(1856-1876)***


E-text prepared by Charlie Howard and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive (https://archive.org)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/cu31924028050833


Transcriber’s note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).





BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS

General Editors: S. E. Winbolt, M.A., and Kenneth Bell, M.A.


FROM PALMERSTON TO DISRAELI


      *      *      *      *      *      *

BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS.


_Volumes now Ready. 1s. net each._

  =449–1066. The Welding of the Race.= Edited by the Rev. JOHN
    WALLIS, M.A.

  =1066–1154. The Normans in England.= Edited by A. E. BLAND,
    M.A.                [_In preparation_

  =1154–1216. The Angevins and the Charter.= Edited by S. M. TOYNE,
    M.A.

  =1216–1307. The Struggle for the Charter.= Edited by W. D.
    ROBIESON, M.A.      [_In preparation_

  =1307–1399. War and Misrule.= Edited by A. A. LOCKE.

  =1399–1485. The Last of Feudalism.= Edited by W. GARMON JONES, M.A.

  =1485–1547. The Reformation and the Renaissance.= Edited by F. W.
    BEWSHER, B.A.

  =1547–1603. The Age of Elizabeth.= Edited by ARUNDELL ESDAILE, M.A.

  =1603–1660. Puritanism and Liberty.= Edited by KENNETH BELL, M.A.

  =1660–1714. A Constitution in Making.= Edited by G. B. PERRETT, M.A.

  =1714–1760. Walpole and Chatham.= Edited by K. A. ESDAILE.

  =1760–1801. American Independence and the French Revolution.=
    Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.

  =1801–1815. England and Napoleon.= Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.

  =1815–1837. Peace and Reform.= Edited by A. C. W. EDWARDS, M.A.,
    Christ’s Hospital.

  =1856–1876. Palmerston to Disraeli.= Edited by EWING HARDING, B.A.

  =1876–1887. Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone.= Edited by R. H.
    GRETTON, M.A.

  =1563–1913. Canada.= Edited by JAMES MUNRO, Lecturer at Edinburgh
    University.

  _Other volumes, covering the whole range of English History from
    Roman Britain, are in active preparation, and will be issued at
    short intervals._

LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

      *      *      *      *      *      *



FROM PALMERSTON TO DISRAELI

(1856–1876)

Compiled by

EWING HARDING, B.A. (Lond.)

Senior Master of the Modern School, Southport







[Illustration]

London
G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.
1913




INTRODUCTION


This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with
any ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively
shown that such apparatus is a valuable--nay, an indispensable--adjunct
to the history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by
way of lively illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of
inference-drawing, before the textbook is read, at the beginning of
the lesson. The kind of problems and exercises that may be based on
the documents are legion, and are admirably illustrated in a _History
of England for Schools_, Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377–381.
However, we have no wish to prescribe for the teacher the manner in
which he shall exercise his craft, but simply to provide him and his
pupils with materials hitherto not readily accessible for school
purposes. The very moderate price of the books in this series should
bring them within the reach of every secondary school. Source books
enable the pupil to take a more active part than hitherto in the
history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw material: its use we
leave to teacher and taught.

Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades
of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys
in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What
differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not
so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can
read into or extract from it.

In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the
natural demand for certain “stock” documents of vital importance, we
hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention
that the majority of the extracts should be lively in style--that is,
personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan--and
should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for
inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under
contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates,
and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life
generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.

The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being
numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is
modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties
in reading.

We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us
suggestions for improvement.

            S. E. WINBOLT.
            KENNETH BELL.


NOTE TO THIS VOLUME.

In dealing with a period of comparatively recent date, I have been
dependent in several instances upon the courtesy of the proprietors
of the copyright. I acknowledge with many thanks the kind permission
of Mr. Henry Gladstone to quote the extracts from Lord Morley’s _Life
of Gladstone_ on pp. 75, 78, 83. I also acknowledge with thanks the
kindness of Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for granting permission to
reprint the extracts from the _Life of Professor Huxley_ on p. 87,
and from Ashley’s _Life of Lord Palmerston_ on pp. 33, 50; of Messrs.
Smith, Elder and Co. for the extract from the _Diary of Henry Greville_
on p. 32; of Mr. Edward Arnold for the extract from Leader’s _Life of
Roebuck_ on p. 65; of Messrs. Chapman and Hall for the extracts from
Reid’s _Life of Forster_ on pp. 81, 89. I acknowledge also with thanks
the kind permission of the proprietors of _Punch_ for the extracts
on pp. 37, 103; and of the proprietors of _The Times_, _Illustrated
London News_, and _Brighton Herald_ for the various extracts from those
journals.

I am also indebted to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. for permission to
reprint the extracts on pp. 12, 25 from the _Greville Memoirs_; also to
Mr. John Murray for similar permission to reprint the extracts from the
_Letters of Queen Victoria_ on pp. 17, 30, and the _Life of the Duke of
Argyll_ on p. 41.

            E. H.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
           INTRODUCTION                                                v
    DATE
    1856.  NEUTRALITY OF THE BLACK SEA                                 1
    1856.  AN UP-TO-DATE MAIL STEAMER                                  2
    1857.  RUBINSTEIN IN LONDON                                        3
    1857.  FIRST DISTRIBUTION OF THE VICTORIA CROSS                    4
    1857.  REINFORCEMENTS FOR INDIA                                    5
    1857.  SIEGE AND RELIEF OF LUCKNOW                                 9
    1858.  “CONSPIRACY TO MURDER” BILL                                12
    1858.  FORCING OF THE PEIHO RIVER                                 13
    1858.  ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT                            16
    1858.  AN INADEQUATE NAVY                                         17
    1859.  VOLUNTEER RIFLE CORPS                                      18
    1859.  NAPOLEON III. AND ENGLAND                                  20
    1859.  PROGRESS OF VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT                             22
    1860.  COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE                              25
    1860.  ANTI-RITUAL RIOTS                                          27
    1860.  CHINESE WAR: CAPTURE OF PEKIN                              29
    1860.  THE FIRST BRITISH IRONCLAD                                 29
    1861.  GARIBALDI AND THE GOVERNMENT                               30
    1861.  THE BUDGET: ABOLITION OF THE PAPER DUTY                    31
    1861.  BRITAIN AND ITALIAN UNITY                                  32
    1861.  LOSS OF THE COTTON-SUPPLY                                  33
    1861.  THE CASE OF THE “TRENT”                                    34
    1861.  THE AFFAIR OF THE “TRENT”                                  37
    1862.  THE PEABODY TRUST FORMED                                   38
    1862.  THE “ALABAMA” CRUISER                                      40
    1863.  WAR BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH                                41
    1863.  THE BUDGET: EATING THE LEEK                                42
    1863.  DISTRESS IN THE COTTON MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS             44
    1863.  BRITAIN AND THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA (I.)                  46
    1863.  BRITAIN AND THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA (II.)                 47
    1864.  A POLICY OF MEDDLE AND MUDDLE                              48
    1864.  ENGLAND AND THE ATTACK ON DENMARK                          50
    1865.  THE ATLANTIC CABLE: SCENE IN IRELAND                       52
    1865.  THE FENIAN CONSPIRACY (I.)                                 55
    1865.  THE FENIAN CONSPIRACY (II.)                                57
    1865.  DEATH OF LORD PALMERSTON                                   57
    1866.  THE CAVE OF ADULLAM                                        58
    1866.  SUCCESSFUL LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE                    60
    1866.  REFORM DEMONSTRATION AT MANCHESTER                         61
    1867.  ATTEMPTED FENIAN RAID AT CHESTER                           62
    1867.  REFORM BILL: THREE CORNERED CONSTITUENCIES                 65
    1867.  ABYSSINIAN CAPTIVES                                        67
    1868.  DISRAELI’S “MAUNDY THURSDAY” LETTER                        69
    1868.  ABYSSINIAN WAR: CAPTURE OF MAGDALA                         71
    1868.  DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH                       73
    1869.  IRISH CHURCH BILL: CRITICAL DAYS                           75
    1870.  THE IRISH LAND BILL                                        78
    1870.  EDUCATION BILL: THE COWPER-TEMPLE CLAUSE                   81
    1870.  THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR                   83
    1871.  MR. LOWE’S BUDGET: THE MATCH-TAX (I.)                      84
    1871.  MR. LOWE’S BUDGET: THE MATCH-TAX (II.)                     84
    1871.  PURCHASE IN THE ARMY ABOLISHED BY ROYAL WARRANT            85
    1871.  FIRST AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY                                  86
    1871.  BIBLE READING IN SCHOOLS                                   87
    1872.  THE GENEVA ARBITRATION: THE INDIRECT CLAIMS                89
    1872.  AN EARLY ELECTION UNDER THE BALLOT ACT                     90
    1872.  THE “ALABAMA” ARBITRATION AWARD                            93
    1873.  REFUSAL OF DISRAELI TO TAKE OFFICE WITHOUT A MAJORITY      94
    1873.  FIRST LONDON HOSPITAL SUNDAY                               98
    1874.  THE ASHANTEE WAR: FALL OF COOMASSIE                        99
    1874.  FUNERAL OF DR. LIVINGSTONE                                103
    1874.  DISRAELI ON PARTIES IN THE CHURCH                         104
    1875.  THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION                                     106
    1875.  PURCHASE OF SUEZ CANAL SHARES (AN OPPOSITION VIEW)        110
    1876.  DISRAELI’S AIMS IN POLITICS                               114
    1876.  A SPIRITED SPEECH BY DISRAELI                             114
    1876.  THE EASTERN QUESTION: SOME FIERY SPEECHES                 115




FROM PALMERSTON TO DISRAELI

(1856–1876)




NEUTRALITY OF THE BLACK SEA (1856).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1856, vol. 98; _State Papers_, pp.
310–312.


TREATY OF PARIS.

ARTICLE XI.--The Black Sea is neutralised; its waters and its ports
thrown open to the mercantile marine of every nation, are formally and
in perpetuity interdicted to the flag of war, either of the Powers
possessing its coasts, or of any other Power, with the exceptions
mentioned in Articles XIV. and XIX. of the present Treaty.

ARTICLE XII.--Free from any impediment, the commerce in the ports
and waters of the Black Sea shall be subject only to the regulations
of health, customs, and police, framed in a spirit favourable to the
development of commercial transactions.

In order to afford to the commercial and maritime interests of every
nation the security which is desired, Russia and the Sublime Porte will
admit Consuls into their ports situated upon the coast of the Black
Sea, in conformity with the principles of international law.

ARTICLE XIII.--The Black Sea being neutralised according to the terms
of Article XI., the maintenance or establishment upon its coast of
military-maritime arsenals becomes alike unnecessary and purposeless;
in consequence, His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias and His
Imperial Majesty the Sultan engage not to establish or maintain upon
that coast any military-maritime arsenal.

ARTICLE XIV.--Their Majesties the Emperor of all the Russias and the
Sultan having concluded a convention for the purpose of settling
the force and the number of light vessels necessary for the service
of their coasts which they reserve to themselves to maintain in the
Black Sea, that convention is annexed to the present Treaty, and shall
have the same force and validity as if it had formed an integral part
thereof. It cannot be either annulled or modified without the assent of
the Powers signing the present Treaty.

ARTICLE XIX.--In order to insure the execution of the regulations which
shall have been established by common agreement, in conformity with the
principles declared above, each of the contracting Powers shall have
the right to station, at all times, two light vessels at the mouth of
the Danube.

       *       *       *       *       *

Convention between the Emperor of Russia and the Sultan limiting their
naval force in the Black Sea.

ARTICLE I.--The High Contracting Parties mutually engage not to have in
the Black Sea any other vessels of war than those of which the number,
the force, and the dimensions are hereinafter stipulated.

ARTICLE II.--The High Contracting Parties reserve to themselves each to
maintain in that sea 6 steamships of 50 metres in length at the time of
flotation, of a tonnage of 800 tons at the maximum, and 4 light steam
or sailing vessels of a tonnage which shall not exceed 200 tons each.




AN UP-TO-DATE MAIL STEAMER (1856).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1856, vol. 98; _Chronicle_, p. 1.


A magnificent iron paddle-wheel steamship the _Persia_, built by Napier
and Sons, of Glasgow, for the Cunard Company, has made her trial trip.
This ship will be the largest steamship afloat in the world, until
another shall have been built which shall surpass her. Such have been
the advances made in our ideas of ships, and especially of steamships
of late years, that the giant of to-day is the pigmy of to-morrow;
and the chief use of these records is to show what was a magnificent
ship at the commencement of 1856. The _Persia_ is built of iron; her
dimensions are: Length from figurehead to taffrail, 390 feet; length in
the water, 360 feet; breadth of the hull, 45 feet; breadth over all, 71
feet; depth, 32 feet; burden, 3,600 tons; diameter of paddle-wheels, 40
feet.

By the Government rule of measure, her steam-power would be equal to
900 horses; according to Watt’s mode of reckoning it would be equal to
4,000 horses at least. The ship is of beautiful model, and combined so
as to secure the greatest mechanical strength. Her keel-plates are of
sheet-iron, 11/16 of an inch thick; the bottom plates 15/16; up to the
water-line, 11/16. She is divided into seven water-tight compartments,
besides which she has, in effect, a double bottom. She has two engines
and eight boilers. She will afford separate and roomy accommodation
for 260 passengers, and will carry a crew of 150 men. Besides splendid
saloons and all other requisite apartments for her passengers, she has
a bakery, butcher’s shambles, scullery, cow-house, carpenter’s shop,
doctor’s shop, ice-houses, bath-rooms, and twenty water-closets. The
builders’ calculations as to her speed were not disappointed, for on
her voyage round from Glasgow to Liverpool she made an average of more
than 16 knots, or 19 miles an hour.




RUBINSTEIN IN LONDON: FIRST APPEARANCE AT A PHILHARMONIC CONCERT (1857).

=Source.=--_The Times_, May 19, 1857.


Of Herr Rubinstein, his compositions, and his performances, we would
rather not speak, but just now that there is so much charlatanism
abroad, to the detriment of genuine art, silence is not permitted. We
never listened before to such music--if music it may be called--at
the Philharmonic Concerts, and fervently trust we may never again. So
strange and chaotic a jumble as the Concerto in G defies analysis.
Not a single subject fit to be designated “phrase” or “melody” can
be traced throughout the whole dreary length of the composition;
while, to atone for the absence of every musical attribute, we look
in vain even for what abounds in the pianoforte writings of Liszt
and others of the same school--viz., the materials for displaying
mechanical facility to advantage.... As a player, Herr Rubinstein
(who, when a mere boy, paid London a visit in 1843–4) may lay claim to
the possession of extraordinary manual dexterity. His execution (more
particularly when he has passages in octaves to perform) is prodigious,
and the difficulties he surmounts with apparent ease are manifold and
astonishing. But his mechanism is by no means invariably pure; nor is
his manner of attacking the notes at all favourable to the production
of legitimate tone. A pianist should treat his instrument rather as
a friend than as an enemy, caress rather than bully it; but Herr
Rubinstein seats himself at the piano with a seeming determination to
_punish_ it, and his endeavours to extort the power of an orchestra
from that which is, after all, but an unpretending row of keys,
hammers, and strings, result in an exaggeration of style entirely
antagonistic to real musical expression.




FIRST DISTRIBUTION OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1857).

=Source.=--_The Times_, June 27, 1857.


A new epoch in our military history was yesterday inaugurated in Hyde
Park. The old and much abused campaign medal may now be looked upon as
a reward, but it will cease to be sought after as a distinction for a
new order is instituted--an order for merit and valour, open without
regard to rank or title, to all whose conduct in the field has rendered
them prominent for courage even in the British Army. A path is left
open to the ambition of the humblest soldier--a road is open to honour
which thousands have toiled, and pined, and died in the endeavour to
attain; and private soldiers may now look forward to wearing a real
distinction which kings might be proud to have earned the right to bear.

The display of yesterday in point of numbers was a great metropolitan
gathering--it was a concourse such as only London could send forth....
A very large space--at least half a mile broad by three-quarters of
a mile long--was enclosed on the northern side of the park for the
evolution of the troops. On the side of this, nearest to Grosvenor
Gate, galleries were erected for the accommodation of 7,000 persons.
The station for the Queen was in the centre of the galleries, which
formed a huge deal semicircle, enclosing at least one-third of the
space in which the troops were formed.... It was evident, from the
arrangements made, that it was expected Her Majesty would dismount
and distribute the crosses at the table. The Queen, however, did not
dismount, but with her charger a little in advance of the suite, with
the Prince of Prussia on her right hand, and the Prince Consort on her
left, awarded the crosses from her seat on horseback. The form observed
was simple in the extreme. The order was handed to Her Majesty, and
the name and corps to which each recipient belonged mentioned as he
presented himself. The officers and men passed before the Queen in
single file, advancing close while she affixed to the breast of each
in turn the plain bronze cross, with a red riband for the army, and
a blue one for the navy. So quietly and expeditiously was this done
in every case that the whole ceremony scarcely occupied ten minutes.
There were 61 in all, of whom 12 belonged to the Royal Navy, 2 to the
Marines, 4 to the Cavalry, 5 to the Artillery, 4 to the Engineers,
and the remainder to various regiments of Infantry. Of all, 25 were
commissioned officers, 15 were warrant and non-commissioned officers,
and the others privates and common seamen.




REINFORCEMENTS FOR INDIA (1857).

=Source.=--Sir Theodore Martin’s _Life of the Prince Consort_, 4th
edit., vol. iv., pp. 78–80. (London: Smith, Elder and Co.)


LETTER FROM QUEEN VICTORIA TO LORD PALMERSTON.

          OSBORNE,
            _July 19, 1857_.

The Queen is anxious to impress in the most earnest manner upon her
Government the necessity of our taking a comprehensive view of our
military position at the present momentous crisis, instead of going on
without a plan, living from hand to mouth, and taking small isolated
measures without reference to each other. Contrary to the Queen’s
hopes and expectations, immediately after the late war the army was
cut down to a state even _below_ the Peace Establishment recognised
by the Government and Parliament in their own estimates, to meet the
Parliamentary pressure for economy, and this in spite of the fearful
lesson just taught by the late war, and with two wars on hand--one with
Persia, and the other with China! Out of this miserably reduced Peace
Establishment, already drawn upon for the service in China, we are now
to meet the exigencies of the Indian crisis, and the Government, as it
always has done on such occasions, has up to this time contented itself
with sending out the few regiments left at home, putting off the day
for reorganising its forces. When the regiments ordered out shall have
gone, we shall be left with 18 battalions out of 105, of which the army
is composed, to meet all home duty, to protect our own shores, to act
as the reserves and reliefs for the regiments abroad, and to meet all
possible emergencies! The regiments in India are allowed one company,
raised by the last decision of the Cabinet, to 100 men as their depot
and reserve!

A serious contemplation of such a state of things must strike everybody
with the conviction, that some _comprehensive_ and _immediate_ measure
must be taken by the Government--its _principle_ settled by the
Cabinet, and its details left to the _unfettered_ execution of the
military authorities, instead of which the Cabinet have as yet agreed
only upon recruiting certain battalions up to a certain strength,
to get back some of the men recently discharged and have measured
the extent of their plans by a probable estimate of the amount of
recruits to be obtained in a given time, declaring at the same time
to Parliament that the militia will not be called out, which would
probably have given the force required.

The Commander-in-Chief has laid a plan before the Government which the
Queen thinks upon the whole very moderate, inexpensive, and efficient.
The principle which the Queen thinks ought to be adopted is this: That
the force which has been absorbed by the Indian demand be replaced to
its full extent and in the same kind, not whole battalions by a mere
handful of recruits added to the remaining ones. This will not only
cost the Government nothing because the East India Company will pay the
battalions transferred, and the money voted for them by Parliament will
be applicable to the new ones, but it will give a considerable saving,
as all the officers reduced from the War Establishment and receiving
half-pay will be thus absorbed and no longer be a burden upon the
Exchequer. Keeping these new battalions on a low establishment, which
will naturally be the case at first, the depots and reserves should
be raised in men, the Indian depots keeping at least two companies of
one hundred men each. [The Crimean battalions of eight companies had
eight others in reserve, which, with the aid of the militiamen, could
not keep up the strength of the Service companies. In India there are
_eleven_ to be kept up by _one_ in reserve!]

No possible objection can be urged against this plan except two:

1. That we shall not get the men. This is an hypothesis and not an
argument. Try and you will see. If you do not succeed and the measure
is necessary, you will have to adopt means to make it succeed. If you
conjure up the difficulties yourself, you cannot of course succeed.

2. That the East India Company will demur to keeping permanently
so large an addition to the Queen’s army in India. The Company is
empowered, it is true, to refuse to take any Queen’s troops whom it
has not asked for, and to send back any it may no longer want. But the
Company _has_ asked for the troops now sent at great inconvenience to
the Home Government, and the commonest foresight will show that for
at least three years to come this force cannot possibly be dispensed
with--if at all. Should the time, however, arrive, the Government will
simply have to reduce the additional battalions, and the officers will
return to the half-pay list from which they were taken, the country
having had the advantage of the saving in the meantime. But the Queen
thinks it next to impossible that the European force could again be
decreased in India. After the present fearful experience, the Company
could only send back Queen’s regiments, in order to raise new European
ones of their own. This they cannot do without the Queen’s sanction,
and she must at once make her most solemn protest against such a
measure. It would be dangerous and unconstitutional to allow private
individuals to raise an army of Queen’s subjects larger than her own
in any part of the British dominions. The force would be inferior to
one continually renewed from the Mother Country, and would form no
link in the general military system of England all over the globe of
which the largest force will always be in India. The raising of new
troops for the Company in England would most materially interfere with
the recruiting of the Queen’s army, which meets already with such
great difficulties. The Company could not complain that it was put to
expense by the Home Government in having to keep so many more Queen’s
regiments; for as it cannot be so insane as to wish to reform the old
Bengal army of Sepoys, for every two of these regiments now disbanded
and one of the Queen’s substituted it would save £4,000 (a regiment
of Sepoys costing £27,000, and a Queen’s regiment £50,000). The ten
battalions to be transferred to the Company for twenty Sepoy regiments
disbanded would therefore save £40,000, instead of costing anything;
but in reality the saving to the Company would be greater, because the
half-pay and superannuation of the officers, and therefore the whole
dead weight, would fall upon the Mother Country. The only motive,
therefore, which could actuate the Company would be a palpable love of
power and patronage to which the most sacred interests of the country
ought not to be sacrificed. The present position of the Queen’s army
is a pitiable one. The Queen has just seen, in the camp at Aldershot,
regiments, which, after eighteen years’ foreign service in most trying
climates, had come back to England to be sent out after seven months to
the Crimea. Having passed through this destructive campaign, they have
not been home for a year before they are to go to India for perhaps
twenty years! This is most cruel and unfair to the gallant men who
devote their services to the country, and the Government is in duty and
humanity bound to alleviate their position.

“The Queen wishes Lord Palmerston to communicate this memorandum to the
Cabinet.”




SIEGE AND RELIEF OF LUCKNOW (1857).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 99; _Public Documents_, pp. 455, 456.


DESPATCH FROM BRIGADIER-GENERAL HAVELOCK TO THE CHIEF OF THE STAFF TO
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

        RESIDENCY,
          LUCKNOW,
            _September 30, 1857_.

    SIR,

Major-General Sir James Outram having, with characteristic generosity
of feeling, declared that the command of the force should remain in my
hands, and that he would accompany it as Civil Commissioner only, until
a junction could be effected with the gallant and enduring garrison
of this place, I have to request that you will inform His Excellency
the Commander-in-Chief that this purpose was effected on the evening
of the 25th instant. But before detailing the circumstances, I must
refer to antecedent events. I crossed the Sye on the 22nd instant, the
bridge at Bunnee not having been broken. On the 23rd I found myself in
the presence of the enemy, who had taken a strong position, his left
resting on the enclosure of the Alum Bagh and his centre and right
drawn up behind a chain of hillocks. The head of my column at first
suffered from the fire of his guns as it was compelled to pass along
the trunk road between morasses; but as soon as my regiments could be
deployed along his front and his right enveloped by my left, victory
declared for us, and we captured five guns. Sir James Outram, with his
accustomed gallantry, passed on in advance close down to the canal.
But as the enemy fed his artillery with guns from the city, it was
not possible to maintain this, or a less advanced position for a time
taken up; but it became necessary to throw our right on the Alum Bagh,
and re-form our left, and even then we were incessantly cannonaded
throughout the 24th, and the enemy’s cavalry, 1,500 strong, crept round
through lofty cultivation, and made a sudden irruption upon the baggage
massed in our rear. The soldiers of the 90th forming the baggage-guard
received them with great gallantry, but lost some brave officers and
men, shooting down, however, twenty-five of the troopers, and putting
the whole body to flight. They were finally driven to a distance by two
guns of Captain Olpherts’ battery.

The troops had been marching for three days under a perfect deluge of
rain, irregularly fed, and badly housed in villages. It was thought
necessary to pitch tents and permit them to halt on the 24th. The
assault on the city was deferred until the 25th. That morning our
baggage and tents were deposited in the Alum Bagh under an escort,
and we advanced. The 1st Brigade, under Sir James Outram’s personal
leading, drove the enemy from a succession of gardens and walled
enclosures, supported by the 2nd Brigade, which I accompanied. Both
brigades were established on the canal at the bridge of Char Bagh.

