became celebrated — Mr. Wil
liam Howard Russell, the first of war correspondents In
that day, as Mr. Archibald Forbes of the Daily News
was at a later period. Mr. Russell rendered some ser
vice to the English army and to his country, however,
which no brilliancy of literary style would alone have
enabled hira to do. It was to his great credit as a man
of judgment and observation that, being a civilian who
had never before seen one puff of war-smoke, he was
able to distinguish between the confusion inseparable
frora all actual levying of war and the confusion that
coraes of distinctly bad administration. Mr. Russell
soon saw that there was confusion ; and he had the
soundness of judgraent to know that the confusion was
that of a breaking-down system. Therefore, while the
fervor of delight ih the courage and success of our
array was still fresh in the rainds of the public at home,
while every music-hall was ringing with the cheap re
wards of valor in the shape of popular glorifications
of our commanders and our soldiers, the readers of the
Times began to learn that things were faring badly in
deed with the conquering array of the Alma. The ranks
were thinned by the ravages of cholera. The hospitals
were in a wretchedly disorganized condition. Stores of
medicines and strengthening food were decaying in
places where no one wanted thera or could well get at
thera, while raen were dying in hundreds araong our
tents in the Criraea for lack of them. The system of
clothing, of transport, of feeding, of nursing — everything
had broken down. The special correspondent of the
Times and other correspondents continued to din these
things into the ears of the public at home. Exultation
began to give way to a feeling of dismay. The patriotic
anger against the Russians was changed for a mood of

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 185
deep indignation against our own anlhoritles and our
own war administration. It soon became apparent to
everyone that the whole campaign had been planned on
the assumption of our military authorities here at home —
we do not speak of the commanders in the field— that
Sebastopol was to fall like another Jericho, at the sound
of the war-trumpets' blast.
Our commanders in the field were, on the contrary,
rather disposed to overrate than to underrate the strength
of the Russians. It is very likely that if a sudden dash
had been made at Sebastopol by land and sea, it might
have been taken almost at the very opening of the war.
But the delay gave the Russians full warning ; and they
did not neglect it. On the third day after the battle of
the Alma the Russians sank seven vessels of their Black
Sea fleet at the entiance of the harbor of Sebastopol,
and the entrance of the harbor was barred as by sunken
rocks against any approach of an enemy's ship. There
was an end to every dream of a sudden capture of
Sebastopol. The allied armies moved again from their
positions on the Alma to Balaklava, which lies south of
the city, on the other side of a promontory, and which
has a port that might enable them to secure a constant
means of communication between the armies and the
fleets. Sebastopol was but a few miles off, and prepara
tions were at once made for an attack on it by land and
sea. On October 17, the attack began. It w-as prac
tically a failure. The fleet could not get near enough to
the sea-forts of Sebastopol to make their broadsides of
any real effect, because of the shallow water and the
sunken ships ; and although the attack from the land
was vigorous and was fiercely kept up, yet it could not
carry its object.
The Russians attacked the allies fiercely on October
25, in the hope of obtaining possession of Balaklava.
The attempt was bold and brilliant ; but it was splen
didly repulsed. Never did a day of battle do more
credit to English courage, or less perhaps to English
generalship. The cavalry particularly dislinguished
theraselves. It was in great measure on our side a
cavalry action. It will be memorable in all English his-

l86 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIM'ES.
tory as the battle in which occurred the famous charge
of the Light Brigade. Owing to sorae fatal misconcep
tion of the raeaning of an order frora the Commander-in-
Chief, the Light Brigade, 607 raen in all, charged what
has been rightly described as " the Russian army in
position." Of the 607 men 198 carae back. Long, pain
ful, and hopeless were the disputes about this fatal order.
The controversy can never be wholly settled. The officer
who bore the order was one of the first who fell in the
outset. All Europe, all the world, rang with wonder
and admiration of the futile and splendid charge. The
Poet Laureate sang of it in spirited verses. Perhaps its
best epitaph was contained in the celebrated comment
ascribed to the French General Bosquet, and which has
since become proverbial, and been quoted until men are
well-nigh tired of it — " It was magnificent, but it was not
war." Next day, the enemy made another vigorous attack on
a much larger scale, moving out of Sebastopol itself, and
were again repulsed. On November 5. the Russians
made another grand attack on the allies, chiefly on the
British, and were once raore splendidly repulsed. The
plateau of Inkerraan was the principal scene of the
struggle. It was occupied by the Guards and a few
British regiraents, on whom fell, until General Bosquet
with his French was able to come to their assistance, the
task of resisting a Russian army. This was the severest
and the fiercest engagement of the campaign. Inkerraan
was described at the tirae as the soldiers' battle. Strat
egy, it was said everywhere, there was none. The at
tack was made under cover of a dark and drizzling mist.
The battle was fought for a while alraost absolutely in
the dark. There was hardly any attempt to direct the
allies by any principles of scientific warfare. The sol
diers fought stubbornly a series of hand-to-hand fights,
and we are entitled to say that the better men won in
the end.
Meanwhile what were people saying in England ?
They were indignantly declaring that the whole campaign
was a muddle. The temper of a people thus stimulated
and thus disappointed is almost always indiscriminating

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 187
and unreasonable in its censure. The first idea is to
find a victira. The victira on whora the anger of a large
portion of the public turned in this instance was the
Prince Consort. The raost absurd ideas, the raost cruel
and baseless calumnies, were in circulation about him.
He was accused of having out of some inscrutable motive
made use of all his secret influence to prevent the suc
cess of the campaign. He was charged with being in a
conspiracy with Prussia, with Rus.sia, with no one knew
e.xactly whora, to weaken the strength of England, and
secure a triumph for her enemies. Stories were actually
told at one tirae of his having been arrested for high
treason. The charges which sprang of this heated and
unjust temper on the part of the public did not indeed
long prevail against the Prince Consort. When once the
subject came to be taken up in Parliament it was shown
almost in a moment that there was not the slightest
ground or excuse for any of the absurd surmises and
cruel suspicions which had been creating so much agita
tion. The agitation collapsed in a moment. But while
it lasted it was both vehement and intense, ani gave
much pain to the Prince, and far more pain still to the
Queen his wife.
The winter was gloomy at home as well as abroad.
The news constantly arriving from the Criraea told only
of devastation caused by foes far raore forraidable than
the Russians — sickness, bad weather, bad raanageraent.
The Black Sea was swept and scourged by terrible storms.
The destruction of transport-ships laden with winter
stores for our men was of incalculable injury to the army.
Clothing, blanketing, provisions, hospital necessaries of
all kinds, were destroyed in vast quantities. The loss of
life among the crews of the vessels was immense. A
storm was nearly as disastrous in this way as a battle.
On shore the sufferings of the army were unspeakable.
The tents were torn frora their pegs and blown away.
The officers and men were exposed to the bitter cold and
the flerce storray blasts. Our soldiers had for the raost
part little experience or even idea of such cold as they
had to encounter this gloomy winter. The intensity of
the cold was so great that no one might dare to touch

168 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
any metal substance in the open air with his bare hand
under the penalty of leaving the skin behind him. The
hospitals for the sick and wounded at Scutari were in a
wretchedly disorganized condition. They were for the
most part in an absolutely chaotic condition as regards
arrangement and supply. In some instances medical
stores were left to decay at Varna, or were found lying
useless in the holds of vessels in .Balaklava bay, which
were needed for the wounded at Scutari. The medical
officers were able and zealous raen ; the stores were pro
vided and paid for so far as our Government was con
cerned ; but the stores were not brought to the medical
men.- These had their hands all but idle, their eyes and
souls tortured by the sight of sufferings which they were
unable to relieve for want of the commonest appliances
of the hospital. The ' raost extraordinary instances of
blunder and confusion were constantly coraing to light.
Great consignments of boots arrived, and were found to
be all for the left foot. Mules for the conveyance of
stores were contracted for and delivered, but delivered
so that they came into the hands of the Russians and
not of us. Shameful frauds were perpetrated in the in
stance of some of the contracts for preserved meat. The
evils of the hospital disorganization were happily made a
means of bringing about a new system of attending to
the sick and wounded in war which has alteady created
something like a revolution in the manner of treating the
victims of battle. Mr. Sidney Herbert, horrified at the
way in which things were managed in Scutari and the
Crimea, applied to a distinguished woraan who had long
taken a deep interest in hospital reforra to superintend
personally the nursing of the soldiers. Miss Florence
Nightingale was the daughter of a wealthy English coun
try gentleman. She had chosen not to pass her life in
fashionable or aesthetic inactivity, and had from a very
early period turned her attention to sanitary questions.
She had studied nursing as a science and a system ; had
made herself acquainted with the working of various con
tinental institutions ; and about the tirae when the war
broke out she was actually engaged in reorganizing the
Sick Governesses' Institution in Harley Street, London.

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 189
To her Mr. Sidney Herbert turned. He offered her, if
she would accept the task he proposed, plenary authority
over all the nurses, and an unlimited power of drawing
on the Governraent for whatever she might think neces
sary to the success of her undertaking. Miss Nightin
gale accepted the task, and went out to Scutari accora
panied by some women of rank like her own, and a
trained staff of nurses. They speedily reduced chaos
into order ; and frora the tirae of their landing in Scu-

Florence Nightingale.
tari there was at least one departraent of the business of
war which was never again a subject of complaint. The
.spirit of the chivalric days had been restored under bet
ter auspices for its abiding influence. Sidney Herbert,
in his letter to Miss Nightingale, has said that her
example, if she accepted the task he proposed, would
" multiply the good to all time." These words proved
to have no exaggeration in thera. We have never seen
a war since in which woraen of education and of genuine

190 A SHORT HIS-rORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
devotion have not given themselves up to the task of car
ing for the wounded. The Geneva Convention and the
bearing of the Red Cross are among the results of Flor
ence Nightingale's work in the Crimea.
But the siege of Sebastopol was meanwhile dragging
heavily along; and sometimes it was not quite certain
which ought to be called the besieged, the Russians in
the city or the allies, encamped in sight of it. During
some months the armies did little or nothing. The cora-
raissariat system and the land transport system had bro
ken down. The armies were raiserably weakened by
sickness. Cholera was ever and anon raging anew araong
our men. Horses and mules were dying of cold and
starvation. The roads were only deep irregular ruts fllled
with mud ; the carap was a marsh ; the tents stood often
in pools of water ; the men had sbraetimes no beds but
straw dripping with wet ; and hardly any bed coverings.
Our unfortunate Turkish allies were in a far more
wretched plight than even we ourselves. The authorities
who ought to have looked after them were impervious to
the criticisms of special correspondents and unassailable
by Parliaraentary votes of censure. A condemnation of
the latter kind was hanging over our Government. Par
liament was called together before Christmas ; and after
the Christmas recess Mr. Roebuck gave notice that he
would move for a select coramittee to inquire into the
condition of the array before Sebastopol, and into the
conduct of those departraents of the Governraent whose
duty it had been to rainister to the wants of the array.
Lord John Russell did not believe for hiraself that the
motion could be conscientiously resisted ; but as it neces
sarily involved a censure upon sorae of his colleagues, he
did not think he ought to reraain longer in the Ministry,
and he therefore resigned his office. The sudden resig
nation of the leader of the House of Commons was a
death-blow to any plans of resistance by which the Gov
ernment might otherwise have thought of encountering
Mr. Roebuck's motion. Mr. Roebuck's motion came
on, and was resisted with vigor by Lord Palraerston and
Mr. Gladstone. The House of Commons was not to be
moved by any such argument or appeal. The one per-

THE CRIMEAN WAR. I9I
vading idea was that England had been endangered and
shamed by the break-down of her army organization.
When the division took place 305 merabers voted for
Mr. Roebuck's raotion and only 148 against. The ma
jority against Ministers was therefore 157. Every one
knows what a .scene usually takes place when a Ministry
is defeated in the House of Commons. Cheering again
and again renewed, counter-cheers of defiance, wild exulta
tion, vehement indignation, a whole whirlpool of various
emotions, seething in. that little hall in St. Stephen's. But
this time there was no such outburst. The House could
hardly realize the fact that the Ministry of all the talents
had been thus corapletely and ignominiously defeated. A
dead -silence followed the announcement of the nurabers.
Then there was a half-breathless murmur of amazeraent
and incredulity. The Speaker repeated the nurabers, and
doubt was over. It was still uncertain how the House
would express its feelings. Suddenly sorae one laughed.
The sound gave a direction and a relief to perplexed,
pent-up eraotion. Shouts of laughter followed. Not
merely the pledged opponents of the Governraent laughed.
Many of those who had voted with Ministers found thera
selves laughing too. It seeraed so absurd, so incongru
ous, this way of disposing of the great Coalition Govern
ment. Many must have thought of the night of fierce
debate, little more than two years before, when Mr.
Disraeli, then on the verge of hij fall from power and
realizing fully the strength of the combination against
hi'm, consoled his party and hiraself for the imminent
.fatality awaiting them by the defiant words, " I know
that I have to face a Coalition ; the combination raay be
successful. A corabination has before this been success
ful ; but coalitions, though they raay be successful, have
always found that their triumphs have been brief. This
I know, that England does not love coalitions." Only
two years had passed and the great Coalition had fallen,
overwhelmed with reproach and popular indignation, and
amid sudden shouts of laughter.
Lord Derby was . invited by the Queen to forra a
Government. He tried and failed. Palmerston did not
see his way to join a Derby Adrainistration, and without

192 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
hira Lord Derby could not go on. The Queen then sent
for Lord John Russell ; but Russell found that he could
not get a Government together. Lord Palmerston was
then, to use his own phrase, the inevitable. There was
not much change in the Ministry. Lord Aberdeen was
gone, and Lord Palmerston took his place ; and Lord
Panmure, who had formerly as Fox Maule administered
the affairs of the array, succeeded the Duke of Newca.stle.
Lord Panmure, however, combined in his own person the
functions, up to that tirae absurdly separated, of Secretary-
at-War and Secretary-for-War. It was hoped that by
this change great benefit would come to our whole array
systera. Lord Palraerston acted energetically too in send
ing out a sanitary coraraission to the Criraea, and a cora
mission to superintend the commissariat, a departraent
that, almost raore than any other, had broken down.
Lord Palmerston was strongly pressed by sorae of the
raore strenuous Reforraers of the House. Mr. Layard,
who had acquired sorae celebrity before in a very dif
ferent field, as a discoverer, that is to say, in the ruins
of Nineveh and Babylon, was energetic and incessant in
his attacks on the administration of the war, and was not
disposed even now to give the new Governraent a rao-
ment's rest. Mr. Layard was a raan of a certain rough
.ability, immense self-sufficiency, and indomitable egotisra.
He was not in any sense an eloquent speaker , he was
singularly wanting in all the graces of style and manner.
But he was fluent, he was vociferous, he never seeraed
to have a moment's doubt on any conceivable question,
he never admitted that there could by any possibility be
two sides to any matter of discussion. Pie did really
know a great deal about the East at a tirae when the
habit of travelling in the East was comparatively rare.
He stamped down all doubt or difference of view with
the overbearing dogmatism of the proverbial raan who
has been there and'ought to knpw ; and he was in many
respects admirably fitted to be the spokesman of all
those, and they were not a few, who saw that things had
been going wrong without exactly seeing why, and were
eager that something should be done, although they did
not clearly know what. Lord Palmerston strove to in-

^

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 193
duce the House not to press for the appointment of the
committee recomraended in Mr. Roebuck's raotion. The
Governraent. he said, vvould make the needful inquiries
themselves. Mr. Roebuck, however, would not give way,
and Lord Palmerston yielded to a demand which had
undoubtedly the support of vast force of public opinion;
but his unavoidable concession brought on a new min
isterial crisis. Sir James Graham. Mr. Gladstone, and
Mr. Sidney Herbert declined to hold office any longer.
They had opposed the raotion for an inquiry most gravely
and strenuously, and they would not lend any counte
nance to it by remaining in office. Sir Charles Wood
succeeded Sir Jaraes Graham as First Lord of the Ad-
rairality; Lord John Russell took the place of Secretary
of the Colonies, vacated by Sidney Herbert ; and Sir
George Cornewall Lewis followed Mr. Gladstone as
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Meanwhile new negotiations for peace, set on foot
under the influence of Austria, had been begun at Vienna,
and Lord John Russell had been sent there to represent
the interest of England. We had got a new ally in the
little kingdora of Sardinia, whose government was then
under the control of one of the master-spirits of modern
politics. Count Cavour. Sardinia went into war in order
that she might have a locus standi in the councils of
Europe frora which to set forth her grievances against
Austria. The policy was singularly successful, and en
tirely justified the expectations of Cavour. The Crimean
War laid the foundations of the kingdom of Italy. But
there was another event of a very different nature, the
effect of which seemed at first likely to be all in favor
of peace. On March 2, 1855, the Emperor Nicholas of
Russia died of pulmonary apoplexy, after an attack of
influenza. A cartoon appeared in Punch, which was
called "General Fevrier turned Traitor." The Emperor
Nicholas had boasted that Russia had two generals on
whom she could always rely. General Janvier and General
Fevrier ; and now the English artist represented General
February, a skeleton in Russian uniform, turning traitor
and laying his bony ice-cold hand on the heart of the
Sovereign and betraying him to the tomb. But indeed

194 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
it was not General February alone who doomed Nicholas
to death. The Czar died of broken hopes ; of the reck
lessness that coraes from defeat and despair. He took
no precautions against cold and exposure ; he treated
with a magnanimous disdain the remonstrances of his
physicians and his friends. The news of the sudden
death of the Emperor created a profound sensation in
England. At first there was, as we have said, a coraraon
irapression that Nicholas's son and successor, Alexander
II. , would be raore anxious to raake peace than his father
had been. But this hope was soon gone. The new Czar
could not venture to show hiraself to his people in a less
patriotic light than his predecessor. The prospects of
the allies were at the time remarkably gloomy. There
raust have seeraed to the new Russian Emperor consider
able ground for the hope that disease, and cold, and bad
management would do more harm to the army of Eng
land at least than any Russian general could do. The
Conference at Vienna proved a failure. Lord John Rus
sell, sent to Vienna as our representative, was charged by
Mr. Disraeli with having encouraged the Russian preten
sions. Sir E. B. Lytton gave notice of a direct vote of
censure on "the Minister charged with the negotiations
at Vienna." But Russell anticipated the certain effect of
a vote in the House of Coraraons by resigning his office.
The vote of censure was withdrawn. Sir William Moles
worth, one of the most distinguished of the school who
were since called Philosophical Radicals, succeeded him
as Colonial Secretary ; and the Ministry carried one or
two triumphant votes against Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Roebuck,
and other opponents, or .*t leas; unfriendly critics. Mean
while the Eraperor of the French and his wife had paid
a visit to London, and had been received with consider
able enthusiasm. The Queen seems to have been very
favorably impressed by the Emperor. The Prince Con
sort seems to have been less impressed. The Prince
Consort appears to have judged the Emperor alraost ex
actly as impartial opinion has judged him everywhere in
Europe since that time.
The operations in the Crimea were renewed with
some vigor. The English army lost much by the death

THE CRIMEAN WAR. I95
of its brave and manly Commander-in-Chief, Lord Rag
lan. He was succeeded by General Simpson, whose
administration during the short tirae that he held the
command was at least well qualified to keep Lord Rag
lan's memory green and to prevent the regret for his
death from losing any of its keenness. The French army
had lost its first commander long before — the versatile,
reckless, brilliant soldier of fortune, St. Arnaud. After
St. Arnaud's death the command was transferred for a
while to General Canrobert, who resigned it in favor of
General P^lissier. The Sardin
ian contingent had arrived, and
had given admirable proof of
its courage and discipline. On
August 16, 1855, the Russians,
under General Liprandi, made
an unsuccessful effort to raise
the siege of Sebastopol by an
attack on the allied forces. The
Sardinian contingent bore thera
selves with stubborn bravery in
the resistance, and all Northern
Italy was thrown into wild de
light by the news that the flag
of Piedraont had been carried Lord Raglan.
to victory over the troops of one
great European Power, and side by side with those of two
others. It was the first great illustration of Cavour's ha
bitual policy of blended audacity and cool, far-seeing judg
ment. The siege had been progressing for sorae tirae with
considerable activity. The Malakoff tower and the Mame-
lon battery in front of it becarae the scenes and the objects
of constant struggle. The Russians raade desperate night
sorties again and again, and were always repulsed. On
June 7 the English assaulted the quarries in front of the
Redan, and the French attacked the Maraelon. The
attack on both sides was successful ; but it was followed
on the 1 8th of the sarae raonth by a desperate and wholly
unsuccessful attack on the Redan and Malakoff batteries.
On Septeraber S the allies made an attack alraost siraul-
taneously upon the Malakoff and the Redan. The

196 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
French soon got possession of the Malakoff, and the
English then at once advanced upon the Redan ; but the
French were near the Malakoff : the English were very
far away frora the Redan. The distance our soldiers had
to traverse left them almost helplessly exposed to the
Russian fire. They stormed the parapets of the Redan
despite all the difficulties of their attack ; but they were
not able to hold the place. The attackirig party were
far too small in numbers ; reinforcements did not corae in
tirae ; the English held their own for an hour against
odds that might have seeraed overwhelraing ; but it was

%
The Malakoff Tower.
simply impossible for them to establish themselves in
the Redan, and the remnant of them that could with
draw had to retreat to the trenches. It was only the
old story of the war. Superb courage and skill of the
officers and raen ; outrageously bad generalship. The
attack raight have been renewed that day, but the Eng
lish Commander-in-Chief, General Simpson, resolved
not to raake another attempt till the next morning.
Before the morrow came there was nothing to attack.
The Russians withdrew during the night frora the south
side of Sebastopol. A bridge of boats had been con
structed across the bay to connect the north and the
south sides of the city, and across this bridge Prince

THE CRIMEAN WAR. 197
Gortschakoff quietly withdrew his troops. The Russian
general felt that it would be irapossible for hira to hold
the city rauch longer, and that to reraain there was
only useless waste of life. But, as he said in his own
despatch, " It is not Sebastopol which we have left to
them, but the burning ruins of the town, which we our
selves set fire to, having maintained the honor of the
defence in such a manner that our great-grandchildren
may recall with pride the remerabrance of it and send
it on to all posterity." It was sorae time before the
allies could venture to enter the abandoned city. The
arsenals and powder magazines were exploding, the
flames were bursting out of every public building and
every private house. The Russians had made of Se
bastopol another Moscow.
With the close of that long siege, which had lasted
nearly a year, the war may be said to have ended. The
brilliant episode of Kars, its splendid defence and its
final surrender, was brought to its conclusion, indeed,
after the fall of Sebastopol ; but, although it naturally
¦attracted peculiar attention in this country, it could have
no effect on the actual fortunes of such a war. Kars was
defended by Colonel Fenwick Williams, an English of
ficer, who held the place against overwhelraing Russian
forces, and against an eneray far more appalling — starva
tion itself. He had to surrender at last to faraine ; but
the very articles of surrender to which the conqueror
consented becarae the trophy of Williams and his raen.
The garrison were allowed to leave the place with all
the honors of war ; and, " as a testimony to the valorous
resistance made by the garrison of Kars, the officers of
all ranks are to keep their swords." The war was virtu
ally over. Austria had been exerting herself throughout
its progress in the interests of peace, and after the fall of
Sebastopol she made a new effort with greater success.
France and Russia were indeed now anxious to be out
of the struggle almost on any terms. If England had
held out, it is highly probable that she would have had
to do so alone. For this indeed Lord Palraerston was
fully prepared as a last resource, sooner than subrait to
terras whichhe considered unsatisfactory. The Congress

198 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
of Paris opened on February 26, 1856, and on March 30
the treaty of peace was signed by the plenipotentiaries
of the Great Powers. Prussia had been adraitted to the
Congress, which therefore represented England, France,
Russia, Austria, Prussia, Turkey and Sardinia.
By the treaty Kars was restored to the Sultan, and
Sebastopol and all other places taken by the allies were
given back to Russia. The Great Powers engaged to
respect the independence and territorial integrity of
Turkey. The Sultan issued a firman for ameliorating the
condition of his Christian subjects, and no right of inter
ference, it was distinctly specified, was given to the other
Powers by this concession on the Sultan's part. The
Black Sea was neutralized ; its waters and its ports were
thrown open to the raercantile marine of every nation,
and formally and in perpetuity interdicted- to the flag of
war either of the Powers possessing its coasts or of any
other Power, with the exception of the right of each of
the Powers to have the sarae number of small armed
-vessels in the Black Sea to act as a sort of maritime
police and to protect the coasts. The Sultan and the
Eraperor engaged to establish and maintain no military
or maritime arsenals in that sea. The navigation of the
Danube was thrown open. Moldavia and Wallachia,
continuing under the suzerainty of the Sultan, were to
enjoy all the privileges and immunities they already
possessed under the guarantee of the contracting Powers,
but with no separate right of intervention in their affairs.
Out of Moldavia and 'Wallachia united, after various in
ternal changes, there subsequently grew the kingdom of
Roumania. The existing position of Servia was secured
by the treaty. During tirae of peace the Sultan engaged
to adrait no foreign ships of war into the Bosphorus or
the Dardanelles.
To guarantee Turkey frora the enemy they most feared
a tripartite treaty was afterwards agreed to between Eng
land, France and Austria. This document bears date in
Paris April 15, 1856 ; by it the contracting parties guar
anteed jointly and severally the independence and integ
rity of the Ottoman empire, and declared that any
infraction of the general treaty of March 30 would be

THE CRIMEAN WAR. I99
considered by thera as casus belli. The Congress of Paris
was reraarkable for the fact that the plenipotentiaries
before separating carae to an agreement on the rules
generally of maritime war by which privateering was
abolished. It was agreed, however, that the rules adopted
at the Congress of Paris should only be binding on those
States that had acceded or should accede to thera. The
United States raised sorae difficulty about renouncing the
right of privateering, and the declarations of the Congress
were therefore made without America's assenting to
them. At the instigation of Count Cavour the condition
of Italy was brought before the Congress ; and there can
be no doubt that out of the Congress and the part that
Sardinia assumed as representative of Italian nationality
came the succession of events which ended in the estab
lishment of a King of Italy iri the palace of the Qulrinal.
The adjustment of the condition of the Danubian princi
palities too engaged much attention and discussion, and
a highly ingenious arrangeraent was devised for the pur
pose of keeping those provinces frora actual union, so
that they raight be coherent enough to act as a rampart
against Russia, without being so coherent as to cause
Austria any alarm for her own somewhat disjointed, not
to say distracted, political system. All these artificial
and complex arrangements presently fell to pieces, and
the principalities became in course of no very long tirae
an united independent State under a hereditary Prince.
But for the hour it was hoped that the independence of
Turkey and the restriction of Russia, the security of the
Christian provinces, the neutrality of the Black Sea, and
the closing of the Straits against war vessels, had been
bought by the war.
England lost sorae twenty-four thousand raen in the
war, of whom hardly a sixth fell in battle or died of
wounds. Cholera and other diseases gave grim account
of the rest. Forty-one millions of money were added by
the carapaign to the National Debt. England becarae
involved in a quarrel with the United States because of
our Foreign Enlistment Act. At the close .of December,
1854, Parliament hurriedly passed an Act authorizing the
formation of a Foreign Legion for service in the war.

200 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
and some Swiss and Germans were recruited who never
proved of the slightest service. Prussia and America
both complained that the zeal of our recruiting function
aries outran the limits of discretion and of law. One of
our consuls was actually put on trial at Cologne ; and
America made a serious coraplaint of the enlistment of
her citizens. England apologized ; but the United States
were out of temper, and insisted on sending our minister,
Mf. Crampton, away from Washington, and some little
time passed before the friendly relations of the two States
were completely restored.
There was a feeling- of disappointment in this country
at the close of the war. Our soldiers had done splen
didly ; but our generals and our system had done poorly
indeed. Only one first-class reputation of a military
order had come out of the war, and that was by the
coraraon consent of the w-orld awarded to a Russian — to
General Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol. No new
name was made on our side or on that of the French ;
and some promising or traditional reputations were shat- -
tered. The political results of the war were to many
minds equally unsatisfying. Lord Aberdeen estimated
that it might perhaps secure peace in the East of Europe
for some twenty-five years. His raodest expectation v\-as
prophetic. Indeed it a little overshot the mark. Twenty-
two years after the close of the Crimean campaign Rus
sia and Turkey were at war again.

CHAPTER XII.
THE LORCHA " ARROW." — TRANSPORTATION.
After the supposed settlement of the Eastern Ques
tion at the Congress of Paris, a sort of languor seems to
have corae over Parliament and the public mind in Eng
land. Lord John Russell proposed a series of resolutions
to establish in England a genuine system of national
education, which were of course rejected by the House
of Commons. Public opinion, both in and out of Parlia
ment, was not nearly ripe for such a principle then. One
of the regular attempts to admit the Jews to Parliament
was made, and succeeded in the House of Coraraons, to
fail, as usual, in the House of Lords. The House of
Lords itself was thrown into great perturbation for a tirae
by the proposal of the Governraent to confer a peerage
for life on one of the judges. Sir James Parke. Lord
Lyndhurst strongly opposed the proposal, on the ground
that it was the beginning of an attempt to introduce a
system of life-peerages, which would destroy the ancient
and hereditary character of the House of Lords. The
Government, who had really no reactionary or revolu
tionary designs in their mind, settled the raatter for the
time by creating Sir James Parke Baron Wensleydale in
the usual way, and the object they had in view was
quietly accomplished many years later, when the appellate
jurisdiction of the Lords was remodelled.
Sir George Lewis was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He was as yet not credited with anything like the politi
cal ability which he afterwards proved that he possessed.
It was the fashion to regard hira as a raere bookraan,

202 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
who had drifted soraehow into Parliament, and who, in
the temporary absence of available talent, had been
thrust into the office lately held by Mr. Gladstone. The
contrast indeed between the style of his speaking and
that of Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli was enough to dis
hearten any political assembly. Sir George Lewis began
by being nearly inaudible, and continued to the last to
be oppressed by the most ineffective and unattractive
nianrier and delivery. But it began to be gradually found
out that the raonotonous, halting, feeble manner covered
a very remarkable power of expression ; that the speaker
had great resources of argument, humor, and illustration ;
that every sentence contained some fresh idea or some
happy expression. After a while the capacity of Lewis
ran the risk of being overrated quite as much as it had
been undervalued before.
For the present, however. Sir George Lewis was re
garded only as the sort of statesman whora it was fitting
to have in office just then ; the statesman of an interval,
in whom no one was expected to take any particular
interest. The attention of the public was a good deal
distracted from poHtical affairs by the failure and frauds
of the Royal British Bank and other frauds, which gave
for the time a sort of idea that the financial principles
of the country were crurabling to pieces. The culmina
tion of the extraordinary career of John Sadleir was
fresh in public meraory. This man was the organizer
and guiding spirit of the Irish Brigade, a gang of ad
venturers who got into Parliament and traded on the
genuinq grievances of their country to get power and
money for themselves. John Sadleir embezzled, swindled,
forged, and finally escaped justice by committing suicide
on Harapstead Heath. The brother of Sadleir was ex
pelled frora the House of Coraraons ; one of his accom
plices, who had obtained a Government appointment and-
had embezzled raoney, contrived to make his escape to
the United States ; and the Irish Brigade was broken up.
It is only just to say that the best representatives of the
Irish Catholics and the Irish national party, in and out
of Parliament, had never frora the first believed in Sad
leir and his band, and had made persistent efforts to
expose thera.

THE LORCHA "ARROW." 203
About this same time Mr. Cyrus W. Field, an energetic
American merchant, came over to this country to explain
to its leading merchants and scientific men a plan he
had for constructing an electric telegraph line under
neath the Atlantic. He was listened to with polite
curiosity. Mr. Field had, however, a much better recep
tion on the whole than M. de Lesseps, who came to
England a few months later to explain his project for
constructing a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez.
His proposal was received with coldness, and more than
coldriess, by engineers, capitalists, and politicians.
The political world seenied to have made up its raind
for a season of quiet. Suddenly a storra broke out. The
Speech frora the Throne at the opening of Parliament,
on February 3, 1857, stated that acts of violence, insults
to the British flag, and infraction of treaty rights, com
mitted by the local Chinese authorities at Canton, and a
pertinacious refusal of redress, had rendered it necessary
for her Majesty's officers in China to have recourse to
measures of force to obtain satisfaction. The alleged
offences of the Chinese authorities at Canton had for
their single victim the lorcha Arrow. The lorcha Arrow
was a sraall boat built on the European raodel. The
word " Lorcha " is taken from the Portuguese settlement
at Macao at the mouth of the Canton river. It often oc
curs in treaties with the Chinese authorities. On Oc
tober 8, 1856, a party of Chinese in charge of an officer
boarded the Arrow, in the Canton river. They took off
twelve men on a charge of piracy, leaving two men in
charge of the lorcha. The Arrow was declared by its
owners to be a British vessel. Our Consul at Canton,
Mr. Parkes, demanded frora Yeb, the Chinese Governor
of Canton, the return of the raen, basing his demand
upon the Treaty of 1843, supplemental to the Treaty of
1842. This treaty did not give the Chinese authorities
any right to seize Chinese offenders, or supposed offenders,
on board an English vessel. It raerely gave thera a right,
to require the surrender of the offenders at the hands of
the English. The Chinese Governor, Yeh, conteniled,
however, that the lorcha was a Chinese private vessel,
which had no right whatever to hoist the flag of England.

204 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
It may be plainly stated at once that the Arrow was not
an English vessel, but only a Chinese vessel which had
obtained by false pretences the temporary possession of
a British flag. Mr. Consul Parkes, however, was fussy,
and he demanded the instant restoration of the captured
men, and he sent off to our Plenipotentiary at Hong
Kong, Sir John Bowring, for authority and assistance in
the business.
Sir John Bowring was a man of considerable ability.
At one tirae he seemed to be a candidate for something
like fame. He had very large and varied knowledge
of European and Asiatic languages, he had travelled a
great deal, and had sat in Parliament for some years.
He understood political economy, and had a good knowl
edge of trade and commerce. He had raany friends
and admirers, and he set up eariy for a sort of great
man. He was full of self-conceit, and without any very
clear idea of political principles on the large scale.
Bowring had been Consul for some years at Canton, and
he had held the post of chief superintendent of trade
there. It would seem as if his eager self-conceit would
not allow him to resist the temptation to display himself
on the field of political action as a great English pleni
potentiary bidding England be of good cheer and com
pelling inferior races to grovel in the dust before her.
He ordered the Chinese authorities to surrender all the
raen taken from the Arrow, and he insisted that an apol
ogy should be offered for their arrest, and a formal
pledge given by the Chinese authorities that no such act
should ever be committed again. ' If this were not done
within forty-eight hours, naval operations were to be be
gun against the Chinese. The Chinese Governor, Yeh,
sent back all the men, and undertook to promise that
for the future great care should be taken that no British
ship should be visited iraproperly by Chinese officers.
But he could not offer an apology for the particular case
of the Arrow, for he still maintained, as was indeed the
fact, that the Arrow was a Chinese vessel, and that the
English had nothing to do with her. Accordingly Sir
John Bowring carried out his threat, and had Canton
borabarded by the fleet which Admiral Sir Michael Sey-

THE LORCHA "ARROW." 205
mour commanded. From October 23 to November 13
naval and railitary operations were kept up continuously.
Commissioner Yeh 'retaliated by foolishly offering a re
ward for the head of every Englishman.
This news from China created a considerable sensa
tion in England. On February 24, 1857, Lord Derby
brought forward in the House of Lords a motion, com
prehensively condemning the whole of the proceedings
of the British authorities in China. The debate would
have been memorable if only for the powerful speech In
which the venerable Lord Lyndhurst supported the rao
tion, and exposed the utter illegality of the course pur
sued by Sir John Bowring. The House of Lords rejected
the motion of Lord Derby by a raajority of 146 to no.
On February 26 Mr. Cobden brought forward a similar
raotion in the House of Coraraons. This raust have
been a peculiarly painful task for Mr. Cobden. He was
an old friend of Sir John Bowring, with whom he had
always supposed hiraself to have many or most opinions
in common. But he followed his convictions as to public
duty in despite of his personal friendship. The debate
was remarkable more for the singular political combina
tion which it developed as it went on, than even for its
varied ability and eloquence. Men spoke and voted on
the sarae side who had probably never been brought into
such corapanionship before and never were afterwards.
Mr. Cobden found himself supported by Mr. Gladstone
and Mr. Disraeli, by Mr. Roebuck and Sir E. B. Lytton,
by Lord John Russell and Mr. Whiteside, by Lord
Robert Cecil, afterwards the Marquis of Salisbury, Sir
Frederick Thesiger, Mr. Roundell Palraer, afterwards
Lord Selborne, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Milner Gib
son. Mr. Cobden had jsrobably never dreamed of the
¦amount or the nature of the support his raotion was des
tined to receive. The vote of censure was carried by
263 votes against 247 — a raajority of 16.
Lord Palraerston announced two or three days after
that the Government had resolved on a dissolution and
an appeal to the country. Lord Palmerston understood
his countrymen. He knew that a popular Minister
makes hiraself more popular by appealing to the country

2o6 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
on the ground that he has been condemned by the
House of Coraraons for upholding the honor of England
and coercing sorae foreign power soraewhere. In his ad
dress to the electors of Tiverton he declared that an in
solent barbarian, wielding authority at Canton, violated
the British flag, broke the engagements of treaties, of
fered rewards for tjie heads of British subjects in that
part of China, and planned their destruction by mur
der, assassination, and poison. That of course was all'
sufficient. The insolent barbarian was in itself al
most enough. Governor Yeh certainly was not a bar
barian. His argument on the subject of International
Law obtained the endorsement of Lord Lyndhurst. His
way of arguing the political and commercial case com
pelled the admiration of Lord Derby. His letters form
a curious contrast to the documents contributed to the
controversy by the representatives of British authority in
China. However, he became for electioneering pur
poses an insolent barbarian ; and the story of a Chinese
baker who was said to have tried to poison Sir John Bow
ring was transfigured into an attempt at the wholesale
poisoning of Englishmen in China by the express orders
of the Chinese Governor. Lord Palmerston's victory
was complete. Cobden, Bright, Milner Gibson, W. J.
Fox, Layard, and many other leading opponents of the
Chinese policy, were left without seats. Lord Palraer
ston carae back to power with renewed and redoubled
strength. A little war with Persia came to an end in
tirae to give hira another claira as a conqueror on the
sympathies of the constituencies. In the Royal Speech
at the opening of Parliament it was announced that the
differences between this country and China still remained
unadjusted, and that therefore her Majesty had sent to
China a Plenipotentiary who would be supported by an
adequate naval and military force if necessary. The
Governraent, however, had more serious business with
which to occupy theraselves before they were at liberty
to turn to the easy work of coercing the Chinese.
The new Parliament was engaged for sorae time in
passing the Act abolishing the ancient jurisdiction of the
ecclesiastical courts respecting divorce, and setting up a

THE LORCHA "ARROW." 207
regular court of law, the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes
Court, to deal with questions between husband and wife.
The passing of the Divorce Act was strongly contested
in both Houses of Parliament, and indeed was secured at
last only by Lord Palraerston's intimating very signifi
cantly that he would keep the Houses sitting until the
measure had been disposed of. Mr. Gladstone, in par
ticular, offered to the bill a most strenuous opposition.
The year 1857 saw the abolition of the systera of trans
portation. Transportation as a raeans of getting rid of
part of our criminal population dates frora the time of
Charles IL, when the judges gave power for the removal
of offenders to the North American colonies. It was
first regularly introduced into our crirainal law in 171 7,
by an Act of Parliaraent. In 1787 a cargo of crirainals
was shipped out to Botany Bay, on the eastern shore of
New South Wales, and near Sydney, the present thriving
capital of the colony. Afterwards the convk;ts were also
sent to Van Dieraen's Land, or Tasmania ; and to Nor
folk Island, a lonely island in the Pacific, some- eight
hundred miles from the New South Wales shore. Nor
folk Island becarae the penal settleraent for the con
victed among convicts ; that is to say, criminals who,
after transportation to New South "Wales, comraitted
new crimes there, might be sent by the Colonial authori
ties for sterner punishment to Norfolk Island. It looked
as if the system ought to be satisfactory in every way
and to everybody. The convicts were provided with a
new career, a new country, and a chance of reforraation.
They were usually after a while released from actual dur
ance In the penal settlement, and allowed conditionally
to find eraployraent, and to raake theraselves, if they
could, good citizens. Their labor, it was thought, would
be of great service to the colonists. But the colonists
very soon began to complain. The convicts who had
spent their period of probation in hulks or prisons gener
ally left those homes of horror with nature so brutalized
as to make their intrusion into any coraraunity of decent
persons an insufferable nuisance. Pent up in penal set-
tleraents by theraselves, the convicts turned into de
mons ; drafted into an inhabited colony they were too