From this point the direct road to the Residency was something less
than two miles; but it was known to have been cut by trenches, and
crossed by palisades at short intervals, the houses also being
loop-holed. Progress in this direction was impossible; so the united
columns pushed on, detouring along the narrow road which skirts the
left bank of the canal. Its advance was not seriously interrupted
until it had come opposite the King’s Palace, or the Kaiser Bagh,
where two guns and a body of mercenary troops were entrenched. From
this entrenchment a fire of grape and musketry was opened under
which nothing could live. The artillery and troops had to pass a
bridge partially under its influence; but were then shrouded by the
buildings adjacent to the Fureed Buksh. Darkness was coming on, and
Sir James Outram at first proposed to halt within the Courts of the
Mehal for the night; but I esteemed it to be of such importance to
let the beleaguered garrison know that succour was at hand, that,
with his ultimate sanction, I directed the main, both of the 78th
Highlanders and regiment of Ferozepore, to advance. This column rushed
on with desperate gallantry, led by Sir James Outram and myself,
and Lieutenants Hudson and Hargood, of my staff, through streets of
flat-roofed, loop-holed houses, from which a perpetual fire was being
kept up, and, overcoming every obstacle, established itself within
the enclosures of the Residency. The joy of the garrison may be more
easily conceived than described; but it was not till the next evening
that the whole of my troops, guns, tumbrils, and sick and wounded,
continually exposed to the attacks of the enemy, could be brought step
by step within this “enceinte” and the adjacent palace of the Fureed
Buksh. To form an adequate idea of the obstacles overcome, reference
must be made to the events that are known to have occurred at Buenos
Ayres and Saragossa. Our advance was through streets of houses which
I have described, and thus each forming a separate fortress. I am
filled with surprise at the success of the operation which demanded the
efforts of 10,000 good troops. The advantage gained has cost us dear.
The killed, wounded, and missing, the latter being wounded soldiers,
who, I much fear--some or all--have fallen into the hands of a
merciless foe, amounted, up to the evening of the 26th, to 535 officers
and men. Brigadier-General Neill, commanding 1st Brigade; Major
Cooper, Brigadier, commanding Artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Bazely,
a volunteer with the force, are killed. Colonel Campbell, commanding
90th Light Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Tytler, my Deputy Assistant
Quartermaster-General; and Lieutenant Havelock, my Deputy Assistant
Adjutant-General, are severely, but not dangerously, wounded. Sir James
Outram received a flesh-wound in the arm in the early part of the
action near Char Bagh, but nothing could subdue his spirit; and, though
faint from loss of blood, he continued to the end of the action to sit
on his horse, which he only dismounted at the gate of the Residency.
As he has now assumed the command, I leave to him the narrative of all
events subsequent to the 26th.

    I have, etc.,
        H. HAVELOCK,
            _Brigadier-General_,
        _Commanding Oude Field Force_.

Total casualties appended:

    119 officers and men killed.
    339 officers and men wounded.
     77 men missing.




CONSPIRACY TO MURDER BILL (1858).

=Source.=--_The Greville Memoirs_, edited by Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L.,
vol. viii., p. 164. (Longmans, Green and Co., 1888.)


_February 14 [1858]._--Last week saw the debates in the House of
Commons about the Conspiracy Bill, and the first act of the India Bill.
The first is very unpopular, but it will be carried nevertheless.
John Russell has taken it up with extraordinary vehemence and anger.
His opposition to it is furious on high constitutional grounds, which
appear to me absurd and uncalled for. If I were in Parliament I should
be puzzled how to vote, for there is much to be said against the Bill,
and much against voting against it, particularly against leave to
bring it in. Almost all the Tories voted with the Government, and John
Russell carried very few with him, and neither of his own nephews.
He is more than ever exasperated against Palmerston for bringing it
in. The apology tended by the Emperor, which was read to the House,
reconciled a great many to the Bill, but I have no notion that it will
do any good, or that the French Government will be satisfied with it.
After such a Bill, which will certainly be carried, the British lion
must put his tail between his legs, and, “Civis Romanus,” give up
swaggering so loftily. If Aberdeen had attempted such a measure when
Louis Philippe was King and Guizot minister, what would Palmerston have
said? and what would not have been the indignant outcry throughout the
country?

[NOTE.--On February 19 the Government were defeated on the Conspiracy
Bill in the House of Commons by a majority of 234 to 215. The majority
consisted of 146 Conservatives and 84 Liberals. Mr. Gladstone, Lord
John Russell, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert voted against
the Bill. Lord Palmerston immediately resigned.]




FORCING OF THE PEIHO RIVER (1858).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1858, vol. 100; _Public Documents_, pp.
248–250.


  EXTRACT FROM A DESPATCH RECEIVED BY THE ADMIRALTY FROM REAR-ADMIRAL
    SIR MICHAEL SEYMOUR, K.C.B., COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ON THE EAST
    INDIAN STATION, DATED MAY 21, 1858:

From the arrival of the ambassadors on the 14th April, the Chinese
have used every exertion to strengthen the forts at the entrance of
the Peiho; earthworks, sandbag batteries, and parapets for the heavy
gingalls have been erected on both sides for a distance of nearly a
mile in length, upon which 87 guns in position were visible, and the
whole shore had been piled to oppose a landing. As the channel is only
about 200 yards wide, and runs within 400 yards of the shore, these
defences presented a formidable appearance. Two strong mud batteries,
mounting respectively 33 and 16 guns, had also been constructed about
1,000 yards up the river, in a position to command our advance. In
the rear several entrenched camps were visible, defended by flanking
bastions, and it was known that large bodies of troops had arrived
from Pekin. All the forts and the camps were covered with the
various- flags under which the “troops of the eight banners,”
as the Tartar soldiers are styled, range themselves.

At 8 a.m. yesterday the notification to the Imperial Commissioner
Tan, and the summons to deliver up the forts within two hours, were
delivered by Captain Hall, my flag-captain, and Capitaine Reynaud,
flag-captain of the French Admiral.

No answer having been returned by 10 o’clock to the summons, the
signal agreed upon was made, and the gunboats advanced in the
prescribed order, led by the _Cormorant_. The Chinese opened fire
immediately, and the signal to engage was made a few minutes afterwards
from the _Slaney_. By the time all the vessels had anchored in their
respective stations, the effects of our well-directed fire had become
very apparent. The first fort was entirely dismantled and abandoned,
and the second partially so, while those on the north side had been
completely subdued by the _Cormorant_ and two French gunboats. At the
short range within which we engaged every shot told, and many of the
massive embrasures of mud were levelled by shells. At the end of an
hour and a quarter the enemy’s fire ceased. Landing parties were then
pushed on shore.

Owing to the destructive fire from the gunboats, but little opposition
was made to our landing, and the Chinese troops were observed moving
off in masses, whilst our people were in the boats. The flags of the
Allied Powers soon replaced those of the Chinese. On the south side
200 large gingalls were found in position near the landing-place on an
embankment. Having obtained possession, the dismantling of the works
was commenced, and field-pieces landed for the protection of the forces
against the possible attacks of the Chinese. Shortly after the landing
our gallant allies sustained a melancholy and heavy loss of men, killed
and wounded, by the accidental explosion of a magazine.

When all the vessels had taken up their positions, a bold attempt was
made to send down upon them a long array of junks, filled with straw in
flames, and drawn across the river; but they fortunately grounded, and
though the people, guiding them down the river with ropes, made great
efforts to get them off, a few shells from the _Bustard_ drove them
away, and the vessels burnt out without doing any damage.

Much skill and labour had been expended in the construction of these
forts. The guns were much better cast than, and not so unwieldy as,
those in the Canton River, and were better equipped in every respect.
They had good canister shot, and the hollow 8-inch shot appeared
imitations from our own. There were several English guns in the
batteries. Directions were now sent to Captain Sir F. Nicholson and
Capitaine Leveque to advance and capture the two forts up the river,
which had kept up a smart fire. This movement was successfully executed
under the supporting fire from the _Bustard_, _Staunch_, and _Opossum_.

Several entrenched camps were also destroyed.

The Chinese stood well to their guns, notwithstanding shot, shell, and
rockets were flying thickly around them. Most of the gunboats were
hulled, some several times, whilst boats, spars, and rigging were cut
by roundshot, grape, and gingall balls. This signal success, after the
Chinese had ample time to fortify their position, and were confident of
their strength, may probably have a greater moral effect on the Chinese
Government than if we had attacked them in the first instance, when
they were less prepared.

The necessary arrangements at the entrance of the river having been
completed, a further advance was made to the village of Takoo, where
we found a barrier of junks filled with combustible matter, moored by
chains right across the river, whilst seven similar obstructions to
our progress were observed within a mile higher up. Captain Hall and
a party of men landed and took possession of eighteen field-pieces
in front of an abandoned encampment at Takoo. Whilst on shore, the
residence of the High Commissioner, Tan, was visited and found
deserted, though a significant proof of his recent presence was found
in a beheaded Chinaman near his gate. It was ascertained here that the
main body of the Chinese troops had retired with Tan to a position
about eight miles up the river. The barrier at Takoo, offering good
security to our vessels below, was made our advanced position for the
night, in charge of Sir F. Nicolson and Capitaine Thoyon.

Arrangements are making for a further advance up the river towards
Tientsin.

            M. SEYMOUR,
    _Rear-Admiral and Commander-in-Chief_.




ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT (1858).

=Source.=--_The Times_, July 27, 1858.


Baron Rothschild presented himself at the bar where he was met by Lord
John Russell and Mr. Abel Smith, who, amid considerable cheering from
the Opposition benches, led him to the table.

The clerk offered to Baron Rothschild a copy of the new oath required
to be taken by members.

BARON ROTHSCHILD: I beg to state, sir, that I have conscientious
objection to take the oath in the form in which it is now tendered to
me.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL (after Baron Rothschild had retired) rose and said:
My object in rising, sir, is to move a resolution in conformity with an
Act recently passed. It is as follows:

“That it appears to this House that Baron Lionel de Rothschild, a
person professing the Jewish religion, being otherwise entitled to sit
and vote in this House, is prevented from so sitting and voting by his
conscientious objection to take the oath which, by an Act passed in the
present session of Parliament, has been substituted for the oaths of
allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, in the form therein required.”

The resolution was agreed to.

LORD J. RUSSELL: I now rise, sir, to move a resolution in pursuance
of the Act which received the assent of Her Majesty in the 23rd
instant; and which is entitled “An Act to Provide for the Relief of Her
Majesty’s Subjects Professing the Jewish Religion.” In order that the
House may be fully in possession of the words of that Act I shall now
read them. By the first clause it is enacted that:

“Where it shall appear to either House of Parliament that a person
professing the Jewish religion, otherwise entitled to sit and vote in
such House, is prevented from so sitting and voting by conscientious
objection to take the oath, ... such House, if it think fit, may
resolve that thenceforth any person professing the Jewish religion, in
taking the said oath to entitle him to sit and vote as aforesaid, may
omit the words, ‘and I make this declaration upon the true faith of a
Christian.’”

LORD J. RUSSELL then moved a resolution embodying the above.

After some debate the House divided--

    For the Resolution    69
    Against               37
                          --
    Majority              32

Baron Rothschild then advanced to the table, conducted as before by
Lord J. Russell and Mr. Smith, and as he walked up the floor of the
House was greeted with loud cheering from the Opposition benches. He
desired to be sworn upon the Old Testament, and his request being
at once complied with by the Speaker, he took the new form of oath,
omitting the words, “and I make this declaration upon the true faith of
a Christian.” The hon. gentleman then signed the roll of Parliament,
and during the course of the subsequent proceedings he exercised the
most important function of a legislator by voting twice upon the
Corrupt Practices’ Prevention Act Continuance Bill.




AN INADEQUATE NAVY (1858).

=Source.=--_Letters of Queen Victoria_, edited by A. C. Benson, M.A.,
and Viscount Esher, vol. iii., pp. 378, 379. (John Murray, 1907.)


QUEEN VICTORIA TO THE EARL OF DERBY.

          OSBORNE,
            _August 2, 1858_.

The Queen feels it her duty to address a few lines to Lord Derby on the
subject of the reports made to Sir John Pakington on the subject of the
French naval preparations, to which she has already verbally adverted
when she saw Lord Derby last. These reports reveal a state of things of
the greatest moment to this country. It will be the first time in her
history that she will find herself in an absolute minority of ships on
the sea! and this inferiority will be much greater in reality than even
apparent, as our fleet will have to defend possessions and commerce
all over the world, and has even in Europe a strategical line to hold,
extending from Malta to Heligoland, whilst France keeps her fleet
together and occupies the centre of that line in Europe.

The Queen thinks it irreconcilable with the duty which the Government
owes to the country to be aware of this state of things without
straining every nerve to remedy it. With regard to men in whom we
are also totally deficient in case of an emergency, a Commission of
Enquiry is sitting to devise a remedy; but with regard to our ships and
dockyards we require action and immediate action. The plan proposed by
the Surveyor to the Navy appears to the Queen excessively moderate and
judicious, and she trusts that the Cabinet will not hesitate to empower
its execution, bearing in mind that £200,000 spent now will probably
do more work during the six or nine months for working before us than
£2,000,000 would if voted in next year’s estimate, letting our arrears
in the dockyards, already admitted to be very great, accumulate in the
interval. Time is most precious under these circumstances!

It is true that this sum of money would be in excess of the estimates
of last Session, but the Queen feels sure that on the faith of the
reports made by the Admiralty the Government would find no difficulty
in convincing Parliament that they have been good stewards of the
public money in taking courageously the responsibility upon themselves
to spend judiciously what is necessary, and that the country will be
deeply grateful for the honesty with which they have served her.

The Queen wishes Lord Derby to communicate this letter to the Cabinet.




VOLUNTEER RIFLE CORPS (1859).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 101; _Public Documents_, pp. 262–264.


LETTER FROM THE WAR OFFICE TO THE LORDS-LIEUTENANT.

        WAR OFFICE,
          PALL MALL,
            _May 12, 1859_.

Her Majesty’s Government having had under consideration the propriety
of permitting the formation of volunteer rifle corps, under the
provisions of the Act of 44 George III., cap. 54, as well as of
artillery corps and companies in maritime towns in which there may be
forts and batteries, I have the honour to inform you that I shall be
prepared to receive through you, and consider any proposal with that
object, which may emanate from the county under your charge.

The principal and most important provisions of the Act are:

That the corps be formed under officers bearing the commission of the
lieutenant of the county.

That its members must take the oath of allegiance before a
deputy-lieutenant or justice of the peace, or a commissioned officer of
the corps.

That it be liable to be called out in case of actual invasion, or
appearance of an enemy in force on the coast, or in case of rebellion
arising out of either of those emergencies.

That while thus under arms its members are subject to military law
and entitled to be billeted and to receive pay in like manner as the
regular army.

That all commissioned officers disabled in actual service are entitled
to half pay, and non-commissioned officers and privates to the benefit
of Chelsea Hospital, and widows of commissioned officers, killed in
service, to such pensions for life as are given to widows of officers
of Her Majesty’s regular forces.

That members cannot quit the corps when on actual service, but may do
at any other time by giving fourteen days’ notice.

That members who have attended eight days in each four months, or a
total of twenty-four days’ drill and exercise in the year, are entitled
to be returned as effectives.

That members so returned are exempt from militia ballot, or from being
called upon to serve in any other levy.

That all property of the corps is legally vested in the commanding
officer, and subscriptions and fines under the rules and regulations
are recoverable by him before a magistrate.

The conditions on which Her Majesty’s Government will recommend to Her
Majesty the acceptance of any proposal are:

That the formation of the corps be recommended by the lord-lieutenant
of the county.

That the corps be subject to the provisions of the Act already quoted.

That its members undertake to provide their own arms and equipments,
and to defray all expenses attending the corps, except in the event of
its being assembled for actual service.

That the rules and regulations which may be thought necessary be
submitted to me, in accordance with the fifty-sixth section of the Act.

The uniform and equipments of the corps may be settled by the members,
subject to your approval, but the arms, though provided at the expense
of the members, must be furnished under the superintendence and
according to the regulations of this department, in order to secure a
perfect uniformity of gauge.

The establishment of officers and non-commissioned officers will be
fixed by me, and recorded in the books of this office, and in order
that I may be enabled to determine the proportion, you will be pleased
to specify the precise number of private men which you will recommend,
and into how many companies you propose to divide them.

I have only to add that I shall look to you, as Her Majesty’s
lieutenant, for the nomination of proper persons to be appointed
officers, subject to the Queen’s approval.

    I have the honour to be, etc.,
        Your most obedient servant,
            J. PEEL.

    TO HER MAJESTY’S LIEUTENANT FOR
        THE COUNTY OF ----.




NAPOLEON III. AND ENGLAND (1859).

=Source.=--Sir Theodore Martin’s _Life of the Prince Consort_, vol.
iv., pp. 471, 472.


LETTER FROM LORD COWLEY (ENGLISH AMBASSADOR AT PARIS) TO LORD J.
RUSSELL.

            _August 7, 1859._

More than once, in the course of the evening, His Majesty [Napoleon
III.] referred to the state of public opinion in England with regard
to himself. He asked whether there was any change for the better,
observing that he could not comprehend the suspicions entertained of
him--that he had done nothing to provoke them, and that they were most
unjust. The idea of his invading England was, he said, so preposterous
that he could laugh at it, were it not evident to him that there were
people in England who seriously believed it.

I replied, that an agent must never shrink from telling the truth,
however disagreeable, and I must admit, therefore, the existence
in some minds of the suspicions to which his Majesty had referred!
nor could I say that I saw much diminution of them as yet. There
were many causes that had given rise to them: His Majesty’s sudden
intimacy with Russia after the Crimean War; his sudden quarrel with
Austria; the equally sudden termination of the war which made people
suppose that he might wish to carry it elsewhere; the name he bore
with its antecedents; the extraordinary rapidity with which the late
armaments had been made; the attention devoted to the Imperial Navy;
its increase; the report of the Naval Commission of 1848, which showed
plainly that the augmentation of the navy was directed against England.
All these matters had made people look about them, and their eyes
had been suddenly opened to the fact that within easy reach of the
British shores were 500,000 men, with a steam fleet as powerful, or
more powerful than any that could be brought against them. This state
of things had created a great deal of alarm; more perhaps than was
necessary. But a great nation could not leave her fate to the chapter
of accidents, and we were in fact merely resuming that place by sea
which we had before the invention of steam. “In fact, Sire,” I said,
“the whole question lies in a very narrow compass. England and France
are the two most powerful nations of the world. Neither can, nor will
submit to the supremacy of the other. France is a military Power.
England, as compared with France, is not. England is a naval Power. So
is France. If the balance of power between them is to be preserved,
England must be the stronger by sea, as France is by land, otherwise
England would be at the mercy of France.”

The Emperor somewhat disputed the justice of these remarks, observing
that his 500,000 men were required to hold his position upon the
Continent, and that I had not taken into account the insular position
of Great Britain, which made her, as it were, a large fortress. But
upon my observing that an insular position was of little value unless
there was a fleet to keep off marauders, His Majesty said he would not
dispute the point any longer; but all he hoped was that our Press would
not pervert facts, and say that the extra armaments of England were
called for by the armaments of France, _for it was not true that France
had armed_.

I did not pursue this delicate matter further, but I said I was
convinced that it was in His Majesty’s power, if he desired it, to
recover the confidence of England. Let him appeal to the common sense
of the English people by facts rather than by words, and he would soon
see common sense get the better of suspicions. The Emperor replied
that he desired no more, and that, if he had spoken on the subject,
it was because he was afraid that the feelings of the British people
would arouse the corresponding sentiments in France, and this was not
desirable.

“I defy anyone to listen to the Emperor,” Lord Cowley adds, “when he
is speaking of the English Alliance, without attaining the conviction
that the preservation of it is that which he has most at heart. I feel
equally certain that he does not dream of a war with England, and that
his _amour propre_ is wounded by our suspicions of his intentions; but,
as I observed to him, no man can tell what unforeseen circumstances may
produce, and that it is not so much with the events of the day, as with
the possible contingencies of the future, that we have to deal.”




PROGRESS OF THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT (1859).

=Source.=--_The Brighton Herald_, November 19, 1859.


The Volunteer movement goes on with increased vigour in all directions.
In our own county, Chichester, the centre of a large agricultural
district, which ought to furnish a large number of first-rate shots,
has at length moved. The Mayor has called a meeting for Tuesday next.
The Brighton Rifle and Artillery Corps commence drill next week. The
Cinque Ports, Hastings, Rye, and Dover, have been in the field some
time as clubs, and are now about to be enrolled as corps under their
Warden.

Our neighbouring and equally exposed county, Kent, has at length grown
ashamed of its apathy, and various corps--among them the Weald of
Kent Corps--are in course of formation. But the North of Britain is
at present ahead of the South. Glasgow numbers its 2,000 volunteers,
and the West of Scotland alone boasts that it could turn out 30,000 to
meet an invader. We hear upon good authority that 20,000 volunteers
are actually under drill within 20 miles of London, but for the heart
of the Empire this number should be quintupled. But Manchester is now
“up.” Captain Denman, an old Parliamentary candidate, has desired that
£400 subscribed for a memorial to him may be applied to the purposes
of a Rifle Corps; other contributions on the same scale have been
made, and Manchester is soon likely to possess its little army of home
defenders. The present state of feeling in France towards England tends
not a little to promote this defensive movement.

That the French Army was ripe two years ago for a dash at England we
know through the Colonels’ addresses; and the French Army is not a bad
index of the feelings of the population with which it mixes so freely,
and of which it forms so large a proportion. But we know--and it has
been known for some time by all who have relations with France--that
this feeling--the belief in the inevitability of an invasion of England
by France, and a perfect confidence in the result--is not confined to
the army. It pervades the mass of Frenchmen; it has taken possession
of the host of officials who overrun France, and who are the great
engine of Government influence; it extends even to Frenchmen living in
England, and who, whilst inimical to Louis Napoleon’s Government, are
not indisposed to accept him as a champion of French grievances against
England. Of the unfounded nature of these it is useless to argue to
Frenchmen. They may go back to the days of Joan of Arc, or they may
date from Waterloo, but at whatever point they commence there is no
doubt that they rankle in the breasts of Frenchmen much more than we
have been in the habit of supposing; that it is easy to irritate these
old wounds, and that process has been going on for some time, side by
side with an assumption of friendship on the part of the Government.
It may not be intended to put the match to this magazine of national
passion, but we, who would be the victims of the explosion, cannot
ignore its existence. We cannot shut our eyes and ears to the daily
accumulating evidence of a growing belief in the minds of all Frenchmen
that the day must come when all old scores of France against England
will be wiped off; that they now possess the ability to execute this
work of retribution, as they regard it, and that the man who, above
all others, is most interested in accomplishing it, and so working
out his destiny, is at the head of the Government with unbounded
power--with enormous resources--and, above all, that this man takes
no pains to check the growing feeling of hostility in the breasts of
his subjects, but contents himself to-day with taking credit with us
for not gratifying it, as, to-morrow, he may take credit with his own
subjects for giving way to it. In such a state of things it is not
to be wondered at that men hitherto the most pacific in this country
are thinking how they can best defend their homes, wives, children,
and property, and that, at no small inconvenience, thousands are
volunteering their service as a home militia. We are glad to see the
movement so well afoot, and hope it may spread until the English soil
is so covered with armed men that a Frenchman would as little dare to
come here on a warlike errand as he would to thrust his ungloved hand
into a hornets’ nest.




THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE (1860).

=Source.=--_The Greville Memoirs_, edited by Henry Reeve, C.B., vol.
viii., pp. 290–292, 293, 294. (Longmans, Green and Co., 1888.)


_January 24._--Clarendon called on me yesterday and told me various
things more or less interesting about passing events, about Cobden and
the Commercial Treaty. Cobden went over to Paris with letters from
Palmerston to Cowley, begging Cowley would give him all the aid he
could in carrying out his object of persuading the leading people there
to adopt Free Trade principles, saying he went without any mission and
as “a free lance.” Cowley did what he could for him, and he went about
his object with great zeal, meanwhile putting himself in correspondence
with Gladstone, who eagerly backed him up, but all this time nothing
was said to the Cabinet on the subject. At length one day Walewski sent
for Cowley, and asked him whether he was to understand that Cobden was
an agent of the British Government, and authorised by it to say all he
was saying in various quarters. Cowley denied all knowledge of Cobden’s
proceedings, but wrote a despatch to John Russell stating what had
occurred, and at the same time a private letter, saying he did not know
whether he would wish such a despatch to be recorded, and therefore to
number it and place it in the Foreign Office, or put it in the fire as
he thought fit. John Russell accepted the despatch, and at the same
time told him he might endorse whatever Cobden did in the matter of
commercial engagements.

Clarendon said that when he was at Paris four years ago for the
Congress, the Emperor one day said to him: “I know you are a great Free
Trader, and I suppose you mean to take this opportunity of advancing
Free Trade principles here as far as you can.” Clarendon said certainly
such was his intention, when the Emperor said he was happy to be able
to take the initiative with him on this subject, and that he would tell
him that it had just been settled in the Council of State that a great
change in their commercial and prohibitive system should be proposed
to the Chambers, which it was his intention to carry out as soon as
possible. But not long after the Emperor renewed the subject, and told
him he found the Opposition so strong to his contemplated measures, and
the difficulties so great, that he had been obliged to abandon them for
the present, and as there is no reason to doubt that the elements of
opposition will be found as strong now as they were then, it is by no
means certain that His Majesty will be able now to do all he wishes and
has announced.