2 08 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
numerous to be wholly absorbed by the population, and
they carried their contagion along with them. New
South Wales and Tasmania began to protest against be
ing raade the refuse-ground for our scoundrelisra. Only
in Western Australia were the people willing to receive
thera on any conditions, and Western Australia had but
scanty natural resources and could in any case harbor very
few of our outcasts. The discovery of gold in Australia
settled the question of those colonies being troubled
any more with our transportation system. ; for the great
est enthusiast for transportation would hardly propose
to send out gangs of criminals to a region glowing with
the temptations of gold.
The question then arose what was England to do with
the criminals whom up to that time she had been able to
shovel out of her way. All the receptacles were closed
but Western Australia, and that counted for almost
nothing. In 1853 a bill was brought in by the Ministry
to substitute penal servitude for transportation, unless in
cases where the sentence was for fourteen years and up
wards. The bill reduced the scale of punishment ; that
is to say, made a shorter period of penal servitude supply
the place of a longer term of transportation. Lord Pal
merston was Horae Secretary at this tirae. It was
during the passing of the bill through the House of Lords
that Lord Grey sug.gested the introduction of a raodifica-
tion of the ticket-of-leave system which was in practice
in the colonies. The principle of the ticket-of-leave was
that the convict should not be kept in custody during the
whole period of his sentence, but that he should be
allowed to pass through a period of conditional liberty
before he obtained his full and unrestricted freedom.
Now there can be no doubt that the principle of the
ticket-of-leave is excellent. But it proved on its first trial
in this country the most utter delusion. It got no fair
chance at all. It was understood by the whole English
public that the object of the tlcket-of-leave was to enable
the authorities to give a conditional discharge from
custody to a man who had in some way proved his fitness
for such a relaxation of punishment, and that the eye of
the police would be on him even during the period of his

THE LORCHA "arrow." 209
conditional release. This was in fact the construction
put on the Act in Ireland, where accordingly the ticket-
of-leave system was worked with the most coraplete
success under the management of Sir Walter Crofton,
chairman of the Board of Prison Directors. A man who
had Sir Walter Crofton's ticket-of-leave was known by
that very act to have given earnest of good purpose and
steady character. The system in Ireland was therefore
all that its authors could have wished it to be. But for
some inscrutable reason the Act was interpreted in this
country as siraply giving every convict a right, after a
certain period of detention, to claim a ticket-of-leave,
provided he had not grossly violated any of the regula
tions of the prison or misconducted himself in some out
rageous manner.
It would be superfluous to examine the working of
such a system. A number of scoundrels whom the judges
had sentenced to be kept in durance for so raany years
were without any conceivable reason turned loose upon
society long before the expiration of their sentence. They
were in England literally turned loose upon society, for
it was held by the authorities here that it might possibly
interfere with the chance of a gaol-bird's getting employ
ment, if he were seen to be watched by the police. The
police therefore were considerately ordered ,to refrain
from looking- after thera. Fifty per cent, of the ruffians
released on ticket-of-leave were afterwards brought up for
new criraes, and convicted over again. Of those who
although not actually convicted were believed to have
relapsed into their old habits, frora sixty to seventy per
cent, relapsed within the first year of their liberation.
Baron Brarawell stated from the bench that he had had
instances of criminals coming before him who had three
sentences overlapping each other. The convict was set
free on ticket-of-leave, convicted of some new crime, and
re-comraitted to prison ; released again on ticket-of-leave,
and convicted once again, before the period of his original
sentence had expired. An alarra sprang up in England.
The result of the public alarm and the Parliamentary re
consideration of the whole subject was the bill brought
'in by Sir George Grey in 1857. This measure extended

2IO A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the provisions of the Act of 1853 by substituting in all
cases a sentence of penal servitude for one of transporta
tion, abolished the old-fashioned transportation system
altogether, biit it left the power to the authorities to have
penal servitude carried out in any of the colonies where
it might be thought expedient. The Government had
still some idea of utilizing Western Australia for some of
our offenders. But nothing came of this plan, or of the
clause in the new Act which was passed to favor it;
and as a raatter of fact transportation was abolished.
How the araended legislation worked in other respects
we shall have an opportunity of examining hereafter.
The Gretna Green marriages became illegal in 1857,
their doom having been fixed for that time by an Act
passed in the previous session. Thenceforward such
raarriages were unlawful, unless one of the parties had
lived at least twenty-one days previously in Scotland.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE INDIAN MUTINY.
In May, 1857, the great Indian Mutiny shook to its
foundations the whole fabric of British rule in Hindostan.
Throughout the greater part of the north and north-west
of the great Indian peninsula there was a rebellion of the
native races against English power. It was not by any
means a merely military mutiny. It was a combination
of military grievance, national hatred and religious fanat
icism, against the English occupiers of India. The
native princes and the native soldiers were in it. The
Mohammedan and the Hindoo forgot their own religious
antipathies to join against the Christian. Let us first see
what were the actual facts of the outbreak. When the
improved (EnfieldJ rifle was introduced into the Indian
army in 1856, the idea got abroad that the cartridges
were raade up in paper greased with a raixture of cow's
fat and hog's lard. It appears that thepaper was actually
greased, but not with any such material as that which
religious alarm suggested to the native troops. Now a
mixture of cow's fat and hog'j lard would have been,
above all things, unsuitable for use in cartridges to be
distributed among our Sepoys ; for the Hindoo regards
the cow with religious veneration, and the Mohararaedan
looks upon the hog with utter loathing. In the mind of
the former something sacred to hira was profaned ; in
that of the latter something unclean and abominable was
forced upon his daily use. Various efforts were made
to allay the panic araong the native troops. The use of
the cartridges coraplained of was discontinued by orders

2 12 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
issued in January, 1857. The Governor-General sent out
a proclamation in the following May, assuring the array
of Bengal that the tales told to them of offence to their
religion or injury to their caste being meditated by the
Government of India were all malicious inventions and
falsehoods. Still the idea was strong among the troops
that some design against their religion was meditated. A
mutinous spirit began to spread itself abroad. In March
some of the native regiments had to be disbanded. In
April some executions of Sepoys took place for gross and
open mutiny. In the sarae month several of the native
Bengal cavalry in Meerut refused to use the cartridges
served out to thera, although they had been authorita
tively- assured that the paper in which th'e cartridges
were wrapped had never been touched by an offerisive
raaterial. On M,ay 9 these men were sent to the gaol.
They had been tried by court-martial, and were sen
tenced, eighty of them, to imprisonment and hard labor
for ten years, the remaining five to a similar punishment
for six years. They had chains put on them in the pres
ence of their comrades, who no doubt regarded them as
martyrs to their religious faith, and they were thus.
publicly marched off to the common gaol. The guard
placed over the gaol actually consisted of Sepoys.
The following day, Sunday, May 10, was memorable.
The native troops in Meerut broke into open mutiny.
They fired upon their officers, kille.d a colonel and others,
broke into the gaol, released their comrades, and mas
sacred several of the European inhabitants. The Euro
pean troops rallied and drove thera frora their cantonments
or barracks. Then came the moraentous event, the turn
ing point of the rautiny : the act that raarked out its
character, and raade it what it afterwards becarae.
Meerut is an iraportant military station between the
Ganges and the Jumna, thirty-eight miles north-east from
Delhi. In the vast palace of Delhi, almost a city in itself,
lived the aged King of Delhi, as he was called ; the dis
established, but not wholly disendowed, sovereign, the
descendant of the great Timour, the last representative
of the Grand Mogul. The mutineers fled along the road
to Delhi ; and sorae evil fate directed that they were not

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 2 13
to be pursued or stopped on their way. Unchecked, un-
pursued, they burst into Delhi, and swarmed into the
precincts of the palace of the king. They claimed his
protection ; they insisted upon his accepting their cause
and themselves. They proclaimed him Eraperor of India,
and planted the standard of rebellion against English
rule on the battleraents of his palace. They had found
in one moraent a leader, a flag and a cause, and the
Mutiny was transfigured into a revolutionary war. The
Sepoy troops, in the city and the cantonraents on the
Delhi ridge, two miles off, and overlooking the city, at
once began to cast in their lot with the mutineers. The
poor old puppet whom they set up as their eraperor was
a feeble creature, sorae eighty years of age. He had
long been merely a pensioner of the East India Company.
But he was the representative of the great dynasty whose
name and effigies had been borne by all the coin of
India until sorae twenty years before. He stood for
legitiraacy and divine right ; and he supplied all the
various factions and sects of which the rautiny was com
posed, or to be composed, with a visible and an accept
able head. If the mutineers flying frora Meerut had
been proraptly pursued and dispersed, or captured, be
fore they reached Delhi, the tale we have to tell might
have been shorter and very different. But when they
reached, unchecked, the Jumna glittering in the morning
light, when they swarmed across the bridge of boats that
spanned it, and when at length they clamored under the
windows of the palace that they had come to restore the
rule of the Delhi dynasty, they had all unconsciously
seized one of the great critical moraents of history, and
converted a military mutiny into a national and religious
war. This is the raanner in which the Indian Rebellion be
gan and assumed its distinct character. Mutinies were
not novelties in India. There had been sorae very serious
outbreaks before the time of the greased cartridges.
But there was a combination of circurastances at work
to bring about this revolt which affected variously but
at once the army, the princes, and the populations of India.
Let us speak first of the army. The Bengal array was

214 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
very different in its constitution and conditions from
that of Borabay or Madras, the other great divisions of
Indian Governnient at that time. In the Bengal army,
the Hindoo Sepoys were far more numerous than the
Mohammedans, and were chiefly Brahmins of high caste ,-
while in Madras and Borabay the army was made up, as
the Bengal regiraents are now, of men of all sects and
races without discrimination. Until the very year before
the Mutiny the Bengal soldier was only enlisted for
service in India, and was exempted from any hability
to be sent across the seas ; across the black water which
the Sepoy dreaded and hated to have to cross. No such
exemption was allowed to the soldiers of Borabay or
Madras ; and in July, 1856, an order was issued by the
military authorities to the effect that future enlistments
in Bengal should be for service anywhere without limita
tion. Thus the Bengal Sepoy had not only been put in
the position of a privileged and pampered favorite, but
he had been subjected to the indignity and disappoint
ment of seeing his privileges taken away from hira.
But we must above all other things take into account,
when considering the position of the Hindoo Sepoy, the
influence of the tremendous institution of caste. An
Englishman or European of any country will have to call
his imaginative faculties somewhat vigorously to his aid
in order to get even an idea of the power of this mon
strous superstition. The man who by the merest acci
dent, by the slightest contact with anything that defiled,
had lost caste, was excommunicated from among the
living, and was held to be forever more accurst of God.
His dearest friend, his nearest relation shrank back from
hira in alarm and abhorrence. Now, it had become
frora various causes a strong suspicion in the mind of
the Sepoy that there was a deliberate purpose in the
minds of the English rulers of the country to defile the
Hindoos, and to bring them all to the dead level of one
caste or no caste. No doubt there was in raany instances
a lack of consideration shown for the Hindoo's pecul
iar and very perplexing tenets. To many a raan fresh
from the ways of England, the Hindoo doctrines and
practices appeared so ineffably absurd that he could not

THE IXDl.W MUTINY. 215
believe any human beings were serious in their devotion
to them, and he took no pains to conceal his opinion as
to the absurdity of the creed, and the hj-pocrisy of those
who professed it. Some of the elder officers and civilians
were imbued very stronglv with a conviction that the
work of open proselytism was part of their duty ; and in
the best faith and with the purest intentions they thus
strengthened the growing suspicion that the mind of the
authorities was set on the defilement of the Hindoos.
Nor was it among the Hindoos alone that the alarm
began to be spread abroad. It was the convictions of
the Mohammedans that their faith and their rites were to
be tampered with as well. It was whispered among
them everywhere that the peculiar baptismal custom of
the Mohammedans were to be suppressed by law, and
Mohammedan women were to be compelled to go un
veiled in public. The slightest alterations in any system
gave fresh confirmation to the suspicions that were
afloat among the Hindoos and Mussulmans. When a
change was made in the arrangements of the prisons,
and the native prisoners were no longer allowed to cook
for themselves, a murmur went abroad that this was the
first overt act in the conspiracy to destroy the caste, and
with it the bodies and souls of the Hindoos. Another
change must be noticed too. At one time it was in
tended that the native troops should be commanded for
the most part by native officers. The men would, there
fore, have had something like sufficient security that their
religious scruples were regarded and respected. But by
degrees the natives were shouldered out of the high
positions, until at length it became practically an army of
native rank and file commanded by Englishmen. If we
remember that a Hindoo sergeant of lower caste would,
when off parade, often abase himself with his forehead in
the dust before a Sepoy private who belonged to the
Brahmin order, we shall have some idea of the perpetual
collision between military discipline and religious princi
ple which affected the Hindoo members of an army
almost exclusively commanded by Europeans and Chris
tians. We have spoken of the army and of its religious scru-

2l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
pies ; we must now speak of the territorial and poHtical
influences which affected the princes and the populations
of India. Lord Dalhousie had not long left India on the
appointment of Lord Canning to the Governor-General
ship when the Mutiny broke out. Lord Dalhousie was
a man of commanding energy, of indomitable courage,
with the intellect of a ruler of men, and the spirit of a
conqueror. He was undoubtedly a great man. He had
had some Parliaraentary experience in England and in
both Houses ; and he had been Vice-President and sub
sequently President of the Board of Trade under Sir
Robert Peel. He had taken great interest in the framing
of regulations for the railway legislation of the mania
season of 1844 and 1845. Towards the close of 1847 Lord
Dalhousie was sent out to India. Never was there in
any country an administration of more successful activity
than that of Lord Dalhousie. He introduced cheap
postage into India ; he made railways ; he set up lines of
electric telegraph. He devoted rauch of his attention to
irrigation, to the making of great roads, to the work of
the Ganges Canal. He was the founder of a comprehen
sive system of native education. He put down infanti
cide, the Thug system, and he carried out with vigor
Lord William Bentinck's Act for the suppression of the
Suttee or burning of widows on the funeral pile of their
husbands. But Lord Dalhousie was not wholly engaged
in such works as these. During his few years of office
he annexed the Punjaub ; he incorporated part of the
Burmese territory in our dominions ; he annexed Nag-
pore, Sattara, Jhansi, Berar and Oudh. In the Punjaub
the annexation was provoked by the murder of some
of our officers, sanctioned, if not actually ordered, by a
native prince. Lord Dalhousie marched a force into the
Punjaub. This land, the " land of the five waters," lies at
the gateway of Hindostan, and was peopled by Mussul
mans, Hindoos, Sikhs, the latter a new sect of reformed
Hindoos. We found arrayed against us not only the
Sikhs but our old eneraies the Afghans. Lord Gough
was in command of our forces. He fought rashly and
disastrously the faraous battle of Chillianwallah : he was
defeated. But he wholly recovered his position by the

THE INDIAN MUTINY.

217

complete defeat which he inflicted upon the enemy at
Gbojrat. Never was a victory more complete in itself or
more promptly and effectively followed up. The Sikhs
were crushed ; the Afghans were driven in wild route
back across their savage passes ; and Lord Dalhousie an
nexed the Punjaub. He presented as one token of his
conquest the faraous diaraond, the Koh-i-noor, surren
dered in evidence of submission by the Maharajah of
Lahore, to the Crown of England.
Lord Dalhousie annexed
Oudh on the ground that
the East India Company
had bound themselves to
defend the sovereigns of
Oudh against foreign and
domestic eneraies on condi
tion that the State should
be governed in such a
manner as to render the
lives and property of its
population safe ; and that
while the Company per
formed their part of the
contract, the King of Oudh^,-
so governed his dominions'^--
as to raake his rule a curse _, „
, . , , The Koh-i-noor, as brought
to his own people, and to from India.
all neighboring territories.
Other excuses or justifications there were of course in the
case of each other annexation ; and we shall yet hear sorae
more of what came of the annexation of Sattara and
Jhansi. If, however, each of these acts of policy were
not only justifiable but actually inevitable, none the less
raust a succession of such acts produce a profound
emotion among the races in whose midst they were ac
complished. The populations of India becarae stricken
with alarra as they saw their native princes thus suc
cessively dethroned. The subversion of thrones, the
annexation of states, seemed to them naturally enough
to forra part of that vast scheme for rooting out all the
religioris and systems of India, concerning , which so

2l8 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
raany vague forebodings had darkly warned the land.
Many of our Sepoys came from Oudh and other annexed
territories, and little reason as they might have had for
any personal attachment to the subverted dynasties, they
yet felt that national resentment which any manner of
foreign intervention is alraost certain to provoke.
There were peculiar reasons too why, if religious
and political distrust did prevail, the moment of Lord
Canning's accession to the supreme authority in India
should seem inviting and favorable for schemes of sedition.
The Afghan war had told the Sepoy that British troops
are not absolutely invincible in battle. The impression
produced almost everywhere in India by the Crimean
war was a conviction that the strength of England was
on the wane. The Sepoy saw that the English force in
Northern India was very sraall ; and he really believed
that it was small because England had no raore men to
send there. In his raind Russia was the great rising
and conquering country ; England was sinking into
decay ; her star waning before the strong glare of the
portentous northern light. Moreover Lord Canning had
hardly assumed office as Governor-General of India,
when the dispute occurred between the British and
Chinese authorities at Canton, and almost at the sarae
moment war was declared against Persia by proclamation
of the Governor-General at Calcutta, in consequence of
the Shah having marched an array into Herat and be
sieged it, in violation of a treaty with Great Britain
made in 1853. A body of troops was sent frora Borabay
to the Persian Gulf, and shortly after General Outram
left Borabay with additional troops, as Commander-in-
Chief of the field force in Persia. Therefore, in the
opening days of 1857, it was known among the native
populations of India that the East India Company was
at war w-ith Persia and that England had on her hands
a quarrel with China. The native army of the three
Presidencies taken together was nearly three hundred
thousand, while the Europeans were but forty-three
thousand, of whora some five thousand had just been
told off for duty in Persia. It must be owned that, given
the existence of a seditious spirit, it would have been

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 219
hardly possible for it to find conditions more seemingly
favorable and tempting. There can be no doubt that
a conspiracy for the subversion of the English govern
ment in India was afpot during the early days of 1857,
and possibly for long before. The story of the mysterious
chupatties is well known. The chupatties are small
cakes of unleavened bread, and they were found to be
distributed with amazing rapidity and precision of system
at one time throughout the native villages of the north
and north-west. In no instance were they distributed
among the populations of still-existing native States.
They were only sent araong the villages over which
Epglish rule extended. A native raessenger brought two
of. these mysterious cakes to the watchman or headman
of a village, and bade hira to have others prepared like
them, and to pass thera on to another place. There
could be no doubt that the chupatties conveyed a warn
ing to' aU who received thera that soraething strange was
about to happen, and bade thera to be prepared for
whatever might befall.
The news of the outbreak at Meerut, and the proc-.
lamation in Delhi, broke upon Calcutta with the shock
of a thunder clap. For one or two days Calcutta was a
prey to mere panic. The alarm was greatly increased
by the fact that the dethroned King of Oudh was living
near to the city, at .Garden Reach, a few railes down the
Hooghly. The inhabitants of Calcutta, when the news
of the Mutiny carae, were convinced that the palace of
the King of Oudh was the headquarters of rebellion,
and were expecting the raoment when, from the residence
at Garden Reach, an organized array of murderers was
to be sent forth to capture and destroy the ill-fated city,
and to make its streets run with the blood of its mas
sacred inhabitants. Lord Canning took the prudent
course of having the king with his prirae minister re
moved to the Governor-General's own residence within
the precincts of Fort William. If ever the crisis found
the man. Lord Canning was the man called for by that
crisis in India. He had all the divining genius of the
true statesman ; the raan who can rise to the height of
some unexpected and new emergency ; and he had the