_January 27._--There is apparently a strong feeling of doubt and
quasi-hostility getting up against the Commercial Treaty, and it
looks as if both the English and French Governments would have great
difficulties in the matter. Public opinion here remains suspended till
the Treaty is produced, and till we are informed what the immediate
sacrifices may be that we shall have to make for it, and what are the
prospective advantages we obtain in return. The French Protectionists
are more impatient, and have begun to pour out their complaints and
indignation without waiting to see the obnoxious Convention. Thiers
is said to be furious. So far from any Commercial Treaty like this
cementing the alliance, and rendering war between the two countries
more difficult, it is much more likely to inflame the popular antipathy
in France, to make the alliance itself odious, and render the chances
of war between the two countries more probable. In maturing his scheme
Louis Napoleon has given it all the appearance of a conspiracy, which
is in accordance with his character and his tastes. The whole thing was
carried on with the most profound secrecy, and the secret was confined
to a very few people, viz. the Emperor himself, Fould, Rouher (Minister
of Commerce), Michel Chevalier, and Cobden. All the documents were
copied by Madame Rouher, and Rouher was so afraid that some guesses
might be made if he was known to be consulting books and returns that
were preserved in the Library of the Council of State, that he never
would look at any of them, and made Chevalier borrow all that he had
occasion to refer to. Now the Emperor springs this Treaty upon his
reluctant Chambers and the indignant Protectionist interest. His
manner of doing the thing, which he thinks is the only way by which
it can be done at all, naturally adds to the resentment the measure
excites. They feel themselves in a measure taken in. The objections
here are of a different kind and on other grounds, but Gladstone kept
his design nearly as close as the Emperor did, never having imparted
it to the Cabinet till the last moment before Parliament met. I do not
know how the Cabinet looked at it, only that they were not unanimous.




ANTI-RITUAL RIOTS (1860).

=Source.=--_The Times_, Monday, January 30, 1860.


Yesterday evening there was a frightful riot, resulting in the
destruction of much of the church property in the parish church of St.
George’s-in-the-East. Unhappily, notorious as this parish has become
in consequence of the religious differences which prevail, and serious
as have been the disturbances which have taken place, everything which
has previously occurred sinks into insignificance when compared with
the terrible scene which was witnessed there last night. The morning
service ... was comparatively tranquil, but at the evening service
there was a scene as it would be impossible for any language adequately
to describe. The conduct of the congregation, to use the only phrase at
all applicable to it, was “devilish.”

Evening service commenced at seven o’clock, and at quarter of an hour
before that time the church was densely packed, there being at least
3,000 persons present, of whom 1,000 were boys, who took possession
of the galleries.... There was cat-calling, cock-crowing, yelling,
howling, hissing, shouting of the most violent kind, snatches of
popular songs were sung, loud cries of “Bravo” and “Order” came from
every part of the church, caps, hats and bonnets were thrown from the
galleries into the body of the church and back again, while pew-doors
were slammed, lucifer-matches struck, and attempts were more than once
made to put out the gas....

At seven o’clock a procession of priests and choristers entered the
church and advanced to their accustomed place in front of the altar.
It was headed by the Rev. Bryan King, the Rector, who was followed by
the Rev. C. F. Lowder and ten or twelve choristers, habited in their
white robes. Their appearance in the church caused intense excitement.
People jumped on to their seats, pew-doors were violently slammed, and
loud shouts of execration proceeded from every part of the church.
Mr. Lowder said the first portion of the prayers, Mr. King the last.
Scarcely a word was audible. Hitherto the congregation had contented
themselves with “saying” the responses, in opposition to the choristers
who sang them, but last night they indulged in responses which are
not in the Prayer-Book, and which were nothing short of blasphemous
mockery. At the close of the prayers Mr. Lowder ascended the pulpit,
and was hissed and yelled at by the people with tremendous energy....
After the sermon, Mr. King, Mr. Lowder and the choristers made their
way to the vestry room with great difficulty, being more than once
subjected to personal violence.

At this moment a cry was raised for the demolition of the altar, which
was elaborately decorated, and the threat would have been carried
out had not the altar-gate been gallantly defended by Mr. Stutfield,
one of the choristers. Over the apse, or quasi-altar, is a beautiful
candelabrum, and this at once became an object of attack. Hassocks were
collected from the pews and hurled at it. Many of them struck it, and
every moment it was expected that it would come down. As it was, it was
seriously damaged. Another object of attack was the large cross over
the altar, at which hassocks and cushions were thrown from the gallery.
All this time there was fighting, shouting, and singing in all parts of
the church, with no one in authority to repress it. The scene at this
time was perfectly frightful, and would, in all probability, have ended
in bloodshed, had not Inspector Alison, upon his own authority, entered
the church with a dozen policemen and ordered it to be cleared. Turned
out of the church, the rioters suggested an attack on Mr. King’s house,
and many persons who went there were very roughly handled. In the
course of an hour Inspector Alison had got the whole of the disorderly
mob into the street. A considerable amount of church furniture has
been destroyed, the cushions in the galleries were torn up, and thrown
into the body of the church, Bibles and Prayer-Books flew about in all
directions, and many of the altar decorations were injured.




CHINESE WAR: CAPTURE OF PEKIN (1860).

=Source.=--_The Times_, December, 1860.


REUTER’S TELEGRAMS.

          PEKIN,
            _October 13_.

Pekin surrendered to the Allies this day, yielding to all demands.
Thirteen soldiers have also been released.

The Emperor and the Tartar army have fled, and none of the enemy are to
be seen at Pekin.

The Emperor’s Summer Palace was taken and looted on the 6th of October.
The quantity of spoil was enormous.

The Pekin gates have been given up to the troops, who are all healthy
and encamped on the wall.

The Allied Army will winter in the North.

Lord Elgin and Baron Gros are at Pekin.

Indemnity ready when demanded.




THE FIRST BRITISH IRONCLAD FRIGATE (1860).

=Source.=--_The Times_, December 29, 1860.


From the yard of the Thames Iron Shipbuilding Company will this day
be launched the first armour-plated steam frigate in the possession
of Britain. The dimensions of the _Warrior_ are, extreme length over
all, 420 feet; ditto breadth, 58 feet; depth from spar deck to keel,
41 feet 6 inches. Her tonnage is no less than 6,177 tons builders’
measurement. The engines have just been completed by Messrs. Penn and
Sons. They are of 1,250 nominal horse-power, and are probably the
most magnificent specimens of machinery that ever left even Mr. Penn’s
celebrated works. Their total weight with boilers will be 950 tons,
and for these the _Warrior_ is only able to stow 950 tons of coal, or
little more than enough for six days’ steaming. The armament, reckoning
her as a 50-gun frigate, will weigh from 1,200 to 1,500 tons, or about
the weight of the hull of the _Great Eastern_ when launched. With the
fine lines, great length, and immense horse-power of the _Warrior_, a
speed of not less than 14 knots is counted upon as certain. One row of
the armour-plates with which the greater part of the broadside will
hereafter be covered is already in its place, covering a space of 5
feet deep by 213 feet long on either side. Only the lowest row has been
thus bolted, and more than this it would be unwise to place, as the
immense weight might strain the ship during the launch. The others will
be bolted in her piece by piece while in the Victoria Dock.


=Source.=--_The Times_, Monday, December 31, 1860.

This formidable ironclad frigate (the _Warrior_), the largest
man-of-war ever built, was safely launched into the river on Saturday.




GARIBALDI AND THE GOVERNMENT (1861).

=Source.=--_Letters of Queen Victoria_, edited by A. C. Benson, M.A.,
and Viscount Esher, vol. iii., p. 550. (John Murray, 1907.)


QUEEN VICTORIA TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

            _February 10, 1861._

The Queen has received Lord John Russell’s letter enclosing the
draft of one to General Garibaldi, which she now returns. She had
much doubt about its being altogether safe for the Government to
get into correspondence, however unofficial, with the General, and
thinks that it would be better for Lord John _not_ to write to him.
Lord Palmerston, who was here this afternoon on other business, has
undertaken to explain the reasons in detail to Lord John--in which he
fully concurs.




THE BUDGET: ABOLITION OF THE PAPER DUTY (1861).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, April 20, 1861.


MR. GLADSTONE’S SPEECH ON THE BUDGET.

The estimate of revenue for the year he took as follows: In the customs
the duty on chicory would be doubled, bringing in £15,000; and the
estimate of the customs was £23,585,000; excise, £19,463,000; stamps,
£8,460,000. It was proposed to reduce the hawker’s licence duty for the
year from £4 to £2; and to allow half-yearly licences. There was to be
a change in the licensing of wine and refreshment houses, which would
produce about £20,000. There was to be an alteration in the mode of
licensing for the selling of spirits: that is, the wholesale dealers,
by paying a duty of £3 3s. would be allowed to sell spirits retail,
which would bring in about £5,000. Stamps on agreements for furnished
houses for a part of the year would be only five shillings instead
of _ad valorem_, as now; and house agents would have to take out a
£2 licence. Stamps on foreign bills of exchange would be levied in a
different manner. The revenue from taxes would be £3,050,000; income
tax, £11,200,000, Post Office £3,500,000, Crown Lands £295,000, and
miscellaneous £1,400,000; and the indemnity from China received in the
financial year £750,000, making a total revenue of £71,823,000, being a
surplus of £1,923,000, over an estimated expenditure of £69,900,000.

The Government had come to the conclusion that it would not be
justified in keeping so large a balance in hand and it was proposed to
apply it to the diminution of taxation. There were four articles which
would at once present themselves to notice--viz., the tea and sugar
duties, the tenth penny of the income tax, and the paper duty. It was
proposed to remit the penny on the income tax which was imposed last
year. This remission would cause a loss in the present financial year
of £850,000. The rate would be 9d. in the pound on incomes above £150 a
year, and 6d. in the pound on those above £100.

It was next proposed to repeal the duty on paper on October 1, making
a loss of revenue in the year of about £665,000. The surplus for the
year would be £408,000....

Referring to what were called the minor charges on commercial
operations, he stated that the charges were about £320,000, and the
Exchequer could not surrender that sum.

As to the portions of the reduced income tax and the duty on paper, the
loss of which would fall on the year 1862–3, to the extent of about
£800,000, that would probably be provided for by the sum payable for
indemnity from China, and reductions in military estimates. It was only
proposed to re-enact the income tax and tea and sugar duties for one
year.




BRITAIN AND ITALIAN UNITY (1861).

=Source.=--_Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville_, Third Series, pp.
369, 370. (Smith, Elder and Co., 15, Waterloo Place.)


_Saturday, April 20, 1861._--There was an interesting debate last
night in the House of Lords, brought on by Lord Ellenborough, on the
Roman question, in which Clarendon and Lord Derby also took part. He
asked whether our Government was engaged in any correspondence with
the object of reconciling the spiritual independence of the See of
Rome with the exercise of temporal sovereignty by the King of Italy
within the Roman territory. He thought Rome was the fitting capital
of a united Italy, and that the occupation by the French of that city
precluded that unity.

He then discussed the Venetian question, and though he admitted the
right of Austria to maintain herself in Italy, by virtue of the
Congress of Vienna, he considered the time was come when she should
reconcile herself with the Italian people. Holding these views,
however, he deprecated the interference of the Italians in Hungary.
Lord Wodehouse replied that we were not in any correspondence on the
Roman question, and that H.M.’s Government considered it was neither
becoming nor desirable for a Protestant country to take the initiative
in the matter. The whole question depended upon the withdrawal of
the French troops from Rome, and H.M.’s Government had not disguised
their opinion that it was desirable those troops should be withdrawn.
Clarendon thought Rome the proper capital, and believed the Emperor
Napoleon to be sincerely desirous of withdrawing his troops whenever
it would be safe for him to do so, both as regarded the Pope and his
own position in France, where popular opinion was in favour of their
remaining. Derby said much the same thing, but expressed his opinion
that it would have been far better to establish a Northern and Southern
Kingdom of Italy, in which case Rome would have lain between the two
countries and the solution of the difficulty would have been easy.
As, however, there was only one kingdom, the desire to have Rome for
their capital was quite natural; but it was a desire that created the
greatest embarrassment.




LOSS OF THE COTTON SUPPLY (1861).

=Source.=--Ashley’s _Life of Viscount Palmerston_, vol. ii., pp. 210,
211. (Richard Bentley and Son, 1874.)


LETTER FROM LORD PALMERSTON TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE.

            _June 7, 1861._

    MY DEAR MILNER GIBSON.

It is wise when the weather is fine to put one’s house in wind and
watertight condition against the time when foul weather may come on.
The reports from our manufacturing districts are at present good; the
mills are all working, and the people are in full employment. But we
must expect a change towards the end of next autumn, and during the
winter and the spring of next year. The civil war in America must
infallibly diminish to a great degree our supply of cotton, unless,
indeed, England and France should, as suggested by M. Mercier, the
French Minister at Washington, compel the Northern States to let
the cotton come to Europe from the South; but this would almost be
tantamount to a war with the North, although not perhaps a very
formidable thing for England and France combined. But even then this
year’s crop must be less plentiful than that of last year. Well, then,
has the Board of Trade, or has any other department of the Government,
any means of procuring or of helping to procure anywhere in the wide
world a subsidiary supply of cotton? As to our manufacturers themselves
they will do nothing unless directed and pushed on. They are some of
the most helpless and shortsighted of men. They are like the people
who held out their dishes and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings.
They think it is enough to open their mill-gates, and that cotton will
come of its own accord. They say they have for years been looking to
India as a source of supply; but their looks seem to have only the
first effect of the eyes of the rattlesnake, viz., to paralyse the
objects looked at, and as yet it has shown no signs of falling into
their jaws. The western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of Africa,
India, Australia, the Fiji Islands, Syria, and Egypt, all grow great
quantities of cotton, not to mention China, and probably Japan. If
active measures were taken in time to draw from these places such
quantities of cotton as might be procured, some portion at least of
the probable falling off of this next year might be made good, and our
demand this year would make a better supply spring up for future years.
I do not know whether you can do anything in this matter; but it is an
important one, and deserves early attention.

        Yours sincerely,
            PALMERSTON.




THE CASE OF THE “TRENT” (1861).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 103; _Public Documents_, pp. 288,
289.


LETTER FROM COMMANDER WILLIAMS TO CAPTAIN PATEY.

        “TRENT,”
          AT SEA,
            _November 9, 1861_.

    SIR,

There devolves on me the painful duty of reporting to you a wanton act
of aggression on this ship by the United States war screw-steamer _San
Jacinto_, carrying a broadside of seven guns, and a shell pivot-gun of
heavy calibre on the forecastle, which took place on the 8th instant,
in the Bahama Channel, abreast of the Paredon lighthouse. The _Trent_
left Havana at 8 a.m. on the 7th instant, with Her Majesty’s mails for
England, having on board a large freight of specie, as well as numerous
passengers, amongst whom were Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the former
accredited with a special mission from the Confederate States to the
Government of Great Britain, and the latter to the French Government,
with their respective secretaries, Messrs. McFarland and Eustis.

Shortly after noon, on the 8th, a steamer, having the appearance of a
man-of-war, but not showing colours, was observed ahead, hove to; we
immediately hoisted our ensign at the peak, but it was not responded to
until, on nearing her, at 1.15 p.m., she fired a round shot from her
pivot-gun across our bows, and showed American colours. Our engines
were immediately slowed, and we were still approaching her, when she
discharged a shell from her pivot-gun immediately across our bows,
exploding half a cable’s length ahead of us. We then stopped, when an
officer with an armed guard of marines boarded us and demanded a list
of passengers, which demand being refused, the officer said that he had
orders to arrest Messrs. Mason, Slidell, McFarland, and Eustis, and
that he had sure information of their being passengers in the _Trent_.
Declining to satisfy him whether such persons were on board or not,
Mr. Slidell stepped forward, and announced that the four persons he
had named were then standing before him, under British protection, and
that if they were taken on board the _San Jacinto_, they must be taken
_vi et armis_; the commander of the _Trent_ and myself at the same time
protesting against this illegal act, this act of piracy, carried out by
brute force, as we had no means of resisting the aggression, the _San
Jacinto_ being at the time on our port beam, about 200 yards off, her
ship’s company at quarters, ports open, and tompions out. Sufficient
time being given for such necessaries as they might require being sent
to them, these gentlemen were forcibly taken out of the ship, and then
a further demand was made that the commander of the _Trent_ should go
on board the _San Jacinto_, but as he expressed his determination not
to go, unless forcibly compelled likewise, this latter demand was not
carried into execution.

At 3.40 we parted company, and proceeded on our way to St. Thomas, on
our arrival at which place I shall deliver to the Consul duplicates of
this letter to Lord Lyons, Sir Alexander Milne, Commodore Dunlop, and
the Consul-General at Havana.

        I have, etc.,
    (Signed) RICHARD WILLIAMS,
            _Commander, R.N._

Memorandum made by Commander Williams at the Admiralty on November 27,
1861, relative to the forcible seizure of Messrs. Slidell and Mason and
their secretaries from on board the _Trent_.

On Mr. Slidell’s announcing that the four persons inquired for were
then standing before Lieutenant Fairfax under British protection, and
that if taken on board the _San Jacinto_ they must be taken _vi et
armis_, I addressed that officer in the following terms: “In this ship
I am the Representative of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, and, in
the name of that Government I protest against this illegal act--this
violation of international law--this act of piracy, which you would
not dare to attempt on a ship capable of resisting such aggression.”
It was then that Lieutenant Fairfax waved his hand towards the _San
Jacinto_, and additional force was sent. The marines were drawn up
at the entry-port--bayonets fixed; and on Miss Slidell’s uttering an
hysterical scream on being separated from her father--that is, on
his breaking the window of his cabin, and thrusting his body through
to escape from the distressing scene of forcible separation from his
family, they rushed into the passage at the charge. There were upwards
of sixty armed men in all, and the aforesaid gentlemen were then taken
out of the ship, an armed guard on either side of each seizing them
by the collar of the coat. Every inducement was held out, so far as
importunate persuasion would go, to prevail on Mrs. Slidell and Mrs.
Eustis to accompany their husbands, but as they did not wish their
wives to be subjected to imprisonment (Lieutenant Fairfax having
replied to Mrs. Slidell’s inquiry as to their disposal, if they did
accompany them, that they would be sent to Washington), they remained
on board the _Trent_, and came on to England in _La Plata_.

The ships getting somewhat farther apart than when the affair
commenced, a boat came from the _San Jacinto_ to request us to approach
nearer; to which I replied that they had the same power as ourselves,
and if they wished to be nearer to us they had their own remedy.




THE AFFAIR OF THE “TRENT” (1861).

=Source.=--_Punch_, December 14, 1861. (Reprinted by special permission
of the proprietors of _Punch_.)


WAITING FOR AN ANSWER.

      1.

      Britannia waits an answer, sad and stern,
        Her weapons ready, but unsheathed they lie;
      In her deep eye, suppressed, the lightnings burn,
        Still the war-signal waits her word to fly.

      2.

      Wrong has been done that flag whose stainless folds
        Have carried freedom wheresoe’er they flew:
      She knows sharp words fit slaves and shrewish scolds,
        She but bids those who can, that wrong undo.

      3.

      She has been patient; will be patient still.
        Who more than she knows war, its curse and woe?
      Harsh words, scant courtesy, loud-mouthed ill-will,
        She meets as rocks meet ocean’s fretful flow.

      4.

      All war she knows drags horrors in its train,
        Whate’er the foes, the cause for which they stand;
      But worst of all the war that leaves the stain,
        Of brother’s blood upon a brother’s hand.

      5.

      The war that brings two mighty powers in shock--
        Powers ’tween whom fair commerce shared her crown
      By kinship knit, and interest’s golden lock,
        One blood, one speech, one past, of old renown.

      6.

      All this she feels, and therefore, sad of cheer,
        She waits an answer from across the sea:
      Yet hath her sadness no alloy of fear,
        No thought to count the cost what it may be.

      7.

      Dishonour has no equipoise in gold,
        No equipoise in blood, in loss, in pain;
      Till they whom force has ta’en from ’neath the fold
        Of her proud flag, stand ’neath its fold again.

      8.

      She waits in arms; and in her cause is safe.
        Not fearing war, yet hoping peace the end.
      Nor heeding those her mood who’d check or chafe:
        The Right she seeks, the Right God will defend.




THE PEABODY TRUST FORMED (1862).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 104; _Chronicle_, p. 41.

This great merchant (Mr. George Peabody), mindful of his reception in
this city of his long sojourn, has made to its citizens the splendid
gift of £150,000, with the one only condition, the exclusion from
its management of all sectarianism in regard to religion, and of all
exclusion in regard to politics. The following is the letter which
conveyed this noble gift:

        LONDON,
            _March 12, 1862_.

    GENTLEMEN,

In reference to the intention which it is the object of this letter
to communicate, I am desirous to explain that, from a comparatively
early period of my commercial life, I had resolved in my own mind that,
should my labours be blessed with success, I would devote a portion
of the property thus acquired to promote the intellectual, moral,
and physical welfare and comfort of my fellow-men, wherever, from
circumstances or location, their claims upon me would be the strongest.

... It is now twenty-five years since I commenced my residence and
business in London as a stranger, but I did not long feel myself a
“stranger” or in a “strange land,” for in all my commercial and social
intercourse with my British friends during that long period, I have
constantly received courtesy, kindness, and confidence.... My object
being to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of this great
metropolis, and to promote their comfort and happiness, I take pleasure
in apprising you that I have determined to transfer to you the sum of
£150,000 which now stands available for this purpose on the books of
Messrs. George Peabody and Co.

... I have few instructions to give or conditions to impose, but there
are some fundamental principles from which it is my solemn injunction
that those entrusted with its application shall never, under any
circumstances, depart.

First and foremost among them is the limitation of its uses absolutely
and exclusively to such purposes as may be calculated directly to
ameliorate the condition and augment the comforts of the poor, who,
either by birth or established residence, form a recognised portion of
the population of London.

Secondly, it is my intention that now and for all time there shall be
a rigid exclusion from the management of this fund of any influences
calculated to impart to it a character either sectarian as regards
religion, or exclusive in relation to local or party politics.

Thirdly, in conformity with the foregoing conditions it is my wish
and intention that the sole qualifications for a participation in the
benefits of this fund shall be an ascertained and continued condition
of life such as brings the individual within the description (in
the ordinary sense of the word) of “the poor” of London, combined
with moral character and good conduct as a member of society. It
must therefore be held to be a violation of my intentions if any
duly-qualified and deserving claimant were to be excluded either on the
ground of religious belief or of political bias.




THE “ALABAMA” CRUISER (1862).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, November 15, 1862.


The Confederate screw-steamer _Alabama_, Captain Semmes, is the
notorious vessel whose doings on the Newfoundland banks have
frightened northern merchants out of their propriety, and occasioned a
remonstrance from the New York Chamber of Commerce addressed to British
merchants.

The _Alabama_, formerly the 290, was built in Mr. Laird’s yard
at Birkenhead. She is a wooden vessel of 1,200 tons burden,
copper-bottomed, 210 feet long, rather narrow, painted black outside,
carries three long 32-pounders on a side, has a 100-pounder rifled
pivot-gun forward of the bridge, and a 68-pounder on the main-deck.
These are of the Blakely pattern, made by Wesley and Preston of
Liverpool. She is barque-rigged, and is represented to go thirteen
knots under sail and fifteen under steam. She sailed from the Mersey
in August. Her officers are Americans, but her present crew are
Englishmen. Captain Semmes was the dashing commander of the Confederate
steamer _Sumter_. The _Alabama_ is, we believe, the only vessel which
the Confederate States now have on the high seas....

The ship _Tonowanda_, which recently arrived at Liverpool from
Philadelphia, reports that she was captured by the _Alabama_ (290) on
the 9th of October at 4 p.m., in lat. 41, long. 55.

Captain Julius was taken on board, and found there Captain Harmon and
crew of the late barque _Wave Crest_ from New York for Cardiff, and
Captain Johnson and crew of the late brig _Dunkirk_ from New York to
Lisbon, all prisoners and in irons on deck, their vessels having been
burnt two days previous. The next day the prisoners were transferred
to the _Tonowanda_, and Captain Julius alone remained on board the
_Alabama_ as hostage. On the 11th of October they captured and burnt
the ship _Manchester_ from New York for Liverpool. Her captain and crew
were also put on board the _Tonowanda_. No more prizes were taken till
the evening of the 13th, and, there being every appearance of thick
weather, Captain Julius was put on board the _Tonowanda_ and allowed to
proceed after having given a ransom bond. All the captains, officers
and crews are “paroled” prisoners of war.




THE WAR BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH (1863).

=Source.=--_The Duke of Argyll’s Autobiography and Memoirs_, vol. ii.,
pp. 196, 197. (John Murray, 1906.)


SPEECH BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL AT A BANQUET TO LORD PALMERSTON IN
EDINBURGH, APRIL 1ST, 1863.

As my noble friend at the head of the Government told the meeting
he addressed last night at Glasgow, we may all have our individual
opinions as to the merits of the contest in America.

I, for one, have never concealed my own. As a Government and a people,
we must be what we have already been--absolutely neutral. We must
take no part whatever in that contest; only, let me remind you, the
peace and good will we are all desirous should be maintained between
these two great countries does not depend only--nay, does not depend
principally--upon the conduct of the Government. My noble friend [Lord
Palmerston] has spoken of the miseries of civil war, as well he may;
but no word has ever fallen from his lips which implies that anyone was
entitled to cast censure on the American Government for the contest in
which they are engaged.

Who are we that we should speak of civil war as in no circumstance
possible or permissible? Do we not remember that our own liberties
have been secured through every form and variety of civil war? How
much blood has been shed in the streets of this ancient capital of
Edinburgh! How many gory heads have been nailed up in its streets!
How many victims of civil war crowd our churchyards in every portion
of the country! How many lie upon our mountains with nothing to mark
them but the heath or the cairn! What do we say of these men? Do we
consider their course to have been an evil one? Do we not rather turn
back to those pages of history with the loving chisel of Old Mortality,
to refresh in our minds the recollection of their immortal names?
Yes, gentlemen, if it be true--and it is true--that the blood of the
martyrs has been the seed of the Church, it is equally true that the
blood of the patriots has been the foundation of the liberties of our
country. Let us extend, then, to our brethren in America the liberal
interpretation which we seek to be given to our own former annals. I,
for one, have not learned to be ashamed of that ancient combination of
the Bible and the sword. Let it be enough for us to pray and hope that
the contest whenever it may be brought to an end, shall bring with it
that great blessing to the white race which shall consist in the final
freedom of the black.




THE BUDGET: EATING THE LEEK (1863).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, May 9, 1863.


SKETCHES IN PARLIAMENT.

When a tremendous House expressed in various ways its approbation of
the Budget a fortnight ago, few, if any, persons imagined that an
equally great House would assemble to behold Mr. Gladstone go through
the humiliating operation of eating a financial leek. Everybody knows
the story of the tax on charities, which created such a monster
opposition that a Chancellor of the Exchequer could not get into his
own room to meet a deputation, because it was so blocked up with Royal
Dukes, Archbishops, Peers, M.P.’s, and vested interests personified
in every shape. Most people knew on Monday last that this part of the
Budget had been “mobbed” out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s
hands; and no one could have been surprised at the deadly pallor of
his cheek, the sternness of his brow, his ghastly attempts at smiles,
and his palpable efforts to appear cool and unconcerned. When Lord
Palmerston came in he sat himself next to Mr. Gladstone and entered
into earnest but apparently airy conversation with him; and one could
not help fancying that in his humorous way the Prime Minister was
asking whether Mr. Gladstone really objected to the flavour of leeks,
and assuring him that when he became as accustomed to them as he, the
Premier was, from eating them two or three times a week this Session,
their pungency and disagreeable flavour would be found more fanciful
than real.... At length the eventful moment came, and Mr. Gladstone,
with the light of battle in his eye, as Mr. Kinglake would say,
rose, and with unnatural calmness proceeded to deliver, all things
considered, one of the greatest speeches that were ever uttered in
Parliament. Conceive a Chancellor of the Exchequer honestly impressed
with the belief that he had lighted on an accumulation of abuse ... and
erroneously, as we think, supposing that he was striking at the abuse
by taxing it, stopped short by an impassable barrier of public opinion,
and having to come down to the House to give up the most darling part
of his financial scheme, and oh, worst of all, with it just half of
that surplus which he had announced his determination to defend against
all comers. He did not part with it, however, without such a crushing
denunciation of the abuse as will prove to be its knell; and as for
ingenuity in illustration and power of language in holding up to scorn
and derision the subject-matter of that denunciation, none but himself
could have been his parallel. As to giving up his scheme, he did
nothing of the kind; he hurled it at his opponents with the fierceness
and scathing force of a thunderbolt....

... Later on in the debate Mr. Gladstone, in a low voice, and with a
resigned expression of countenance, announced the withdrawal of his
proposition. Mr. Disraeli, who has long ceased to contend on financial
matters with Mr. Gladstone, and who had been, as usual, quiescent
and nearly motionless all the evening, merely paying Sir Stafford
Northcote the high compliment of turning slightly towards him when he
was speaking, instantly rose with the leap of a tiger, and every one
expected a burst of the old philippic style which made him what he is.
But nothing of the sort came.

The first sentence was well enough, but the rest was all the first
sentence over again, and diluted and weakened by repetition; and
perhaps the only real consolation Mr. Gladstone received that night was
from the poverty of that attempt at giving a kick when he was down.




DISTRESS IN THE COTTON MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863; _English History_, pp. 140, 141.


The maximum pressure of the distress occasioned by the stoppage,
partial or total, of the cotton mills of Lancashire and Cheshire had
been attained a short time prior to Christmas, 1862. In the month of
December the number of persons receiving regular relief was supposed
to be little short of 500,000. The weekly loss of wages at the same
time was estimated at about £168,000. In the last two or three weeks
of the year a partial improvement took place, and in January, 1863,
according to the statement officially made to the Manchester Relief
Committee, the number of persons receiving aid from the rates and from
the contributions of the public together was 456,786. From this time a
progressive decrease took place, the numbers relieved during the five
months following being as follows:

    In February   440,529
     ” March      426,411
     ” April      364,419
     ” May        294,281
     ” June       256,230

It thus appears that the number of persons dependent on parochial
rates and on voluntary contributions became reduced at the end of the
first half of 1863, as compared with the maximum amount in December,
1862, by almost one-half. This favourable result was due partly to the
resumption of work in some of the factories, owing to an increased
supply of the raw material, and partly to the absorption which had
taken place to some extent of the surplus hands in other employments,
and to the removal and emigration of some part of the population. This
decrease in the number of unemployed operatives continued with little
variation during the summer. In July the number relieved had fallen
to 214,155; in August to 205,261; and in September to 184,625. The
list of persons relieved at that time exhibited a steady decrease of
1,500 per week. In that month it was computed that out of the 530,000
operatives of all ages whose industry depended upon cotton, there
were 362,000 in employ, of whom nearly 250,000 were at full work, and
120,251 working short time, while 171,535 were entirely out of employ.
It was apprehended that, as winter approached, a reaction would take
place, and that the relief lists would again begin to show a serious
augmentation. But this expectation was only to a small extent realised.
The number relieved in the month of October was 168,170. In November
it increased in a trifling degree, being 170,859; and in December it
showed an addition of about 10,000, the total being 180,900. Still,
upon a comparison of the number of persons in receipt of relief in
the first and last months of the year respectively, the improvement
was very marked, the last week of December, as compared with January,
showing the very large decrease of 275,877. The average percentage of
pauperism on the population of twenty-seven unions in the last week
of December, 1863, was 6·8; whereas in the corresponding week of 1862
it had been 13·2. It was further shown by a report of the Special
Commissioners of the Poor Law Board on the 4th of January, 1864,
that at that date, as compared with the last week in March, 1863, a
reduction had taken place of 33,963 in the actual number of operatives
in the cotton districts, the surplus having been transferred to other
fields of employment--viz., 18,244 having emigrated to the Colonies or
to the United States, and 15,725 having found other occupations within
the districts.




BRITAIN AND THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863, pp. 128, 129.


MR. ROEBUCK’S SPEECH ON MOTION IN FAVOUR OF RECOGNISING THE SOUTHERN
STATES AS A GOVERNMENT.

_June._--Mr. Roebuck repudiated with scorn the argument that the cause
of the North was the cause of the slave. We are met by the assertion:
“Oh, England cannot acknowledge a State in which slavery exists.”
Indeed, I ask, is that really the case, and is any man so weak as to
believe it? Have we not acknowledged Brazil? Are we not in constant
communication with Russia? And is there not slavery in both those
countries? Moreover, does anybody believe that the black slave would be
at all improved in his condition by being placed in the same position
as the free black in the North? I ask whether the North, hating
slavery, if you will, does not hate the slave still more? (“No, no!”) I
pity the ignorance of the gentleman who says “No.” The blacks are not
permitted to take an equal station in the North. They are not permitted
to enter the same carriage, to pray to God in the same part of the
church, or to sit down at the same table as the whites. They are like
the hunted dog whom everybody may kick. But in the South the feeling
is very different. There black children and white children are brought
up together. In the South there is not that hatred, that contempt, of
the black man which exists in the North. There is a kindly feeling in
the minds of the Southern planters towards those whom England fixed
there in a position of servitude. England forced slavery upon the
Southern States of America. It was not their doing. They prayed and
entreated England not to establish slavery in their dominions, but
we did it because it suited our interests, and the gentlemen who now
talk philanthropy talked the other way. Every man who has studied
the question will distinctly understand the difference between the
feeling of the Northern gentleman and that of the Southern planter
towards the black. There is a sort of horror--a sort of shivering in
the Northerner when he comes across a black. He feels as if he were
contaminated by the very fact of a black man being on an equality with
him. That is not the case in the South. I am not now speaking in favour
of slavery. Slavery is to me as distasteful as it is to anyone; but I
have learnt to bear with other men’s infirmities, and I do not think
every man a rogue or a fool who differs from me in opinion. But though
I hate slavery I cannot help seeing the great distinction between the
condition of the black in the North and his condition in the South. I
believe that if to-morrow you could make all the blacks in the South
like the free <DW64>s in the North, you would do them a great injury.
The cry of the North in favour of the black is a hypocritical cry, and
to-morrow the North would join with the South, and fasten slavery on
the necks of the blacks, if the South would only re-enter the Union.
But the South will never come into the Union, and, what is more, I hope
it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America, while she was one,
ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. In eighty years,
not America, but Europe, made the Republic such a Power that, if she
had continued as she was a few years ago, she would have been the great
bully of the world. Why, sir, she--

                   “... bestrode the narrow world,
      Like a Colossus; and we petty men
      Walked under her huge legs, and peeped about
      To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”

As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent
the reconstruction of the Union, and I hope that the balance of power
on the American Continent will in future prevent any one State from
tyrannising over the world as the Republic did.

[For opposing view see next extract.]




OPPOSITION TO MR. ROEBUCK’S MOTION (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863; _English History_, pp. 130, 131.


Mr. Bright animadverted severely upon the speech of Mr. Roebuck....

Mr. Roebuck, he said, would help to break up a friendly nation, and
create an everlasting breach between the two nations, because he deemed
it for the interest of England. The whole case rested upon either a
miserable jealousy or a base fear. He looked upon the interest of
England from a different point of view. He believed the war was more
likely than anything else to abolish slavery. The supply of cotton
under slavery must always be insecure. It was the interest of England
that the supply of cotton should be by free labour rather than by
that of slaves. As to the political aspect of the question, the more
he considered this war, the more improbable he thought it that the
United States would be broken into separate Republics. The conclusion
to which he had come was that if there should be a separation, the
interests, the sympathies and the necessities, perhaps the ambition,
of the whole Continent were such that it would be reunited under a
Central Government. And this Government might be in the hands of the
South. Having dwelt at considerable length upon the hideous features
of Southern slavery, and eulogised the Northern institutions, it was
against such a Government, he observed, in such a contest with such
a foe, that Mr. Roebuck asked the House to throw into the scale the
weight of the hostility of England.




A POLICY OF MEDDLE AND MUDDLE (1864).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 106; _English History_, p. 7.


ATTACK ON EARL RUSSELL’S FOREIGN POLICY BY LORD DERBY (FEBRUARY 4).

He then called the attention of the House to the portion of the
Queen’s speech relating to foreign affairs. Her Majesty’s Government
had for two or three years past mainly rested their claim to public
confidence on their foreign policy. They had abandoned the question
of Parliamentary Reform the moment it had served the purpose of
putting them in office. The fulfilment of the promises they had made
was defeated by Lord Russell, and when he was transferred to the more
serene atmosphere of the House of Lords, he pronounced the funeral
oration of Reform. He had told them ... “to rest and be thankful,”
and from that time their foreign policy had been the groundwork of
the claim of Her Majesty’s Government to public confidence. I think,
proceeded Lord Derby, that at the commencement the foreign policy
of the noble Earl opposite might be summed up in the affirmation of
the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other
countries, the extension of Liberal principles by the exercise of our
moral interference, and, above all, the maintenance of uninterrupted
and cordial relations with the Emperor of the French. We were told more
than once that the present Government was the only one to maintain
a good understanding with the Emperor of the French, or, at least,
that its predecessor could not possibly have done so, and that, if
the country desired to preserve cordial relations between itself and
France, Her Majesty’s present advisers, and especially the noble Earl
opposite, were the only persons qualified to secure that most desirable
object.

Now, my lords, as to non-intervention in the internal affairs of other
countries, when I look around me I fail to see what country there is,
in the internal affairs of which the noble Earl has not interfered.

“_Nihil intactum reliquit, nihil tetigit quod_”--I cannot say, “_non
ornavit_,” but “_non conturbavit_.” The foreign policy of the noble
Earl, as far as the principle of non-intervention is concerned, may be
summed up in two homely but expressive words--“meddle” and “muddle.”
During the whole course of his diplomatic correspondence, wherever
he has interfered--and he has interfered everywhere--he has been
lecturing, scolding, blustering, and retreating. Seriously--for though
there may be something ludicrous about it, the matter is of too great
importance to be treated only in a light and jocular manner--I cannot
but feel as an Englishman that I am lowered and humiliated in my own
estimation, and in that of other nations, by the result of the noble
Earl’s administration of foreign affairs. Thanks to the noble Earl
and the present Government, we have at this moment not one single
friend in Europe, and, more than that, this country, the chief fault
of which was that it went too direct and straightforward at what it
aimed, which never gave a promise without the intention of performing,
which never threatened without a full determination of striking, which
never made a demand without being prepared to enforce it, this country
is now in such a position, that its menaces are disregarded, its
magniloquent language is ridiculed, and its remonstrances are treated
with contemptuous indifference by the small as well as by the great
Powers of the Continent. With regard to the policy of keeping up a good
understanding with France, there is hardly a single question in which
Her Majesty’s Ministers have not thwarted the policy of the Emperor.
From the Mexican expedition it had withdrawn, and it had not supported
the Emperor’s policy in relation to the Confederate States of America.
It had also declined the Emperor’s proposition of a Congress.




ATTITUDE OF ENGLAND TOWARDS THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN ATTACK ON DENMARK
(1864).

=Source.=--_Ashley’s Life of Viscount Palmerston_, vol. ii., pp.
249–251. (Richard Bentley and Son.)


LETTER FROM LORD PALMERSTON TO LORD J. RUSSELL.

        94, PICCADILLY,
            _May 1, 1864_.

    MY DEAR RUSSELL,

I felt so little satisfied with the decision of the Cabinet on
Saturday, that I determined to make a notch off my own bat, and
accordingly I wrote this morning to Apponyi, asking him to come here
and give me half an hour’s conversation. He came accordingly. I said I
wished to have some friendly and unreserved conversation with him, not
as between an English Minister, and the Austrian Ambassador, but as
between Palmerston and Apponyi, that what I was going to say related to
serious matters; but I begged that nothing I might say should be looked
upon as a threat, but only as a frank explanation between friends on
matters which might lead to disagreements, and with regard to which,
unless timely explanation were given as to possible consequences
of certain things, a reproach might afterwards be made that timely
explanation might have averted disagreeable results. I said that we
have from the beginning taken a deep interest in favour of Denmark--not
from family ties, which have little influence on English policy, and
sometimes act unfavourably--but, first, that we have thought from the
beginning that Denmark has been harshly and unjustly treated; and,
secondly, we deem the integrity and independence of the State, which
commands the entrance to the Baltic, objects of interest to England.
That we abstained from taking the field in defence of Denmark for many
reasons--from the season of the year; from the smallness of our army,
and the great risk of failure in a struggle with all Germany by land.
That with regard to operations by sea, the positions would be reversed:
we are strong, Germany is weak; and the German ports in the Baltic,
North Sea, and Adriatic would be greatly at our command. Speaking for
myself personally, and for nobody else, I must frankly tell him that,
if an Austrian squadron were to pass along our coasts and ports, and
go into the Baltic to help in any way the German operations against
Denmark, I should look upon it as an affront and insult to England.
That I could not, and would not stand such a thing; and that, unless
in such case a superior British squadron were to follow, with such
orders for acting as the case might require, I would not continue
to hold my present position; and such a case would probably lead to
collision--that is, war; and in my opinion Germany, and especially
Austria, would be the sufferer in such a war. I should deeply regret
such a result, because it is the wish of England to be well with
Austria; but I am confident that I should be borne out by public
opinion. I again begged that he would not consider this communication
as a threat, but simply as a friendly reminder of consequences which
might follow a possible course of action.

Apponyi having listened with great attention to what I said, replied
that the considerations which I had pointed out were not new to his
mind; that they had been forcibly dwelt upon, among other persons, by
the King of the Belgians. That he was quite aware that, if the Austrian
ships entered the Baltic, an English squadron would follow them; that
in all probability one of two things would happen--either that the
Austrian squadron would be destroyed, or that it would be compelled by
orders from the English Admiral, to leave the Baltic. Thus they would
run the risk of a catastrophe or a humiliation, and they did not wish
for either. That, therefore, whatever may have been said by Rechberg in
his note, we might be sure that the Austrian squadron will not enter
the Baltic. This is satisfactory as far as Apponyi may be considered
the organ of the Austrian Government; but I think we ought to have
something more positive in writing than we have got.

I shall state to the Cabinet to-morrow the substance of my conversation
with Apponyi.

        Yours sincerely,
            PALMERSTON.




LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: SCENE IN IRELAND (1865).

=Source.=--_The Brighton Herald_, July 29, 1865.


The _Great Eastern_ left Valentia on Sunday afternoon on her voyage
across the Atlantic.

On the Saturday the operation of laying the shore-end of the cable
was successfully performed, though not without considerable risk. Not
only had the cable to be landed, but quite a mile in excess was to
be hauled on the shore from the _Caroline_, a tender of the _Great
Eastern_, to pass up the cliff and across a couple of fields which led
to the Telegraph House, and gave communication through the land lines
to London. But no sooner was the first end of the cable seen near
the shore than a wild “Hooroo” arose from those on land who saw it
coming. With a contagion, characteristic of the people, the enthusiasm
passed rapidly downwards from those on the cliffs to the groups on
the winding path, and thence, like a current of electricity, into the
cable-boats themselves, the crews of which joined in the shouting, and
seeing the end so near the land, and concluding their work well done,
at once proceeded to heave the massive rope into the sea. From boat to
boat the first bad example was followed by all until, to the dismay of
the cablemen, who could not gain a hearing amid the continued cheers,
every fathom up to the stern of the _Caroline_ was thrown overboard.

The result of this touching enthusiasm was that every foot had to be
underrun preparatory to the whole operation beginning _de novo_. It
took some time to effect this, during which, it is but fair to say,
the Irish were silent and dispirited enough, and in reply to the
admonitions of the Knight of Kerry, promised to refrain from cheering
till at least all was done--a promise which they kept faithfully. When
the cable had been underrun, hauled into the boats again, and the
shore end really began to come on land and was stowed away in gigantic
circles at the foot of the cliff, the scene was one of real animation.
Numbers of men were in the water up to their waists or shoulders,
easing the cable over the rocks, while along the steep path up the
cliffs was a close row of figures, men and boys, of every rank, from
the well-to-do farmer down to the poorest cottier, all pulling at the
cable with a will, and as if in atonement for their first fault of
enthusiasm, obeying with silent and almost childlike docility every
signal made by Mr. Glass or Mr. Canning as to when they were to haul or
to slack away. Above them and dangerously near the edges of the heights
was a fringe of eager lookers-on, while the <DW72>s beyond were dotted
with bright groups of the county gentry who had ridden or driven in
to see the “landing.” By 12 o’clock the cable was well up the groove,
which had been cut in the face of the cliff for its reception, and from
this point the work of carrying the massive coils across the meadows
to the Receiving House beyond was soon accomplished, and at a little
before one o’clock, the end taken over roads, hedges, and ditches was
safely housed in the _sanctum sanctorum_--the testing-room. Here
the batteries were at once applied and showed both conductivity and
insulation to the last fathom in the hold of the _Caroline_ absolutely
perfect.

On Sunday the delicate task of splicing the end of the deep sea cable
on board the _Great Eastern_ to the shore end, laid the day before by
the _Caroline_, was performed on board the latter vessel. The joint
was then immersed in cold water for testing, and the signals proving
perfect, the last protection of hemp and outside wire was added and the
joint sunk again into the sea that its perfectness as to conductivity
and insulation might be ascertained from the extreme end of the whole
length of the cable on board the _Great Eastern_. It was past four
o’clock when the last of these tests was concluded. By that time the
_Great Eastern_, which had always kept moving her paddles at intervals,
had forged ahead of the _Caroline_ some two or three miles, paying out
the cable slowly as she went on, and leaving the latter vessel the
only float by which one portion of the wire was kept above water. The
instant, however, the flags went down, the last fastenings which held
it to the _Caroline_ were cast adrift, and with a great splash the
final joint of the Atlantic Telegraph and the first thirty miles or
so of its length went slowly down into the blue water and were out of
sight.

The _Great Eastern_ fired two guns from her bows at 5.30 to mark the
commencement of her journey, and Sir Robert Peel, mounting to the
little quarter-deck of the _Hawk_, marked time, while three small
but earnest cheers were given by the select company on board to the
success of the great enterprise. In return came back a swelling hearty
roar from all on the cable ship, as with the last salute of waving
hats and caps and handkerchiefs, the tender dropped astern leaving
the _Great Eastern_ dipping slowly but steadily ahead at the rate of
about six knots an hour. As long as signs could be made, or hats waved,
the vessel was anxiously watched; but she soon hid herself in her own
smoke, and when the _Hawk_ neared the Irish coast a mere brown cloud in
the horizon was all that showed where the greatest ship in the world
was steaming away to endeavour to accomplish the realisation of an idea
even more important than that which she herself embodies. May she be
successful! Several telegrams of a satisfactory character have been
received. We give the latest.

    “_Thursday morning._

    The _Great Eastern_ telegraphs that 300 miles were paid out at
    5.30 a.m. to-day, and that 300 miles were run at 9.50 a.m.

    All is going well.

    The signals are perfect.”




THE FENIAN CONSPIRACY (1865).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1865; _English History_, pp. 172–174.


The new conspiracy, commonly known by the name of “Fenian,” was only
another development of that deep-seated disaffection and alienation
from England which had been in past times the source of so many crimes
and outrages, so many secret societies and smouldering insurrections,
which had made coercive laws and a standing garrison the indispensable
instruments of government in Ireland. The conspiracy which was this
year brought to light, but was happily checked before it arrived at any
outbreak, was larger in extent, more daring in its objects and, in some
respects, more formidable in nature than any similar movement of late
years. Of the name by which it was distinguished, various explanations
have been given, but the most probable is that it was derived from
Fionn, a celebrated chieftain who lived before the conversion of
Ireland to Christianity, and who is the same as the hero of Macpherson,
Fingal. By the modern Irish this individual is styled Finn Mac Cool.
The Fenians were the men or people of Finn. They formed in the period
above mentioned a sort of standing militia or warlike caste, whose
office it was to protect the country from aggression, and support
the power of the kings, in return for which service they received a
certain allotment of land and other privileges. The leaders of the
present movement, no doubt, saw an advantage in connecting their party
with the historical and traditionary glories of Ireland. But whatever
may have been the origin of the name, the thing itself was simply a
scheme of rebellion against the English Government, organised in the
United States, having its centre of rule and administration there,
and intended to combine the numerous Irish settlers in that country,
men for the most part bitterly hostile to English rule, with the
disaffected in various parts in Ireland, in a great effort to throw off
by force the yoke of the British Crown, and to take the whole power and
property of the island into their own hands....

The Fenian Society had its chiefs, its officers, both civil and
military, its common funds and financial agencies, its secret oaths,
passwords, and emblems, its laws and penalties, its stores of concealed
arms and weapons, its nightly drills and trainings of men, its
correspondents and agents in various quarters, its accredited journals,
and even its popular songs and ballads, all designed to extend its
influence and to gain adherents from various quarters, not excepting
the soldiers in the British army, and the warders in the gaols.... By
their vain parade, their boastful language, and the unseemly squabbles
among their rival factions, the Fenian leaders in America exposed
their association to no little ridicule and contempt.... There was one
feature in this form of disaffection which distinguished it in a marked
manner from preceding combinations. Most of the plots and fraternities
which have for some time back menaced the peace of Ireland have had
more or less of a theological character. They have been animated by a
fierce hostility to the Protestant Church and its partisans, while they
have professed submission and respect to the Roman Catholic faith and
priesthood. But the Fenian movement made no such profession. It did
not seek any countenance from the spiritual authorities of the popular
creed, nor any aid from religious zeal and fanaticism. On the contrary
its members openly proclaimed their enmity to the Romish hierarchy and
priesthood, including them as well as all holders of political power,
and all owners of property, of whatever creed in their denunciations,
as the enemies of the nation, who were to be swept away and destroyed.




THE FENIAN CONSPIRACY: GENERAL PLEDGE OF THE FENIAN BROTHERHOOD (1865).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1865; _English History_, p. 183.


“I, ... solemnly pledge my sacred word of honour, as a truthful and
honest man, that I will labour with earnest zeal for the liberation of
Ireland from the yoke of England, and for the establishment of a free
and independent Government on the Irish soil; that I will implicitly
obey the commands of my superior officers in the Fenian Brotherhood;
that I will faithfully discharge my duties of membership as laid down
in the constitution and by-laws thereof; that I will do my utmost to
promote feelings of love, harmony, and kindly forbearance among all
Irishmen; and that I will foster, defend, and propagate the aforesaid
Fenian Brotherhood, to the utmost of my power.”