220 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
cool courage of a practised conqueror. • Among all the
distracting counsels and wild stories poured in upon him
from every side, he kept his mind clear. He never gave
way either to anger or to alarra. If he ever showed a
little irapatience, it was only where panic would too
openly have proclairaed itself by counsels of wholesale
cruelty. He could not, perhaps, always conceal from
frightened people the fact that he rather despised their
terrors. Throughout the whole of that excited period
there were few naraes, even among the chiefs of rebel
lion, on which fiercer denunciation was showered by
Englishmen than the name of Lord Canning. Because
he would not listen to the bloodthirsty clamors of mere
frenzy, he was nicknamed " Clemency Canning," as if
clemency were an attribute of which a raan ought to be
asharaed. Indeed, for sorae tirae people wrote and spoke,
not raerely in India but in England, as if clemency were
a thing to be reprobated, like treason or crime. For a
while it seemed a question of patriotism which would pro
pose the most savage and sanguinary measures of revenge.
Mr. Disraeli, to do him justice, raised his voice in re
monstrance against the wild passions of the hour, even
when these passions were strongest and most general.
He declared that if such a temper were encouraged we
ought to take down from our altars the image of Christ
and raise the statue of Moloch there. If people were so
carried away in England, where the danger was far re
mote, we can easily imagine what were the fears and
passions roused in India, where the terror was or raight
be at the door of everyone. Lord Canning was gravely
erabarrassed by the wild urgencies and counsels of dis
tracted Englishmen, who were furious with him because
he even thought of distinguishing friend from foe where
native races were concerned. But he bore himself with
perfect calraness. He was greatly assisted and encour
aged in his counsels by his brave and noble wife, who
proved herself in every way worthy to be the helpmate of
such a man at such a crisis. He did not for a moraent
underestimate the danger ; but neither did he exag
gerate its iraportance. He never allowed it to master
him. He looked upon it with the quiet, resolute eye

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 22 1
of one who is determined to be the conqueror in the
struggle. Lord Canning saw that the one important thing was
to strike at Delhi, which had proclaimed itself the head
quarters of the rebellion. He knew that English troops
were on their way to China for the purpose of wreaking
the wrongs of English subjects there, and he took on his
own responsibility the bold -step of intercepting thera,
and calling thera to the work of helping to put down the
Mutiny in India. The dispute with China he thought
could well afford to wait, but with the Mutiny it must be
now or never. India could not wait for reinforcements
brought all the way from England. Lord Canning knew
well enough, as well as the wildest alarmist could know,
that the rebel flag must be forced to fly from some
field before that help came, or it would fly over the dead
bodies of those who then represented English authority
in India. He had, therefore, no hesitation in appealing
to Lord Elgin, the Envoy in charge of the Chinese ex
pedition, to stop the troops that were on their way to
China, and lend them to the service of India at such a
need. Lord Elgin had the courage and the wisdom to
assent to the appeal at once. Fortune, too, was favor
able to Canning in more ways than one. The Persian
war was of short duration. Sir James Outram was soon
victorious, and Outram, therefore, and his gallant com
panions. Colonel Jacob and Colonel Havelock, were able
to lend their invaluable services to the Governor-General
of India. Most important for Lord Canning's purposes
was the manner in which the affairs of the Punjaub were
managed at this crisis. The Punjaub was under the ad
ministration of one of the ablest public servants India
has ever had — Sir John, afterwards Lord Lawrence. John
Lawrence had from his youth been in the Civil Service
of the East India Company ; and when Lord Dalhousie
annexed the Punjaub, he made Lawrence and his sol
dier-brother — the gallant Sir Henry Lawrence — two out
of a board of three for the administration of the affairs of
the newly-acquired province. Aftervi-ards Sir John Law
rence was naraed the Chief Commissioner of the Punjaub,
and by the promptitude and energy of himself and his

222 A SHORT- HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
subordinates, the province was corapletely saved for Eng
lish rule at the outbreak of the Mutiny. Fortunately, the
electric telegraph extended from Calcutta to Lahore, the
chief city of the Punjaub. On May 1 1 the news of the
outbreak at Meerut was brought to the authorities at
Lahore. As it happened, Sir John Lawrence was then
away at Rawul Pindee, in the Upper Punjaub ; but Mr.
Robert Montgomery.the Judicial Commissioner at Lahore,
was invested with plenary power, and he showed that he
could use it to advantage. Meean Meer is a large mili
tary cantonment five or six miles frora Lahore, and there
were then sorae four thousand native troops there, with
only about thirteen hundred Europeans of the Queen's
and the Company's service. There was no time to be
lost. While the Punjaub held firm it was like a barrier
raised at one side of the rebellious raovement, not merely
preventing it from going any farther in that direction,
but keeping it pent up until the moment came when the
blow from the other direction could fall upon it. The
first thing to be done to strike effectively at the rebellion
was to raake an attack on Delhi ; and the possession of
the Punjaub was of inestiraable advantage to the authori
ties for that purpose. There was no actual reason to
assurae that the Sepoys in Meean Meer intended to join
the rebellion. There would be a certain danger of con
verting thera into rebels if any rash movement were to
be made for the purpbse of guarding against treachery
on their part. Either way was a serious responsibility,
a momentous risk. The authorities soon made up their
minds. Any risk would be better than that of leaving
it in the power of the native troops to join the rebellion.
A ball and supper were to be given at Lahore that night.
To avoid creating any alarm it was arranged that the
entertainments should take place. During the dancing
and feasting Mr. Montgomery held a council ofthe lead
ing officials of Lahore, civil and military, and it was
resolved at once to disarm the native troops. A parade
was ordered for daybreak at Meean Meer ; and on the
parade ground an order was given for a military mo-ve-
raent which brought the heads of four colurans of the
native troops in front of twelve guns charged with grape,

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 223
the artillerymen with their port-fires lighted, and the
soldiers of one of the Queen's regiments standing behind
with loaded muskets. A command was given to the
Sepoys to pile arms. They had immediate death before
them if they disobeyed. They stood literally at the can
non's raouth. They piled their arms, which were borne
away at once in carts by European soldiers, and all
chances of a rebellious movement were over in that
province, and the Punjaub was saved. Something of the
same kind was done at Mooltan, in the Lower Punjaub,
later on ; and the province, thus assured to English ci-vil
and military authority, became a basis for some of the
most important operations by which the Mutiny was
crushed, and the sceptre of India restored to the Queen.
Within little more than a fortnight from the occupa
tion of Delhi by the rebels, the British forces under
General Anson, the Commander-in-Chief, were advancing
on that city. The coraraander did not live to conduct
any of the operations. He died of cholera almost at the
beginning of the march. The siege of Delhi proved long
and difficult. Another general died, another had to give
up his command, before the city was recaptured. Itwas
justly considered by Lord Canning and by all the
authorities as of the utmost importance that Delhi should
be taken before the arrival of great reinforcements frora
horae. Meanwhile the rebellion was breaking out at new
points almost everywhere in these northern and north
western regions. On May 30 the Mutiny declared itself
at Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence was governor of Oudh.
He endeavored to drive the rebels from the place, but
the nurabers of the mutineers were overwhelming. He
had under his command, too, a force partly raade up of
native troops, and sorae of these deserted him in the
battle. He had to retreat and to fortify the Residency
at Lucknow, and remove all the Europeans, men, women,
and children thither, and patiently stand a siege. Law
rence himself had not long to endure the siege. On
July 2 he had been up with the dawn, and after a great
amount of work he lay on the sofa, not, as it has been
well said, to rest, but to transact business in a recum
bent position. His nephew and another officer were with

224 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
hira. Suddenly a great crash was heard, and the room
was filled with smoke and dust. One of his companioris
was flurig to the ground. A shell had burst. When
there was silence the officer who had been flung down
called out, " Sir Henry, are you hurt ? " " I am killed,"
was the answer that came faintly but firraly from Sir
Henry Lawrence's lips. The shell had wounded him in
the thigh so fearfully as to leave surgery no chance of
doing anything for his relief. On the morning of July 4
he died calmly and in perfect submission to the will of
Providence. He had made all possible arrangements for
his successor, and for the work to be done. He desired
that on his torab should be engraven raerely the words,
" Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty."
The epitaph was a siraple truthful summing up of a
siraple truthful career. 'The raan, however, was greater
than the career. Lawrence had not opportunity to show
in actual result the greatness of spirit that was in hira.
The imraense influence he exercised over all who carae
within his reach bears testiraony to his strength and
nobleness of character better than any of the raere suc
cesses which his biographer can record. He was full of
syrapathy. His soul was alive to the noblest and purest
aspirations. " It is the due adraixture of roraance and
reality," he was himself accustomed to say "that best
carries a raan through life." No professional teacher or
philosopher ever spoke a truer sentence. As one of his
many admirers says of him — " what he said and wrote,
he did, or rather he was." Let the bitterest eneray of
England write the history of her rule in India, and set
down as against her every wrong that was done in her
name, from those which Burke denounced to those which
the Madras Commission exposed, he will have to say
that raen, many raen, like Henry Lawrence, lived and
died devoted to thg cause of that rule, and the world will
take account of the admission.
During the later days of Sir Henry Lawrence's life it
had another trouble added to it by the appeals which
were made to him from Cawnpore for a help which he
could not give. The city of Cawnpore stands in the
Doab, a jjeninsula between the Ganges and the Jumna,

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 225
and is built on the south bank of the Ganges, there
nearly a quarter of a mile broad in the dry season, and
more than a mile across when swelled by the rains. In
1801, the territory lapsed into the possession of the Com
pany. Frora that tirae it took rank as one of our first-
class mihtary stations. The city commanded the bridge
over which passed the high road to Lucknow, the capital
of our new province. The distance from Cawnpore to
Lucknow is about fifty miles as the bird flies. At the
time when the Mutiny broke out in Meerut there were
some three thousand native soldiers in Cawnpore, con
sisting of two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and
a company of artillerymen. There were about three
hundred officers and soldiers of English birth. The
European or Eurasian population, including woraen and
children, numbered about one thousand. These con
sisted of the officials, the railway people, some merchants
and shopkeepers and their families. The native town
had about sixty thousand inhabitants. The garrison was
under the comraand of Sir Hugh Wheeler, a man of
some seventy-five years of age, among the oldest of an
old school of Bengal officers. The revolt was looked for
at Cawnpore from the moraent when the news carae of
the rising at Meerut ; and it was not long expected be
fore it carae. Sir Hugh Wheeler applied to Sir Law
rence for help ; Lawrence of course could not spare a
man. Then Sir Hugh Wheeler remembered that he had
a neighbor whom he believed to be friendly, despite of
very recent warnings from Sir Henry Lawrence and others
to the contrary. He called his neighbor to his as
sistance, and his invitation was proraptly answered. The
Nana Sahib carae with two guns and sorae three hun
dred men to lend a helping hand to the English com
mander. The Nana Sahib resided at Bithoor, a small town
twelve miles up the river from Cawnpore. He represented
a grievance. Bajee Rao, Peishwa of Poonah, was the
last prince of one of the great Mahratta dynasties. The
East India Company believed hira guilty of treachery
against them, of bad government of his dominions, and
so forth ; and they found a reason for dethroning him.

226 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
He was assigned, however, a residence in Bithoor, and a
large pension. He had no children, and he adopted as
his heir Seereek Dhoondoo Punth, the man -w-ho will be
known to all time by the infamous name of Nana Sahib.
According to Hindoo belief it is needful for a man's
eternal welfare that he leave a son behind him to per
form duly his funeral rites ; and the adoption of a son is
recognized as in every sense conferring on the adopted
all the rights that a child of the blood could have. Bajee
died in 1851, and Nana Sahib claimed to succeed to all
his possessions. Lord Dalhousie had shown in many in
stances a strangely unwise disregard of the principle of
adoption. The claim of the Nana to the pension was
disallowed. Nana Sahib sent a confidential agent to
London to push his claim there. This man w-as a clever
and handsome young Mohararaedan who had at one time
been a servant in an Anglo-Indian family, and had picked
up a knowledge of French and English. His name was
Aziraoolah Khan. This eraissary visited London in 1854,
and becarae a lion of the fashionable season. He did
not succeed in winning oi^er the Government to take any
notice of the claims of his master, but being very hand
some and of sleek and alluring manners, he becarae a
favorite in the drawing-rooras of the metropolis, and was
under the impression that an unlimited number of Eng
lishwomen of rank were dying with love for him. On
his way home he visited ConstantinopJe and the Crimea.
It was then a dark hour for the fortunes of England in
the Crimea, and Aziraoolah Khan swallowed with glad
and greedy ear all the alarraist rumors that were afloat
in Stamboul about the decay of England's strength and
the irapending doraination of Russian power over Europe
and Asia. "The Western visit of this raan was not an
event without iraportant consequences. He doubtless re
ported to his raaster that the strength of England was on
the wane ; and while stimulating his hatred and revenge,
stimulated also his confidence in the chances of an effort
to gratify both. With Aziraoolah Khan's mission and its
results ended the hopes of Nana Sahib for the success of
his claims, and began, we may presume, his resolve to be
revenged .

THE INDIAN MUTIN-Y. 227
Nana Sahib, although his claim on the English Gov
ernment was not allowed, was still rich. He had the
large private property of the raan who had adopted hira,
and he had the residence at Bithoor. He kept up a sort
of princely state. He never visited Cawnpore ; the rea
son being, it is believed, that he would not have been
received there with princely honors. But he was espe
cially la\nsh of his attentions to English visitors, and his
invitations went far and wide among the military and •
civil servants of the Crown and the Company. He cul
tivated the society of English raen and women ; he
showered his civilities upon them. He did not speak or
even understand English, but he took a great interest in
English history, customs, and literature. He was lux
urious in the most thoroughly Oriental fashion ; and
Oriental luxury implies a great deal more than any ex
perience of Western luxury would suggest. At the time
with which we are dealing he was only about thirty-six
years of age, but he was prematurely heavy and fat, and
seemed to be as incapable of active exertion as of un
kindly feeling. There can be little doubt that all this
time he was a dissembler of more than common Eastern
dissimulation. It appears almost certain that while he
was lavishing his courtesies and kindnesses upon English
men without discrimination, his heart was burning with
a hatred to the whole British race. A sense of his
wrongs had eaten him up. It is a painful thing to say,
but it is necessary to the truth of this history, that his
wrongs were genuine. He had been treated with in
justice. According to all the recognized usages of his
race and his religion, he had a claim indefeasible in jus
tice to tbe succession which had been unfairly and un
wisely denied to him. It was to Nana Sahib, then, that
poor old Sir Hugh Wheeler in the hour of his distress
applied for assistance. Most gladly, we can well believe,
did the Nana come. He established himself in Cawnpore
with his guns and his soldiers. Sir Hugh Wheeler had
taken refuge, when the Mutiny broke out, in an old
military hospital with mud walls, scarcely four feet high,
hastily thrown up around it, and a few guns of various
calibre placed in position on the so-called entrenchments.

228 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Within these alraost shadowy and certainly crurabling
entrenchraents were gathered about a thousand persons,
of whora 465 were raen of every age and profession.
The married women and grown daughters were about
280 ; the children about the same number. Of the men
there were probably 400 who could flght.
As soon as Nana Sahib's presence became known in
Cawnpore he was surrounded by the mutineers, who in-
» sisted that he must make common cause with them and
become one of their leaders. He put himself at their
disposal. He gave notice to Sir Hugh Wheeler that if
the entrenchraents were not surrendered, they would be
instantly attacked. They were attacked. ,,.A general
assault was made upon the raiserable raud vvalls on June
12, but the resistance was heroic and the assault failed.
It was after that assault that the garrison succeeded in
sending a message to Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow,
craving for the aid which it was absolutely irapossible
for hira to give. Frora that time the fire of the mutineer
array on the English entrenchraents never ceased. When
ever a regular attack was made the assailants invariably
carae to grief. The little garrison, thinning in nurabers
every day and alraost every hour, held out with splendid
obstinacy, and always sent those who assailed it scara-
pering back — except of course for such assailants as per
force kept their ground by the persuasion of the English
bullets. The little population of woraen and children
behind the entrenchraents had no roof to shelter thera
frora the fierce Indian sun. They cowered under the
scanty shadow of the low walls often at the imminent
peril of the unceasing Sepoy bullets. The only water for
their drinking was to be had frora a single wefl, at w-hich
the guns of the assailants were unceasingly levelled.
To go to the well and draw water became the task of
self-sacrificing heroes, who might with better chances of
safety have led a forlorn hope. The water which the
fainting woraen and children drank raight have seemed
to be reddened by blood ; for only at the price of blood
was it ever obtained. It may seem a trivial detail, but
it will count for much in a history of the sufferings of
delicately nurtured English women, that from the begin-

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 229
ning of the siege of the Cawnpore entrenchments to its
tragic end, there was not one spongeful of water to be
had for the purposes of personal cleanliness. The in
mates of that ghastly garrison were dying like flies. One
does not know which to call the greater ; the suffering of
the woraen or the bravery of the men.
A conviction began to spread among the mutineers
that it was of no use attempting to conquer these terrible
British sahibs ; that so long as one of them was alive he
would be as formidable as a wild beast in its lair. The
Sepoys becarae unwilling to come too near the low crum
bling walls of the entrenchment. Those walls might
have been leaped over as easily as that of Romulus ; but
of what avail to know that, when from behind them
always came the fatal fire of the Englishmen ? It was
no longer easy to get the mutineers to attempt anything
like an assault. The English theraselves began to show
a perplexing kind of aggressive enterprise, and took to
making little sallies in sraall numbers indeed, but with
astonishing effect, on any bodies of Sepoys who happened
to be anywhere near. Utterly, overwhelmingly, prepos
terously outnumbered as the Englishmen were, there were
moments when it began to seera almost possible that
they might actually keep back their assailants until some
English army could come to their. assistance and take a
terrible vengeance upon Cawnpore. Nana Sahib began
to find that he could not take by assault those wretched
entrenchments; and he could not wait to starve the
garrison out. He therefore resolved to treat with the
English. The terms, it is believed, were arranged by the
advice and assistance of Tantia Topee, his lieutenant,
and Aziraoolah Khan, the favorite of English drawing-
rooms. An offer was sent to the entrenchraents, the
terms of which are worthy of notice. " All those," it
said, "who are in no way connected with the acts of
Lord Dalhousie, and who are willing to lay down their
arms, shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad." The
terms had to be accepted. There was nothing else to be
done. The English people were promised, during the
course of the negotiations, sufficient supplies of food and
boats to carry them to Allahabad, which was now once

230 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
more in the possession of England. The relief was un
speakable for the survivors of that weary defence. The
woraen, the children, the wounded, the sick, the dying,
welcoraed any terms of release. Not the faintest sus
picion crossed any raind of the treachery that was await
ing them. How, indeed, could there be any such
suspicion ? Not for years and years had even Oriental
warfare given example of such practice as that which
Nana Sahib and the graceful and civilized Aziraoolah
Khan had now in preparation.
The time for the evacuation of the garrison came.
The boats were in readiness on the Ganges. The long
procession of men, women, and children passed slowly
down ; very slowly in some instances, because of the
number of sick and wounded by which its progress was
encumbered. Some of the chief among the Nana's coun
sellors took their stand in a little temple on the margin
of the river, to superintend the embarkation and the
work that was to follow it. Nana Sahib himself was. not
there. It is understood that he purposely kept away;
he preferred to hear of the deed when it was done. His
faithful lieutenant, Tantia Topee, had given orders, it
seems, that when a trumpet sounded, some work, for
which he had arranged, should begin. The wounded
and the women were got into the boats in the first in
stance. The officers and men were scrambling in after
wards. Suddenly the blast of a trumpet was heard. The
boats were of the kind common on the rivers of India,
covered with roofs of straw, and looking, as some ac
counts describe them, not unlike floating haystacks. The
moraent the bugle sounded, the straw of the boat-roofs
blazed up, and the native rowers began to raake pre
cipitately for the shore. They had set fire to the thatch,
and were now escaping from the flames they had pur
posely lighted up. At the same moinent there came
from both shores of the river thick showers of grapeshot
and musketry. The banks of the Ganges seeraed in an
instant alive with shot ; a very rain of bullets poured in
upon the devoted inmates of the boats. To add to the
horrors of the raoment, if, indeed, it needed any addition,
nearly all the boats stuck fast in mudbanks, and the

Watching the Massacre at Ca"wnpore.