DEATH OF LORD PALMERSTON (1865).

=Source.=--_The Times_, October 19, 1865, p. 8.


One of the most popular statesmen, one of the kindliest gentlemen, and
one of the truest Englishmen that ever filled the office of Premier is
to-day lost to the country. The news of Lord Palmerston’s death will
be received in every home throughout these islands, from the palace to
the cottage, with a feeling like that of personal bereavement. There is
not a province in our vast colonial empire, and there are few civilised
nations in the world, which will hear without an emotion of regret that
Lord Palmerston no longer guides the policy of England. Never again
will that familiar voice be heard in the councils of Europe, or in the
British Senate, of which he almost seemed a part, never again will that
native gaiety of spirits enliven the social circle in which he loved to
move. The death of no other subject could have left such a void in the
hearts of his countrymen, for no other has been identified so long or
so closely with our national life....

His name will not be remembered in connection with the triumph of a
grand cause, nor was his life devoted to the development of a single
idea, and yet he was a great man unless that title be confined by an
arbitrary limitation to a prescribed class of moral and intellectual
virtues.... In familiarity with the labyrinthine complications of
modern European diplomacy he excelled all living politicians, both at
home and abroad. In the art of distinguishing the prevailing current
of public opinion, in readiness of tact, in versatility of mind and
humour, in the masterly ease with which he handled the reins of
Government, and in the general felicity of his political temperament,
he had no rival in his own generation. To these gifts, however, he
added an unwearied application to duty, which would itself have earned
him a high position in the State.

The secret and source of his great popularity was his boundless
sympathy with all classes of his countrymen. He was a truly
large-hearted man, and moved among men and women of every rank as one
of themselves.




THE CAVE OF ADULLAM: SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT ON THE FIRST READING OF THE
REFORM BILL OF 1866.

=Source.=--_The Times_, March 14, 1866.


Why, Sir, the right hon. gentleman below me (Mr. Horsman) who said a
little against the Government, and a little against this Bill, last
night made an attack upon so humble an individual as I am. He is
the first member of this new party who expressed by his actions his
great grief. He retired into what may be called his political Cave of
Adullam, to which he invited everyone who was in distress, and everyone
who was discontented. He has long been anxious to found a party in this
House, and there is scarcely a member at this end of the House who is
able to address us with effect, or to take much part in our debates
whom he has not tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At last
he has succeeded in hooking the right hon. gentleman, the member for
Calne (Mr. Lowe). I know it was the opinion many years ago of a member
of the Cabinet that two men could make a party; and a party formed of
two men so amiable, so genial as both of those right hon. gentlemen,
we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly
harmonious and distinguished by a mutual and an unbroken trust. But
there is one great difficulty in the way. It is very much like the case
of the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you could not
tell which was head and which was tail. Sir, the right hon. gentleman,
the member for Calne, told us that he had had some peculiar election
experiences....

Now, the constituency which the right hon. gentleman represents
nominally consists of 174 members, seven of whom are working men, but
his real constituency is a member of the other House of Parliament who
could have sent here his butler or his groom. Sir, I think that in one
sense, looking on the right hon. gentleman as an intellectual gladiator
in this House, we are much indebted to the Marquis of Lansdowne that he
did not do that. I have said that I wanted to explain the particulars
of this Bill, and to appeal to the good sense and the patriotism of the
gentlemen opposite not lightly to reject it. I ask them not to take the
disparaging description of their countrymen which has been offered to
the House by the member for Calne, and the hon. member for Salisbury,
who, I presume, from their association at the Antipodes, seem to take
only a Botany Bay view of this subject, and of the character of the
great bulk of their fellow-countrymen. Why, the right hon. gentleman
said on one night, when I was not here, that I, even in the matter
of the cattle plague, set class against class. I ask any man in this
House: Is it possible to do a thing that is more perilous than that
which is done by the right hon. gentleman and his Australian colleague,
the member for Salisbury, viz., to make it appear that there is a gulf
which shall not be passed by legislation, between the highest, the most
powerful and the most numerous portion of the middle class, and the
great body of the working people who are really the very heart of this
great country? Now, is it not inconceivably better to show trust in
the people, for of all the follies, all the crimes which individuals
commit, that of constant distrust of their fellow-subjects, of all the
citizens of their country, is about the wildest and the most foolish.




SUCCESSFUL LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE (1866).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1866; _Chronicle_, pp. 102, 103.


_July 27._--This evening at about 5 o’clock English time, the cable was
completed between Europe and America. Conversations had been carried on
throughout the day, until word was sent to Valentia to cease signalling
as they were about to make the splice with the shore end at Trinity
Bay. This was effected soon after dusk. One of the earliest messages
transmitted by the cable was the following:

    FROM THE QUEEN, OSBORNE, TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
    WASHINGTON.

    “The Queen congratulates the President on the successful
    completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as an
    additional bond of union between the United States and England.”

The President replied as follows:

    FROM ANDREW JOHNSON, THE EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, TO HER
    MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
    IRELAND.

            _July 30, 11.30 a.m._

    “The President of the United States acknowledges with profound
    gratification the receipt of Her Majesty’s despatch, and
    cordially reciprocates the hope that the cable that now unites
    the eastern and western hemispheres may serve to strengthen and
    perpetuate peace and amity between the Government of England and
    the Republic of the United States.”

President Johnson’s reply to the Queen occupied only one hour and nine
minutes in its transit from Newfoundland to Osborne.

    THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WAS SENT BY THE EARL OF CARNARVON TO
    VISCOUNT MONK, OTTAWA, CANADA.

    “I am commanded by the Queen to convey to the Governor-General
    of her North-American Provinces Her Majesty’s congratulations on
    the completion of the Atlantic telegraph and the strengthening
    thereby of the unity of the British Empire.

    Her Majesty includes her ancient colony of Newfoundland in these
    congratulations to all her faithful subjects.”

            CARNARVON.

    _July 28, 1866._




GREAT REFORM DEMONSTRATION AT MANCHESTER (1866).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1866; _Chronicle_, p. 137.


This afternoon a meeting, supposed to be larger than any hitherto
assembled in England, was held at Manchester. During the morning
many local divisions marched into the town from the various populous
districts around, carrying flags inscribed with the words “Nation
Reform Union,” and proceeded to the square called Campfield, a
centre surrounded by ten acres, in which six platforms were erected.
Notwithstanding the torrents of rain which continued throughout the
day, the numbers assembled were estimated by the reporters both of the
local and of the London Press at between 100,000 and 200,000 persons.
At each of the above sections three resolutions were carried, namely:

1. That this meeting protests against the perpetuation of class
government to the exclusion of the great majority of the people from
the franchise; refuses to allow itself to be made an instrument to
further the means of contending parties or the selfish interests
of any class; and pledges itself to adopt all means of organising
and agitating for the only just basis of representation--registered
residential manhood suffrage and the ballot.

2. That this meeting rejoices in the formation of the northern
department of the Reform League, and pledges its support to the
executive council in the organisation of branches throughout the North
of England, and hereby declares its confidence in Mr. Edmund Beales,
and the executive of the Reform League in London.

3. That this meeting tenders its warmest and most grateful thanks to
Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, John Bright, Esq., John Stuart Mill, Esq.,
and all friends of Reform, who, throughout the late discussions in
Parliament, vindicated the character and protected the rights of the
people; and further, expresses confidence in the honesty and ability of
Mr. John Bright to champion the people’s cause in Parliament during the
coming Parliamentary struggle.

At the evening meeting in the Free Trade Hall, the following resolution
was carried by acclamation:

“That this meeting, while recording its indignation at the insults
offered in Parliament and by the Press to the working classes and their
advocates, calls on the people of this country to allow themselves no
longer to be trifled with by an oligarchic few, and to rally round
those men who have upheld their cause.”




ATTEMPTED FENIAN RAID AT CHESTER (1867).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated Times_, February 16, 1867.


Much alarm has been caused this week by an apprehended raid of Fenians
upon the ancient city. The following summary is obtained from Mr.
Fenwick, the chief constable of Chester.

The Fenians have recently organised in New York a band of fifty, whose
special mission it is to proceed to England and Ireland and endeavour
to resuscitate the dying brotherhood. These men are understood to have
arrived in England. Fifteen of them are stationed in the metropolis,
and there form a Directory. Eight of them are ex-officers of the
American army.... A meeting was called for Sunday at Liverpool, and it
was then resolved to attack Chester Castle the following day, seize the
arms deposited there, cut the telegraph wires, tear up the rails, and
make good their escape by rail to Holyhead, and trust to fortune to
get across to Ireland. It was also understood that they would attack
the banks and jewellers’ shops. It was also given out freely at the
meeting why Chester Castle was selected. Up to midnight on Sunday
Chester was not protected by more than half a dozen soldiers on guard
at the Castle, and twice as many unarmed policemen in the city. Under
their protection were no less than 9,000 stand of arms, 4,000 swords,
and 900,000 rounds of ammunition, in addition to powder in bulk. There
were also stored in another part of the Castle 900 stand of arms
belonging to the militia; and in a small building in the city were 200
stand of arms belonging to the volunteers. It was stated that the whole
force stationed at the Castle was one company of the 54th Regiment, and
that they were disaffected. The first intimation received in Chester of
the intended raid was at 12.30 a.m. by Mr. Fenwick from Superintendent
Ryde of Liverpool, and was to the effect that an ex-officer of the
American army, who produced his commission as an officer in the Fenian
service, had revealed the whole plot to them. Prompt measures were
taken and the commandant telegraphed to Manchester for reinforcements.
Mr. Fenwick next went to the station and gave instructions for the
trains to be watched as they arrived. At 2.30 a batch of thirty fellows
arrived from Liverpool, and were evidently under the command of an
officer. They marched up and down the platform by twos and threes, and
at length took possession of the first-class refreshment room. They
were soon followed by further detachments of from thirty to sixty from
Liverpool, and some from Manchester, all of similar appearance. These
dispersed quietly into the town. Early in the morning the volunteers
were called out. They were sworn in as special constables. By the
assistance of the police at Liverpool and Manchester, the Chester
police were kept apprised of the different departures of suspected
bodies of men. At three o’clock it was ascertained that over five
hundred of these men had arrived, and that a number of their officers
had been in Chester over night. Early in the afternoon the strangers
became much bolder and assembled in threatening bodies. Fortunately
at this time a company of the 54th Regiment arrived from Manchester,
and the police are strongly inclined to think that this fact saved the
Castle from an attack early in the evening. Affairs went very quietly
up to four o’clock, when a train from Manchester and Stalybridge
brought a reinforcement of four hundred in one batch. Later on forty
men arrived from Halifax and seventy from Leeds. Shortly after five it
was ascertained that the Fenians numbered from 1,400 to 1,500. A number
of men who were supposed to be their leaders collected at a house where
the police had been informed they would meet for orders.

Spies and scouts had been sent out among the Fenians early in the day,
but found them extremely reticent, and could get no clue from them. At
6 p.m. these scouts brought information that the men were forming in
column on the Liverpool and other principal roads.

Captain Smith, the county chief constable, had drafted a body of the
county constabulary into the Castle to assist the military. A copy
of the following anonymous letter sent to the chief of the Liverpool
police was received by Major Fenwick in the evening, and coincided
singularly with the information already in his possession:

    DEAR SIR,

    You could do your country much service, as at present there are
    600 men in Chester, to be increased by night to 700, to take
    the arms and ammunition of the garrison; and as the garrison is
    disaffected, it is supposed they will do it with little loss.
    They are to leave Birkenhead by every train from the first in the
    morning. All to be there by seven at the latest. They leave in
    numbers of from thirty to sixty in every train.

At night the Mayor convened a public meeting, which was most earnest;
and over 500 citizens were sworn in as special constables, and paraded
the town in large bodies throughout the night. It was deemed desirable
to call out the yeomanry, and for that purpose the permission of Earl
Grosvenor and Lord de Tabley was telegraphed for. Earl Grosvenor
replied that he would come down by the night mail, and accordingly
he and Lord Richard Grosvenor arrived in Chester at 12.48 on Tuesday
morning and remained with the magistrates through the night.

Before leaving London, Earl Grosvenor communicated with the
Commander-in-Chief, who at once telegraphed that he had ordered a
battalion of Guards by special train to Chester. During the night the
Fenians evidently came to the conclusion that the preparations were too
much for them, and as the night advanced, parties of tens and twenties
were seen leaving, on foot, for Warrington and other neighbouring towns.

Although all danger of any serious attempt had died away after the
town’s meeting, the police were kept on duty, as many suspicious
characters were still to be seen in the streets. About nine o’clock on
Tuesday morning two haversacks with green bands and a quantity of ball
cartridges of private make were discovered on a piece of vacant land
close to the railway-station.




REFORM BILL: THREE-CORNERED CONSTITUENCIES (1867).

=Source.=--Leader’s _Life of the Right Hon. J. A. Roebuck, M.P._, pp.
313–315. (By permission.) (London: Edward Arnold, 1897.)


After the Bill, turned inside out by Liberal effort, and presenting
as an Act scarcely any possible resemblance to its original shape,
had established household suffrage, Mr. Roebuck at Sheffield further
explained and justified his course by saying:

“I made a resolution with myself that, having got Lord Derby into
power, we would, if it were possible, screw out of him a real reform of
Parliament. It always appeared to me that the Whigs never could carry
a second Reform Bill. I stated so in 1859. I was hooted and yelled at
in this very town because I so stated. Then came Lord Derby again, and
then I recollected my old determination. ‘If ever a Reform Bill is
carried,’ I said to myself, ‘it will be by those men, and so sure as
they bring it in, I will support them.’ I steadily supported that Bill,
and what has been the result? We have got a more Liberal Bill than
ever Whig proposed. We have got a Bill that has frightened, I believe,
the very persons who proposed it. It has not frightened me. I believe
we shall now find what the people of England really mean. I have great
confidence in the right-heartedness of my own countrymen. I have no
dread of the future.... We have got a great deal more good out of the
Tory administration than out of anybody else. This Reform Bill is
before us. We have now to work it.... I am sure there can be no harm to
England while we have a free Press, a free people; but with that Press
and constant inter-communication of thought, it will render the passing
of the Reform Bill one of the greatest boons ever conferred upon the
people of this country.”

On the question of the three-cornered constituencies, Mr. Roebuck
subsequently explained his course in the following letter:

    TO A CONSTITUENT.

    19, ASHLEY PLACE, S.W.

    The story of the three members’ constituencies is a simple one
    and can soon be told. Many attempts to stop and destroy the
    Reform Bill were made under the guise of liberality. The project
    respecting the three members was one of them. It was thought
    that Mr. Disraeli had got to the length of his tether, that
    his party would go no further, and that if at this time they
    could be induced to recalcitrate, the Liberals who had hitherto
    supported the Government must vote with the real enemies of the
    Bill, that the Government would be put into a minority, must
    go out, and that the Bill would then be defeated. Mr. Disraeli
    said in the debate that the Government could not accede to the
    proposal, and that the defeat of the Government in the motion
    would seriously endanger the Bill. We knew what this meant--viz.,
    that his party could not be induced to go further in the way of
    concession. Seeing this we said: “We will not throw away the
    good we have attained for the purpose of adding six members to
    large constituencies, and taking away six from small ones. This
    benefit, if it should be desired, can easily be obtained from the
    new Parliament when it meets. In the meantime we will insure the
    Bill.” We voted for the Government, put them into a majority,
    and saved the Bill. But Mr. Disraeli, upon consulting his party
    again, found that they deemed the trouble of the contest a
    greater evil than yielding the point, and they yielded so far as
    four members were concerned. I complained of this, and strove for
    Sheffield; but I was told that the party of Mr. Disraeli would
    go no further than four members, and so, according to my own
    expression, Sheffield was left out in the cold. This is the plain
    history of the case. It is a story that could be told of many
    other similar attempts to defeat the Bill, which attempts were
    defeated by our steady determination to carry the Bill, spite of
    calumny, spite of threats, spite of abuse. The Bill is now law,
    and is law because a number of Liberals were more far-sighted,
    ay, and more disinterested, than those who called themselves
    leaders of the Liberal party.




ABYSSINIAN CAPTIVES (1867).

=Source.=--_The Times_, July 9, 1867.


LETTER RECEIVED BY MRS. STERN FROM HER HUSBAND, ONE OF THE CAPTIVES IN
ABYSSINIA.

        MAGDALA,
            _May 1, 1867_.

Another month has passed since I wrote to you, a month like all the
rest in this miserable prison life, full of anxious care and wearisome
inactivity. Sometimes I squat down and try to beguile the tedious
hours by writing sketches of sermons, and by diffusing on closely
written pages the varied incidents of our painful captivity.... In our
immediate neighbourhood matters have not mended much since my last. The
King is still pursuing his work of devastation in the provinces that
are subject to his doubtful sway. The rebels, too, with the disaffected
peasantry for their allies, are doing their utmost to resent the
cruelties of their lately owned ruler and acknowledged chief. The
ruthless ferocity of the King has exhausted the patience of the most
timid and servile, and all appear now to be animated by one deep and
ardent passion--viz., the overthrow of the tyrant. The army he once had
at his behest is scattered in bands of rebels all over the country;
and as he can never recruit again his incredibly diminished hordes,
he will be forced to make this Amba his last asylum and tomb, or,
followed by a few faithful adherents and the most valuable captives,
seek a home in the marshy jungles and entangled feverish villages of
the lowlands. Whatever the issue of the contest may be, our prospects,
humanly speaking, are anything but bright. We have friends near and
around us, but in this land cupidity and avarice dissolve every bond,
even the most tender and sacred; and after all that has transpired,
the pettiest and most contemptible chieftain, if he gets us into his
power, may think that by retaining in his clutches a few defenceless
Europeans he will make his fortune.... About a fortnight ago all the
European employés, with the exception of two old men, were, together
with their wives and children and their property, with Mrs. Rosenthal
and Mrs. Flad, seized. The motives which prompted His Majesty to adopt
such measures of severity towards individuals who have always been most
subservient and obsequious to his whims is still a mystery. The King
brought various trumpery charges against them, which they repelled
with energy. Their property has been partially restored to them, but
they are confined in Debra Tabir, where they are guarded, but not
chained. It is said that the report of Mr. Flad’s returning without the
artisans, etc., furnished the ostensible cause for their imprisonment.
This outburst of unprovoked resentment augurs nothing auspicious for
us, and probably our position, as the majority of us expected, will
not be enhanced by Mr. Flad’s return. Negotiations and delays might
have averted the storm, but now as it seems looming nearer and nearer,
we say, “Thy will be done.” You and all interested in our liberation,
notwithstanding all that has been written from hence, must have been
grievously deceived about the character of the King. Presents with
another man might have effected our deliverance, but King Theodorus,
though not loath to accept the one, wants the hostages as well--a
security, as he imagines, for ever-increasing concessions.


            _May 2._

I just add a line to my letter of yesterday, as it is doubtful whether
the opportunity for writing will not before many days have elapsed
become exceedingly difficult, if not utterly impossible. The return of
Mr. Flad, the disappointment of the King in not obtaining the requested
accession to his white victims, and the consciousness that neither
intrigue nor cunning will avail him to extort fresh concessions from
the British Government, or the generosity of the British Christians,
all, I believe, combine to bring before long our melancholy and doleful
history to a crisis. Every day, nay, every hour, we expect to be
transferred to the common prison, and to get hand-chains again. Only
a week ago upwards of 200 prisoners, among whom are many persons of
high rank, were ordered to be executed. This indiscriminate massacre,
which has probably been prompted by the want of guards to protect them,
indicates no improvement in the tyrant’s temper. We fear that wilful,
wicked misrepresentations, and cruel, unpardonable selfishness united
in concealing the true state of our position and the well-known designs
of the King....

            HENRY A. STERN.




DISRAELI’S “MAUNDY THURSDAY” LETTER (1868).

=Source.=--_The Times_, April 14, 1868.


_The following letter, addressed to the Rev. Arthur Baker, was sent to
the “Times” for publication_:

        HUGHENDEN MANOR,
            _Maundy Thursday, 1868_.

    REVEREND SIR,

I have just received your letter, in which, as one of my constituents,
you justify your right to ask for some explanation of my alleged
assertion that the High Church Ritualists had been long in secret
combination, and were now in open confederacy with Irish Romanists for
the destruction of the union between Church and State....

You are under a misapprehension if you suppose that I intended to cast
any slur upon the High Church party. I have the highest respect for the
High Church party; I believe there is no body of men in this country to
which we have been more indebted, from the days of Queen Anne to the
days of Queen Victoria, for the maintenance of the orthodox faith, the
rights of the Crown, and the liberties of the people.

In saying this I have no wish to intimate that the obligations of
the country to the other great party in the Church are not equally
significant. I have never looked upon the existence of parties in
the Church as a calamity; I look upon them as a necessity, and as a
beneficent necessity. They are the natural and inevitable consequences
of the mild and liberal principles of our ecclesiastical polity, and of
the varying and opposite elements of the human mind and character.

When I spoke, I referred to an extreme faction in the Church, of
very modern date, that does not conceal its ambition to destroy the
connection between Church and State, and which I have reason to believe
has been for some time in secret combination, and is now in open
confederacy, with the Irish Romanists for the purpose.

The Liberation Society, with its shallow and short-sighted fanaticism,
is a mere instrument in the hands of this confederacy, and will
probably be the first victim of the spiritual despotism the Liberation
Society is now blindly working to establish.

As I hold that the dissolution of the union between Church and State
will cause permanently a greater revolution in this country than
foreign conquest, I shall use my utmost energies to defeat these fatal
machinations.

Believe me, Rev. Sir, your faithful member and servant,

            B. DISRAELI.

    THE REV. ARTHUR BAKER, A.M.,
      RECTOR OF ADDINGTON.




ABYSSINIAN WAR: CAPTURE OF MAGDALA (1868).

=Source.=--_The Times_, April 28, 1868.


DESPATCHES FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF (SIR ROBERT NAPIER).

            _Without date._

1. An Engagement took place before Magdala on Good Friday between our
troops and the army of Theodore, in which the latter was defeated with
heavy loss.

Casualties on our side--Captain Roberts, fourth Foot, wounded in the
arm, and fifteen rank and file wounded.

No one killed.

On the two following days Theodore sent into our camp every European
that he had in his power, both captives and employés.

Theodore has not yet surrendered himself, according to my demand. He
has been given twenty-four hours to decide. The King’s troops are
completely demoralised.

            ROBERT NAPIER.


            _April 14._

2. Theodore’s army much disheartened by the severe losses of the 10th
instant.

A portion of the chiefs surrendered the most formidable position of
Shilasse(?), and many thousand fighting men laid down their arms.

Theodore retired to Magdala with all who remained faithful.

Magdala taken by assault on the 13th under cover of Armstrong steel
guns, eight-inch mortars, and rocket battery.

Ascent to gates most formidable. Theodore killed, defending to the
last; our loss small.

Army will return immediately. About--guns and mortars taken.

            ROBERT NAPIER.


DESPATCHES FROM “TIMES” SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

            _April 12._

King Theodore attacked the First Brigade near Magdala on Good Friday,
but was repulsed with heavy loss--about 500 men being killed....
Darkness stopped the pursuit.

The enemy left their wounded on the field. On Saturday King Theodore
sent in a flag of truce and offered to treat for unconditional
surrender of the English prisoners. The captives have joined the camp.

It is believed the remaining Europeans will be surrendered.

The Abyssinian troops are utterly disheartened.

Theodore has attempted suicide.

            _April 14._

Magdala was stormed yesterday. Theodore was deserted by nearly all his
army, but made a desperate resistance with a few devoted followers.

Theodore killed himself with his pistol as the British troops
approached him.

The British loss was about ten men wounded....


DESPATCH FROM SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF “NEW YORK HERALD.”

        MAGDALA,
            _April 13_.

The truce ended this morning. King Theodore had not surrendered.
Fallas Fellasse(?) Islange had surrendered at once without fighting.
Theodore had retreated to Magdala. He planted five guns at the base of
the ascent. When General Napier came in sight, the King opened fire.
The English replied with ten-pounder Armstrong guns, and seven-pounder
rockets. The King left his guns, barricaded the sally-ports, and opened
with musketry. He gave no signs of surrendering. The bombardment
lasted three hours. An assault was then ordered. The fortress was
carried after vigorous resistance. The Abyssinian loss, is 68 killed
and 200 wounded. The English loss is 15 wounded, rank and file. King
Theodore was found dead, shot in the head. His body was recognized by
the Europeans who had been released. Some say he was killed in battle,
and others that he committed suicide. His two sons have been taken
prisoners. The fortress presents many evidences of barbaric splendour.
Among the trophies taken are 4 gold crowns, 20,000 dollars, 1,000
silver plates, many jewels and other articles, 5,000 stands of arms,
28 pieces of artillery, 10,000 shields and 10,000 spears. The European
prisoners [numbering 60 men, women, and children] will depart for the
sea-coast to-morrow. The army will depart immediately.




DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH (1868).

=Source.=--_Speeches of John Bright_, edited by J. E. Thorold Rogers,
pp. 219, 220. (Macmillan and Co., 1869.)


SPEECH ON MR. GLADSTONE’S RESOLUTIONS FOR DISESTABLISHING THE IRISH
CHURCH.

Now I challenge any hon. gentleman on the other side to deny this:
that out of half a million Episcopalians in Ireland there are
many--there are some in the Irish nobility, some landed proprietors,
some magistrates, even some of the clergy, a great many Irishmen--who
believe at this moment that it is of the very first importance that
the proposition of the right hon. gentleman, the Member for South
Lancashire, should be carried. I am not going to overstate my case. I
do not say that all of them are of that opinion. Of that half-million
say that one-fourth--I will state no number--but of this I am quite
certain, that there is an influential, a considerable, and, as I
believe, a wise minority, who are in favour of distinct and decided
action on the part of Parliament with regard to this question. But if
you ask the whole Roman Catholic population of Ireland, be they nobles,
or landed proprietors, or merchants, or farmers, or labourers--the
whole number of the Catholic population in Ireland being, I suppose,
eight or nine times the number of Episcopalians--these are probably,
without exception, of opinion that it would be greatly advantageous
and just to their country if the proposition submitted on this side
of the House should receive the sanction of Parliament. Now, if some
Protestants and all Catholics are agreed that we should remove this
Church, what would happen if Ireland were 1,000 miles away and we were
discussing it as we might discuss the same state of affairs in Canada?
If we were to have in Canada and in Australia all this disloyalty among
the Roman Catholic population owing to the existence of a State Church
there, the House would be unanimous that the State Church in those
Colonies should be abolished, and that perfect freedom in religion
should be given.

But there is a fear in the mind of the right hon. gentleman the Home
Secretary that the malady which would exist in Ireland might cross
the Channel and appear in England; that, in fact, the disorder of
Voluntaryism, as he deems it, in Ireland, like any other contagious
disorder, might cross the Channel by force of the west wind, lodging
first in Scotland, and then crossing the Tweed and coming south to
England. I think the right hon. gentleman went so far as to say that
he was so much in favour of religious equality that if you went so
far as to disestablish the Church in Ireland, he would recommend the
same policy for England. Now, with regard to that, I will give you
an anecdote which has reference to Scotland. Some years ago I had
the pleasure of spending some days in Scotland at the house of the
late Earl of Aberdeen after he had ceased to be Prime Minister. He
was talking of the disruption of the Church of Scotland, and he said
that nothing in the course of his public life had given him so much
pain as the disruption and the establishment of the Free Church in
that country; but he said he had lived long enough to discover that
it was one of the greatest blessings that had ever come to Scotland.
He said that they had a vast increase in the number of churches, a
corresponding increase in the number of manses or ministers’ houses,
and that schools had increased, also, to an extraordinary extent;
that there had been imparted to the Established Church a vitality and
energy which it had not known for a long period; and that education,
morality, and religion had received a great advancement in Scotland in
consequence of that change. Therefore, after all, it is not the most
dreadful thing in the world--not so bad as a great earthquake--or as
many other things that have happened. I am not quite sure that the
Scottish people themselves may not some day ask you--if you do not
yourselves introduce and pass it without their asking--to allow their
State Church to be disestablished.

I met only the other day a most intelligent gentleman from the north of
Scotland, and he told me that the minister of the church he frequented
had £250 a year from the Establishment Funds, which he thought very
much too little, and he felt certain that if the Establishment were
abolished and the Church made into a Free Church, the salary of the
minister would be immediately advanced to at least £500 a year. That is
a very good argument for the ministers, and we shall see, by-and-by, if
the conversion of Scotland proceeds much further, that you may be asked
to disestablish their Church.




THE IRISH CHURCH BILL: CRITICAL DAYS (1869).

=Source.=--Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii., pp. 273–276.
(Macmillan and Co.)


On July 16, the Bill, restored substantially to its first shape, was
again back on the table of the Lords, and shipwreck seemed for five
days to be inevitable. On July 20, at eleven o’clock, by a majority of
175 to 93, the Lords once more excluded from the preamble the words
that the Commons had placed and replaced there, in order to declare
the policy of Parliament on matters ecclesiastical in Ireland. This
involved a meaning which Mr. Gladstone declared that no power on earth
could induce the Commons to accept. The crisis was of unsurpassed
anxiety for the Prime Minister. He has left his own record of its
phases:

_Saturday, July 17._--By desire of the Cabinet I went to Windsor in
the afternoon and represented to H. M. what it was in our power to
do--namely, although we had done all we could do upon the merits, yet,
for the sake of peace and of the House of Lords, [we were willing]
(_a_) to make some one further pecuniary concession to the Church
of sensible though not very large amount; (_b_) to make a further
concession as to curates, slight in itself; (_c_) to amend the residue
clause so as to give to Parliament the future control, and to be
content with simply declaring the principle on which the property
should be distributed....

The further pecuniary concession we were prepared to recommend would be
some £170,000 or £180,000.

_Sunday, July 18._--In the afternoon Lord Granville called on me and
brought me a confidential memorandum, containing an overture which Mr.
Disraeli had placed in the hands of Lord Bessborough for communication
to us.... While the contention as to the residue was abandoned, and
pecuniary concessions alone were sought, the demand amounted, according
to our computation, to between £900,000 and £1,000,000. This it was
evident was utterly inadmissible. I saw no possibility of approach to
it, and considered that a further quarter of a million or thereabouts
was all that the House of Commons could be expected or asked further to
concede.

_Monday, July 19._--Those members of the Government who had acted as a
sort of Committee in the Irish Church question met in the afternoon.
We were all agreed in opinion that the Disraeli overture must be
rejected, though without closing the door, and a reply was prepared in
this sense, which Lord Granville undertook to send. [Draft in the above
sense that no sum approaching £1,000,000 could be entertained].

_Tuesday, July 20._--The Archbishop (Dr. Tait), who had communicated
with Lord Cairns in the interval, came to me early to-day and brought
a memorandum as a basis of agreement, which, to my surprise, demanded
higher terms than those of Mr. Disraeli. I told the Archbishop the
terms in which we had already expressed ourselves to Mr. Disraeli.
Meanwhile an answer had come from Mr. Disraeli stating that he could
not do more. Then followed the meeting of the opposition peers at the
Duke of Marlborough’s.

_Wednesday, July 21._--The Cabinet met at eleven, and I went to it
in the mind of last night. [Not to abandon the Bill absolutely, but
only to suspend the Government’s responsibility for it, leaving the
Opposition to work their own will, and with the intention, when this
had been done, of considering the matter further]. We discussed,
however, at great lengths all possible methods of proceeding that
occurred to us. The course adopted was to go through the endowment
amendments, and if they were carried adversely, then to drop their
responsibility.

_Thursday, July 22._--I was laid up to-day and the transactions were
carried on by Lord Granville, in communication with me from time to
time at my house.

The proceedings of this critical day are narrated by Lord Granville in
a memorandum to Mr. Gladstone dated August 4.

“After seeing you, I met Lord Cairns at the Colonial Office. He offered
me terms.... I asked him whether, in his opinion, he, the Archbishop,
and I could carry anything we agreed upon. He said, ‘Yes, certainly.’
After seeing you, I met Lord Cairns a second time in his room in the
House of Lords. I asked, as a preliminary to giving any opinion on his
amendments, how he proposed to deal with the preamble. He said, ‘To
leave it as amended by the Lords.’ I then proposed the words which were
afterwards adopted in the 68th clause. He was at first taken aback,
but admitted that he had personally no objection to them.... We agreed
upon the commutation clause if the 7 and the 5 per cent. were lumped
together. On the curates’ clause we could come to no agreement. He
proposed to see Lord Salisbury and the Archbishop, and to meet again
at four at the Colonial Office. He spoke with fairness as to the
difficulty of his position, and the risk he ran with his own party.
I again saw you, and asked the Irish Attorney-General to be present
at the last interview. I stated to him in Lord Cairns’ presence how
far we agreed, and expressed my regret that on the last point--the
curates--our difference was irreconcilable. Lord Cairns said he hoped
not, and proceeded to argue strongly in favour of his proposal. He at
last, however, at 4.30, compromised the matter by accepting five years
instead of one. I shook his hand, which was trembling with nervousness.
We discussed the form of announcing the arrangement to the House. We
at once agreed it was better to tell the whole truth, and soon settled
that it would be better for its success that he should announce the
details. I was afterwards apprehensive that this latter arrangement
might be disadvantageous to us, but nothing could be better or fairer
than his statement.”

“The news was brought to me on my sofa,” Mr. Gladstone says, “and
between five and six o’clock I was enabled to telegraph to the Queen.
My telegram was followed up by a letter at 7 p.m., which announced that
the arrangement had been accepted by the House of Lords, and that a
general satisfaction prevailed.”

To the Queen he wrote (July 22):

“Mr. Gladstone is at a loss to account for the great change in the tone
and views of the Opposition since Sunday and Monday and even Tuesday
last, but on this topic it is needless to enter. As to the principal
matters, the basis of the arrangement on the side of the Government
is much the same as was intended when Mr. Gladstone had the honour
of an audience at Windsor on Saturday; but various minor concessions
have been added. Mr. Gladstone does not doubt that, if the majority
of the House of Lords should accede to the advice of Lord Cairns, the
Government will be able to induce the House of Commons to agree on the
conditions proposed. Mr. Gladstone would in vain strive to express to
your Majesty the relief, thankfulness, and satisfaction with which he
contemplates not only the probable passing of what many believe to be a
beneficent and necessary measure, but the undoubted and signal blessing
of an escape from a formidable constitutional conflict.”




THE IRISH LAND BILL (1870).

=Source.=--Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii., pp. 293, 294.
(Macmillan and Co.)


Public opinion was ripening. The _Times_ made a contribution of the
first importance to the discussion, in a series of letters from a
correspondent, that almost for the first time brought the facts of
Irish land before the general public. A pamphlet from Mill, then at
the height of his influence, upon both writers and readers, startled
them by the daring proposition, that the only plan was to buy out the
landlords. The whole host of Whig economists and lawyers fell heavily
upon him in consequence. The new voters showed that they were not
afraid of new ideas. It was not until January 25 that peril was at an
end inside the Government.

_January 25, 1870._--Cabinet. The great difficulties of the Irish Land
Bill THERE are now over. Thank God!

_February 7._--With the Prince of Wales 3¼–4¼ explaining to him the
Land Bill and other matters. He has certainly much natural intelligence.

_February 15._--Introduced the Irish Land Bill in a speech of 3¼ hours.
Well received by the House at large.

The policy of the Bill as tersely explained by Mr. Gladstone in a
letter to Manning was “to prevent the landlord from using the terrible
weapon of undue and unjust eviction by so framing the handle that it
shall cut his hands with the sharp edge of pecuniary damages. The man
evicted without any fault, and suffering the usual loss by it, will
receive whatever the custom of the country gives, and where there is
no custom, according to a scale, besides whatever he can claim for
permanent buildings or reclamation of land. Wanton eviction will,
as I hope, be extinguished by provisions like these. And if they
extinguish wanton eviction, they will also extinguish those demands
for _unjust_ augmentations of rent, which are only formidable to
the occupier, because the power of wanton or arbitrary eviction is
behind them.” What seems so simple, and what was so necessary, marked
in truth a vast revolutionary stride. It transferred to the tenant
a portion of the absolute ownership, and gave him something like an
estate in his holding. The statute contained a whole code of minor
provisions, including the extension of Mr. Bright’s clauses for peasant
proprietorship in the Church Act; but this transfer was what gave the
Act its place in solid legal form. The second reading was carried
by 442 to 11, the minority being composed of eight Irish members of
advanced type and three English Tories. The Bill was at no point fought
high by the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli moved an amendment, limiting
compensation to unexhausted improvements. The Government majority fell
to 76, “a result to be expected,” Mr. Gladstone reports, “considering
the natural leanings of English and Scotch members to discount in
Ireland what they would not apply in Great Britain. They are not very
familiar with land tenures.” One fact of much significance he notes in
these historic proceedings. “Disraeli,” he writes to the Duke of Argyll
(April 21, 1870), “has not spoken one word against valuation of rents
or perpetuity of tenure.” It was from the House of his friends that
danger came.

_April 4._--H. of C. Spoke on Disraeli’s amendment. A majority of 76,
but the navigation is at present extremely critical.

_April 7._--H. of C. A most ominous day from end to end. Early in the
evening I gave a review of the state of the Bill, and later another
menace of overturn if the motion of Mr. W. Fowler [a Liberal banker]
should be carried. We had a majority of only 32.

To Lord Russell he writes (April 12):

“I am in the hurry-scurry of preparation for a run into the country,
but I must not omit to thank you for your kind and welcome letter. We
have had a most anxious time in regard to the Irish Land Bill. The fear
that our Land Bill may cross the water creates a sensitive state of
mind among all Tories, many Whigs, and a few Radicals.”

Phillimore records a visit in these critical days:

_April 8._--Gladstone looked worn and fagged. Very affectionate and
confidential, Gladstone feels keenly the want of support in debate.
Bright ill. Lowe no moral weight. “I feel when I have spoken, that I
have not a shot in my locker.”

As a very accomplished journalist of the day wrote, there was
something almost painful in the strange phenomenon of a Prime Minister
fighting as it were all but single-handed the details of his own
great measure through the ambuscades and charges of a numerous and
restless enemy--and of an enemy determined apparently to fritter away
the principle of the measure under the pretence of modifying its
details. “No Prime Minister has ever attempted any task like it--a
task involving the most elaborate departmental readiness, in addition
to the general duties and fatigues of a Prime Minister, and that too
in a session when questions are showered like hail upon the Treasury
bench.”[A] Then the Government put on pressure and the majority sprang
up to eighty.

The debate in the Commons lasted over three and a half months; or about
a fortnight longer than had been taken by the Church Bill. The third
reading was carried without a division. In the Lords the Bill was read
a second time without a division. Few persons clearly foresaw that it
was the first step of a vast transfer of property, and that in a few
years it would become customary for Ministers of the Crown to base all
their legislation on the doctrine that Irish land is not an undivided
ownership, but a simple partnership.[B]

    [A] _Spectator._

    [B] Lecky, _Democracy and Liberty_, vol. i., p. 165.




EDUCATION BILL: THE COWPER-TEMPLE CLAUSE (1870).

=Source.=--_Life of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M.P._, by T. Wemyss
Reid, vol. i., pp. 501–503. (Chapman and Hall, 1888.)


The fate of the Bill was still in suspense. No one could be quite
sure that Mr. Gladstone intended to press forward with it during that
session. Mr. Gladstone himself held strongly to the Bill in the shape
in which it had first been introduced; but he had been startled and
alarmed by the rising of the Liberal party against it, and he did not
appear to share the robust self-confidence with which Mr. Forster
faced the formidable flank attacks that were being delivered upon the
Government from the benches below the gangway. On June 12 Mr. Forster
submitted to Mr. Gladstone a Memorandum on the subject of the measure
and the rival amendments which had been proposed by the representatives
of the different sections of their own party.

“The first question which suggests itself,” said Mr. Forster in this
Memorandum, “is, Why listen to either of their amendments? Why
not stick to our Bill as it stands? Our proposal that the majority
should have what religious teaching it pleases, while the minority is
protected, is logical and impartial in theory, and would work well
in practice. Can we not, then, carry it? Yes, with the help of the
Opposition; but I fear a majority of our side of the House would vote
against it. All the Radicals--not merely men like Fawcett, but earnest
supporters of the Bill like Mundella--all the Dissenters from Baines
to Richards, would find themselves forced to oppose us, and they would
be followed, or rather led, into the lobby by the Whigs, by Sir George
Grey and Whitbread; and all our best friends, like Brand, would beg us
to prevent a division which would break up the party.”

Clearly Mr. Forster, when he penned this Memorandum, had no liking
for the idea of carrying the Bill by means of the votes of the
Opposition and against those of his party. After discussing the various
amendments, he declared himself in favour of one proposed by Mr.
Cowper-Temple, which was virtually identical with his own suggestion to
Lord Ripon in the letter of May 18. By this amendment it was ordered
that no catechism or religious formulary distinctive of any particular
denomination should be taught in the public schools.

“It may be said,” continued Mr. Forster in his Memorandum, “that this
plan is unjust inasmuch as it does not give the majority which prefers
catechisms the same chance as the majority which does not, and it is
insufficient because it still leaves the Boards free to quarrel as to
whether they will have the Scriptural teaching or purely secular, or
the quasi-secular schools suggested by Richards. To the last objection
the sole reply, and to my mind the sufficient reply, is that this plan
will be acceptable to a large majority in the House and in the country,
because by excluding the Catechism it silences the rallying-cries of
controversy and limits the range for dispute; and because it binds, by
Act of Parliament, to have none of the theoretical character teaching
which would naturally be given by the schoolmaster to young children
in a common school, but to which the local bodies wish to be guided by
Parliament.

“With regard to the majorities which decidedly prefer catechisms,
especially the Catholics, I think we can and should meet their case.
I confess I cannot but think this would have been easier to do if we
had framed the Bill in accordance with my original Memorandum, and,
prescribing Bible lessons as a rule, had then made allowance for
exceptional localities, desiring either purely secular or distinctive
schools.”

On June 16 the debate on the Bill was at last resumed, and Mr.
Gladstone then made a statement which in substance was merely an
amplification of Mr. Forster’s suggestion.




THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1870).

=Source.=--Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii., p. 341. (Macmillan
and Co., 1903.)


LETTER FROM MR. GLADSTONE TO JOHN BRIGHT (AUGUST 1, 1870).

Although some members of the Cabinet were inclined on the outbreak
of this most miserable war to make military preparations, others,
Lord Granville and I among them, by no means shared that disposition,
nor I think was the feeling of Parliament that way inclined. But the
publication of the Treaty has altered all this, and has thrown upon
us the necessity either of doing something fresh to secure Belgium,
or else of saying that under no circumstances would we take any step
to secure her from absorption. This publication [text of a projected
agreement between the French and Prussian Governments] has wholly
altered the feeling of the House of Commons, and no Government could
at this moment venture to give utterance to such an intention about
Belgium. But neither do we think it would be right, even if it were
safe, to announce that we would in any case stand by with folded arms
and see actions done which would amount to a total extinction of public
right in Europe.




MR. LOWE’S BUDGET: THE MATCH-TAX (1871).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, April 22, 1871.


On Thursday the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his usual financial
statement. It appeared that the deficiency this year amounted to
£2,800,000, and the right hon. gentleman proposes to meet it by
increasing the probate and legacy duty; in the first degree from 1 to
2 per cent.; in the second degree from 3 to 3½ per cent., and in the
third degree from 3½ to 5 per cent., estimating the gain to the revenue
of about £1,000,000. He also proposed to equalise the duties payable
on testate and intestate property, making it in all 2 per cent. He
next proposed to put a halfpenny stamp on each box of lucifer matches
containing not more than one hundred, and a penny on each box of vesta
matches containing not more than one hundred. By the former he expected
to gain £550,000, and £300,000 by the latter. This, he estimated, would
reduce his deficit to £1,950,000, and that he proposed to make up by
increasing the income-tax from £1 13s. 4d. to £2 4s. per cent., which
he calculated would make up the remaining deficit.




OPPOSITION TO THE MATCH-TAX.

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, April 29, 1871.


A numerous gathering of persons employed in the manufacture of matches
was held on Sunday afternoon in Victoria Park, at which a resolution
was unanimously passed condemning Mr. Lowe’s proposed impost in strong
terms. According to one of the speakers, the daily bread of 15,000
persons in the east of London depends upon the trade in matches.
Several thousand persons engaged in the match trade on Monday assembled
in the Bow Road, and having formed a procession, set out to march
to the House of Commons, there to present a petition against the
threatened duty on matches. At a short distance from its starting-point
the procession was broken up by the police, but the people managed in
some degree to re-form their ranks, and, after many difficulties (more
especially in their progress along the Thames Embankment), they arrived
at the Houses of Parliament. This, however, was not accomplished
without another collision with the police, in which one or two arrests
were made. One party of the processionists even succeeded in making
their way into Westminster Hall, but they were speedily removed.




PURCHASE IN THE ARMY ABOLISHED BY ROYAL WARRANT (1871).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, July 22, 1871.


On Thursday (July 20) Sir George Grey asked the Government whether
that House, having sanctioned their proposal for the indemnification
of officers on the abolition of purchase in the Army, they intend to
take measures to prevent the future violation of the law involved
in the continued payment of over-regulation prices for commissions.
Mr. Gladstone made a long reply, in the course of which he stated
that, after consideration, the Government had resolved to advise Her
Majesty to take the decisive step of cancelling the warrant under which
purchase was legal. That advice had been accepted and acted upon by Her
Majesty, and a new warrant had now been framed in terms conformable
to the law, so that it was his duty to announce, on the part of the
Government, that at present purchase in the Army no longer existed.
(Loud and continued cheers.)

When he said that purchase no longer existed, he was reminded by his
right hon. friend (Mr. Cardwell) to explain that it did not mean
that it was extinguished from the present moment, but a day had been
named--November 1 of the present year--from and after which there could
be no purchase or sale of commissions in the British Army. Although
the amendment of the Duke of Richmond had been carried in the House of
Lords [155 for the amendment, which was against the second reading,
130 against], he was advised that that would not prevent the Bill
from being proceeded with; and it would now remain to be seen how the
House of Lords would act under the circumstances which he had stated,
and whether, purchase being abolished, they would go on with the other
portions of the Bill.

In conclusion, he begged to say that, come what might, under all
circumstances the Government would use the best means in their power,
mindful of the honourable pledges they had given, to secure at the
hands of Parliament just and liberal terms for the officers.

Mr. Disraeli entered his protest against the course the Prime Minister
had taken, and said that Minister was most unwise, who, being baffled
in passing an important measure through one House of the Legislature,
took upon himself the responsibility and danger of advising the Queen
to exercise her prerogative and set the opinion of that House at
defiance.




THE FIRST AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY (1871).

=Source.=--_The Illustrated London News_, August 19, 1871.


The first statute holiday of the first Monday in August, under the
Bank Holidays Act, was very generally observed on the 7th; and another
year this holiday will probably be still more general. The name of
Sir John Lubbock and the first Monday in August will henceforth be
associated with pleasant recollections in the minds of the clerks
of the bankers, brokers, merchants, and traders of the city. At all
events, the principal employers of labour in the City, many in the east
and a few in the west, took advantage of the provision contained in the
new Act, and closed their establishments. The Government offices in
the City remained open, but all the warehouses and offices of public
companies, the Royal Exchange and Lloyd’s, and nearly all the retail
shops in Cannon Street, the Poultry, and Cornhill, were closed. The
holiday having been wisely fixed for Monday, a large number of those
for whose benefit the measure was more especially passed were able to
leave town on Saturday afternoon, and thus to secure two clear days in
the country. But still many thousands thronged to the railway stations
in the morning. Notwithstanding this exodus of pleasure-seekers, the
principal exhibitions and places of amusement had fully the average
number of visitors....

In the east end of the town many of the manufactories were closed, and
several of the great capitalists, who give their workmen an annual
“treat,” engaged fields in which the workmen, with their wives and
families, were entertained and amused with outdoor sports. By rail
and by river more than 10,000 Oddfellows of the North London District
of the Manchester Unity went down to the North Woolwich Gardens to
take part in a fête held for the benefit of the widows and orphans of
deceased members. On Monday night the great thoroughfares in the City
leading from the railways--especially at Ludgate Hill, the Bank, and
Gracechurch Street--were filled with holiday folks “homeward bound.”
Several schools gave a whole holiday to the pupils, and children of all
ages formed part of most of the groups. Not a tipsy or ill-conducted
person could be seen. The day had been glorious, and the sum of
happiness and social and domestic enjoyment evidently conferred by this
first Bank Holiday in August testifies to the wisdom of the Legislature.




BIBLE READING IN SCHOOLS (1871).

=Source.=--_Life of Thomas Henry Huxley_, by his Son, vol. ii., pp.
342, 343. (Macmillan and Co., 1900.)


At the first meeting of the Education Committee of the London School
Board, Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., proposed, and Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P.,
seconded a resolution in favour of religious teaching. “That in the
schools provided by the Board, the Bible shall be read, and there
shall be given therefrom such explanations and such instruction in the
principles of religion and morality as are suited to the capacities
of children,” with certain provisos. Several antagonistic amendments
were proposed; but Professor Huxley gave his support to Mr. Smith’s
resolutions, which, however, he thought might “be trimmed and amended
in a way that the Rev. Dr. Angus had suggested. His speech, defining
his own position, was a very remarkable one. He said it was assumed
in the public mind that this question of religious instruction was a
little family quarrel between the different sects of Protestantism
on the one hand, and the old Catholic Church on the other. Side by
side with this much shivered and splintered Protestantism of theirs,
and with the united fabric of the Catholic Church (not so strong
temporally as she used to be, otherwise he might not have been
addressing them at that moment), there was a third party growing
up into very considerable and daily increasing significance, which
had nothing to do with either of those great parties, and which was
pushing its own way independent of them, having its own religion and
morality, which rested in no way whatever on the foundations of the
other two.” He thought that “the action of the Board should be guided
and influenced very much by the consideration of this third great
aspect of things,” which he called the scientific aspect, for want of a
better name. “It had been very justly said that they had a great mass
of low, half-instructed population which owed what little redemption
from ignorance and barbarism it possessed mainly to the efforts of
the clergy of the different denominations. Any system of gaining the
attention of these people to these matters must be a system connected
with, or not too rudely divorced from, their own system of belief. He
wanted regulations, not in accordance with what he himself thought was
right, but in the direction in which thought was moving.” He wanted an
elastic system that did not oppose any obstacle to the free play of the
public mind. Huxley voted against all the proposed amendments, and in
favour of Mr. Smith’s motion. There were only three who voted against
it; while the three Roman Catholic members refrained from voting. This
basis of religious instruction, practically unaltered, has remained the
law of the Board ever since.