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 23 1
occupants became fixed targets for the fire of their
enemies. Only three of the boats floated. Two of these
drifted to the Oudh shore, and those on board them
were killed at once. The third floated farther along with
the stream, reserved for further adventures and horrors.
The firing ceased when Tantia Topee and his confeder
ates thought that enough had been done ; and the
women and children who were still alive were brought
ashore and carried in forlorn procession back again
through the town where they had suffered so much, and
which they had hoped that they were leaving for ever.
They were about 125 in number, woraen and children.
Sorae of thera were wounded. There were a few well-
disposed natives who saw them and were sorry for them;
who had perhaps served them, and experienced their
kindness in other days, and who now had some grateful
memory of it, which they dared not express by any open
profession of sympathy. Certain of these afterwards
described the English ladies as they saw theni pass.
They were bedraggled and dishevelled, these poor English
women ; their clothes were in tatters ; some of them were
wounded, and the blood was trickling from their feet and
legs. They were carried to a place called the Savada
House, a large building, once a charitable institution
bearing the narae of Salvador, which had been softened
into Savada by Asiatic pronunciation. On board the one
boat which had floated with the streara were more than a
hundred persons. The boat was attacked by a constant
fire from both banks as it drifted along. At length a
party of some twelve men, or thereabouts, landed with
the bold object of attacking their assailants and driving
them back. In their absence the boat was captured by
some ofthe rebel gangs, and the women and the wounded
were brought back to Cawnpore. Some sixty raen,
twenty-five women, and four children were thus re
captured. The raen were immediately shot . It may be
said at once, that of the gallant little party who went
ashore to attack the enemy, hand to hand, four finally
escaped, after adventures so perilous and so extraordi
nary that a professional story-teller would hardly ven
ture to make them part of a fictitious narrative.

232 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
The Nana had now a considerable number of English
women in his hands. They were removed, after a while,
from their first prison-house to a small building north of
the canal, and between the native city and the Ganges.
Here they were cooped up in the closest manner, except
when sorae of them were taken out in the evening and
set to the work of grinding corn for the use of their
captors. Cholera and dysentery set in among these'un-
happy sufferers, and sorae eighteen women and seven
children died. Let it -be said for the credit of woman
hood, that the royal widows, the relicts of the Nana's
father by adoption, made many efforts to protect the
captive Englishwomen, and even declared that they would
throw themselves and their children from the palace
windows if any harra were done to the prisoners. We
have only to repeat here, that as a matter of fact no
indignities, other than that of the compulsory corn-grind
ing, were put upon the English ladies. They were doomed,
one and all, to suffer death, but they were not, as at one
tirae was believed in England, raade to long for death
as an escape frora shara e. Meanwhile the prospects of
the Nana and his rebellion were growing darker and
darker. He must have begun to know by this time that
he had no chance of establishing hiraself as a ruler any
where in India. The English had not been swept out
of the country with a rush. The first flood of the Mutiny
had broken on their defences, and already the tide was
falling. The Nana well knew it never would rise again
to the sarae height in his day. The- English were com
ing on. Neill had recaptured Allahabad, and cleared
the country all round it of any traces of rebellion. Have
lock was now moving forward from Allahabad towards
Cawnpore, with six cannon and about a thousand English
soldiers. Very sraall in point of nurabers was that force
when corapared with that which Nana Sahib could even
still rally round him ; but no one in India now knew
better than Nana Sahib what extraordinary odds the
English could afford to give with the certainty of win
ning. Havelock 's march was a series of victories, although
he was often in such difficulties that the slightest display
of real generalship or even soldiership on the part of his

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 233
opponents might have stopped his advance. He had one
encounter with the lieutenant of the Nana, who had
under his command nearly four thousand men and twelve
guns, and Havelock won a coraplete victory in about ten
minutes. He defeated in the same off-hand way various
other chiefs of the Mutiny. He was almost at the gates
of Cawnpore.
Then it appears to have occurred to the Nana, or to
have been suggested to hira, that it would be incon
venient to have his English captives recaptured by the
eneray, their countrymen. It may be that in the utter
failure of all his plans and hopes he was anxious to
secure some satisfaction, to satiate his hatred in sorae
way. It was intiraated to the prisoners that they were
to die. Among them were three or four men. These
were called out and shot. Then some Sepoys were sent
to the house where the women still were, and ordered to
fire volleys through the windows. This they did, but
apparently without doing rauch harm. Some persons are
of opinion, from such evidence as can be got, that the
men purposely fired high above the level of the floor, to
avoid killing any of the women and children. In the
evening five men, two Hindoo peasants, two Mohammedan
butchers, and one Mohararaedan wearing the red uniform
of the Nana's body-guard, were sent up to the house,
and entered it. Incessant shrieks were heard to corae
from that fearful house. The Mohammedan soldier came
out to the door holding in his hand a sword-hilt from
which the blade had been broken off, and he exchanged
this now useless instrument for a weapon in proper con
dition. Not once but twice this performance took place.
Evidently the task imposed on these men was hard work
for the sword-blades. After a while the five men came
out of the now quiet house and locked the doors behind
them. During that time they had killed nearly all the
English women and children. They had slaughtered
them like beasts in the shambles. In the raorning the
five men came again with several attendants to clear out
the house of the captives. Their task was to tumble all
the bodies into a dry well beyond some trees that grew
near. Any of the bodies that had clothes worth taking

234 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
were carefully stripped before being consigned to this
open grave. When Cawnpore was afterwards taken by
the English those who had to look down into that well
saw a sight the like of which no man in modern days
had ever seen elsewhere. No attempt shall be made to
describe it here. When the house of the massacre itself
; was entered, its floors and its walls told with terrible
plainness of the scene they had witnessed. The plaster
of the walls was scored and seamed with sword-slashes
low down and In the corners, as if the poor women had
crouched down in their mortal fright with some wild
hope of escaping the blows. The floor was strewn with
scraps of dresses, women's faded ragged finery, frilling,
underclothing, bro'ken combs, shoes, and tresses of hair.
There were sorae small and neatly severed curls of hair
too which had fallen on the ground, but evidently had
never been cut off by the rude weapon of a professional
butcher. These doubtless were keepsakes that had been
treasured to the last, parted with only when life and all
were going. One or two scraps of paper were found
which recorded deaths and such like interruptions of
the monotony of imprison ment ; but nothing more The
well of horrors has since been filled up, and a- memorial
chapel surrounded by a garden built upon the spot.
Soraething, however, has still to be told of the Nana
and his fortunes. He raade one last stand against the
victorious English in front of Cawnpore, and was cora
pletely defeated. He galloped into the city on a bleed
ing and exhausted horse; -he fled thence to Bithoor, his
residence. He had just tirae left, it is said, to order the
murder of a separate captive, a woman who had previ
ously been overlooked or purposely left behind. Then
he took flight in the direction of the Nepaulese marches j
and he soon disappears from history. Nothing of his fate
was ever known. Many years afterwards England and
India were treated to a moraentary sensation by a story
of the capture of Nana Sahib. But the raan who was
arrested proved to be an entirely different person ; and
indeed frora the moment of his arrest few believed him
to be the long-lost murderer of the English women. In
days more . superstitious than our own, popular faith

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 235
would have found an easy explanation of the mystery
which surrounded the close of Nana Sahib's career. He
had done, it would have been said, the work of a fiend ;
and he had disappeared as a fiend would do when his
task was accomplished.
The capture of Delhi was effected on September 20.
Brigadier- General Nicholson led the storming columns,
and paid for his bravery and success the price of a gal
lant life. Nicholson was one of the bravest and raost
capable officers whora the war produced. It is worthy
of record as an evidence of the teraper aroused even in
men from whom better things raight have been expected,
that Nicholson strongly urged the passing of a law to
authorize flaying alive, irapaleinent, or burning of the
raurderers of the women and children In Delhi. He
urged this view again and again, and deliberately argued
it on grounds alike of pohcy and principle. The fact is
recorded here not in mere disparagement of a brave sol
dier, but as an illustration of the manner in which the old
elementary passions of a man's untamed condition can
return upon him in his pride of civilization and culture,
and raake hira their slave again. The taking of Delhi was
followed by an act of unpardonable bloodshed. A young
officer, Hodson, the leader qf the little force known as
Hodson's Horse, was acting as chief of the Intelligence
Departraent. He was especially distinguished by an ex
traordinary blending of cool, calculating craft and reckless
daring. By the help of native spies Hodson discovered
that when Delhi was taken, the king and his faraily had
taken refuge in the torab of the Emperor Hooraayoon, a
structure which, with the buildings surrounding and be
longing to it, constituted a sort of suburb in itself. Hod
son went boldly to this place with a few of his troopers
and captured the three royal princes of Delhi. He tried
thera as rebels taken red-handed, and borrowing a car
bine from one of his troopers, he shot them dead with his
own hand. Their corpses, half-naked, were exposed for
some days at one of the gates of Delhi. Hodson was
killed not long after ; we might well wish to be free to
allow him to rest without censure in his untimely grave.
He was a brave and clever soldier, but one who unfortu-

236 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
nately allowed a fierce temper to over-rule the better in
stincts of his nature and the guidance of a cool judgraent.
General Havelock made his way to the relief of
Lucknow. Sir James Outram, who had returned from
Persia, had been sent to Oudh with complete civil and
military authority. He would in the natural order of
things have superseded Havelock, but he refused to rob
a brave and successful comrade of the fruits of his toil
and peril, and he accorapanied Havelock as a volunteer.
Havelock was enabled to continue his victorious march,
and on September 25 he was able to relieve the besieged
English at Lucknow. His coming, it can hardly be
doubted, saved the women and children frora such a
raassacre as that of Cawnpore ; but Havelock had not the
force that raight have driven the rebels out of the field,
and if England had not been prepared to make greater
efforts for the rescue of her imperilled people, it is but
too probable that the troops whora Havelock brought to
the relief of Lucknow would only have swelled the nura
ber of the victims. But in the raeantirae the stout soldier.
Sir Colin Campbell, whora we have already heard of in
the Criraean carapaign, had been appointed Commander-
in-Chief of the Indian forces, and had arrived in India.
He set out for Lucknow. He had under his command
only some 5,000 men, a force miserably inferior in num
ber to that of the enemy ; but in those days an English
officer thought hiraself in good condition to attack if the
foe did not outnuraber hira by more than four or five to
one. A series of actions was fought by Sir Colin Camp
bell and his little force attacking the enemy on one side,
who were attacked at the same time by the besieged
garrison of the residency. On the morning of Novem
ber 17, by the combined efforts of both forces, the enemy
was dislodged. Sir Colin Campbell resolved, however,
that the residency must be evacuated ; and accordingly
on the 19th heavy batteries were opened against the
enemy's position, as if for the purpose of assault, and
under cover of this operation the women, the sick, and
the wounded were quietly removed to the Dilkoosha, a
small palace in a park about five miles from the residency,
which had been captured by Sir Colin Campbell on his

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 237
way to attack the city. By midnight of the 22d the
whole garrison, without the loss of a single man, had
left the residency. Tw-o or three days more saw the
troops established at Alurabagh, some four miles from
the residency, in another direction from that of the Dil
koosha. Alurabagh is an isolated cluster of buildings, with
grounds and enclosure to the south of Lucknow. The
name of this place is memorable for ever in the history
of the war. It was there that Havelock closed his glori
ous career. He was attacked with dysentery, and died on
November 24. The Queen created hira a baronet, or rather
affixed that honor to his narae on the 27th of the same
month, not knowing then that the soldier's time for
struggle and for honor was over. The title was trans
ferred to his son, the present Sir Henry Havelock,. who
had fought gallantly under his father's eyes. The fame
of Havelock's exploits reached England only a little in
advance of the news of his death. So many brilliant
deeds, had seldom in the history of our wars been
crowded into days so few. All the fame of that glorious
career was the work of some strenuous splendid weeks.
Havelock's proraotion had been slow. He had not rauch
for which to [ thank ^the favor of his superiors. No
faraily influence, no powerful patrons had made his slow
progress more easy. He was more than sixty when the
rautiny broke out. He was born in April, 1795 ; he was
educated at the Charterhouse, London, where his grave,
studious ways procured for him the nicknarae of " Old
Phlos" — the schoolboy's "short" for " old philosopher."
He went out to India in 1823, and served in the Burraese
war of 1824, and the Sikh war of 1845. He was a man
of grave and earnest character, a Baptist by religion,
and strongly penetrated w-ith a conviction that the relig
ious spirit ought to pervade and inform all the duties
of railitary as well as civil life. By his earnestness
and his example he succeeded in animating those whora
he led with similar feelings ; and " Havelock's saints "
were well known through India by this distinctive ap
propriate title. " Havelock's saints " showed, whenever
they had an opportunity, that they could fight as desper-

233 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
ately as the raost reckless sinners ; and their commander
found the fame flung in his way, across the path of his
duty, which he never would have swerved one inch from
that path to seek. Amid all the exciteraent of hope and
fear, passion and panic, in England, there was tirae for
the whole heart of the nation to feel pride in Havelock's
career and sorrow for his untimely death. Untimely ?
Was it after all untimely ? Since when has it not been
held the crown of a great career that the hero dies at
the raoraent of accomplished victory ?
Sir Colin Carapbell left General Outrara in charge
of Alurabagh, and hiraself hastened towards Cawnpore.
A large hostile force, composed chiefly of the revolted
army of Scindia, the ruler of Gwalior, had marched upon
Cawnpore. General Windham, who held the command
there; had gone out to attack them. He was compelled
to retreat, not without severe loss, to his entrenchments
at Cawnpore, and the eneray occupied the city itself.
Sir Colin Carapbell attacked the rebels at one place ; Sir
Hope Grant attacked thera at another, and Cawnpore
was retaken. Sir Colin Carapbell then turned his atten
tion to reconquering the entire city of Lucknow. It was
not until March 19, 1858, that Lucknow fell corapletely
into the hands of the English. Our operations had been
alraost entirely by artillery, and had been conducted
with consummate prudence as well as boldness, and our
loss was therefore very small, while the enemy suffered
most severely. Among our wounded was the gallant
leader of the naval brigade. Sir Williara Peel, son of the
great statesraan. Sir William Peel died at Cawnpore
shortly after, of small-pox, his death reraarked and la-
raented even araid all the noble deaths of that eventful
time. One name must not be forgotten among those who
endured the siege at Lucknow. It is that of Dr. Brydon,
whom we last saw as he appeared under the walls of
Jellalabad, the one survivor come back to tell the tale of
the disastrous retreat frora Cabul.
Practically, the reconquest of Lucknow was the final
blow in the suppression of the great Bengal rautiny.
Sorae episodes of the war, however, were still worthy of
notice. For exaraple, the rebels seized Gwalior, the

THE INDIAN MUTINY. 239
capital of the Maharajah Scindia, who escaped to Agra.
The English had to attack the rebels, retake Gwalior,
and restore Scindia. The Maharajah Scindia of Gwalior
had deserved well of the Enghsh Government. Under
every temptation, every threat, and many profound perils
from the rebellion, he had remained firm to his friend
ship. So, too, had Holkar, the Maharajah of the Indore
territory. The country owes rauch to those two princes,
for the part they took at her hour of need ; and she has
not, we are glad to think, proved herself ungrateful. One
of those who fought to the last on the rebels' side was
the Ranee, or princess, of Jhansi, whose territory, as we
have already seen, had been one of our annexations.
For raonths after the fall of Delhi she contrived to baffle
Sir Hugh Rose and the English. She led squadrons in
the field. She fought with her own hand. She was en
gaged against us in the battle for the possession of Gwalior.
In the uniform of a cavalry officer she led charge after
charge, and she was killed araong those who resisted to
the last. Her body was found upon the field, scarred with
wounds enough in the front to have done credit to any hero.
Sir Hugh Rose paid her the well-deserved tribute which
a generous conqueror is always glad to be able to offer.
He said, in his general order, that " the best man upon
the side of the enemy was the woman found dead, the
Ranee of Jhansi."
It is not necessary to describe, with any minuteness
of detail, the final spasms of the rebellion. Tantia
Topee, the lieutenant of Nana Sahib, was taken prisoner
in April, 1859, was tried for his share in the Cawnpore
raassacre, and was hanged like any vulgar crirainal. The
old King of Delhi was also put on trial, and being found
guilty, was sentenced to transportation. He was sent to
the Cape of Good Hope, but the colonists there refused
to receive him, and this last of the line of the Grand
Moguls had to go begging for a prison. He was finally
carried to Rangoon, in British Burraah. On December
20, 1858, Lord Clyde, who had been Sir Colin Campbell,
announced to the Governor-General that the rebellion
was at an end, and on May I, 1859, there was a public
thanksgiving in England for the pacification of India.

CHAPTER XIV. •
THE END OF "JOHN COMPANY."
While these things were passing in India, it is need
less to say that the public opinion of England was dis
tracted by agitation and by opposing counsels. For a
long time the condition of Indian affairs had been re
garded in England with something like absolute indif
ference. - In the House of Commons a debate on any
question connected with India was as strictly an affair of
experts as a discussion on some local gas or water bill.
The House in general did not even affect to have any
interest in it. The officials who had to do with Indian
affairs ; the men on the Opposition benches who had held
the same offices while their party was in power ; these,
and two or three men who had been in India, and were
set down as crotchety because they professed any concern
in its mode of government — such were the politicians
who carried on an Indian debate, and who had the
House all to theraselves while the discussion lasted. The
Indian Mutiny startled the public feeling of England out
of this state of unhealthy languor. First came the pas
sion and panic, the cry for blood, the wholesale execu
tions, the blowing of rebels from guns ; then came a
certain degree of reaction, and some eminent Englishmen
were found to express alarra at the very sanguinary
methods of rep.ression and of punishment that were in
favor among most of our fellow-countrymen in India.
It was during this season of reaction that the faraous
discussions took place on Lord Canning's proclamation.
On March 3, 1858, the proclamation was issued from

THE END OF "JOHN COMPANY." 241
Allahabad to the chiefs of Oudh, and it announced that,
with the exception of the lands then held by six loyal
proprietors of the province, the proprietary right in the
whole of the soil of Oudh was transferred to the British
Governraent, which would dispose of it in such raanner
as raight seera fitting.' The disposal, however, was in
dicated by the terms of the proclamation. To all chiefs
and landholders who should at once surrender to the
Chief Commissioner of Oudh it was proraised that their
lives should be spared, " provided that their hands are
unstained by English blood murderously shed ; " but it
was stated that, " as regards any further indulgence which
raay be extended to thera, and the conditions in which
they raay hereafter be placed, they must throw thera
selves upon the justice and mercy of the British Govern
raent." Read by the light of literalness, this proclama
tion unquestionably seemed to araount to an absolute
confiscation of the whole soil of Oudh; for even the
favored landowners who were to retain their properties
were given to understand that they retained thera by the
favor of the Crown and as a reward for their loyalty.
Sir Jaraes Outrara wrote at once to Lord Cannin.g, point
ing out that there were not a dozen landholders in Oudh
who had not either theraselves borne arras against us or
assisted the rebels with raen or money, and that, there
fore, the effect of the proclamation would be to confiscate
the entire proprietary right in the province and to make
the chiefs and landlords desperate, and that the result
would be a " guerilla war for the extirpation, root and
branch, of this class of men, which will involve the loss
of thousands of Europeans by battle, disease, and expo
sure." Lord Canning consented to insert in the proc
lamation a clause announcing that a liberal indulgence
would be granted to those who should promptly come
forward to aid in the restoration of order, and that " the
Governor-General will be ready to view Uberally the
claims which they raay thus acquire to a restitution of
their former rights."
In truth, it was never the intention of Lord Canning
to put in force any cruel and sweeping policy of con
fiscation. Lord Canning had corae to the conclusion

242 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
that the English Governraent must start afresh in their
dealings with Oudh. He carae to the conclusion that
the necessary policy for all parties concerned was to
make of the rautiny, and the consequent reorganization,
an opportunity not fof a wholesale confiscation of the
land, but for a measure which should declare that the
land was held under the power and right of the English
Governraent. The principle of his policy was somewhat
like that adopted by Lord Durhara in Canada. It seized
the power of a dictator over life and property, the dicta
tor raight be able to restore peace and order at the least
cost in loss and suffering to the province and the popu
lation whose affairs it was his task to administer. But
it may be freely admitted that on the face of it the proc
lamation of Lord Canning looked strangely despotic.
Some of the most independent and liberal Englishmen
took this view of it. Men who had supported Lord Can
ning through all the hours of clamor against him felt
corapelled to express disapproval of what they under
stood to be his new policy. It so happened that Lord
Ellenborough was then President of the Board of Con
trol, and 'Lord Ellenborough was a man who always
acted on impulse, and had a passion for fine phrases.
He had a sincere love of justice, according to his lights ;
but he had a still stronger love for antithesis. Lord
Ellenborough therefore had no sooner received a copy of
Lord Canning's proclamation than he despatched upon
his own responsibility a rattling condemnation of the
whole proceeding. The question was taken up iraraedi
ately in both Houses of Parliament. Lord Shaftesbury
in the House of Lords moved a resolution declaring that
the House regarded with regret and serious apprehen
sion the sending of such a despatch, as such a course
must prejudice our rule in India by weakening the au
thority of the Governor-General and encouraging the re
sistance of rebels still in arras. A similar motion was
introduced by Mr. Cardwell in the House of Coraraons.
In both Houses the arraignment of the Ministry proved
a failure. Lord Ellenborough at once took upon himself
the whole responsibility of an act which was undoubt
edly all his own, and he resigned his office. The resolu-

THE END OF "JOHN COMPANY." 243
tion was therefore defeated in the House of Lords on a
division, and had to be withdrawn in a rather ignomini
ous manner in the House of Commons. Lord Canning
continued his policy, the policy which he had marked
out for hiraself, with signal success. Within a few
weeks after the capture of Lucknow, alraost all the large
landowners had tendered their allegiance. Lord Can
ning impressed upon his officers the duty of making their
rule as considerate and conciliatory as possible. The
new system established in Oudh was based upon the
principle of recognizing the Talookdars as responsible
landholders, while so limiting their power by the author
ity of the Government as to get rid of old abuses, and
protect the occupiers and cultivators of the soil. Can
ning, like Durham, only lived long enough to hear the
general acknowledgment that he had done well for the
country he was sent to govern, and for the country in
whose narae and with whose authority he went forth.
The rebellion pulled down with it a famous old institu
tion, the government of the East India Company. Be
fore the mutiny had been entirely crushed, the rule of
" John Company " came to an end. The administration
of India, had, indeed, long ceased to be under the control
of the Company, as it was in the days of Warren Has
tings. A Board of Directors, nominated partly by the
Crown and partly by the Company, sat in Leadenhall
.Street, and gave general directions for the government
of India. But the Parliamentary departraent, called the
Board of Control, had the right of reviewing and revising
the decisions of the Corapany. The Crown had the
power of nominating the Governor-General, and the
Company had only the power of recalling hira. This
odd and perhaps unparalleled systera of double govern
ment had not much to defend it on strictly logical
grounds ; and the raoment a great crisis came it was
natural that all the blarae of difficulty and disaster should
be laid upon its head. With the beginning of the mu
tiny the impression began to grow up in the public mind
here that something of a sweeping nature must be done
for the reorganization of India ; and before long this
vague impression crystalized into a conviction that Eng-

244 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
land must take Indian administration into her own
hands, and that the time had come 'for the fiction of rule
by a trading company to be absolutely giv,en up. In the
beginning of 1858 Lord Palraerston introduced a bill to
transfer the authority of the Company forraally and abso
lutely to the Crown. The plan of the scheme was that
there were to be a president and a council of eight mem
bers, to be nominated by the Government. There was
a large majority in the House of Commons in favor of
the bill ; but the agitation caused by the attempt to as
sassinate the Eraperor of the French, and Palmerston's
ill-judged and ill-tlraed Conspiracy Bill, led to the sudden
overthrow of his Governnient. When Lord Derby suc
ceeded to power, he brought in a bill for the better gov
ernment of India at once ; but the measure was a failure.
Then Lord John Russell proposed that the House
should proceed by way of resolutions — that is, that the
lines of a scheme of legislation should be laid down by a
series of resolutions in comraittee of the whole House,
and that upon those fines the Governraent should con
struct a raeasure. The suggestion was eagerly wel
coraed, and after many nights of discussion a basis of
legislation was at last agreed upon. This bill passed into
law in the autumn of 1858 ; and for the remainder of
Lord Derby's tenure of power, his son. Lord Stanley,
was Secretary of State for India. The bill, which was
called " An Act for the better Government of India,"
provided that all the territories previously under the
government of the East India Company were to be
vested in her Majesty, and all the Company's powers to
be exercised in her narae. One of her Majesty's prin
cipal Secretaries of State w-as to have all the power pre-
yiously exercised by the Company, or by the Board of
Control. The Secretary was to be assisted by a Council
of India, to consist of fifteen raerabers, of whom seven
were to be elected by the Court of Directors frora their
own body, and eight nominated by the Crown. The va
cancies among the nominated were to be filled up by the
Crown ; those araong the elected by the remaining mem
bers of the Council for a certain tirae, but afterwards by
the Secretary of State for India. The corapetitive pfin-

THE END OF " JOHN COMPANY." 245
ciple for the Civil Service was extended in its application
and raade thoroughly practical. The railitary and naval
forces of the Company were to be deemed the forces of
her Majesty. A clause was introduced declaring that,
except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual
invasion of India, the Indian revenues should not without
the consent of both Houses of Parliaraent, be applicable
to defray the expenses of any military operation carried
on beyond the external frontiers of her Majesty's Indian
possessions. Another clause enacted that whenever- an
order was sent to India directing the commenceraent of
hostilities by her Majesty's forces there, the fact should
be coraraunicated to Parliament within three months, if
Parliament were then sitting, or if not, within one
month after its next meeting. The Viceroy and Gov
ernor-General was to be suprerae in India, but was to be
assisted by a Council. India now has nine provinces,
each under its own civil governraent, and independent
of the others, but all subordinate to the authority of
the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the govern
ment of the Corapany, the famed " John Company," for
mally ceased on Septeraber i, 1858 : and the Queen
was proclairaed throughout India in the following No
vember, with Lord Canning for her first Viceroy. It
was but fitting that the man who had borne the strain of
that terrible crisis, who had brought our Indian Empire
safely through it all, and who had had to endure so much
obloquy and to live down so much calumny, should have
his name consigned to history as that of the first of the
line of British "Viceroys of India.

CHAPTER XV.
THE CONSPIRACY BILL.
The last chapter has told us that Lord Palraerston in
troduced a raeasure to transfer to the Crown the govern
ment of India, but that unexpected events in the mean
while corapelled him to resign office, and called Lord
Derby and Mr. Disraeli to power. These events had
nothing to do directly with the general policy of Palmer
ston or Lord Derby. At midday of January 14, 1858,
Lord Palraerston seeraed to be as popular and as strong
as a minister well could be. But on the evening of Jan
uary 14, Felice Orsini, an Italian exile, raade his memo
rable attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French.
Orsini lost hiraself, and he drew the English Govern
ment down at the sarae time. Felice Orsini was well
known in England. He was a handsome soldierly-look
ing raan, with intensely dark eyes and dark beard, whose
one great object was to endeavor to rouse up the Eng
lish people to some policy of intervention on behalf of
Italy against Austria. After a while, however, he found
out that England would do nothing. The English Lib
erals, with the exception of a very few enthusiasts, were
just as much opposed to the principle of intervention in
the affairs of other States as the Conservatives. But
Orsini set himself to devise some explanation for what
was simply the prudent and just deterraination of all the
statesmen and leading politicians of the country. He
found the explanation in the subtle influence of the Em
peror of the French, and he appears then to have allowed
the idea to get possession of hira that the removal of the

the CONSPIRACY BILL. 247
Emperor of the French from the scene was an indispen
sable preliminary to any policy having for its object the
eraancipation of Italy from Austrian rule. He brooded
on this idea until it became a project and a passion. It
transformed a soldier and a patriot into an assassin.
On January 14, Orsini and his fellow-conspirators
made their attempt in the Rue Lepelletier in Paris. As
the Emperor and Empress of the French were driving
up to the door of the Opera-house in that street, Orsini
and his companions flung at and into the carriage three
shells or bombs shaped like a pear, and filled with de
tonating powder. The shells exploded, and killed and
wounded many persons. So minute were the fragments
in which the bombs burst that 516 wounds, great and lit
tle, were inflicted by the explosion. Ten persons were
killed, 156 were w-ounded. It was said at the time that
the Orsini plot frightened the Emperor of the French
into taking up the cause of Italy. Historical revelations
made at a later period show that this is altogether a mis
take. We now know that at the time of the Congress of
Paris Count Cavour had virtually arranged with the Em
peror the plans of policy which were afterwards carried
out, and that even before that time Cavour was satisfied
in his own mind as to the ultimate certainty of Louis
Napoleon's co-operation. Those who are glad to see
Italy a nation, may be glad to know that Orsini's bombs
had nothing to do with her success. Four persons were
put on trial as participators in the attempt, three of them
having actually thrown the bombs. Only two, how-ever,
were executed, Orsini and Pierri ; the other two were
sentenced 10 penal servitude for life.
In France an outburst of anger followed the attempt
in the Rue Lepelletier ; but the anger was not so much
against Orsini as against England. One of the persons
charged along with Orsini, although he was not tried in
Paris, for he could not be found there, was a Frenchman,
Simon Bernard, who had long been li*ing in London.
It was certain that many of the arrangements for the
plot were made in London. The bombs were raanufact-
ured in Birmingham, and were ordered for Orsini by an
Englishman. It was known that Orsini had many friends

248 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
and admirers in this country. The Imperialists in France
at once assumed that England was a country where as
sassination of foreign sovereigns was encouraged by the
population, and not discouraged by the laws. The
French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Walewski,
wrote a despatch, in which he asked whether England
considered that hospitality was due to assassins. The
Due de Persigny, then Ambassador of France in Eng
land, made a very foolish and unfortunate reply to a dep
utation from the Corporation of London, in which he
took on hiraself to point out that if the law of England
was strong enough to put down conspiracies for assas
sination it ought to be put in raotion, and if it were not, it
ought to be raade stronger. Addresses of congratula
tion were poured in upon the Emperor from the French
army, and raany of them were full of insulting allusions
to England as the sheltering-ground of assassination. A
semi-official pamphlet, published in Paris, and entitled
" The Emperor Napoleon the Third and England," act
ually went the ridiculous length of describing an obscure
debating club in a Fleet Street public-house where a few
dozen honest fellows smoked their pipes of a night and
talked hazy politics, as a forraidable political institution
where regicide was nightly preached to fanatical desper
adoes. Thus we had the public excited on both sides. The
feeling of anger on this side was intensified by the con
viction that France was insulting us because she thought
England was crippled by her troubles in India, and had
no power to resent an insult. It was while men here
were smarting under this sense of wrong that Lord
Palmerston introduced his famous measure for the sup
pression and punishraent of conspiracies to murder. 'The
bill was introduced in consequence of the despatch of
Count Walewski. In that despatch it was suggested to
the English Government that they ought to do something
to strengthen their law. The words were very civil.
Nor was the request they contained in itself unreason
able. Long afterwards this country had to acknowledge,
in reply to the demand of the United States, that a
nation cannot get rid of her responsibility to a foreign

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 249
people by pleading that her raunicipal legislation does
not provide for this or that eraergency. The natural re
joinder is, " Then you had better make such a law ; you
are not to injure us and get off by saying your laws
allow us to be injured." But the conditions under which
the request was raade by France had put England in
the worst possible mood for acceding to it. Ominous
questions were put to the Government in both Houses of
Parliaraent. In the House of Coraraons Mr. Roebuck
asked whether any coraraunlcations had passed between
the Governraents of England and France with respect to
the Alien Act or any portion of our crirainal code. Lord
Palmerston'answered by mentioning Count Walewski's
despatch, which he said should be laid before the House.
He added a few words about the addresses of the French
regiraents, and pleaded that allowance should be raade
for the irritation caused by the attempt on the life of
the Emperor. He was asked a significant question —
had the Governraent sent any answer to Count 'Walewski's
despatch ? No, was the reply ; her Majesty's Govern
ment had not answered it ; not yet.
Two or three days after Lord Palmerston moved for
leave to bring in the Conspiracy to Murder Bill. The
chief object of the measure was to make conspiracy to
murder a felony instead of a mere raisderaeanor, as it
had been in England, and to render it liable to penal
servitude for any period varying frora five years to a
whole life. Lord Palraerston raade a feeble and forraal
attempt to prove that his bill was introduced simply as
a measure of needed reform in our crirainal legislation,
and without special reference to anything that had hap
pened in France. The law against conspiracy to raurder
was very light in England, he showed, and was very
severe in Ireland. It was now proposed to make the law
the sarae in both countries — that was all. Of course no
one was deceived by this explanation. The bill itself
was as much of a shara as the explanation. Such a
raeasure would not have been of any account whatever
as -regarded the offences against which it was particu
larly directed. . Lord Palmerston, we may be sure, did
not put the slightest faith in the efficacy of the piece of

250 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
legislation he had undertaken to recommend to Parlia
ment. He was compelled to believe that the Govern
raent would have to do soraething ; and he came, after a
while, to the conclusion that the most harmless measure
would be the best. Mr. Kinglake moved an amendment,
forraally expressing the sympathy of the House with the
French people, on account of the atterapt made against
the Emperor, but declaring it inexpedient to legislate in
compliance with the demand made in Count Walewski's
despatch of January 20, " until further inforraation is be
fore it of the communications of the two Governments •
subsequent to the date of that despatch." Mr. Disraeli
voted for the bringing in of the bill, and made a cau
tious speech, in which he showed himself in favor of
some sort of legislation, but did not commit himself to
approval of that particular raeasure. The bill w-as read
a first time. Two hundred and ninety-nine votes were
for it ; only ninety-nine against. But before it came on
for a second reading public opinion was beginning to
declare ominously against it. The fact that the Govern
ment had not answered the despatch of Count Walewski
told heavily against them. It was afterwards explained
that Lord Cowley had been instructed to answer it orally,
and that Lord Palmerston thought this course the more
prudent, and the more likely to avoid an increase of
irritation between the two countries. But public opinion
in England was not now to be propitiated by counsels
of moderation. The idea had gone abroad that Lord
Palmerston was truckling to the Emperor of the French,
and that the very right of asylum which England had so
long afforded to the exiles of all nations, was to be sacri
ficed at the bidding of one who had been glad to avail
hiraself of it in his hour of need.
This idea received support frora the arrest of Dr.
Simon Bernard, a French refugee, who was immediately
put on trial as an accomplice in Orsini's plot. Bernard
was a native of the South of France, a surgeon by pro
fession, and had lived a long time in England. The
arrest of Bernard raay have been a very proper thing,
but it came in with most untimely effect upon the Govern
ment. It was understood to have been made by virtue

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 25 1
of inforraation sent over from Paris, and no one could
have failed to observe that the loosest accusations of that
kind were alw-ays coraing frora the French capital. Many
persons were influenced in their belief of Bernard's in
nocence by the fact, which does assuredly count for
something, that Orsini hiraself had almost with his dying
breath declared that Bernard knew nothing of the in
tended assassination. Not a few raade up their rainds
that he was innocent because the French Government
accused him of guilt ; and still more declared that inno
cent or guilty he ought not to be arrested by English
authorities at the bidding of a French Emperor. The
debate was over and the Conspiracy Bill disposed of be
fore the Bernard trial came to an end ; but we may an
ticipate by a few days, and finish the Bernard story.
Bernard was tried at the Central Criminal Court under
existing law ; he was defended by Mr. Edwin James,
a well-known criminal lawyer, and he was acquitted.
The trial was a practical illustration of the inutility of
such special legislation as that which Lord Palmerston
attempted to introduce. A new law of conspiracy could
not have furnished any new evidence against Bernard,
or persuaded a jury to convict him on such evidence as
there was. In the prevailing temper of the public the
evidence should have been very clear indeed to induce
an ordinary English jury to convict a man like Bernard,.
and the evidence of his knowledge of an intended assas
sination was anything but clear.
In the midst of the comraotion caused by Bernard's
arrest, Mr. Milner Gibson quietly gave notice of an araend
raent to the second reading of the Conspiracy Bill. The
araendraent proposed to declare that while the House
heard with regret the allegation that the recent crime
had been devised in England, and was always ready to
assist in remedying any proved defects in the criminal
law, " yet it cannot but regret that her Majesty's Govern
raent, previously to inviting the House to araend the law
of conspiracy by the second reading of this bill at the
present time, have not felt it to be their duty to raake
sorae reply to the important despatch received frora the
French Government, dated Paris, January 20, 1858, and

252 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
which has been laid before Parliament." It might have
been seen at once that this was a more serious business
for the Government than Mr. Kinglake's amendment. In
forecasting the result of a motion in the House of Com
mons much depends on the person who brings it for
ward. Has he a party behind hira ? If so, then the
thing is important. If not, let his ability be what it will,
his motion is looked on as a mere expression of personal
opinion, interesting perhaps but without political conse
quence. Mr. Kinglake was emphatically a man without
a party behind him ; Mr. Gibson was emphatically a man
of party and of practical politics. Mr. Kinglake was a
brilliant Hterary man who had proved little better than a
failure in the House ; Mr. Gibson was a successful member
of Parliament and nothing else. When the debate on
the second reading carae on it began soon to be seen
that the condition of things was grave for Lord Pal
merston. Every hour and every speech made it more
ominous. Mr. Gladstone spoke eloquently against the
Governraent. Mr. Disraeli suddenly discovered that he
was bound to vote against the second reading, although
he had voted for the first. The Governraent, he argued,
had not .yet answered the despatch as they raight have
done in the intei-val, and as they had not vindicated the
honor of England, the House of Commons could not
entrust them with the measure they demanded. Lord
Palmerston saw that, in homely phrase, the game was up.
He was greatly annoyed ; he lost his temper, and did not
even try to conceal the fact that he had lost it. For a
genial and kindly as well as a graceful man, it was
singular how completely Lord Palmerston always lost his
good manners when he lost his temper. Under the in
fluence of sudden anger, luckily a rare influence with
him, he could be actually vulgar. Lord Palmerston, in
his reply to Mr. Milner Gibson, showed a positive spite-
fulness of tone and temper very unusual in him, and
especially unbecoming in a losing man. A statesraan
may rise as he will, but he should fall with dignity.
When the division was taken it appeared that there were
215 votes for the second reading and 234 against it.
The Government, therefore, were left in a minority of 19;

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 253
146 Conservatives were in the majority and 84 Liberals.
Besides these there were such of the Peelite party as
Sir James Graham, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cardwell, and
Mr. Sidney Herbert. Lord Palraerston at once raade up
his mind to resign. His resignation was accepted. Not
quite a year had passed since the general elections sent
Lord Palmerston into power triumphant over the routed
Liberals and the prostrate Manchester School. Not quite
a year, and now, on the motion of one of the lieutenants
of that sarae party returned to their position again. Lord
Palraerston is ejected from office. Palraerston once

Canton.

talked of having his " tit-for-tat with John Russell." The
Peace party now had their tit-for-tat with hira.
Lord Palraerston had the satisfaction before he left
office of being able to announce the capture of Canton.
The operations against China had been virtually sus
pended, it will be reraembered, when the Indian Mutiny
broke out. England had now got the co-operation of
France. France had a complaint of long standing against
China on account of the murder of sorae raissionaries.