There was a controversy in the papers between Professor Huxley and
the Rev. W. H. Freemantle as to the nature of the explanation of the
Bible lessons. Huxley maintained that it should be purely grammatical,
geographical, and historical in its nature; Freemantle that it should
include some species of distinct religious teaching, but not of a
denominational character.




GENEVA ARBITRATION: THE INDIRECT CLAIMS (1872).

=Source.=--_Life of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M.P._, by T. Wemyss
Reid, vol. ii., pp. 22, 23. (Chapman and Hall, 1888.)


But when everything seemed to be settled, and there was at last
good hope of the final removal of the long-standing obstacle to the
friendship of the two peoples, a new difficulty made its appearance in
a very unexpected quarter. This was the claim for indirect damages,
which were set forth in the “case” of America, as it was presented
to the Court of Arbitration at Geneva. Great was the indignation in
England when, at the close of January, 1872, it first became known
that the American Government was prepared to prefer this demand. The
Cabinet was at once summoned to consider the question, and some of
the members were for forthwith withdrawing from the arbitration. Mr.
Forster was in favour of a more moderate and prudent course, but at the
same time he felt strongly as to the unfairness of the demand made by
America. “Clearly,” he writes in his diary (January 30, 1872), “this
claim is sharp practice by the Americans, as the protocols prove that
they had waived the indirect claims. Our Press is very indignant and
exigeant, the _Daily News_ leading. A cool head and a cool temper
wanted. I asked Tenterden to dinner to talk the matter over with him.
He is strong against diplomatic negotiations, and recommends a protest
and refusal to submit the indirect claims to the arbitration to be
delivered through our agent to the tribunal to the United States agent,
both being appointed by Article 2 of the Treaty. Thereby diplomatic
wrangling would be avoided, and the Yankees would not be forced to
immediate reply while the Presidential caucus is at its height. I
never felt any matter so serious. (January 31.) Drew up a memorandum
urging communication through the agents rather than by despatch, on
the ‘Alabama’ hitch. Took it to Granville; then sent it to Gladstone,
asking him whether he would object to its circulation. Found a note
from G---- assenting to circulation, so sent F---- off with the box.
(February 2.) My box returned. All the Ministers’ minutes against me,
except Gladstone, Granville, Ripon, and Chancellor.”

The question was discussed in the Cabinet, but the opinion was not
favourable to Mr. Forster’s proposal, who had to give way.

(P. 26.) In February General Schenck [the leader of the American House
of Representatives, who was in England] unofficially proposed four
possible plans by way of settling the difficulty: (1) A lump sum paid
by England; (2) a maximum sum paid by England to cover all claims,
direct or indirect, supposing the arbitrators found against us; (3)
proceeding with our arbitration under our protest that we did not
consider the indirect claims within the Treaty, and could not abide by
any decision against us as respected them, or pay in respect of them
any gross sum or portion thereof; (4) an exchange of Vancouver’s Island
for the indirect claims, upon the principle that both treaties were
open to two interpretations....

Eventually ministers agreed to fall in with the American suggestion of
a supplemental treaty, or, rather, of a supplemental article to the
existing treaty.

[NOTE.--On June 19 the arbitrators rejected altogether the indirect
claims.]




AN EARLY ELECTION UNDER THE BALLOT ACT (1872).

=Source.=--_The Times_, September 14, 1872.


Usually an election day here has been a day of great political tumult
and uproar. But to-day the general aspect of things was changed. When
the poll opened the principal streets of the town were almost as
quiet as usual. At the polling-booths, thirty-seven in number, there
was very little crowding, and generally the town seemed to have got
up no earlier than usual this morning, though in an extreme state of
mystification. At each polling-booth there was erected, under contract
with the Corporation, the compartments prescribed by the Act to secure
privacy to the voter while marking his ballot paper. These compartments
consisted of an open movable box, with four stalls or recesses, each
supplied with a small ledge to serve as a desk, and placed back to
back, so that four voters might be engaged in marking their papers at
one and the same time. The size of the partition prevents a voter from
overlooking his neighbour either at his side or in front of him. Each
of these compartments was supplied with a pencil, secured by a string,
like those in the telegraphic departments at the post-office.

The Conservatives appeared to be infinitely more active with their
agents at the various polling-booths than the Liberals, and both tried
to get an insight into the way affairs were going by means of tickets.
Each elector had sent to him previously--the Conservatives ostensibly
began this and the Liberals followed them--a ticket with a request that
he would vote for Holker or German, as the case might be, and that
after voting he would, if a Conservative, hand it over to the agent
who would be at the door, and if a Liberal, would give it up at the
nearest committee-room. The Conservative agents had blue cards fastened
in front of their hats, and upon each card there was printed the words
“Conservative agent.” As a rule two of them stood close to the door of
egress at each polling-booth. In one instance a couple of them managed
to get into a booth, but being detected by a Liberal, were ordered out.
In other instances the Conservative agents were upon the premises of
the polling-booth, and at one of the booths a couple were seen in the
back-yard within a foot of the door leading out of it, their object
being to ask for the tickets of the voters as they left the room. The
Liberals did not push themselves so keenly within the precincts of
the booths, but seemed to be anxious to get as near as they could.
In the end the ticket system got thoroughly confused--Liberals, in
mistake, gave their tickets to the Conservative agents; Conservatives
gave them to those on the Liberal side, so that it became impossible
accurately to test what was being done by the plan. The voting went
on rather slowly; four voters were admitted at a time to each booth,
and after receiving their papers proceeded to the “stalls” behind
the officials, marked their papers, and then returned, putting them
into a large sealed tin box, with a narrow slit at the top, as they
passed out. The general business was very quietly transacted; there
was even a dead calm about it at times. Some of the working men, of
the ordinary labouring class, seemed to have no proper idea at all of
the Ballot; odd ones of them would, on entering the booth, ask the
constable at the door where they had to tell the name of the candidate
they wanted to vote for, and others were very stupid in their folding
up of the voting-papers. They crumpled them up occasionally or doubled
them in such a way as to hide the stamp on the back, This bungling was
chiefly the work of the more illiterate classes. One or two cases of
personations were early reported, but the guilty parties made a clear
escape. There has been more of novelty than of difficulty in working
the Ballot here; and excepting the cases of stupidity mentioned, no
awkwardness or hitch has occurred. As the morning advanced the booths
became thronged, and at noon the work of vote-recording was at its
greatest pitch of activity; but the increase in it then in no way
deranged the general mechanism adopted. From about eleven o’clock
in the forenoon till five this afternoon the streets have been very
crowded, the bulk of the people being of the working-class order. Even
the most sapient and experienced could not tell which way the wind
was blowing--could not tell whether German or Holker was ahead. There
was, however, a very general impression among Conservatives that their
candidate was first, and a very strong apprehension on the part of
the Liberals that this really was the case. Bills, etc., professing
to show the state of the poll were occasionally put out, but only the
most stupid placed any reliance upon them. Cheers and counter-cheers
have been heard in the streets as the respective candidates and
their friends have been noticed passing along them. There have been
no displays of colours, no bands of music, and even in St. John’s
ward an astonishing degree of order and sobriety has been observable.
The Ballot, whatever it may not effect, has clearly from to-day’s
experience conduced in a striking degree to the general sobriety and
good order of the people. There is much talk about bribery and some
about personation. At 8.30 the result of the election was announced
by a card at the Town Hall. The figures were--Holker, 4,542; German,
3,824; showing, as there are 10,214 eligible voters on the register,
that 1,848 had not recorded their votes.




“ALABAMA” ARBITRATION AWARD (1872).

=Source.=--_The Times_, September 16, 1872.


SUMMARY OF THE AWARD.

The Arbitrators at Geneva have given their Award. They unanimously
find Great Britain liable for the acts committed by the _Alabama_;
by a majority of the Italian, Swiss, Brazilian, and United States
Arbitrators against the Arbitrator appointed by Great Britain, they
find Great Britain liable for the acts committed by the _Florida_; and
by a majority of the Italian, Swiss, and United States Arbitrators
against the Arbitrators appointed by Great Britain and Brazil, they
find Great Britain liable for the acts committed by the _Shenandoah_
after leaving Melbourne. They unanimously decided that, in the cases
in which Great Britain was held responsible, the acts of the tenders
should be considered to follow the judgment given in regard to the
cruisers to which they were attached. They decided that Great Britain
was not responsible for the acts committed by the _Georgia_ or by any
other of the Confederate cruisers except the three above named.

They rejected altogether the claim of the United States Government for
the expenditure incurred in pursuit and capture of the cruisers.

They decided that interest should be allowed, and have awarded a
gross sum of 15,500,000 dollars in gold (about £3,229,166 13s. 4d.) in
satisfaction and final settlement of all claims, including interest.

The amount of the claims preferred before the Tribunal, as appears from
the Revised Statement of Claims presented on the part of the United
States in April last, was 19,732,095 dollars in gold, to which was
added a claim for expenses of pursuit and capture to the amount of
7,080,478 dollars, with interest at 7 per cent. on the whole amount
for about ten years, or in all, 45,500,000 dollars in gold (or about
£9,479,166 13s. 4d.).




REFUSAL OF MR. DISRAELI TO TAKE OFFICE WITHOUT A MAJORITY (1873).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1873_; _English History_, pp. 35–37.


SPEECH OF MR. DISRAELI IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (MARCH 20, 1873).

Mr. Disraeli, who was warmly cheered by his supporters, next gave his
account of what had passed between him and the Queen after receiving
the letter which first summoned him to Buckingham Palace. In his
audience, in reply to an inquiry from the Queen, he informed Her
Majesty that he should be ready to form a Government which would carry
on the affairs of the country efficiently and in a manner entitled to
her confidence, but that he would not undertake it with the present
House of Commons. In giving his reasons for this decision, Mr. Disraeli
said he had represented to the Queen that, though recent elections
had been favourable to the Conservative party, Mr. Gladstone had
still a majority of close upon ninety, and that the division which
overthrew the Government offered no elements which could lead to
an expectation that this numerical position would be modified. He
pointed out, also, that the majority against the Government the other
night was created by a considerable section of the Liberal party--the
Irish Roman Catholic members--with whom he had no bond of union. If
he had appealed to them for support, they would have repeated their
demands for a Roman Catholic University--a demand which he believed
was decisively condemned at the last election, and by the subsequent
disendowment of the Irish Church. Of office under such circumstances
Mr. Disraeli said he had some personal experience, and it had convinced
him that such an experiment weakened authority and destroyed public
confidence. Consequently, he had prayed Her Majesty to relieve him of
the task. Replying to the question why he had not advised the Queen to
dissolve, he remarked that there was much misconception about the act
of dissolving.

“It is supposed [said Mr. Disraeli] to be an act which can be performed
with very great promptitude, and that it is a resource to which any
Minister may recur with the utmost facility. That is a grave mistake.
Dissolution of Parliament is a different instrument in different
hands. It is an instrument of which a Minister who is in office, with
his Government established, can avail himself with a facility which a
Minister who is only going to accede to office is deprived of. There
may be circumstances which may render it imperative on a Minister
in office to advise the Sovereign to exercise the prerogative of
dissolving Parliament; but he always has the opportunity of disposing
of the public business before that dissolution takes place. The
position of the Minister who is about to accede to office is very
different. In the first place he has to form his Administration.
This is a work of great time and of heavy responsibility. It is not
confined merely to the construction of a Cabinet. Before a Ministry
can be formed, whoever undertakes the task of its construction must
see some fifty individuals whom he has to appoint to offices of trust
and consideration. It is a duty which he can delegate to no one. He
must see each of those individuals personally, and must communicate
with them by himself. And this is a matter which--irrespective of the
knowledge of human nature, which whoever undertakes to form a Cabinet
ought to possess--requires time, and materially affects the business
of the country. In the present case it would not have been possible
to form a Government before Easter. Then the holidays would have
intervened. After the holidays we might, by having recourse to measures
of which I greatly disapprove--namely, provisional finance, the taking
votes on credit and votes on account, and by accepting the estimates
of my predecessors--have been able to dissolve Parliament in the early
part of May. But when the month of May arrived, this question would
have occurred: What are you going to dissolve Parliament about? There
was no issue before the country. At least, it cannot be pretended for
a moment that there was one of those issues before the country which
would justify an extraordinary dissolution of Parliament--that is, some
question upon which the country would passionately wish to decide. I
ask the House to consider impartially what was the real condition of
affairs. Her Majesty’s Ministers had resigned; the Queen had called
upon a member of this House to form a Ministry in a house in which he
had nearly ninety majority arrayed against him. Suppose it was in his
opinion necessary to appeal to the country, by which the majority might
be returned--probably of ninety--in his favour.

“Well, the Irish University Bill was not a Bill on which any Ministry
could resign. But we could not carry on affairs without appealing
to the country; and is it not clear that we could not appeal to the
country without having a policy? (Laughter.) Hon. gentleman may laugh
at the word ‘policy,’ but I maintain that it is totally impossible for
gentlemen sitting on the Opposition bench suddenly to have a matured
policy to present to the people of this country in case Parliament
dissolves. The position of any party in opposition is essentially a
critical position. On all great questions of the day gentlemen on this
side of the House have certain principles which guide them on the
subjects before Parliament; but on these questions we cannot rival in
the possession of information those who hold the seals of Government.”

This point Mr. Disraeli elaborated at some length, mentioning Central
Asia, the Three New Rules, and the French Treaty of Commerce as matters
on which no body of men, suddenly created a Government, could have any
policy until they had studied the official information. Local taxation,
too, was a question which they must have fully considered before going
to the country; but the strongest obstacle to an immediate dissolution
would have been the necessity of carefully scrutinising the estimates,
which, he maintained, were just as large as his own which were so
vehemently denounced in 1868. The upshot was that the session would
have been one of ordinary length, and he knew, from experience, the
consequences to a party and to the public interests of endeavouring to
carry on the Government in the face of a hostile majority.

“I know well (added Mr. Disraeli), and those around me know well,
what will occur when a Ministry takes office and attempts to carry
on Government with a minority during the session, with a view of
ultimately appealing to the people. A right hon. gentleman will come
down here, he will arrange his thumb-screws and other instruments of
torture, and we shall never ask for a vote without a lecture; we shall
never perform the most ordinary routine office of Government without
there being annexed to it some pedantic and ignominious condition. (No,
no.) I wish to express nothing but what I know from painful personal
experience. No observation of the kind I have encountered could divest
me of the painful memory; I wish it could. I wish it was not my duty
to take this view of the case. For a certain time we should enter
into the paradise of abstract motions. One day hon. gentlemen cannot
withstand the golden opportunity of asking the House to assert that
the income-tax should no longer form one of the features of Ways and
Means. Of course, a proposition of that kind would be scouted by the
right hon. gentleman and all his colleagues; but they might dine out
on that day, and the resolution might be carried, as resolutions of
that kind have been. Perhaps another gentleman, distinguished for his
knowledge of ‘men and things’ (Mr. Rylands), moves that the Diplomatic
Service should be abolished. While hon. gentlemen opposite may laugh
in their sleeves at the mover, they vote for the motion in order to
put the Government into a minority. So it would go very hard with
us if on some sultry afternoon some member should ‘rush in where
angels fear to tread’ (Mr. Trevelyan) and successfully assimilate the
borough and the county franchise. And so things would go on until the
bitter end--until at last even the Appropriation Bill has passed,
Parliament is dissolved, and we appeal to those millions who, perhaps,
six months before might have looked upon us as the vindicators of
their intolerable grievances, but who now receive us as a defeated,
discredited, and a degraded Ministry, whose services can no longer be
of value to the Crown or a credit to the nation.”

Under these circumstances, with the concurrence of all his friends, he
had represented to the Queen that it was not for the public interest
that he should attempt to form a Government.




FIRST LONDON HOSPITAL SUNDAY (1873).

=Source.=--_The Times_, Monday, June 16, 1873.


The Metropolis has just witnessed the success of an undertaking without
parallel in the social and religious history of modern times. The
congregations of the great majority of the places of worship in London
and its suburbs, reinforced moreover by many who do not habitually
attend places of worship at all, were united in the pursuit of a common
object, and in the acknowledgment of a common obligation. The claims
of the sick poor were urged from several hundred pulpits, not on any
ground of expediency, or of economy, or even of benevolence, but mainly
on the broad principle that their recognition forms an essential part
of the life dictated by every form of Christianity.

The appeal had gone home to the hearts of all classes of the community,
and in the Metropolitan Cathedral the eye ranged easily from the Heir
Apparent, and from the representatives of civic wealth and munificence,
to an assemblage largely composed of persons manifestly of humble
station, but who were neither less devout nor less liberal than those
whom fortune had more highly favoured.

So far everything is well, and there can be no doubt that Hospital
Sunday from this time forward will be an established institution. It
is possible that it may lead to many indirect advantages, and that
the bond now for the first time established among the charities to be
assisted may ultimately produce beneficial changes in various points
connected with their management. Hospitals have hitherto been in some
sense rival institutions; and their rivalry has been a prolific source
of wasteful and unnecessary expenditure.

NOTE.--The amount collected was £28,000.




THE ASHANTEE WAR: FALL OF COOMASSIE (1874).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1874_; _English History_, pp. 29–31.


On entering Coomassie the General strictly forbade all plundering on
the part of his men; but the darkness of night coming on, the camp
followers could not always be restrained, and a policeman taken in the
act was hung. Here and there, too, attempts were made to set fire to
the town. Coomassie was found to be a large place, with wide streets,
and houses with verandahs, built round courtyards. It bore tokens
of desolation in patches of waste land, covered with grass, and the
absence of domestic poultry, etc., the despotism of the King making
property as well as life insecure among the Ashantees. The King’s
palace was larger than that of the chief of Fommanah, and consisted
of many courts, each a house in itself. Upstairs were several small
rooms, each of which was a perfect old curiosity shop, containing books
in all languages, English newspapers, Bohemian glass, Kidderminster
carpets, pictures, furniture, etc. The King’s sitting-room was a court
with a tree growing in it, which was covered with fetish objects, and
hung with spiders’ webs. In the royal bedroom adjacent was an English
General’s sword, bearing the inscription: “From Queen Victoria to
the King of Ashantee,” a gift probably of Her Majesty to Calcalli’s
predecessor. Besides the King’s palace there was a grand building,
called the “Bantoma,” where the ashes of former monarchs were entombed,
and which was considered the most sacred spot in all Ashanteeland. Sir
Garnet Wolseley sent word to the King that his desire was to spare
Coomassie, and if he would come into the town and sign the peace a
smaller indemnity would be accepted than that at first specified. But
if not, a sign should be given of Great Britain’s power which should be
known throughout the length and breadth of Africa. The King promised
to come, but came not. The General waited throughout the whole day of
the 5th in vain. The envoys sent with deceitful promises by the monarch
were caught surreptitiously removing property. The General then gave
orders to burn the Bantoma, but on second thoughts he recalled them.
The destruction of so strong and vast a fortress would have taken
too much time, and perhaps in their despair the Ashantees would have
rallied round their sacred mausoleum in inconvenient force. In fact,
it was very necessary to think of a speedy retreat. Heavy rain had
fallen, and if the streams in rear of the British army should be much
swollen, its backward march might be seriously impeded. It was coming
short of the entire triumph anticipated, to leave Coomassie without the
treaty and the royal signature; but the subjugation of the capital was
a sufficient blow to Ashantee prestige, and, that it might never be
forgotten by the nation, Sir Garnet gave orders to set fire to the city
and to the royal palace.

“The demolition of the place was complete,” said Sir Garnet, in his
despatch to the Colonial Secretary. “From all that I can gather, I
believe that the result will be such a diminution in the prestige and
military power of the Ashantee monarch as may result in the break-up
of the kingdom altogether. This I had been anxious to avoid, because
it seems impossible to foresee what Power can take this nation’s
place among the feeble races of this coast. I certainly believe that
your lordship may be well convinced that no more utterly atrocious
Government than that which has thus, perhaps, fallen, ever existed
on the face of the earth. Their capital was a charnel-house; their
religion a combination of cruelty and treachery; their policy the
natural outcome of their religion. I cannot think that, whatever may be
the final fate of the people of this country, the absolute annihilation
of such a rule, should it occur, would be a subject for unmixed regret.
In any case, I believe that the main object of my expedition has been
perfectly secured. The territories of the Gold Coast will not again
be troubled by the warlike ambition of this restless power. I may add
that the flag of England from this moment will be received throughout
Western Africa with respectful awe, a treatment which has been of late
years by no means its invariable fate among the savage tribes of this
region.”

It was Sir Garnet’s good fortune not to bring his enterprise to an end
without the rounding off of complete success. The return march of the
British troops towards the coast commenced on the 6th. At Fommanah,
where the General halted for four days, he was again visited by envoys
from Koffee Calcalli, bearing in their hands a thousand ounces of
gold, and asking for a draft of the treaty, to be signed forthwith
by the defeated monarch. The draft was accordingly given to them,
and was actually signed a month later. What had brought the King to
this tardy and, as it would seem, unnecessary submission now that
Wolseley had done his worst, and was retreating? It was the march of
Captain Glover that had occasioned the step. That officer, working up
from the East, with troops drawn from the native tribes of the Akims,
Yorubas, and Houssas--between three thousand and four thousand in
number--had arrived within eighteen miles of Coomassie, when he heard
of the capture and destruction of the place. His difficulties had been
great. Many of the men with whom he originally set out had deserted,
and he had failed to make the junction with Wolseley, which, had it
taken place a few days earlier, must have crushed the foe effectually.
Nevertheless, his advance had operated as a useful diversion on the
left of the Ashantee forces; and when he, too, arrived near the ruined
city, the monarch’s spirit altogether left him. Thinking that some of
the British forces might still be in Coomassie, Glover sent on Captain
Reginald Sartorius with twenty men to reconnoitre. Then occurred one
of the most dashing exploits of the war. Sartorius found the capital
deserted. None of the inhabitants had returned to try and secure their
property, or view their burned homesteads. But they might be lurking
anywhere--in fact, Sartorius heard that the King and his attendants
were near at hand, weeping over the ruins of Coomassie. With his
little band of twenty men, Sartorius rode boldly through the deserted
precincts, and then onwards through fifty miles of hostile territory,
to join the British army, passing one burnt village after another, but
not meeting any human form till, at Fommanah, they came up with the
main body of Sir Garnet’s forces. Captain Glover followed in the track
of Sartorius first to Coomassie and then to Fommanah.

The treaty, finally signed by King Koffee Calcalli, stipulated that he
should renounce all rights of Protectorate over the petty monarchs in
alliance with the British Queen, and formerly tributary to the kingdom
of Ashantee; also over any of the tribes formerly connected with the
Dutch Government on the Gold Coast; that free trade should be permitted
between Ashantee and the British ports; that the road between Coomassie
and the Prah should always be kept open; that the King should use his
best efforts to check the practice of human sacrifice; and that he
should pay in instalments a war indemnity of 50,000 ounces of approved
gold, beginning with 1,000 ounces forthwith.

The cost of the war to the British Government was estimated at 900,000
pounds sterling. To Sir Garnet Wolseley, who declined titular honours,
a sum of 25,000 pounds was awarded in recognition of his services.




FUNERAL OF DR. LIVINGSTONE (1874).

=Source.=--_Punch_, April 25, 1874. (Reprinted by the special
permission of the proprietors of _Punch_.)


DAVID LIVINGSTONE, DIED ON THE SHORES OF LAKE BEMBA, MAY 4, 1873;
BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, APRIL 18, 1874.

      Droop half-mast colours, bow, bareheaded crowds
        As this plain coffin o’er the side is slung,
      To pass by woods of masts and ratlined shrouds
        As erst by Afric’s trunks, liana-hung.

      ’Tis the last mile of many thousands trod
        With failing strength but never-failing will
      By the worn frame, now at its rest with God,
        That never rested from its fight with ill.

      Or if the ache of travel and of toil
        Would sometimes wring a short, sharp cry of pain
      From agony of fever, blain, and boil,
        ’Twas but to crush it down, and on again.

      He knew not that the trumpet he had blown
        Out of the darkness of that dismal land,
      Had reached and roused an army of its own
        To strike the chains from the slave’s fettered hand.

      Now we believe he knows, sees all is well;
        How God had stayed his will and shaped his way,
      To bring the light to those that darkling dwell
        With gains that life’s devotion will repay.

      Open the Abbey door and bear him in
        To sleep with King and statesman, chief and sage,
      The missionary come of weaver-kin,
        But great by work that brooks no lower wage.

      He needs no epitaph to guard a name
        Which men shall prize while worthy work is known
      He lived and died for good--be that his fame;
        Let marble crumble: this is Living-stone.




DISRAELI ON PARTIES IN THE CHURCH (1874).

=Source.=--_Hansard_, “Debates,” vol. 221, p. 78.