254 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
for which redress had been asked in vain. There was,
there^fore, an allied attack raade upon Canton, and of
course the city was easily captured. Commissioner Yeh
himself was taken prisoner, not until he had been sought
for and hunted out in most ignominious fashion. He was
found at last hidden away in some obscure part of a
house. He was known by his enormous fatness. One
of our officers caught hold of him ; Yeh tried stiU to get
away. A British seaman seized Yeh by his pigtail, twisted
the tail several times round his hand, and thus made
the unfortunate Chinese dignitary a helpless and ludicrous
prisoner. When it was convenient to let loose Yeh's
pigtail, he was put on board an English man-of-war,'' and
afterwards sent to Calcutta, where he died early in the
following year. Unless report greatly belied him he had
been exceptionally cruel, even for a Chinese official.
The English and French Envoys, Lord Elgin and Baron
Gros, succeeded in making a treaty with China. By the
conditions of the treaty, England and France were to
have rainisters at the Chinese Court, on certain special
occasions at least, and China was to be represented in
London and Paris ; there was to be toleration of Chris
tianity in China, and a certain freedom of access to
Chinese rivers for English and French mercantile vessels,
and to the interior of China for English and French sub
jects. China was to pay the expenses of the war. It
was further agreed that the terra " barbarian " was no
longer to be applied to Europeans in China. There was
great congratulation in England over this treaty, and the
prospect it afforded of a lasting peace with China. The
peace thus procured lasted in fact exactly a year.
The Ministry of Lord Derby, whereof Mr. Disraeli
was leader of the House of Commons, was not supported
by a Parliamentary raajority, nor could it pretend to
great intellectual and administrative abiUty. It had in
its ranks two or three men of statesmanlike capacity,
and a number of respectable persons possessing abilities
about equal to those of any intelligent business man or
county magistrate. Mr. Disraeli of course became Chan
cellor of the Exchequer. Lord Stanlev undertook the
Colonies ; Mr. Walpole made a painstaking and con-

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 255
scientious Home Secretary, as long as he continued to
hold the office. Lord Malmesbury rauddled on with
Foreign Affairs soraehow ; Lord EUenborough's brilliant
eccentric light perplexed for a brief space the Indian
Departraent. General Peel was Secretary for War, and
Mr. Henley, President of .the Board of Trade. Lord
Naas, afterwards Lord Mayo, became chief Secretary for
Ireland, and was then supposed to be nothing more than
a kindly, sweet-tempered man, of whora his raost ad-
rairing friends would never have ventured to foreshadow
such a destiny as that he should succeed to the place
of a Canning and an Elgin, and govern the new India
to which so many anxious eyes were turned. Sir John
Pakington was made First Lord of the Admiralty, be
cause a place of some kind had to be found for him, and
he was as likely to do well at the head of the navy as
anywhere else. No Conservative Government could be
supposed to get on without Lord John Manners, and
luckily there was the Department of Public Works for
him. Lord Stanley was regarded as a statesman of great
and peculiar promise. The party to which he belonged
were inclined to raake hira an object of especial pride,
because he seeraed to have in a reraarkable degree the
very qualities which raost of their leading members were
generally accused of wanting. Lord Stanley had a calra,
raeditative intellect. He studied politics as one raay
study a science. He understood political econoraj'. He
had travelled rauch ; not raerely making the old-fashioned
grand tour, which raost of the Tory country gentleraen
had theraselves raade, but visiting the United States and
Canada and the Indies, East and West. He was under
stood to know all about geography and cotton and sugar ;
and he had come up into politics in a happy age when
the question of Free Trade was believed to be settled.
Lord Stanley was strangely unlike his father in intellect
and temperament. The one raan was indeed alraost the
very opposite of the other. Lord Derby was all instinct
and passion ; Lord Stanley was all method and calcula
tion. Lord Derby amused himself in - the intervals of
political work by translating classic epics and odes ;

256 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Lord Stanley beguiled an interval of leisure by the read
ing of Blue-books. Lord Derby's eloquence when at its
worst became fiery nonsense ; Lord Stanley's sank oc
casionally to be nothing better than platitude. The ex
treme of the one was rhapsody, and of the other common
place. Lord Derby was too hot and impulsive to be
always a sound statesman ; Lord Stanley was too coldly
methodical to be the statesman of a crisis. Both men
were to a certain sense superficial and deceptive. Lord
Derby's eloquence had no great depth in it ; and Lord
Stanley's wisdom often proved somewhat thin. The
career of Lord Stanley did not afterwards bear out all
the expectations that were originally forraed of hira. He
proved to be raethodical, sensible, conscientious, slow.
But at the tirae when he accepted the Indian Secretary
ship people on both sides of the political contest looked
to him as a new and great figure in Conservative politics.
He was not an orator ; he had nothing whatever of the
orator in language or in temperaraent. His raanner was
ineffective ; his delivery was decidedly bad. But his
words carried weight with them, and even his common
places were received by sorae of his party as the utter
ances of an oracle. There were raen araong the Con
servatives on the back benches who secretly hoped that
in this wise young man was the upcoming statesman
who was to deliver the party from the thraldom of ec
centric genius, and of an eloquence which, however brill
iantly it fought their battles, seemed to thera hardly a
respectable sort of gift to be eraployed in the service of
gentlemanlike Tory principles.
The superiority of the Opposition in debating power
was simply overwhelraing. In the House of Coraraons
Mr. Disraeli was the only first-class debater, with the ex
ception perhaps of the new Solicitor-General, Sir Hugh
Cairns ; and against him were Lord Palraerston, Lord
John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, Sir Jaraes Grahara, Mr.
Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Bright, every one
of thera a first-class debater ; some of them great Parlia
mentary orators; some, too, with the influence that'
comes from the .fact of their having led ministries and
conducted wars. In no political assembly in the world

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 257
does experience of office and authority tell for more than
in the House of Commons. To have held office confers
a certain dignity even on mediocrity. The man who
once held office, and who sits on the front bench op
posite the ministry, has a sort of prescriptive right to be
heard whenever he stands up to address the House, in
preference to the most rising and brilliant talker who
has never yet been a member of an administration. Mr.
Disraeli well knew that his party held office only on suf
ferance from their opponents. If they atterapted noth
ing, they were certain to be censured for inactivity ; if
they attempted anything, there was the chance of their
exposing themselves to the corabined attack of all the
sections of the Liberal party. Luckily for thera it was
not easy to bring aboiit such a corabination just yet ;
but whenever it came, there was foreshown the end of
the ministry.
Lord Derby's Governraent quietly dropped the un
lucky Conspiracy Bill. England and France were alike
glad to be out of the difficulty. There was a short
interchange of correspondence, in which the French
Government explained that they really had raeant noth
ing in particular, and it was then announced to both
Houses of Parliaraent that the misunderstanding was at
an end, and that friendship had set in again. 'We have
seen already how the India Bill was carried. Lord
Derby's tenure of office was raade reraarkable by the
success of one raeasure which must have given much
personal satisfaction to Mr. Disraeli. The son of a Jewish
father, the descendant of an ancient Jewish race, him
self received as a child into the Jewish community, Mr.
Disraeli had since his earliest years of intelligence been
a Christian. But he had never renounced his sympa
thies with the race to which he belonged, and the faith
in which his fathers worshipped. He had always stood up
for the Jews. He had in some of his novels seemingly
set about to persuade his readers that all of good and
great the modern world had seen was due to the unceas
ing intellectual activity of the Jewish race.
Mr. Disraeli had the good fortune to see the civil
emancipation of the Jews accomplished during the tirae

258 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
of his leadership of the House of Coraraons. It was a
coincidence raerely. He had always assisted the move
ment towards that end ; but the success did not corae
from any inspiration of his ; and most of his colleagues
in power resisted it as long as they could. In July, 1858,
the long political and sectarian struggle carae to an end
when Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild was allowed to
take his seat in the House of Commons as one of the
representatives of the City of London. We haye seen
how by steps the Jews made their way into raunicipal
office and into the magistracy. At the sarae timepersist-
ent efforts were being raade to obtain for them the right
to be elected to the House of Coraraons. On April 5,
1830, Mr. Robert Grant, then a colleague of one of the
Gurney faraily in the representation of Norwich, raoved
for leave to bring in a bill to allow British-born Jews to
enjoy all the rights of the British subject, without having
to profess the religion of the State. At that tirae the Jews
were unable to take the oath of alle.giance, inasmuch as
it was sworn on the Evangelists. Nor could they take
the oath of abjuration, intended to guard against the
return of the Stuarts, because that oath contained the
words " on the true faith of a Christian."
The debate on Mr. Grant's motion was made memor
able by the fact that Macaulay delivered then his maiden
speech. The proposal for the admission of Jews to
Parliaraent was supported by Lord John Russell, O'Con
nell, Broughara, and Mackintosh. Its first reading — for
it was opposed even on the first reading — was carried
by a raajority of eighteen ; but on the motion for the
second reading the bill was thrown out by a raajority of
sixty-three, the votes for it being 165, and those against
it 228. In 1833, Mr. Grant introduced his bill again,
and this time was fortunate enough to pass it through
the Coraraons. The Lords rejected it by a raajority of
fifty. The following year told a similar story. The
Commons accepted ; the Lords rejected. Meantime the
Jews were being gradually relieved from other restric
tions. A clause in Lord Denman's Act for amending
the laws of evidence allowed all persons to be sworn in
.courts of law in the form which they held raost binding

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 259
on their conscience. Lord Lyndhurst succeeded in
passing a bill for the admission of Jews to corporate
offices. Jews had, as we have already seen, been ad
mitted to the shrievalty and the magistracy in the be
ginning of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1848 the struggle
for their admission to Parliament was renewed, but the
Lords still held out and would not pass a bill. Mean
while influential Jews began to offer themselves as can
didates for seats in Parliaraent. Mr. Salomons contested
Shoreham and Maidstone successively and unsuccessfully.
In 1847 Baron Lionel Rothschild was elected one of the
members for the City of London. He resigned his seat
when the House of Lords threw out the Jews' bill, and
stood again and was again elected. It was not, however,
until 1850 that the struggle was actually transferred to
the floor of the House of Coraraons.' In that year Baron
Rothschild presented himself at the table of the House
and offered to take the oaths in order that he might be
adraitted to take his seat. For four sessions he had sat
as a stranger in the House of which he had been duly
elected a raeraber by the votes of one of the most im
portant English constituencies. Now he came boldly up
to the table and demanded to be sworn. He was sworn
on the Old Testament. He took the Oaths of Allegiance
and Supremacy ; but when the Oath of Abjuration came
he omitted frora it the words " on the true faith of a
Christian." He was directed to withdraw, and it was
decided that he could neither sit nor vote unless he
would consent to take the oath of abjuration in the
fashion prescribed by the law.
Baron Rothschild did not contest the raatter any fur
ther. Mr. David Saloraons was inclined for a rougher
and bolder course. He was elected for Greenwich in
1 85 1, and he presented hiraself as Baron Rothschild
had done. The sarae thing followed ; he refused to say
the words, " on the true faith of a Christian," and he was
directed to withdraw. He did withdraw. He sat be
low the bar. A few evenings after a question was put
to the Government by a meraber friendly to the admis
sion of the Jews, Sir Benjamin Hall, afterwards Lord
Llanover : " If Mr. Salomons should take his seat, would

26o A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
the Government sue him for the penalties provided by
the Act of Parliament in order that the question of right
might be tried by a court of law? " Lord John Russell
replied on the part of the Government that they did not
intend to take any proceedings ; in fact, implied that
they considered it no affair of theirs. Then Sir Benja
min Hall announced that Mr. Salomons felt he had no
alternative but to take his seat and let the question of
right be tested in that way. Forthwith, to the amaze
ment and horror of steady old constitutional members,
Mr. Salomons, who had been sitting below the bar,
calmly got up, walked into the sacred precincts of the
House, and took his seat amongst the merabers. A
tumultuous scene followed. Half the House shouted in
dignantly to Mr Saloraons to " Withdraw, withdraw ;" the
other half called out encouragingly to him to keep his
place. The perplexity was indescribable. What is to be
done with a quiet and respectable gentleman who in
sists that he is a meraber of Pariiament, comes and
takes his seat in the House and will not withdraw ? Mr.
Saloraons had undoubtedly been elected member for
Greenwich by a considerable majority. His constituents
believed him to be their lawful representative, and in
fact had obtained from him a promise that if elected he
would actually take his seat. Many members were of
opinion, and eminent lawyers were among them, that in
the strictest and most technical view of the law he was
entitled to take his seat. Many more were convinced
that the principle which excluded hira was stupid and
barbarous, and that the course he was at present taking
was necessary for the purpose of obtaining its iraraediate
repeal. Therefore any idea of expelling Mr. Saloraons was
out of the question. The only thing that could be done
was to set to work and debate the matter. Lord John
Russell moved a resolution to the effect that Mr. Salo
mons be ordered to withdraw. Lord John Russell, it
need hardly be said, was entirely in favor of the ad
mission of the Jews, but thought Mr. Salomons' course
irregular. Mr. Bernal Osborne moved an amendment
declaring Mr, Salomons entitled to take his seat. A

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 261
series of irregular discussions, varied and enlivened by
motions for adjournment, took place ; and Mr. Salomons
not only voted in some of the divisions, but actually
made a speech. He spoke calraly and well, and was
listened to with great attention. He explained that in
the course he had taken he was acting in no spirit of
contumacy or presumption, and with no disregard for
the dignity of the House, but that he had been lawfully
elected, and that he felt bound to take his seat for the
purpose of asserting his own rights and those of his con
stituents. He intimated also that he would withdraw if
just sufficient force were used to make hira feel that he
was acting under coercion. The raotion that he be
ordered to withdraw was carried. The Speaker requested
Mr. Saloraons to withdraw. Mr. Saloraons held his place.
The Speaker directed the Sergeant-at-Arras to remove
Mr. Salomons. The Sergeant-at-Arms approached Mr.
Salomons and touched him on the shoulder, and Mr.
Salomons then quietly withdrew. The farce was over.
It was evident to everyone that Mr. Salomons had virtu
ally gained the victory, and that something must soon
be done to get the House of Coraraons and the country
out of the difficulty.
But the victory was not technically won for some time
after. An action was brought against Mr. Saloraons, not
by the Government, in Deceraber. 1851,10 recover penal
ties for his having unlawfully taken his seat. The Court
of Exchequer decided by three voices to one that the
words " on the true faith of a Christian " must be held
in law to constitute a specially Christian oath, which
could be taken by no one but a Christian, and without
taking which no one could be a Member of Pariiament.
The legal question then being settled, there were renewed
efforts made to get rid of the disabilities by an Act of
Parliament. The House of Coraraons continued to pass
Bills to enable Jews to sit in Parliaraent, and the House
of Lords continued to throw them out. Lord John
Russell, who had taken charge of the raeasure, intror
duced his Bill early in 1858. When it came up to the
House of Lords it suffered the usual fate. Then Lord
Lucan recomraended the insertion of a clause in the Bill

262 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
allowing either House to modify the form of oath accord
ing to its pleasure. Lord John Russell objected to this
way of dealing with a great question, but did not feel
warranted in refusing the proposed comproraise. A Bill
was drawn up with the clause suggested, and it was
carried through both Houses. A Jew, therefore, might
be a member of the House of Coraraons, if it chose to
receive him, and might be shut out of the House of
Lords if that House did not think fit to let him in. More
than that, the House of Commons might change its mind
at any moraent, and by modifying the form of oath shut
out the Jews again ; or shut out any new Jewish candi
dates. Of course such a condition of things as that
could not endure. An Act passed not long after which
consolidated the Acts referring to Oaths of Allegiance,
Abjuration, and Supreraacy, and enabled Jew-s on all
occasions whatever to omit the words " on the true faith
of a Christian." Thus the Jew was at last placed on a
position of political equality w-ith his Christian fellow-
subjects, and an anomaly and a scandal was removed
frora our legislation.
About the same time as that which saw Baron Roth
schild admitted to take his seat in the House of Cora
raons, the absurd property qualification for Members of
Parliaraent was abolished. This ridiculous system orig
inally professed to secure that no raan should be a mem
ber of the House of Commons who did not own a certain
araount of landed property. Ifhad not the slightest real
force. Fictitious conveyances were issued as a matter of
course. Anyone who desired a seat in Parliaraent could
easily find sorae friend or patron who would convey to
him by forraal deed the fictitious ownership of landed
property enough to satisfy the requireraents of the law.
As usual with Parliaraent, this anomaly was allowed to
go on until a sudden scandal raade its abolition neces
sary. One luckless person, who probably had no position
and few friends, was actually prosecuted for having raade
a false declaration as to his property qualifications. This
practically settled the raatter. Everyone knew that many
other members of Parliaraent deserved in point of fact
'just as well as he the three raonths' imprisonment to

THE CONSPIRACY BILL. 263
which he was sentenced. Mr. Locke King introduced a
Bill to abolish the property qualification hitherto required
from the representatives of English and Irish constituen
cies, and it became law in a few days.

CHAPTER XVI.
DISRAELI'S FIRST REFORM ENTERPRISE.
When Lord Ellenborough abruptly resigned the place
of President of the Board of Control he was succeeded
by Lord Stanley, who, as we have seen already, becarae
Secretary of State for India under the new system of
government. Lord Stanley had been Secretary for the
Colonies, and in this office he was succeeded by Sir
Edward Bulwer Lytton. For some tirae previously Sir
Edward Lytton had been taking so marked a place in
Parliamentary life as to make it evident that when his
party carae into power, he was sure to have a chance of
distinguishing himself in office. His political career had
up to this time been little better than a failure. He
started in public life as a Radical and a friend of O'Con
nell ; he was indeed the raeans of introducing Mr. Disraeli
to the leader of the Irish party. He began his Parliamen
tary career before the Reform Bill. He was elected for
St. Ives in 1831. After the passing of the Bill, he repre
sented Lincoln for several years. At the general election
of 1841 he lost his seat, and it was not until July, 1852, that
he was again returned to Parliament. This time he came
in as meraber for the county of Herts. In the interval
Lytton had succeeded to wealth and to landed estates,
and he had almost altogether changed his political opin
ions. Frora a poetic Radical he had becorae a poetic
Conservative. It was certain that whatever Lytton at
tempted he would in the end carry to some considerable
success. His first years in the House of Commons had
come to nothing. When he lost his seat most people

Disraeli's first reform enterprise. 265
fancied that he had accepted defeat, and had turned his
back on Parliamentary life for ever. But Lytton pos
sessed a marvellously strong will, and had a faith in him
self which almost araounted to genius. He seeras to
have made up his raind that he would compel the world
to confess him capable of playing the part of a politician.
He was deaf, and his articulation was so defective that
most persons who heard him speak in public for the first
tirae found themselves unable to understand hira. Such
difficulties would assuredly have scared any ordinary man
out of the Parliaraentary arena for ever. But Lytton
seeras to have deterrained that he would make a figure in
Parliament. He set himself to public speaking as coollyas
if he were a man, like Gladstone or Bright, whora nature
had raarked out for such a competition by her physical
gifts. He becarae a decided, and even in a certain sense,
a great success. He could not strike into a debate actually
going on ; his defects of hearing shut him off from such
a performance ; and no man who is not a debater will
ever hold a really high position in the House of Commons.
But he could review a previous night's argument in a
speech abounding in splendid phrases and brilliant illus
trations. He could pass for an orator. He actually did
pass for an orator.
Sir Edward Lytton, as Secretary of the Colonies,
seemed resolved to prove by active and original work
that he could be a practical colonial statesraan as well as '
a novelist, a play-wright, and a Parliaraentary orator.
He founded the Colony of British Columbia. He sent
Mr. Gladstone on a mission to the Ionian Islands. There
had long been dissatisfaction and even disturbance in
the Ionian Islands. These seven islands were constituted
a sort of republic or comraonwealth by the Treaty of
Vienna. But they were consigned to the Protectorate of
Great Britain, which had the right of maintaining gar
risons in them. It seems alraost a waste of words to say
that the islanders were not content with British govern
ment. For good or ill, the Hellenes wherever they are
found are sure to be filled with an impassioned longing
for Hellenic independence. The people of the Ionian
Islands were eager to be allowed to enter into one .sys-

266 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
tem with the kingdom of Greece. Their national princi
ples and aspirations, their personal vanities, their truly
Greek restlessness and craving for novelty, all combined
to make thera irapatient of that foreign protectorate
which was really foreign governraent. Many English
public raen, however, were raerely angry with these pes
tilential Greeks who did not know what was good for
them. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton had not been long
enough in office to have become soaked in the ideas of
routine. He thought the causes of the complaints and
the dissatisfaction were well worth looking into. He
offered therefore to Mr. Gladstone the office of Lord High
Coraraissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian Islands, and
Mr. Gladstone, who had been for sorae years out of
office, acting as an independent supporter of Lord Pal
merston's Government, accepted the offer and its duties.
The appointment created much surprise, some anger,
and a good deal of ridicule here at horae. Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton had alluded in his despatch to Mr. Glad
stone's Horaerlc scholarship, and this was, in the opinion
of some politicians, an outrage upon all the principles
and proprieties of routine. This, it was muttered, is
what coraes of literary men in office. A writer of novels
is leader of the House of Commons, and he has another
writer of novels at his side as Colonial Secretary, and
between thera they can think of nothing better than to
send a raan out to the Ionian Islands to listen to the
trash of Greek demagogues, merely because he happens
to be fond of reading Homer.
Mr. Gladstone went out to the Ionian Islands, and
arrived at Corfu in Noveraber of 1858. He called to
gether the Senate, and explained that he had not corae
there to discuss the propriety of raaintaining the English
protectorate, but only to inquire into the manner in which
the just claims of the Ionian Islands might be secured
by means of that protectorate. The population of the
islands however persisted in regarding him, not as the
commissioner of a conservative English Government, but
as " Gladstone the Philhellene." In vain he repeated his
assurances that he carae to reconcile the islands to the
protectorate, and not to deliver thera from it. The pop-

Disraeli's first reform enterprise. 267
ular instinct insisted on regarding him as at least the
precursor of their union to the kingdom of Greece. The
National Assembly passed a formal resolution declaring
for union with Greece. All that Mr. Gladstone's per
suasions could do was to induce thera to appoint a
coramittee, and draw up a meraorial to be presented in
proper forra to the protecting powers. In England Mr.
Gladstone was attacked in an absurd manner. He was
accused not raerely of having encouraged the pretensions
of the Ionian Islanders, but even talked of as if he, and
he alone, had been their inspiration. National corapla-
cency could hardly push sensible men to greater foolish
ness than it did when it set half England wondering and
raging over the impertinence of a Greek population who
preferred union with a Greek kingdom to dependence
upon an English protectorate. There can be no doubt
that the people of the islands had under England's pro
tectorate admirable means of comraunication by land
and sea, splendid harbors, regular lines of steamers, ex
cellent roads everj'where, while the people of the kingdom -
of Greece were hardly better off for all these advan
tages under Otho than they might have been under Co-
drus. But the populations of the islands persevered in
the belief that they understood better what made them
happy than anyone else could do. They agitated more
strenuously than ever for annexation to the kingdora of
Greece. A few years after their wish was granted.
The Greeks got rid quietly of their heavy Gerraan king
Otho, and on the advice chiefly of England they elected
as sovereign a brother of the Princess of Wales, the sec
ond son of the King of Denmark. Then Lord John
Russell, on behalf of the English Governraent, handed
over the Ionian islands to the kingdom of Greece.
The year that followed Mr. Gladstone's raission to the
Ionian islands (1859) was one of storra and stress on the
European continent. It began with the raemorable dec
laration of the Eraperor of the French to the Austrian
Ambassador at the Tuileries, that the relations between
the two Empires were not such as he could desire. In
fact Count Cavour had had his way. He had prevailed
upon Louis Napoleon to expel the Austrians frora Italy.

268 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
In the career of Count Cavour our times have seen per
haps the most remarkable illustration of that great Ital
ian statesraanship which has always appeared at intervals
in the history of Europe. Louis Napoleon was simply a
weapon in the hands of such a man. When once the
French Emperor had entered into a compact with hira
there was no escape from it. Cavour did not look like
an Italian ; at least a typical Italian. He looked more
like an Englishman. He reminded Englishmen oddly
of Dickens's Pickwick, with his large forehead, his gen
eral look of moony good-nature, and his spectacles.
That comraonplace homely exterior concealed unsur
passed force of character, subtlety of scheming, and
power of will. Cavour had determined that France
should fight Austria. The war was over, one might say,
in a moment. Austria had no generals ; the French
army rushed to success ; and then Louis Napoleon
stopped short as suddenly as he had begun. He had
proclaimed that he went to war to set Italy free from the
Alps to the sea ; but he made peace on the basis of the
liberation of Lombardy from Austrian rule, and he left
Venetia for another day and for other arras. He drew
back before the very serious danger that threatened on
the part of the Gerraan States, who showed orainous in
dications of a resolve to make the cause of Austria their
owra if France went too far. He held his hand from
Venetia because of Prussia; seven years later Prussia
herself gave Venetia to Italy.
The Enghsh Government had made futile attempts
to prevent the outbreak of war. Meanwhile the Con
servative Governraent could not exactly live on the mere
reputation of having given good advice abroad to which
no one would listen, and they determined to try their
hand at a Reform Bill. Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the
House of Coraraons, knew that a Reforra Bill was one of
the certainties of the future, and that whenever Lord
John Russell happened to be in power again he would
return to his first love in politics, a Reforra Bill. He
knew also that a refusal to have anything to do with re
form would always expose the Tories in office to a coali
tion of all the Liberal factions against them. Mr. Disraeli

Disraeli's first reform enterprise. 269
had to choose between two dangers. He might risk all
by refusing reform ; he might risk all by attempting re
form. He thought on the whole the wiser course would
be to endeavor to take possession of the reform ques
tion for himself and his party. The reappearance of
Mr. Bright in politics stimulated no doubt this resolve
on the part of Mr. Disraeli. It is not likely that the
Prirae Minister, Lord Derby, took any active interest in
the matter. Lord Derby had outlived political ambition,
or he had had perhaps all the political success he cared
for. He had station of the highest ; he had wealth and
influence ; he had fame as a great Parliaraentary debater.
Now that Brougham had ceased to take any leading part
in debate he had no rival in the House of Lords. He
was a sincere raan without any pretence ; and, if he did
not hiraself care about reform, he was not likely to put
on any appearance of enthusiasm about it. Nor did he
set much store on continuing in office. He would be
the same Lord Derby out of office as in. But this way
of looking at things was by no raeans suitable to his
energetic and ambitious lieutenant. Mr. Disraeli had
not nearly attained the height of his arabition, nor had
he by any means exhausted his political energies. Mr.
Disraeli, therefore, was not a man to view with any satis
faction the consequences likely to corae to the Con
servative party frora an open refusal to take up the cause
of reform. At a time too when most of the Conservatives,
and not a few of the Whigs, regarded Mr. Bright as only
an eloquent and respectable demagogue, Mr. Disraeli
had made up his raind that the Lancashire orator was a
raan of genius and foresight, who raust be taken account
of as a genuine political power. Mr. Bright had for a long
tirae been withdrawn by ill-health frora all share in polit
ical agitation, or politics of any kind. He now returned to
public life. He flung himself into a new agitation for re
form, and he was induced to draw up a Reform Bill of
his own. It was practically a proposal to estabhsh a
franchise precisely like that which we have now, ballot
and all, only that it threw the expenses of the returning
officer on the county or borough rate, and it introduced
a somewhat large measure of redistribution of ^eats.

270 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
Mr. Disraeli knew well enough that the upper and
middle classes cared very little about a new Reform Bill.
But it was evident that any political party could appeal
to the support of the working-classes throughout the
country in favor of any raoveraent which promised reform.
In short, Mr. Disraeli knew that reform had to come
sorae tirae,, and he was resolved to raake his own game
if he could. This tirae, however; he was not successful.
The difficulties in his way were too great. It would
have been impossible for him to introduce such a Reform
Bill as Mr. Bright would be likely to accept. His own
party would not endure such a proposition. Mr. Disraeli's
"Reform Bill was a curiosity. It offered a variety of little
innovations -which nobody wanted or could have cared
about, and it left out of sight altogether the one reform
which alone gave an excuse for any legislation. Lord
Grey's Reform Bill admitted the middle-class to legisla
tion but left the working-class out. What was now
wanted was a measure to let the working-class in. Yet
Mr. Disraeli's scheme made no more account of the
working-class 'as a whole than if they already possessed
the vote — every man of them. The English working-
classes cried out for the franchise, and Mr. Disraeli pro
posed to answer the cry by giving the vote to graduates
of universities, medical practitioners, and school-masters.
Yet we may judge of the difficulties Mr. DlsraeU had
to deal with by the reception which even this poor little
raeasure raet with frora some of his own colleagues. Mr.
Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned office rather than have
anything to do with it. Mr. Henley was a specimen of
the class who might have been described as fine old
English gentlemen. He was shrewd, blgnt, and honest,
given to broad jokes and to a high-flavored old-fashioned
school of huraor. Mr. Walpole was a man of gentle
bearing, not by any means a robust polirician, nor liber
ally endowed with intellect or eloquence, but pure-minded
and upright enough to satisfy the raost exacting. It did
not appear to hira honorable to support a raeasure be
cause it had been taken up by one's own party, which
the party would assuredly have denounced and opposed
to the uttermost if it had been brought forward by the

Disraeli's first reform enterprise;. 271
other side. Public opinion admired Mr. Walpole, and
applauded his decision. Public opinion would have pro
nounced even more strongly in his favor had it known
that at the time of his making this decision apd with
drawing from a high official position Mr. Walpole was
in circumstances which made the possession of a salary
of the utmost importance to him. Had he even swal
lowed his scruples and held on a little longer, he would
have become entitled to a pension. He did not appear
to have hesitated a moraent. He w-as a high-minded
gentleman ; he could very well bear to be poor ; he could
not bear to surrender his self-respect.
Mr. Disraeli's ingenious Reform Bill was found out in
a moment. Someone described its enfranchising clauses
as " fancy franchises ; " Mr. Bright introduced the phrase
to the House of Commons, and the clauses never re
covered the epithet. It would be useless to go into any
of the discussions which took place on this extraordinary
Bill. It can hardly be said to have been considered seri
ously. It had to be got rid of soraehow, and therefore
Lord John Russell moved an araendraent, declaring that
no readjustment of the franchise would satisfy the House
of Commons or the country which did not provide for
a greater extension of the suffrage in cities and boroughs
than was contemplated in the Governraent raeasure.
Lord John Russefl's resolution was carried by 330 votes
against 291, OB a raajority of 39. The Government dis
solved Parliament, and appealed to the country. The elec
tions took place during the raost critical moraents of the
war between France and Austria. While such news was
arriving as that of the defeat of Magenta, the defeat of
Solferino, the entrance of the French and the King of
Sardinia into Milan, it was not likely that doraestic news
of a purely parliamentary interest could occupy all the
attention of Englishmen. To raany the strength of the
Austrian military system had seemed the great bulwark
of Conservatism in Europe ; and now that was gone,
shrivelled like a straw in fire, shattered like a potsherd.
In such a condition of things the general election passed
over hardly noticed. When it was over, it was found
that the Conservatives had gained indeed, but had not

272 a short history op our own times.
gained nearly enough to enable them to hold office, un
less by the toleration of their rivals. The rivals soon
made up their minds that they had tolerated them long
enough. A meeting of the Liberal party was held at
WiUis's Rooras to arrange on some plan of united action.
Lord Palmerston represented one section of the party.
Lord John Russell another. Mr. Sydney Herbert spoke
for the Peelites. Not a few persons were surprised to
find Mr. Bright among the speakers. It was well known
that he liked Lord Palraerston little ; that it could hardly
be said he liked the Tories any less. But Mr. Bright
was for a Reform Bill, from whomsoever it should come ;
and he thought, perhaps, that the Liberal chiefs had
learned a lesson. The party contrived to agree upon a
principle of action, and a compact was entered into, the
effect of which was soon made clear at- the meeting of
the new Pariiament. A vote of want of confidence was
at once moved by the Marquis of Hartington, eldest son
of the Duke of Devonshire, and even then marked out
by coraraon report as a future leader of the Liberal
party. Lord Hartington had sat but a short time in the
House of Commons, and he did not then, nor for many
years afterwards, show any greater capacity for politics
than is shown by an ordinary county meraber. Nothing
could more effectively illustrate one of the peculiarities
of the English political system than the choice of the
Marquis of Hartington as the figurehead of this im
portant movement against the Tory Government. He
was put up to move the vote of want of confidence as the
heir of the great Whig house of Devonshire ; his appear
ance in the debate would have carried just as" much
significance with it if he had simply moved his resolu
tion without an accompanying word. The debate that
followed was long and bitter. It was enlivened by more
than even the usual araount of personalities. Mr. Dis
raeli and Sir Jaraes Grahara had a sharp passage of arras,
in the course of which .Sir Jaraes Grahara used an expres
sion that has been often quoted since. He described
Mr. Disraeli as " the Red Indian of debate," who, " by
the use of the toraahawk, had cut his way to power, and
by recurrence to the scalping system hopes to prevent

Disraeli's first reform enterprise. 273
the loss of it." The scalping systera, however, did not
succeed this tirae. The division, when it carae on after
three nights of discussion, showed a majority of 13 in
favor of Lord Hartington's raotion.
The Queen invited Lord Granville to form a Ministry.
Lord Granville was still a young man to be Prime
Minister, considering how rauch the habits of Parlia
raentary life had changed since the days of Pitt. He
was not rauch over forty years of age. He had filled
many rainisterial offices, however, and had an experience
in Parliaraent which raay be said to have begun with
his raajority. After sorae nine years spent in the House
of Commons, the death of his father called hira in 1846
to the House of Lords. He made no assumption of
commanding abilities, nor had he any pretence to the
higher class of eloquence or statesmanship. But he was
a thorough man of the world and of Parliament ; he
understood English ways of feeling and of acting ; he
was a clever debater, and had the genial art — very use
ful and very rare in English public hfe — of keeping even
antagonists in good humor. The Queen had naturally
thought, in the first instance, of Lord Palmerston and
Lord John Russell ; but she found it " a very invidious
and unwelcome task " to raake a choice between the two
Statesmen. Her Majesty, therefore, thought a com
proraise might be best got at if both could be united
under the guidance of Lord Granville, the acknowledged
leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords. "The
attempt was not successful. Lord John Russell declined
to serve under Lord Granville, but declared hiraself per
fectly willing to serve under Lord Palraerston. This dec
laration at once put an end to Lord Granville's chances,
and to the whole difficulty which had been anticipated.
Lord Granville was not in the slightest degree irapatient
to becorae Prirae Minister, and indeed probably felt re
lieved frora a very unwelcorae responsibility when he was
allowed to accept office under the premiership of Lord
Palmerston. Lord Palmerston was now Prime Minister
for life. Until his death he held the office with the full
approval of Conservatives as well as Liberals ; nay, in
deed, with much warmer approbation from the raajority
of the Conservatives than frora many of the Liberals.

2 74 A short history of our own times.
Palmerston formed a strong Ministry. Mr. Gladstone
was Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Lord John Russell
had the office of Foreign Secretary : Sir G. C. Lewis was
Horae Secretary ; Mr. Sidney Herbert Minister for War.
The Duke of Newcastle took charge of the Colonies, Mr.
Cardwell accepted the Irish Secretaryship, and Sir
Charles Wood was Secretary for India. Lord Palmer
ston endeavored to propitiate the Manchester Liberals
by offering a seat in the Government to Mr. Cobden and
to Mr. Milner Gibson. Mr. Cobden was at the time on
his way horae frora the United States. In his absence
he had been elected meraber for Rochdale ; and in his
absence, too, the office of President of the Board of
Trade in the new Ministry had been put at his disposal.
His friends eagerly awaited his return, and, when the
steamer bringing him horae was near Liverpool, a number
of them went out to meet him before his landing. They
boarded the steamer, and astonished hira with the news
that the Tories were out, that the Liberals were in, that
he was meraber for Rochdale, and that Lord Palmerston
had offered him a place in the new Ministry. Cobden
took the news which related to himself with his usual
quiet modesty. He explained afterwards that the office
put at his disposal was exactly that which would have
best suited him, and in which he thought that he could
do some .good. He also declared frankly that the salary
attached to the office would be a consideration of much
importance to him. At the moment he was a poor man.
Yet he did not in his own mind hesitate an instant about
Lord Palmerston's offer. He disapproved of Palraer
ston's foreign policy, of his military expenditure, and his
love of interfering in the disputes of the Continent ; and
he felt that he could not conscientiously accept office
under such a leader. He refused the offer decisively,
and the chief promoter of the repeal of the corn laws
never held any place in an English Adrainistration.
Cobden, however, advised his friend, Mr. Milner Gibson,
to avail himself of Lord Palraerston's offer and Mr. Gib
son, who had never stood out before the country in so
conspicuous a po.sition as an opponent of Lord Palmer
ston, acted on the advice.

DISRAELI S FIRST REFORM ENTERPRISE. 275
Lord Palraerston had not made any tender of office
to Mr Bri.ght ; and he wrote to Mr. Bright frankly ex
plaining his reasons. Mr. Bright had been speaking out
too strongly, during his recent reforra campaign, to eiake
his presence in the Cabinet acceptable to some of the
Whig magnates for whom seats had to be found. It is
curious to notice now the conviction, which at that tirae
seenied to be universal, that Mr. Cobden was a rauch
raore raoderate- reformer than Mr. Bright. The im
pression was altogether wrong. There was, in Mr.
Bright's nature, a certain element of Conservatism which
showed itself clearly enough the moment the particular
reforms which he thought necessary were carried ; Mr.
Cobden would have gone on advancing in the direction
of reform as long as he lived. Not much difference, to
be sure, was ever to be noticed between them in public
affairs. But where there was any difference, even of
speculative opinion, Mr. Cobden went further than Mr.
Bright along the path of Radicalism.
The closing days of the year were made raemorable
by the death of Macaulay. He had been raised to the
peerage, and had had some hopes of being able to take
occasional part in the stately debates of the House of
Lords. But his health almost suddenly broke down, and
his voice was never heard in the Upper Chamber. He
died prematurely, having only entered on his sixtieth
year. Macaulay had had, as he often said himself, a
singularly happy life, although It was not without its
severe losses and its griefs. His career was one of un
interrupted success. His books brought hira fame, in
fluence, social position, and wealth, all at once. He
never made a failure. The world only applauded one
•book more than the other, the second speech raore than
the first. Macaulay the essayist, Macaulay the historian,
Macaulay the ballad-write'r, Macaulay the Parliamentary
orator, Macaulay the brilliant, inexhaustible talker — he
was alike, it raight appear, suprerae in everything he
chose to do or to atterapt. Macaulay was undoubtedly a
great literary raan. He was also a raan of singularly
noble character. He appears to have enjoyed advance
ment, success, farae, and raoney only because these en-

276 A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.
abled him to give pleasure and support to the raembers
of his family. He was attached to his faraily, especially
to his sisters, with the tenderest affection. His real
nature seeras only to have thoroughly shone out when in
their society. There he was loving, sportive even to
joyous frolicsoraeness ; a glad schoolboy almost to the
very end. He was remarkably generous and charitable
even to strangers ; his hand was almost always open : but
he gave so unostentatiously that it was not until after his
death .that half his kindly deeds becarae known. He had
a spirit which was absolutely above any of the corrupt
ing temptations of money or rank. He was very poor at
one time, but it did not seem to have occurred to him,
when he was poor, that raoney was lacking to the dignity
of his intellect and his raanhood ; or when he was rich
that money added to it. He had certain defects of
temper and manner rather than of character. He was
apt to be overbearing in tone, and to show himself a
little too confident of his splendid gifts and acquirements :
his marvellous memory, his varied reading, his over
whelming power of argument. He trampled on men's
prejudices too heedlessly, was inclined to treat ignorance
as if it were a crirae, and to raake dulness feel that it
had cause to be asharaed of itself. These defects only
are worth raentioning as they serve to explain some of
the misconceptions which were forraed of Macaulay by
many during his lifetime, and some of the antagonisms
which he unconsciously created. Absolutely without
hterary affectation, undepressed by early poverty, un
spoiled by later and almost unequalled success, he was
an independent, quiet, self-relying man who, in all his
noon of fame, found raost happiness in the companion
ship and the sympathy of those he loved, and who, frora
first to last, was loved raost tenderly by those who knew*
hira best. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in the
first week of the new year, and there truly took his place
among his peers. END OF VOL. I.

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