_Speech on Public Worship Regulation Bill._

I look upon the existence of parties in the Church as a necessary and
beneficial consequence. They have always existed even from Apostolic
times; they are a natural development of the religious sentiment in
man; and they represent fairly the different conclusions at which, upon
subjects that are the most precious to him, the mind of man arrives.
Ceremony, enthusiasm, and free speculation are the characteristics
of the three great parties in the Church, some of which have modern
names, and which the world is too apt to imagine are in their character
original. The truth is that they have always existed in different
forms or under different titles. Whether they are called High Church
or Low Church or Broad Church, they bear witness, in their legitimate
bounds, to the activity of the religious mind of the nation, and in
the course of our history this country is deeply indebted to the
exertions and the energy of all those parties. The High Church party,
totally irrespective of its religious sentiment, fills a noble page in
the history of England, for it has vindicated the liberties of this
country in a memorable manner; no language of mine can describe the
benefits which this country has experienced from the exertions of the
Evangelical school at the commencement of this century; and in the case
of the Broad Church it is well that a learned and highly disciplined
section of the clergy should show at the present day that they are
not afraid of speculative thought, or are appalled by the discoveries
of science. I hold that all these schools of religious feeling can
pursue their instincts consistently with a faithful adherence to
the principles and practices of the Reformation as exhibited and
represented in its fairest and most complete form--the Church of
England. I must ask myself, What then, sir, is the real object of the
Bill? and I will not attempt to conceal my impressions upon it, for I
do not think that our ability to arrive at a wise decision to-day will
be at all assisted by a mystical dissertation on the subject-matter
of it. I take the primary object of this Bill, whose powers, if it
be enacted, will be applied and extended impartially to all subjects
of Her Majesty, to be this--to put down Ritualism. The right hon.
gentleman the Member for Greenwich [Mr. Gladstone] says he does not
know what Ritualism is, but there I think the right hon. gentleman is
in an isolated position. That ignorance is not shared by the House of
Commons or by the country. What the House and the country understand by
Ritualism is--practices of a portion of the clergy, avowedly symbolic
of doctrines, which the same clergy are bound in the most solemn manner
to refute and repudiate. Therefore, I think there can be no mistake
among practical men as to what is meant when we say that it is our
desire to discourage Ritualism....

Believing as I do that those principles [those of the Reformation] were
never so completely and so powerfully represented as by the Church
of England; believing that without the authority, the learning, the
wealth, and the independence of the Church of England, the various
sects of the Reformation would by this time have dwindled into nothing,
I called the attention of the country, so far as I could, to the
importance of rallying around the institution of the Church of England,
based upon those principles of the Reformation which that Church
was called into being to represent.... I wish most sincerely that
all should understand that, if I make the slightest allusion to the
dogmas and ceremonies which are promulgated by the English Ritualists,
I am anxious not to make a single observation which could offend
the convictions of any hon. gentleman in this House. Whether those
doctrines which were quoted from authoritative writings apply to the
worship of the Virgin, to the Confessional, or to the various subjects
which were quoted by the hon. Member, so long as those doctrines are
held by Roman Catholics, I am prepared to treat them with reverence;
but what I object to is that they should be held by Ministers of our
Church, who, when they enter the Church, enter it at the same time with
a solemn contract with the nation that they will oppose those doctrines
and utterly resist them. What I do object to is Mass in masquerade.
To the solemn ceremonies of our Roman Catholic friends I am prepared
to extend that reverence which my mind and conscience always give to
religious ceremonies sincerely believed in; but the false position in
which we have been placed by, I believe, a small but a powerful and
well-organised body of those who call themselves English clergymen in
copying these ceremonies, is one which the country thinks intolerable,
and of which we ought to rid ourselves.




THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION (1875).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1875_; _Public Documents_, pp. 214, 215.


LETTERS FROM THE CAPTAINS.

_No. 1._

        H.M.S. “DISCOVERY,”
            AT SEA

      (Lat. 64° 43´ N.; long. 52° 52´ W.),
            _July 2, 1875._

    SIR,--

I have the honour to inform you since parting company with H.M.S.
_Alert_ on the night of June 13, during a heavy westerly gale, I made
the best of my way to rendezvous 4, 5, and 6, in accordance with your
instructions to Captain Jones of H.M.S. _Valorous_, a copy of which you
forwarded for my guidance.

On the afternoon of the 13th, at 3 p.m., while still in company, a
heavy sea struck the starboard whale-boat (waist), and, detaching
the foremost fall, the boat filled, and in swinging round was cut in
half by the stay of the after-davit, which necessitated her being cut
away. We experienced strong westerly breezes and head winds until we
rounded Cape Farewell on Sunday, June 27. On the morning of the 28th,
we made the land about Cape Desolation ahead, and fell in with the
land ice and some bergs. We tacked on the edge of the ice, and stood
to the north-west. On the 29th (lat. 61° N., long. 50° 43´ W.), during
the morning, we steamed through a quantity of loose sailing ice. A
strong breeze springing up from the eastward towards the afternoon,
which freshened to a gale from the northward, obliged us to stand off
the land amongst a great quantity of heavy field ice, after laying to
during the night, under close-reefed topsails, and occasionally nearing
to avoid the driving pack, which was going to the southward in heavy
streams at the rate of two or three knots. Some of the ice, however,
was loose enough to be sailed through, and, there being no opening into
clear water, I got up steam on the morning of the 30th, and, under
close-reefed topsails and reefed courses, beat to windward through it,
with the object of reaching the land water. The weather moderating,
this was accomplished in the evening of the same day, having passed
through some heavy pack ice. On the 1st instant, we again steamed
through some large fields of sailing ice. When abreast of Goathaab, on
the 2nd instant, at 7 p.m., we sighted the _Alert_, and closed this
morning, as per signal. With the exception of the loss of the one boat
before mentioned, I have no defects or damage to report, and have the
honour to enclose a copy of the ship’s log from June 13 to the 1st
instant.

      I have the honour to be, Sir,
        Your obedient servant,
          H. F. STEPHENSON,
            _Captain_.


_No. 2._

        “ALERT,”
          AT DISCO,
            _July 15, 1875_

    SIR,--

I have the honour to inform you that H.M. ships under my command left
Bantry Bay on June 2. The _Valorous_ arrived at this port on the 4th,
and the _Alert_ and _Discovery_ on the 6th instant. After leaving the
Irish coast, finding that the _Valorous_ could not keep station while
we were under sail alone, I directed her to part company, and make
her voyage independently. During the passage we encountered three
consecutive gales from the westward, and after passing Cape Farewell
one from the northward, each accompanied with high seas. Owing to the
heavy lading of the Arctic ships they were extremely wet and uneasy,
which necessitated the hatchways to be frequently battened down;
otherwise they behaved well. The _Alert_ and _Discovery_ each lost a
whale-boat during a heavy gale on June 13; beyond this loss I am happy
to say that the defects of the ships are merely nominal. The _Valorous_
will supply two boats to replace those lost. On the night of June 13
(while the _Alert_ was wearing) the _Discovery_ was lost sight of
during a heavy squall, and the two ships did not again join company
until the 30th, in Davis Strait. The _Valorous_ having economised her
coal as much as possible, has been able to complete each of the Arctic
ships with as much as they can carry, and has remaining for her return
voyage a quantity equal to that expended during her outward voyage. All
the provisions and stores brought here by the _Valorous_ for our use
have been taken aboard, and we are now complete in all respects for
three years from July 1, 1875.

After passing Cape Farewell, each ship fell in with loose pack ice
from fifty to sixty miles south-west of Cape Desolation, with a clear
sea to the westward of it--it was the débris of very thick ice, and
had evidently been carried round Cape Farewell, from the east coast of
Greenland. The ice extended north as far as latitude 62° 30´, since
which none has been sighted within sixty miles of the coast; there has
also been a remarkable absence of icebergs.

Mr. Krarup Smith, the inspector of North Greenland, and the other
Danish officials have been extremely obliging in giving me every
information in their power, and in providing for our wants. Mr. Smith
has arranged for my being supplied with all the dogs we require.
Twenty-five have been received from Disco, and twenty are to be ready
on our arrival at Ritenberk; the rest will be taken on board at
Uppernivik. An Esquimaux accompanies the expedition from Disco, and
I think it probable that Hans, who was in the _Polaris_ with Captain
Hall, and is now at Proven, will also be willing to join me. I would
respectfully suggest that Mr. Smith should be officially thanked for
his ready compliance with all our requirements, and his courteous
behaviour.

Finding that it was absolutely necessary that at least one
Assistant-Paymaster should accompany the expedition, I have ordered
Mr. Thomas Mitchell of the _Discovery_ to remain on board that ship
to superintend the victualling of the two vessels. I have ordered Mr.
George Egerton, sub-Lieutenant of the _Alert_, to take charge of the
provisions of this ship, with the same remuneration as the officer in
charge of stores received.

I leave this port for Ritenberk to-morrow, and intend to call at Proven
and Uppernivik on my passage north. Letters will be left at the latter
settlement for conveyance to Europe, via Copenhagen. It is reported
that the last winter has been mild in this neighbourhood, but the
spring very backward, which I trust will prove to have been caused by
the early break-up of the ice farther to the north.

The health of the expedition is excellent. There is no one sick on
board either vessel, and the utmost hope and enthusiasm for the success
of the work allotted to us prevails.

In the orders for the guidance of the expedition it is directed that
documents are to be deposited due north of the cairn marking their
position. As a mistake might arise in calculating the variation of
the compass, I have issued directions that the documents are to be
deposited magnetic north, and twenty feet magnetic north of the cairns.

During my stay at Disco I inspected the store of provisions belonging
to the American Government, but had not time to open any of the
packages to ascertain if the contents were in good order, but from the
appearance of the outside, I should expect them to be in a fair state
of preservation, considering the time they had been exposed. The store
is dry and each package is clear of the ground. As the United States
Government may like to know what is in the store, I enclose a nominal
list of the packages obtained from the Danish officials and inspected
by the officers of this ship. The former have taken great trouble to
prevent the stores deteriorating.

I have the honour to enclose a copy of the log and track-chart of
H.M.S. _Alert_ and proceedings of H.M.S. _Discovery_, while absent from
June 13 to July 1, 1875.

      I have the honour to be, Sir,
        Your obedient servant,
          J. S. NARES,
            _Captain_.




PURCHASE OF THE SUEZ CANAL SHARES: AN OPPOSITION VIEW (1875).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1875_; _English History_, pp. 123–125.


“You will expect,” said Sir William Harcourt at Oxford, on December
30, “that I should say something to you on the subject of the Suez
Canal shares. Well, that is a matter on which no prudent politician
in our present state of information will hazard a competent opinion.
At the same time, after all that has been said on the matter, to be
wholly silent would be an affectation of reserve. For my part, if the
matter had been allowed to remain in the regions of high policy, I
should have been content to abstain from criticising it altogether.
I am not unfavourable to a far-seeing and a bold policy in the
conduct of great affairs. We have had somewhat too little of that
spirit of late. But all reticence upon that score is at an end. The
most contradictory and, in some respects, the most absurd surmises
with respect to this transaction were afloat some weeks ago. Lord
Hartington, at the beginning of this month, invited a declaration from
the Government of the real meaning and object of their policy, and Lord
Derby accepted the challenge with perfect frankness. Since the speech
of the Foreign Secretary the whole aspect of the question has been
completely changed both at home and abroad. Up to that time a sort of
glamour had invested a very plain business with the unnatural haze that
distorts the true proportion of things. There was something Asiatic in
this mysterious melodrama. It was like ‘The Thousand and One Nights,’
when, in the midst of the fumes of incense, a shadowy Genie astonished
the bewildered spectators. The public mind was dazzled, fascinated,
mystified. We had done we did not know exactly what--we were not
told precisely why--_omne ignotum pro magnifico_. The Government
maintained an imposing and perplexing silence. But our daily and
weekly instructors gave free rein to their imagination. We were told
by those who assumed the patronage of the grand arcanum that a great
blow had been struck, that a new policy had been inaugurated, and that
England had at length resumed her lead among the nations. The Eastern
Question had been settled by a _coup d’état_ on the Stock Exchange,
and Turkey was abandoned to her fate. Egypt was annexed. The Bulls of
England had vanquished the Bears of Russia. Moab was to be our washpot
and over Edom we had cast our shoe. France and M. de Lesseps were
confounded. We were a very great people; we had done a very big thing,
and, to consummate the achievement, a Satrap from Shoreham, attended
by a plump of financial Janissaries, was despatched to administer the
subject provinces of the English protectorate on the Nile. All this,
if somewhat nebulous, was in the grand manner, and if any inquisitive
person, like the troublesome little boy on the field of Blenheim,
was disposed to ask ‘what good came of it at last,’ we could always
answer, like the judicious Kasper--

      “‘Why, that I cannot tell,’ said he,
      ‘But ’twas a glorious victory.’

“We all of us felt some six inches taller than before. We spread our
tails like peacocks to the sun, and were as pleased as children at our
soap-bubble, iridescent with many hues. But, all of a sudden, this
beautiful vision melted away; the Egyptian mirage evaporated; the
great political phantasmagoria faded like a dissolving view. There
is nothing so delightful as magic, until, in an unhappy moment, the
conjuror consents to reveal the apparatus to us by which our senses
have been deluded, and shows us how it is done. Lord Derby is a great
master of prose, and he has translated the Eastern romance into
most pedestrian English. But the Foreign Secretary is a responsible
statesman. He has widely warned us against ‘cant’ and against ‘rant,’
and he cannot afford to indulge in the exaggerated visions in which
journalists may, with impunity, amuse themselves and their readers.
It was not his affair to mystify England, but to reassure Europe; and
therefore with that straightforwardness and common sense for which he
is eminent, he told us at Edinburgh that the affair which had created
so much sensation at home and abroad was not at all the sort of thing
it had been represented to be; that, if it had been capable of the
construction which had been put upon it, it would have been neither a
wise nor a honest transaction. He repudiated with scorn the idea that
England aspired to an Egyptian protectorate; they had not reversed
their Eastern policy; still less had they contemplated to appropriate
the territories of the Khedive as our share in a scramble for general
plunder. What had really been accomplished was a very ordinary affair.
The Khedive had certain shares in the Suez Canal. So far from being
ambitious to get hold of them, Lord Derby would have much preferred
that the ruler of Egypt should have kept them in his own hands; but,
as he found himself obliged to part with them, the English Government
thought it better to purchase them than to let them go elsewhere. They
have acquired them, not to give England any special or predominant
foreign influence, nor to secure any exclusive advantage, but to
keep open a communication for the benefit of all, which to England
is of supreme importance. And with these explanations, tendered on
the good faith of an English Minister, upon the credit of which Lord
Derby justly relies, he tells us that the European Powers are amply
satisfied. And so the nine days’ wonder is over, the enchantment is at
an end, the chariot of Cinderella relapses into its original pumpkins
and mice. Since Lord Derby has so pitilessly dowsed with cold water the
heated enthusiasm of visionary journalists, they have never ceased to
weep and to wail over the ruins of their pet toy, which has collapsed
like a pricked bladder or a broken drum. They beg us to believe that
the Foreign Minister does not understand the meaning of his own acts,
or the scope of his own policy; that, in spite of all his protestations
to the contrary, we are the veritable _perfide Albion_.

“For my own part I cannot refuse to respond to the appeal of Lord
Derby, when he says, ‘We have told Europe what we want, and why we
want it, and Europe is in the habit of believing what we say.’ I hope
the day will never come when an English Government will be justly
charged with saying one thing and meaning another. I therefore gladly
take Lord Derby at his word. But now that this grand affair is reduced
to the moderate dimensions of a sort of post-office subsidy, we may
criticise it in a manner and upon grounds which might in another
aspect of the question have been inappropriate. Of course, if this
transaction had been really of the magnitude which was represented,
the Government would have been deeply responsible for not inviting at
once the judgment of Parliament upon a policy which vitally involved
the interests and the future of the country, but being what it is, we
may well wait a few weeks for fuller explanations of some points which
still remain very obscure. There will be no disposition, I imagine,
in any quarter to approach the discussion in a spirit of carping or
of captious criticism. Upon the main ground by which this purchase is
justified--namely, the determination to secure a free passage between
the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, there will be no conflict of
opinion. That is a policy in which England is profoundly interested;
and for that, statesmen of all parties will be prepared to make common
efforts, and, if necessary, great sacrifices. No one, I think, will
contend that even 4,000,000 pounds of money is too large a sum for the
accomplishment of such an end. But that which has not hitherto been
explained, and what remains to be shown, is in what manner and to what
extent this investment really does conduce to that desirable object.”




DISRAELI’S AIMS IN POLITICS (1876).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1876_; _English History_, p. 113.


On the 22nd of August, Mr. Disraeli, now Lord Beaconsfield, issued
his farewell address to his former constituents. “Throughout my
public life,” wrote the Premier, “I have aimed at two chief results.
Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavoured to
reconcile change with that respect for tradition, which is one of the
main elements of our social strength; and, in external affairs, I
have endeavoured to develop and strengthen our Empire, believing that
combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character
and condition of a people.”




A SPIRITED SPEECH BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (1876).

=Source.=--_The Times_, November 10, 1876.


THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD AT THE LORD MAYOR’S BANQUET.

The Earl of Beaconsfield, who was received with repeated plaudits,
said....

“During these twelve months of anxiety and agitation, my Lord Mayor, I
would take this opportunity of stating what have been the two great
objects which Her Majesty’s Government have proposed with reference to
those critical circumstances which have occurred since I had the honour
of addressing your predecessor. The first has been the maintenance
of the general peace of Europe, which involves almost every other
consideration that may affect the interests of this country and the
general welfare of humanity. We have believed that that peace would be
best maintained by an observance of the treaties in which all the Great
Powers of Europe have joined. Those treaties are not antique and dusty
obsolete documents. They are not instruments devised under a state of
circumstances different from those that exist, and ill adapted to the
spirit of the age in which we live....

“... As the Lord Mayor has told us to-night, there is no country so
interested in the maintenance of peace as England. Peace is especially
an English policy. She is not an aggressive Power, for there is nothing
that she desires. She covets no cities and no provinces. What she
wishes is to maintain and to enjoy the unexampled Empire which she
has built up, and which it is her pride to remember exists as much
upon sympathy as upon force. But, although the policy of England is
peace, there is no country so well prepared for war as our own. If she
enters into conflict in a righteous cause--and I will not believe that
England will go to war except for a righteous cause--if the contest is
one which concerns her liberty, her independence, or her Empire, her
resources, I feel, are inexhaustible. She is not a country that, when
she enters into a campaign, has to ask herself whether she can support
a second or a third campaign. She enters into a campaign which she will
not terminate till right is done.”




THE EASTERN QUESTION: FIERY SPEECHES AT ST. JAMES’S HALL (1876).

=Source.=--_The Times_, December 9, 1876.


THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER: The worst Government now remaining in Europe
is that of Constantinople, and it seems to us a most extraordinary
thing that men in this country and a portion of the Press seem to think
that the Turks have still a power of regeneration within themselves.
We hear them say, and with some justice, that the Turks are peaceful
citizens and warlike soldiers. The warlike qualities for which they
are distinguished seem to me not the best calculated to work for the
happiness and the contentment of the people under the fell sway of
Turkish dominion....

After all our sacrifices during the Crimean War, after having shed the
blood of thousands of our fellow-countrymen and expended millions of
treasure, England surely has some right to say now what should be done,
and how it should be done. The situation, though in some respects very
similar to that which existed in 1854, is entirely changed as regards
the state of public opinion in this country. Although it may be said
that Russia is thundering at the gates of Constantinople, England is
determined that she will not go to war against Russia for Turkey.

MR. GEORGE HOWELL (late Secretary to the Trades Parliamentary
Committee) said that throughout the length and breadth of the land
they would not find among the working classes such an opinion on this
question as was entertained in the clubs among educated gentlemen.
He might inform the educated classes present that they represented
the intensified feelings of the working classes when they pronounced
an opinion altogether averse from going to war, under any pretext
whatever, for the purpose of propping up Turkey. We ought to stand by
the other European Powers, and to insist that justice should be done to
the Christian provinces of Turkey, and to tell her plainly that if this
were not done, she must, at whatever cost, pack up, bag and baggage,
and leave Europe.

MR. EVELYN ASHLEY, M.P.: In his opinion the path of honour and of
safety lay in the active co-operation of England with Russia. Turkey
must be told that if she refused to give the necessary guarantees for
the safety of her Christian subjects, we would send our fleet to take
her fleet in pawn until she gave way. As to the fear of what might
be the result of Mussulman fanaticism if such a course were taken, he
could only say that the fanaticism of the Mussulman never broke out
when he was beaten, while he had no apprehension that our prestige
would be diminished among the Mussulman population of India.... Great
nations, like great ships, could ride in safety only on the high seas,
and although Russia might have her ambitions, which it might one day
be our duty to resist, we should be able to do so all the better if
we could but succeed in obtaining freedom for those down-trodden
populations of Turkey.

PROFESSOR BRYCE: Turkey would not yield so long as an atom of hope of
help from England was held out to her. The Porte believed it in the
very name of Constantinople, a spell which could call up the fleets of
England in the Bosphorus when it chose. That spell had never failed it
yet, and it had in it most implicit confidence. If, then, war was to be
averted, Turkey must be at once undeceived, and must be told that we
not only will not support her, but that we are prepared to coerce her,
and that she shall not be allowed to run a new race of tyranny.

CANON LIDDON: If the Christian provinces were to be really reformed,
there must be a new law which would secure equal rights to every human
being in the Turkish Empire. It was impossible to suppose, however,
that any legislation of this kind would be voluntarily accepted by
Turkey. There must be something in the nature of a military occupation.

LORD SHAFTESBURY: The Emperor of Russia has given us his personal
word of honour that he desires no territorial aggrandisement. Take
every precaution, surround yourselves by every legitimate defence, but
let us go with him as far as he will go with us, and let us reserve
our quarrel until we have something to quarrel about. But now let
us rejoice in the attitude of the United Kingdom this day. It is
majestic--a free and mighty people demand nothing for themselves,
neither power, nor commerce, nor extended empire. They seek simply the
welfare of others and the solidarity of nations.

PROFESSOR E. A. FREEMAN: From amid the clatter of wine-cups a voice of
defiance went forth, conveying the brag which all the world had heard,
that England would fight a first, a second, and a third campaign rather
than permit another Power to do the work which she herself ought to
accomplish. Were they prepared to wage war for a single hour, or to
shed one drop of English blood in order to prop up as foul and bloody a
fabric of wrong as ever a shuddering world had gazed upon? Would they
consent to draw the sword to protect the sovereign rights of those
whose hands were steeped in blood as their tongues were in falsehood?
Would they fight to uphold the integrity and independence of Sodom?
Should it be said that England, which had used every effort to put
down the slave trade, was ready to go to war in order that the Eastern
traffic in human flesh might still go on and supply our barbarous ally
with the victims of his hideous lusts? Was it, indeed, for such an
object that the countrymen of Canning and Wilberforce were to be called
upon to fight?

But it was said that we were bound by treaties to maintain the
independence and integrity of Turkey. He, however, did not so read the
treaties to which reference had been made, and which already had been
broken; and as for our interests in India being in peril, he would only
say let duty come first and interest after, and perish our dominion in
India rather than that we should strike a blow in such a cause as that
of the Porte! Besides, it was not through Constantinople that the road
to India lay; nor was it for Constantinople that the Emperor of Russia
was ready to draw the sword.

MR. FAWCETT, M.P.: If the Government went to war on behalf of Turkey,
he hoped the Liberal party would use every form allowed by Parliament
to prevent them from having one sixpence until they had ascertained by
an appeal to the country whether it was their wish that the blood and
treasure of England should be spilt, and the reputation of England cast
away in order to prop up a wretched, effete, and dissolute despotism.

MR. GLADSTONE, who was received with prolonged cheering:

“... What are we to say to the question of the Treaty of Paris? I will
give you my opinion in the most distinct manner. The Ottoman Porte has
in a most signal and conspicuous manner broken and trampled under foot
the Treaty of Paris. The meaning of this Guildhall speech was to set
forth that we were all bound by this Treaty to suggest that the Ottoman
Porte would be entitled to appeal to it; and whatever theoretical
acknowledgment there might be about affording assistance to the
Christian populations, yet in practice the appeal would have resolved
itself into the old practice of remonstrances and expostulations, with
results either none whatever, or confined to idle and empty words.
The Treaty of Paris in regard to the Porte I affirm to be no binding
Treaty at all. I am as far as possible from saying that the Treaty of
Paris is not binding as between the other Powers, but I stand simply
upon this broad, clear, and I think incontrovertible proposition--that
one who has broken a Treaty is no longer in a position to appeal to
it.... I now come to the conclusion of the Guildhall speech which
carried its sting, and a sting indeed it was, charged and overcharged
with venom. Why was it necessary to say that when England enters into
a war she has not to ask herself whether she can support a second or a
third campaign? Cannot that reference be understood? After her second
campaign in the Crimea Russia had to ask herself the question whether
she could enter upon a third? Why, then, was that particular form given
to a declaration which was perfectly unnecessary, of the capacity of
this country to go to war? Do not suppose that the capacity of this
country to go to war is increased by these idle vaunts. We know what
effect these words had in Russia; but a more important question was,
What was their effect in Constantinople? According to the reports of
those who have seen it, Constantinople is a Paradise of Nature; but
there are other paradises, one of which is called a Fool’s Paradise. I
am afraid that the Ottoman Porte, relying on the assistance of England
in the last extremity in all circumstances, has for a long time been in
a Fool’s Paradise, and it would have been much greater kindness not
to use words which were calculated to delude the Porte into the belief
that such were the intentions of England. We know that the Turk has
been relying on British aid, and although we do not think very highly
of his intelligence, has he no warrant for so relying? Why was the
squadron sent to Besika Bay, augmented into a fleet, in imitation of
the step taken in 1853?”


BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired
quotation marks were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.



***